Chapter 20
Twenty
After drawing the shutters and pulling the blanket over her head, Pisces hid from the world for what might have been days. She wasn’t counting the minutes or hours. She counted only each breath and the measure of her heart between fitful dreams.
They all loathed her, but nobody hated her more than she hated herself because if she had done what Aries claimed, she didn’t deserve any of them. Vainly, she tried to reach into her mind, to pull out whatever shards of memory might remain, but something felt utterly wrong. The more she sat with herself in the dark, the more she wondered if it wasn’t just her missing memory but an entire half of her soul, like a novel ripped in two. As she sifted through Aries’ accusations, a haunting thought persisted. The bond with Aries that was severed...it wasn’t just her power that was taken. It was also her connection to him, the other half of her soul.
When she’d finally had enough of the darkness and chaotic dreams, she decided the only comfort she could seek was also the only thing that might give her some answers. Pisces stumbled out of the bed and shuffled to her cabin door, intent on asking the sea to help her. It was the only shred of power she had left and the only one she’d felt since falling from the stars.
The setting sun blazed; its orangey glow half consumed by the ocean on the horizon. The visual was a painful reminder of the accusation that she was the ocean who’d planned to extinguish Aries forever.
She didn’t bother removing her dress as she stepped into the water, her feet carrying her quickly, farther and farther until the sea cradled her in its embrace. Pisces dove beneath the surface as the water calmed her. Then she ascended to the top, her head breaking the surface for air, and she felt the water come alive around her, heard the creatures below drawn to her energy, and saw the ethereal glow surrounding her as the ocean welcomed her home.
Each time she swam deeper, she stayed down longer, and she’d return to the surface, feeling another layer of sadness peeling away. She was so lost in her meditation that by the time she emerged again, distant voices caught her ear.
Sag, Gemini, and Virgo stood on the shore, calling her name. They must have thought she was trying to drown herself again. Too far out to reassure them, she waved her hand and began swimming back to the beach. The ocean’s depths hadn’t been able to restore her spirit, but it had restored her resolve. And as she let the sea carry her back to the island, she had a renewed determination to clear her name and find the truth about what really happened to her.
A thrill shot through when she came up for air, and her eyes landed upon a broad, imposing silhouette standing knee-deep in the surf several hundred yards away. Even from this angle, Aries’ indomitable presence was unmistakable—the set of his shoulders, the taut line of his body as the waves stirred around him. He hadn’t left her.
With a renewed frenzy, she swam, compelled by the elemental forces drawing her to him. But the next time she came up for air, her eyes widened in horror at the scene rapidly unfurling. In the space between her and Aries, whipped up from the placid ocean, a towering cyclone of sparkling amber flame arose, lashing and hissing like an incensed leviathan stirring from its depths.
Time seemed to expand; each frantic, thundering heartbeat thrummed in her chest with deafening intensity as the raging inferno stretched toward the sky. Just as her constricted throat managed to let out a scream of primal terror, the spiraling vortex of elemental fire spewed forth a gargantuan shape—scales like molten iron and fangs tearing vicious arcs through the air.
A blazing, primordial serpent, seemingly birthed from the raging hellfire of dimensions beyond her comprehension, hovered for a breathless, suspended instant, those gargantuan fangs dripping with flame and a tongue like a blazing whip. Then, its slit-pupiled gaze fixed upon Pisces’ insignificant form, and the leviathan let loose a thunderous, bone-rattling hiss that shook the island to its very core.
As she floated in one spot and stared at the fiery serpent before her, the shattering realization struck her: Aries was now her enemy, and he’d brought forth this blazing creature to end her, once and for all.
But as quickly as this horrifying thought sprang to her mind, a deeper awareness urged her to look closer. This was no mere beast. This was an incarnation of all her deepest fears, her gnawing sense of prey fleeing the relentless apex predator made hideously manifest. And in that singular, paralyzing moment of mortal, obliterating dread, Pisces put the pieces together: The figure of Aries standing in the water on the shore. The fire serpent’s birth from the watery depths was not Aries or any manifestation of his power since, by his own admission, the ocean itself would extinguish him forever.
”Aries!” she screamed, putting every ounce of will and pleading into that cry. She prayed he’d not abandoned her and returned to the stars because only one force could match the monster bearing down on her. Where was he, the fierce warrior who had sworn to be her enemy?
As if in answer, the colossal serpent whirled in the shimmering, blazing air and released another teeth-rattling hiss straight at the shoreline. Pisces” gaze followed its trajectory, even as her tired legs fought to keep her afloat, and she saw him—Aries, descending in a blaze of fire to the shore. The inferno met the sand and rose, transforming into the shape of a warrior on fire.
But he couldn’t reach her. The water’s edge was the barricade between Aries, her, and the deadly creature in between. She watched as his flames receded, and she saw the horrified look on his face. He called out to her, but the crackling roar of the serpent drowned out his voice.
If she could only reach him—dive below the surface and get past the monster, find sanctuary in Aries’ undeniable ferocity, then perhaps?—
With a soul-withering screech, the monstrous serpent reared back its head and plunged straight for Pisces, unhinging its maw to consume her with its ravenous amber fury.
”No!” Pisces screamed, diving beneath the water as she tried to outswim the column of blazing fire. It was advancing, somehow slithering through the watery depths as Pisces frantically pulled and pushed through the water. But her mortal energy was spent, and as her exhausted, aching limbs threatened to give up, the water around her boiled at the serpent’s proximity.
Where was Virgo, Sag, and Gemini? Why weren’t they helping Aries or getting her to shore?
Her body finally gave out, and she hovered, her blonde hair fanning around her like wings as she waited for the creature’s fangs to finally, and forever, tear her in two. As she drifted to the surface and made peace with her fate, prepared to leave this universe forever, a thunderous eruption even greater than the fire serpent’s assault rocked the island, detonating up from the waves in a cosmic burst of scarlet and saffron light that forced Pisces to shield her eyes from the sheer, searing brilliance. She squinted, adjusting to the unholy light washing over her. Out on the lethal water was Aries, wreathed in blinding haloes of ashfall and scorching haze, every ridge of muscle and sinew etched in glowing, volcanic glory.
His eyes, those fierce onyx depths, had become volcanic wells of fury. And his hands—they now blazed with solar infernos, spiking and weaving streamers of raging heat shimmering with latent power on a scale beyond her comprehension.
The beast, however gigantic its form and searing its fangs, was simply no match for a force of nature this magnificent in its wrath. With another thunderous bellow, it halted its assault on Pisces and coiled toward Aries, doubling its offensive on the crimson-haloed warrior in its wake.
Aries didn”t so much as blink, merely widening the molten flames around his form and slamming them home against the creature. The serpent seemed stunned, hesitating in its relentless pursuit, uncertain how to proceed against such cosmic resilience.
And that was all the opening Aries needed. Arching back, the blazing cobra braced to strike, and Aries thrust both palms forward, unleashing concentrated spears of atomic sunfire that slammed with annihilating force against the leviathan”s underbelly.
It reeled, those wickedly sharp fangs scything up plumes of seawater and sand as it attempted to regain its advantage. But Aries merely intensified his assault, ripping searing tentacles that charred midnight slashes across its twisting length.
Within seconds, Aries’ bombarding threads of fire had the serpent thrashing in the water, its previously determined domination now thoroughly unraveled into reeling desperation. One final volley from Aries slammed squarely into its jaw, unhinged it in a deafening screech of pain and smoke-trailing retreat. But Aries’ cosmic fire had found its mark right down the throat, and as the leviathan coiled its enormous, battered body, it suddenly exploded in a torrent of water and flames. The force from the creature’s demise pushed Pisces back, hurling her through the water and further out to sea. Deeper and deeper, she fell, struggling and pulling as she tried to get to the surface for air.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream, the water around her becoming a dark vortex she couldn’t escape, and the glow of Aries’ blazing fire now just a mere match lit in the watery distance. As the shadowy hand of death gripped her, a thin whip of light lashed out, catching her around the waist and jerking her toward the surface. As soon as she hit the air, she gasped, and the searing tendril tightened its grip, dragging her closer and closer to land until she felt her body being pushed. When she could feel the sand beneath her, she willed her arms and legs to move and crawled with the help of the searing tendril pushing her until she was safely planted on the beach. Rough hands grabbed her under the arms and dragged her inland, and voices echoed around her.
She opened her eyes to see the panic-etched faces of Sag and Virgo standing over her, then saw Gemini behind them.
“Where is Aries,” she managed between desperate breaths. Their silence struck a terror in her far worse than that of the fire serpent. With immense effort, Pisces rolled over and pressed herself to her knees in the cool sand, utterly spent and hallowed by the sheer force of nature she’d just witnessed.
Her eyes scanned the beach and then drifted out on the horizon to see Aries in the water, silhouetted against the spectral glow of the departed sun. An anguished cry sprung from her as the final slivers of comprehension formed in her mind: Aries had made the ultimate sacrifice for her. As her destined love and sworn protector, he’d entered the one place forbidden to him, and it was about to extinguish him forever.
For a brief moment, their eyes met, conveying millennia of devotion in one look, and as she reached out to him, the final slivers of amber light drained from his celestial form, and he sunk into the watery depths of the ocean, his blazing celestial light extinguished forever.