Page 71 of Destinies of Diamond
“I don’t believe in coincidences. And you know what? I heard what the chimeras were planning. I know the gods never wanted to support us. If this is happening, it’s not heading in the right direction, and we have to stop it, before the universe itself is destroyed.”
“Selene, you don’t have to carry that weight. No matter what, you still have a home here.”
If Jared had said those words, I might have dismissed them. I might have even been inclined to shout at him. But it was Knox who said them, Knox who still had problems with Jared, who had not forgiven nor forgotten everything that had happened before.
He was giving me such a pleading look that I found it hard to say no to him. “Don’t you see? Humans will always be at odds with each other. That’s how we ended up here in the first place. That’s the fundamental flaw of our nature. And maybe that will indeed lead to our destruction. But why should you have to be the one to stop it? Why can’t you protect yourself instead?”
“I’m human too, Knox, and so are you. Or have you forgotten?”
“Maybe I have.” He laughed sharply. “Maybe living with a chimera in my brain has finally obliterated that part of me. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing, as long as I still have you.”
I looked at Brendan. He was the one who had most to lose in this. He had been planning to topple his father for years, and now that Philip was dead, the throne of the Chimera dynasty belonged to him.
It was his job and his responsibility to step in. It had been his dream to build a better society, one where women didn’t have to suffer and there was no tyranny.
“You’re more important to me than what I wanted before, Selene,” he said, as if guessing my thoughts. “It’s true that I… I shouldn’t turn back. Not now, not after everything I’ve done. But if you were to ask, if it was what you wanted, I’d do it, regardless.”
My breath caught at his admission. I knew how much it must have cost him to say such a thing. “Brendan, I wouldn’t ask that of you.”
“You don’t have to ask. It’s just the way it is. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t change it. I care more about you than anything else.”
And I cared about them. But we were all on the verge of losing ourselves to powers we could not control, and I couldn’t hide and ignore what that meant, no matter how much I wanted to.
I let out a deep sigh. “All right, Brendan. I can accept that. But there’s no way to be sure the power of the gods won’t reach us here. Without the chimeras, we might all die anyway.
“I’ll be honest with you. There’s nothing I’d like more than to stay here, to raise Nestor, to be with you. But if I do, we might lose our chance. Nestor isn’t safe. And I’d rather have him grow up without me than to suffer in the future.”
The Great Mother’s voice echoed over the corridor, interrupting our conversation. “You won’t die, Selene,” she said. “You have too much to live for. And so does everyone here. Your son isn’t safe right now, it’s true, but that will soon change. Now, Prince Brendan, get a move on. It’s time for you to reclaim your throne. I think we will begin by starting a war.”
Wait, what?
The First Chimera Project
Brendan
Returning to Hades Base after so long seemed almost anticlimactic. Everybody else was unaware of how much I’d changed and was still flailing around, trying to process the fact that my father was dead.
At the same time, though, The Grand Judiciary hadn’t changed. As expected, they were already trying to take over, and without the chimeras, I didn’t have as much power as before.
They would have probably tried to get rid of me on the spot had we been at peace. But we weren’t, and as the Great Mother had predicted, a war was just what we needed to get things moving.
And so it was that the moment the rest of my unit and I stepped back into the base, I was intercepted by a frantic figure. It was Leonardo di Rossi. He was among the few people in The Grand Judiciary who were on our side, but he didn’t know the full extent our plans. Archibald had spoken to him and Caius upon our return, but at my request, he’d provided very little information.
“Your Highness, thank Tartarus you’re here. We’ve received news of increased activity in Terran territories. We fear terrorists may have found out about your father’s death, or might have even caused it.”
“Yes, I was afraid of that,” I replied, pursing my lips. “We’ve underestimated them for so long. They’ve had time to prepare.”
As we spoke, we made our way to the meeting hall. The Grand Judiciary was already assembled and naturally, they all turned to me for aid. “What should we do, Your Highness?” General Rhodes inquired. “The Grand Chimera Unit was destroyed in the blast.”
“Believe me, I’m aware,” I replied frostily. “Start rebuilding our chimeras, if you haven’t already done so.”
“Is that the best idea?” Rhodes insisted. “Considering what happened with the Lower Chimera Unit…”
Well, that answered the question of how much The Grand Judiciary knew about the events at the academy. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll hold an emergency meeting to discuss this. The Centaurs will be dealt with.”
The meeting went about as well as I could expect. Half of the members of The Grand Judiciary were reluctant to believe Terrans were a threat. The others were inclined to attack without questioning anything. And of course, there were those who were more focused on the Centaurs than on anything else.
“I just think our main concern should be the creatures with true power,” Caius Donadieu said. So far, Pollux’s father had made no note of his wife’s disappearance, but he always had been good at keeping secrets, to the point of agreeing for Odette to sleep with Philip for the sake of the rebellion. They hadn’t gotten the chance to communicate, but he seemed to trust Archibald’s reassurances that she was safe.
