Page 60 of Destinies of Diamond
“I’m sorry,”I heard her whisper.“Goodbye.”
An image of an exploding vessel drifted into my mind’s eye. For a few seconds, I felt like I was inside Zephyrus again. And then, the fire rushed over me, bright and brutal. The particles of my body scattered and I knew no more.
****
Brendan
Throughout the course of my life, I’d made countless mistakes. I hadn’t been able to save my mother before she’d died, withering under the hold of my father’s tyranny. And even so, I’d held back from squashing him, because I’d believed I needed to assure the stability of our government before I made a decisive move.
It had made sense at the time, but I realized now that I’d underestimated him. I should have known he wouldn’t stop researching the diamond cores of the tablets and he’d do something really foolish with the results. I should have shared the information with my unit and asked for their advice. I hadn’t, and now, we were all paying the price for my mistake.
No one had outright stated that they blamed me for Selene’s disappearance, but my earlier argument with Knox had been nothing but a gigantic accusation. I couldn’t blame them for resenting me. If I’d been smarter or faster, Selene wouldn’t have been taken.
All things considered, it humbled me that they even agreed to follow me again. But we were just that desperate, and it wasn’t like we had any other options.
The plan relied a lot on factors we couldn’t control—Tanya’s cooperation, Jared’s powers, The Grand Judiciary falling for our ruse, my father not communicating with them properly, Tartarus Base remaining offline for a little while longer. I was hoping the people in Hades Base wouldn’t be informed of what my father had done. He didn’t seem the type to share power, so he would’ve wanted to keep the advanced model of the chimera control tablet to himself. But even so, it was still a long shot.
For a while, we were forced to just wait and see what news Jared brought to us from Terra. I hated it with a passion, but it at least gave us some time to recover. My uncle was finally able to take off his bandages, the chimera inside him drifting to the back of his mind. Pollux’s mother stuck close to him and they even shared a brief conversation. Commander Trevor managed to finish the final adjustments to his replacement arm.
It was a good thing too, because less than half an hour after Jared’s departure, we received another blow—literally. A powerful blast struck us and I briefly thought the Centaurs had chased us from Tartarus Base. We could have maybe managed to deal with that, since the Venom’s shields were still in good condition and I was excellent at shuttle piloting.
Unfortunately, the threat wasn’t something we could fight off, because the explosion came from inside us. My world went white, my blocked bond with Typhon cracking and splintering. I screamed, scrambling to remain in control, to hold onto the drifting soul of my chimera.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in my room on the Venom. At one point, I must have lost consciousness, because I didn’t remember a thing after that strange attack.
A glass of water manifested into my line of sight. I took it and asked, “What happened? Where are the chimeras?”
“Gone,” Selene replied. “At least for now.”
I dropped the water in my lap and turned to stare at her. I had no idea how I’d missed the fact that she was the one in the room with me. Now that I’d noticed the obvious, I was dumbstruck, staring at her in complete disbelief. “Selene? How?”
“Your father is a lecher and an idiot, that’s how,” she said. “He got a little too close to me. Turns out it’s a bad idea to try to touch me when I’m not wearing my uniform.”
The underlining meaning of her words infuriated me so much that for a few seconds, I couldn’t even see straight. “What did he do?” I asked, my voice cold and dead.
“He didn’t get the chance to do much. Just fondled me a little bit. Don’t worry, though. He won’t be touching anyone else, ever again.”
She didn’t sound very happy with that, and alarm replaced my anger. “Selene? What’s wrong?”
“Do you really have to ask that?”
Our eyes met and that was when I understood. That was when I allowed myself to grasp the magnitude of our loss. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Sphinx said there was no real way to free them from the hold your father had on them. They had to force themselves to stay still long enough to give me time to escape. She blew herself and the others up.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I understood the logic and I didn’t blame Sphinx for her decision. Typhon would have agreed to it, since there was nothing he detested more than the idea of slavery. He was a powerful chimera, and if we’d worked together so well, it had been in part because I’d respected him as my equal.
Being captured and mind-controlled would have torn him apart at the most basic level. That didn’t mean his loss didn’t hurt.
Tears filled Selene’s eyes, and I finally snapped out of my trance. Leaving the bed, I knelt in front of her seat and wrapped my arms around her. I didn’t make her any promises, nor did I tell her everything was going to be okay. That would have been insulting to her and to our chimeras. I just held her as tightly as I dared and caressed her long, crimson hair.
“Why did this have to happen, Brendan? Why can’t the world just let us be happy?”
“The world is cruel. You know that, princess. We’re just as cruel as everyone hunting us. But that’s okay, because our cruelty comes with determination. I have no doubt that Sphinx and the others will come back.”
“Yes, they will,” she whispered. I wasn’t sure she believed it. If she did, it didn’t reassure her enough.
As she broke free from my arms, I struggled to come up with something else to help her. The only thing that popped up in my head was another question, a distraction. “Where are the others?”
“They woke up before you did,” she explained. “The shock was pretty powerful for them too, but I think it hit you harder because of how strong Typhon was.”
