He had to put an end to them. And to himself.
There was no way to permanently erase their existence. The best he could do was lure them there and trap them inside, enshrouding them in ancient magic.
Aries was still as he watched me, forgetting the book in his lap. I glanced up and noticed the crease between his brows, the way his jaw was clenched.
“What is it?” I went on high alert. My heart began to thump rapidly. “Is something wrong? Are they here?” I fought to breathe. I don’t want to face them. Not today.
But that would be when he came, wouldn’t it? When I wasn’t ready to fight back.
“You are safe,” he said. “I’m trying to understand you, that’s all.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” He stared at me like he was searching for something deep inside me.
I hated to disappoint him, but I didn’t think he’d find what he was looking for. I felt as hollow as the hole Taurus punched through my chest.
No, that wasn’t right.
The hole he left wasn’t hollow at all. It was filled and spilling over with fear.
I was terrified.
“Why’d you share this with me? This library, the book, your words?”
His dark lashes pressed closed for a long moment. “Because I want you to know me.”
“Why?”
“Because you matter, Larken.”
He mattered, too.
In his book, he wrote that the Zodia were too strong, too much for this world. Too dangerous for their own good, especially when their people’s existence hinged on their every breath. Their every choice. Their every mistake.
“Why weren’t you buried with them?” I croaked as he ran his knuckles down my cheek.
“Kes,” he replied. “I had to lure them there, but I also had to seal them inside. I couldn’t do it and fight them off at the same time. I sealed them in from the outside, then went to the tomb Kes had prepared for me to lay in. I weaved the magic to put myself to sleep along with them, but not before giving Kes the order to watch over me, and before making my eleven other Guardians scatter across the globe to watch for any sign the others had been unearthed.”
“Have you reached out to Capricorn?” I asked. “She was once your friend.”
“I’m afraid my actions ruined that friendship.”
“You could always apologize,” I offered. “Friends forgive one another.”
He gave a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m afraid that Zodia friendships are yet another power struggle, much more delicate than the relationships to which you’re accustomed.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Humans can be pretty fickle, not to mention stubborn and prideful to a fault. We hate admitting we’re ever wrong, and saying ‘I’m sorry’ is sometimes the hardest thing in the world when it should be the easiest.”
He opened his mouth and closed it, his lashes fluttering as he grappled with his thoughts. “When I woke, I had no idea you’d be like this.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I’m pretty awesome. If only Taurus knew that and would stop coming after me, even in my sleep.”
His vulnerable expression morphed into a harder one and I regretted opening my mouth.
“It wouldn’t matter to him even if he knew, because of what you are.”
“Stupid pledge,” I teased, nudging his elbow with mine.
He shook his head and blew out a tense breath.
Kes appeared in the library. “Dinner is prepared,” he said formally, his eyes widening when he saw the book in my lap. They darted to Aries, who stood and slid his own back into its spot along the wall shelf.
“Would you like to have dinner upstairs?” Aries asked. “Or here?”
He was giving me an option. “Here,” I answered. I didn’t want to leave his rooms, to be honest. I felt more comfortable and safe here, which was ridiculous. Virgo had apparently shown up down here unannounced. The rest of them could, too.
Suddenly, the room became suffocating. They could easily corner us down here. There was only one way up and down – the staircase. What if I couldn’t reach it? What if they cut off the exit?
“On second thought, maybe upstairs would be better. Could I just eat in my room?” I blurted.
Aries was taken aback by my abrupt change of heart, but rolled with it. “Of course.”
“You’re welcome to eat with me, Aries. I’m just… freaking out.”
He nodded. “Then we’ll have our dinners in her chamber, Kes,” he told my brother, who disappeared to tell the other Guardians what our preference was.
Aries gestured to the book I still clung to. “You’re welcome to come back and read anything you like, but I have to insist the books stay in this room,” he said.
“Oh,” I handed him the journal. “Sorry.”
He replaced the book, turning and locking eyes with me to make sure I saw where it was, in case I wanted to continue the story. Something stirring within said I should.
He said I mattered. I mattered to him.
And Aries mattered to me.
I’d been his since he woke, pledge or no pledge.
I glanced at the beautifully painted, constellation-strewn ceiling and for a moment, imagined I was with Aries under the stars and that the world wasn’t trying to rip us apart.
26
Aries and I ate dinner together, then he told me to rest. I lied and told him I was fine when I was far from it, but he knew. He promised to stay with me through the night and be there when I woke. I made him pinky swear – which I explained was more binding than any silly pledge – to wake me if he had to leave.
When I woke, he was there. I opened my eyes to see his face close to mine. I laughed inside. We’d come so far in a week. I used to freak out when he invaded my space like this, but now I loved it.
“Hi,” he said softly.
“Hey.”
We lay on my bed, me under the covers and him on top of them. I’d pushed the blankets down to wrap my arms around him at some point, and they were still there now that I’d woken.
If it bothered him, he didn’t show it. He didn’t pull away or stand up, but laid there searching my eyes and allowing me to do the same.
“Kes is angry with me,” he said.
“For what?”
“For laying here with you.”
“You’re on top of the covers,” I giggled. “And it’s not like Kes hasn’t hooked up, so he has no room to talk.”
“He is protective of you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Brothers.”
“How did you sleep?” he asked carefully.
“Soundly. If I dreamed, I don’t remember it.”
He brushed a strand of hair away from my eye. “You’re so quiet when you sleep.”
Thank goodness. If he’d said I snored, I would have been mortified.
He leaned toward me and planted a soft kiss on my lips. My heartbeat rose as he leaned in for another.
Someone pounded on the door twice before he could make contact again.
“Go away!” I yelled, my eyes clamped on Aries’s lips.
“Capricorn requests an audience,” Kes growled from outside.
I stood with Kes. I’d combed my hair as best as I could and quickly changed dresses, slipping the teal one over my head. I’d undone the sides the other night to extricate myself, only to knot them again, hoping I did it right and the fabric strands would stay knotted.
Aries and Kes flanked me as we walked to the room where Capricorn waited. Aries insisted I go with him and held my hand as we entered the sitting room. It was the same one in which I’d first spoken to Xavier. Capricorn was settled on one of the twin sofas.
She was beautiful, her skin covered in a thin, pale coat of fur and garbed in a dre
ss of animal skin tailored to fit her form. My eyes tracked down to her legs, noticing the fur on her knees had rubbed away, leaving a fleshy pad exposed. In place of feet, she had matte black, cloven hooves. Matching small horns protruded from her head, pointing backward. They were chipped and layered, not nearly as smooth and polished as Aries’s were, and she watched me with the strangest eyes I’d seen. Each one had a double iris, the pupils of which were rectangular.
She slowly stood and Aries tucked me behind him. I popped the snap off the leather holster on my leg and took hold of the knife’s handle. Just in case.
“I’ve spoken with Aquarius and Virgo,” she announced. Her voice was small and feminine, almost fragile. “What you did to us was wrong.”
Aries stiffened.
“But I understand why you did it,” she conceded, standing to face Aries. “What I can’t understand is why you’ve pledged yourself to her. So, that’s the answer I need before deciding who to align with, or if I should remain neutral.”
Aries explained how he’d made the Guardians and how he told Kes, because he was chief among them, that if he was ever to awaken, he would owe him a single right. He’d warned him not to squander it on things that faded away before drifting to sleep. When he woke, Kes invoked the right on my behalf.
“Virgo has explained that you can break your vow, yet you won’t,” Capricorn posed cautiously, watching us with her four pupils expanding and contracting with the light in the room as she walked around the table, coming closer.
“I don’t trust Virgo on the matter. She claims to have been ever faithful to Lager, yet also claims to have knowledge of severing the pledge. It makes no sense. But even if it were true and the vow could be broken, I would not break it. Larken doesn’t deserve to die because of my mistake, or his.”
I glanced at Kes, who was rigid beside me as he watched Capricorn slink closer. Her hooves clacked along the stone.
“So, this was not your attempt to overtake us?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Have I made any attempt to overpower any of you? Even Taurus?”
“You can’t deny the power she feeds you,” Capricorn scoffed, crossing her fur-covered arms.
“I cannot,” he said. “But neither do I wield it against you. It simply is. Just as she simply is.”
Capricorn leaned forward and sniffed, rapid little huffs pouring out and being brought into her nose. Her shrewd eyes flicked to Aries. “Aquarius told me that she stripped Cancer’s claw away.”
“I was only defending myself,” I told her. Kes shot me a glance that said to shut my mouth before Capricorn stuck the tiny horns on her head up my—
“He’s coming for you,” she said. “Taurus will not relent.”
“I know.”
A slight smile played upon her lips. Her four pupils flicked to my thigh where my dagger was hidden from sight. “You’ll need much more than that blade and mettle to defeat him.” She turned her attention to Aries. “I’ve heard enough. I will stand with you.”
Tension began to melt from his shoulders.
“But if you try to use the power against any of us other than to defend yourself against an attack, I will be the first to gut you.” She flicked a look my way before vanishing.
I let out a breath and rubbed a hand over my heart. It was pulsing again, pain throbbing through the hole that wasn’t really there.
“How much more powerful are you than the rest of the Zodia?” I asked. When he faced Taurus in the graveyard, he didn’t even exert himself, but at the battle, there were more of them going after him and his fight wasn’t nearly as easy.
“Not as powerful as I’d like to be,” he whispered, staring at the spot Capricorn had just occupied.
For the rest of the day, I searched Aries’s library and his written words for any clue how to defeat Taurus without slaughtering a twelfth of the world’s population. Aries had a few issues to attend to throughout his territory, but popped in between rounds to make sure I was okay. I was fine. Kes was with me. He was kicked back in a chair, his hands folded over his stomach, staring at the ceiling and studying the constellation patterns, mesmerized by the dots and lines that connected them.
He was quiet.
Too quiet.
While reading Aries’s books were fascinating, I couldn’t concentrate with Kes brooding in the room. I slapped the book closed and returned it to the shelf, turning to my brother. “We should do something fun.”
“How can you even think about fun at a time like this?”
I shrugged. “Is there a better time?”
“That dream was akin to a harbinger, Larken. He’s coming.”
“I know,” I told him. “I know he is.”
He shook his head.
I looked at the ceiling, wondering if he saw it differently somehow because he was a Guardian, or if because he was in my brother’s body, he saw the same thing as me.
“The things I’ve loved my whole life want to kill me. It’s kind of ironic,” I laughed.
“It’s not funny,” he grumped, standing up.
“It is a little,” I argued.
“Well, maybe the stars will also be your saving grace.” His eyes drilled into mine. The way he’d said the last two words made me pause. I glanced at the stars – at the lines between them, the outline of every beast who wanted me dead, and those who at least at present, seemed to be on our side…
“Oh, my God, Kes.” My breath caught. “Tell me you didn’t just give me the clue.”
He groaned, his shoulders melting with relief. “You finally figured it out.”
“I’ve been staring at it my whole life,” I said in awe, turning in a circle.
The way to hurt a Zodia was right there all along. In the stars. In the shapes humans made to remember the Zodia. The constellations were a map of striking points.
At the end of the upside-down Y that made Cancer, right where her claws would be, were stars. Strike one of the stars and you could hurt them, even if just for a short time.
“This could mean everything. I might be able to get away.” Tears clogged my throat and clouded my eyes.
The stars were tiny glimmers of hope in a dark, dark world. They always had been.
Leo could be struck at the neck and head, was vulnerable at each paw, across his back, and at the tip of his tail.
“What about the others?” I asked excitedly. “Why is it just the Zodia that exist? Why not Andromeda and Orion? What about the Unicorn, The Great Dog, The Great Bear, or Perseus?”
“Because the Zodia existed and were put into the temple to sleep long before those others were made up and recorded. The fact that they were real was forgotten. They became mythical. Inconsequential. Much like the Zodia were thought to be.”
Until they were unearthed, at which time they became truth. They became preeminent. Unmatched.
“Still want to do something fun?” Kes said seriously. “Now that you know where to strike them, you need to train so you know how to do it. You just got lucky with Cancer.”
I knew I did. I looked at Kes imploringly. “Teach me.”
He waved me out of the library and spent the rest of the evening teaching me how to parry, block, strike, and slice.
Helena came that night, surprised to find me in yoga pants and a tank top, sweat dripping off my hair and sliding down my face, back, and between my breasts. “What have you been up to?” she asked curiously, looking from me to Kes.
“He’s teaching me how to fight.”
“I thought Aries was doing that.”
“He’s been busy today.”
She ticked her head up, staring at my brother as if she was talking to him without saying a word. I watched them carefully. They were conversing… and they didn’t want me to know what they were saying.
I grabbed my things and headed to the bathroom,
Helena slipping inside after me. “He said you know… about the constellations.”
After a trio of Guardians appeared, dumped water into the tub, and disappeared, I turned to her. “What else did you say, and why couldn’t you speak in front of me?”
“There are some things we are forbidden from saying in front of non-Guardians.”
Non-Guardians, or just me?
I turned away and undressed, slipping into the water.
“Did you meet Capricorn?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Other than Aquarius, she was kindest to us.”
“Is Aquarius legit?” I asked. “He seems almost too… I don’t know. He’s like the best friend I never had, and though I’m glad Aries has him, I wonder if he’s real. You know?”
She nodded. “I think he is. We all have dark sides though, don’t we? The family I grew up with in this lifetime was the best I’d ever had. We lived in this tiny town in Alabama. It was the type of place where gossip was as sacred as high school football and everyone filled the church pews Sunday morning, no matter what you’d done Saturday night.”
I laughed.
“My mom came home devastated one day after church one Sunday morning and called me. I’d moved out months before, but she was crying and inconsolable. This was big, because I could count on one hand the number of times the woman ever cried. She was tough as nails. She told me that the church treasurer, whom she thought was a good man, had embezzled thousands of dollars from the church over the course of a year before he was caught. She couldn’t believe he was capable of it. She just couldn’t wrap her head around it because she bought into the mask, the image he wanted everyone to see. His treachery broke her heart. But the thing of it is this – human, Guardian, Zodia… we are all capable of terrible things, things no one else would suspect we could do.”
Things That Should Stay Buried Page 26