Zodiac

by Romina Russell

  I inspect the thick band. The fact that Abyssthe is such an important tool for the Zodai makes me feel even guiltier for using it the night of the attack. “Sounds like the Ring does all the heavy lifting.”

  “Try it out.”

  “Now?” I blurt. He nods, and I hold my hand out in front of me, wondering how I activate it.

  “Reach inward toward the buzzing you feel in your hand,” he says, guessing at my thoughts. “When you tap into it, you’ll access the Psy. Only this time, there’s no Ephemeris to direct the energy for you, so you’ll need to control it yourself.” Noting the obvious confusion in my expression, he adds, “By telling the Psy where you want to go.”

  “Will it feel like . . . taking Abyssthe without an Ephemeris?” Admitting to illegal behaviors probably isn’t the best way to convince Mathias I’m a good choice of Guardian.

  “Sort of,” he says, eyeing me curiously. “When you drink Abyssthe without an Ephemeris, you’re attracting Psyngery to you, but you’re not channeling it into anything. This Ring uses the Psynergy from Abyssthe to connect you to all the other Ring-wearing Zodai across the galaxy. We are the Psy Network—the Zodai’s Collective Conscious.”

  It sounds confusing, but I’ve always been better at diving into something new than understanding its mechanics. “So once I access the Psy Network, do I just think of the person I want to talk to?”

  “Sure. Or you can ask the whole network a question, and anyone tuning in will hear. Try it out.”

  I close my eyes and reach deep inside, into the portal of energy pulsing through my ring finger. When I reach it, I feel like I’ve touched something icy and liquid. The substance spreads through my insides, rippling outward in waves, until I feel myself pulled in by the tide and swept away from the present, into black Space.

  Only this Space isn’t filled with orbs of dancing light, but rather silhouettes made of smoke, some floating in place, some zooming like bullets, and all of them popping in and out of existence everywhere I look. My guess is they’re the other Zodai who are entering and leaving the Psy right now—and the figures grouped together must be communicating with each other.

  I float closer to one of the shadows. I pick up a faint whispering, but I can’t hear the words.

  Mathias.

  I hear myself say his name in my head, but not out loud. I must be speaking soundlessly, the way the Zodai do.

  Only nothing happens. Mathias’s voice doesn’t respond, and the smoke figures around me don’t react. The longer I stay in the shadow world, the more dizzying and disorienting it grows, until everything is spinning. Breathless, I open my eyes, and the solar system of souls whirling around me vanishes.

  The first thing that feels different is the orientation of the room—I’m staring at the ceiling.

  “How are you feeling?”

  The musical voice sounds closer than usual. Twisting my neck, I’m met with Mathias’s indigo blue eyes. For some reason, we’re lying on the floor, his arms reaching out to me at awkward angles. One hand is under my head, the other on the small of my back. Like he was protecting me.

  “Did I fall?” I whisper.

  “My fault,” he murmurs. “Most people get dizzy their first time. I should have mentioned it.”

  Even though we should stand up, neither of us moves. The space between us is so small that his breath blows on me like a light breeze. I gaze at the barely perceptible cleft in his chin, remembering how he would grow a light stubble there during exam time at the university. Now that he’s older, he keeps his skin smooth. I feel the crazy urge to reach out and touch him.

  Mathias looks away first. I shift to liberate his hands, and he sits upright. “I’m sorry there’s been no word on your family, Rho.”

  I sit up, too. It’s one of the rare times he’s used my name since I asked him not to call me Holy Mother. That night, he said my name like it was just a word. Now he whispers it, like it’s a secret. “Do you know anything about yours?”

  “My mother works at the Planetary Plenum, so she and my father are spending most of this year at House Aries. I spoke to them before we left home.” His voice grows quiet, and he reaches into his pocket, pulling out the mother-of-pearl Astralator. “When the moons collided, my sister died on Galene.”

  My throat seems to shrivel up and wither, and I can’t speak. All this time we’ve been training together, and I never asked.

  “This was hers,” he says, holding up the instrument.

  “I-I’m so sorry, Mathias.”

  He shakes his head and puts it away, turning to face me on the mat. “Let’s go again. Only touch the Ring with your other hand when you enter the Psy. It will function as an anchor and help keep you grounded.”

  I nod and close my eyes, staying seated this go-around. I place my left hand over my right and twist the Ring around my finger, until I’ve dipped into the icy energy, and I’m pulled into the Collective Conscious.

  This time, the world feels steadier—like I’m standing on land instead of floating through Space. I approach the nearest shadow, something about it drawing me closer.

  Rho.

  It’s Mathias.

  I hear you, I say back.

  That’s impressive. Some Zodai can take years to send their first message.

  How did I know this smoky figure would be you? I stare at the wispy mass, its shape shifting constantly, like it doesn’t have a true form.

  The physical proximity helps, but it’s also because we’ve formed a connection. I’m your Guide, so you’re drawn to my Psynergy signature, as I am to yours.

  I open my eyes. I’ve left the shadow world, and I’m back in the room with Mathias, holding the Ring. He’s staring at me in disbelief, and I watch his lips move without making a sound. Rho, are you still in the Psy?

  I hear his words in my mind. Yes.

  Speaking through the Psy from the physical plane is really advanced. “Most beginners can only access the Psy when they are most present within it,” he says, finishing the thought out loud. I pull my hand off the Ring.

  He watches me, his expression mysterious. “Agatha said your mother trained you from an early age. What exactly was she teaching you?”

  I feel like a flying bird crashing into an invisible wall. Soaring through today’s lesson, I was finally beginning to feel some semblance of accomplishment for the first time since being made Guardian. Mathias’s question makes me feel sixteen years old and small again.

  I pull out my Wave from the waistband of my tights. I try calling Dad and Stanton.

  “Rho, I don’t want to pry. It just seems like what she did had an impact on your ability to manipulate Psynergy . . . and knowing what it was could help me Guide you.”

  I shut off the Wave and stuff it back in my band. It’s not that I disagree with him—it’s just that I hate remembering. I don’t know how most people’s memories work, but mine is merciless. The moment I pull a thread from the Mom years, the whole yarn unspools. And I can’t afford to let her to distract me now. Not when Dad and Stanton are still missing.

  Mathias starts to reach for me, and I know he’s going to pat my back or squeeze my shoulder or do something else that should be comforting, only it won’t be. I don’t want his pity. So I twist my Ring, and I disappear into the shadow world. An instant later, a new silhouette pops into existence, and immediately I feel Mathias’s presence.

  Somehow, it’s easier to talk in here, where I don’t have to hear the words out loud. I don’t like to remember. It’s not that the training was traumatic, exactly. . . . It was exhaustive and endless, but you can’t call it torture. It’s just . . . it’s because I . . .

  You miss her.

  He’s right, but I don’t say so. Instead, I try to catalogue some of the things Mom and I studied, careful to stay in the shallow end of my memory pool, without digging too far into any particular
moment. So I won’t have to see her bottomless blue eyes or hear her storytelling voice or smell her water lily scent.

  First it was memorizations. Ever since I was a baby, she would read to me about the Zodiac, until it became all I knew. What each constellation looks like, the name of every star and planet, the operations of the different Houses—all stuff that’s in the Acolyte textbooks. Then when I was four, she started teaching me Yarrot.

  In the murky and abstract surroundings, it’s easier to make the memories feel like stories Mom told me once, rather than real things she did. By the time I was five, I could Center myself, and I was seeing things in the Ephemeris. I was . . . terrified. I didn’t understand how I was doing it, and I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I would get nightmares from the visions every night. I stayed awake at all hours to avoid sleep. I was a kid, and I was afraid to be inside my own head.

  I’m so sorry, Rho, whispers Mathias softly.

  The nights I woke up screaming, Stanton would come into my room to calm me. He’d tell me stories until I fell back asleep, stories he’d make up on the spot. Whenever he ran out of plot twists, I’d join in, and we’d keep going until our hero either got married or died. That’s how we’d know we reached the end: Deaths we declared tragedies, weddings comedies.

  I open my eyes and take my hand off the Ring. Mathias joins me back on reality. “My mom had this theory that people can see more when they’re younger, when their soul is purest. She said that’s when we’re most susceptible to Psynergy, and that if properly trained from an early age, a person could develop a natural ability to commune with the stars.”

  I take in a deep breath and exhale a sigh. “I guess it halfway worked because I’m faster at Centering than the other Acolytes, and my reads are right a lot of the time. But since Mom taught me to use my instinct, I’m way behind with an Astralator, and I can’t always distinguish between the Psy and my imagination.”

  He looks away when I say the word Astralator, probably thinking of his sister. “Well, you’re a pro with the Ring. The more often you use it to communicate, the more familiar you will become with people’s Psynergy signatures, and that will help you identify anyone misrepresenting themselves.”

  It sounds like another version of Trust Only What You Can Touch. “Why do people manipulate the Psy so often?”

  His eyebrows pull together, and he pauses for a moment. “Think of it this way: In this realm, the rules of science govern us. If you throw a ball at the ground where there’s gravity, the ball will bounce.”

  I nod.

  “In the Psy, there are no rules. You’re floating through people’s minds, and we don’t work in black and white. In the brain, everything is relative. Most of us don’t intentionally try to misrepresent anything—but the lies we tell ourselves, the truths we repress, the things we conceal in the physical realm . . . they inform reality in the Psy. Even in an abstract dimension, ideas built on flawed foundations will fail.”

  I get the impression the only way I’m going to understand what he’s saying is with more training. “Let’s go again—”

  Mathias tilts his head, like he’s listening for something far off. “Sounds like we have to cut this short,” he says, his lips twitching. “You have more important business to attend to before tonight’s ceremony.” Then he walks off without another word.

  “Mathias!” I call after him. “What business? Who was just talking to you?”

  “Hello, Holy Mother.”

  I turn to see Lola and Leyla, their hands locked in front of them and wide smiles on their faces.

  • • •

  Back in my room, Leyla sits me down in the desk chair, facing the dusty round mirror. “Makeover?” I ask for the fifth time. “You’re telling me this trumps my learning how to communicate in the Psy?”

  “Today it does, Holy Mother,” she says, wresting my curls from the hairband they’re twisted around. “Representatives from every House are coming to see you.”

  “Why can’t I greet them in my new uniform?” I ask, referring to the Zodai-style blue suit the sisters presented me with yesterday. They took turns sewing it; on the sleeve, instead of the three gold stars of the Royal Guard, they embroidered four silver moons.

  I was so moved, I begged them to name something I could give them in return, and after rounds of refusals, Leyla finally said, “We want you to trust yourself.”

  It was a strange request, but then, Leyla is strange—in a wise-beyond-her-years way.

  “You wanted me to trust myself, and I think the suit you made me is the way to go.” I put as much authority into the words as I can. “Representatives from the Zodiac are coming because our House is in a state of emergency—what will they think if I show up dressed like I’ve come to have a good time?”

  Leyla stops working, and her sapphire gaze meets mine in the mirror. “They will think the Cancrian people are still here, and no matter what else happens, we will live on, in you.”

  I take her hands in mine, and for a long moment I don’t look away from her young face. I’ve never felt less qualified to lead—or more determined to work harder.

  Once I’ve bathed, Leyla sits me down, turns me away from the mirror, and brushes a few styling products into my locks before spritzing them with a glossing dry-spray. Immediately, the long, wet strands begin to shorten and curve. Next, she applies light, velvety makeup to my skin. She spends more time on my cheekbones and eyes than anywhere else. Once she’s moved on to lipstick, Lola arrives with my clothes, and I’m pulled to my feet and helped into a white dress.

  White is the traditional color for a Guardian to wear at her ceremony, in respect for the Guardian who’s passed. It reminds us it’s a bittersweet occasion. White is also the color of a bride’s wedding dress, so it symbolizes a Guardian’s commitment to House Cancer.

  Guardians are allowed to form families, but Mother Origene never did. In public appearances, she’d say she was married to the stars.

  “Now for the pearl coronet,” says Lola, opening an antique jewelry box and removing a glittering headpiece outlined with white pearls. One of Cancer’s sacred symbols, the Crab, sits at its center, formed from millions of tiny diamonds, each one refracting the light so that the crown sparkles radiantly. She sets it on my head, and only then do they let me turn around.

  I’ve never seen the girl reflected back in my life.

  My hair hangs nearly to my waist, and in place of the usual bouncy curls there’s a sea of glossy, golden waves that are soft to the touch. I feel like I could run my fingers through them without obstruction. My skin is creamy, with hints of bronze in my cheeks to set off my cheekbones, and my lips are painted a rich, reddish plum. But the most startling change is in my eyes: Using liner and sparkly shadow, Leyla made the pale sea green come alive. They’re the largest feature on my face.

  The dress is made of a silky fabric so fine that when I move, the threads glisten like liquid. Two thin straps beaded with tiny silver pearls hang from my shoulders, the neckline cutting across my chest in a soft V shape and revealing more cleavage than I would normally show. The material is comfortable but tight, draping down to the floor, and it cinches my waist with a light belt of tiny silver pearls.

  “How did you do this?” I ask, watching the girl in the mirror mouth the same question. She can’t be me.

  “Holy Mother, when was the last time you looked at yourself?” asks Leyla, smiling proudly.

  Before I can answer, there’s knocking. It must be Mathias picking me up. Lola pads to the door, and I grip the desk, a rush of nerves racking my chest. For some reason, I’m terrified of him seeing me like this.

  “I need to talk to Holy Mother. It’s important.”

  At the sound of the voice, I run to the door—no easy feat in four-inch heels. “Nishi? What is it?”

  “Holy Helios!” She gasps on seeing me.

 
I grab her hand and pull her inside. Since there’s so much traffic in and out of the base today, there are no officers posted outside my door. Nishi is still ogling me. “You look amazing!”

  “Thanks! Did you come to tell me something?”

  “Yes—right—it’s about . . . Thirteen.”

  I turn to Lola and Leyla. “Thank you so much. I never could have pulled this off without you.” I trust the sisters, but I don’t want to get them in trouble; so until I know what Nishi has to say, I’d rather not involve them.

  Once they’re gone, Nishi hits a button on the flint Tracker around her wrist, and red holographic text sparks out. “Do you recognize this poem?”

  I scan the text. “Of course. ‘Beware Ochus’—it’s a Cancrian children’s poem. Ochus is a snake monster our parents threaten will come get us if we misbehave.”

  She nods, and the poem transforms into song lyrics. “On Sagittarius, we have a lullaby that warns of a wanderer named Ophius. On Virgo—”

  “They have a fable about a talking serpent in a garden,” I say, hearkening back to Mom’s lessons and hoping Nishi will get to the point before we’re interrupted.

  “Aquarius has a parable about twelve numbers that live harmoniously together, inside a clock, and the villain who ruins everything is—”

  “Thirteen,” I finish, aghast.

  There’s a knock at the door, but I don’t answer. The last two times I’ve read the black opal, the Dark Matter showed up again, just past the Twelfth House. I need to know what it means. “What are you saying, Nishi?”

  “I’m saying they’re all the same entity.” She’s now whispering in case whoever’s at the door can hear us. “I think there used to be another House in the Zodiac, and for some reason, it vanished from the night sky . . . and over time, it’s been erased from history.”

  There’s more knocking. “Hurry,” I urge Nishi.

  Her voice drops so low I have to read her lips to follow what she’s saying. “The only evidence now is in the guise of story and myth, stuff no one will take seriously. I know we Sagittarians can be conspiracy nuts at times, but Rho, if someone from the Thirteenth House is behind this, and all these tragedies are part of a trajectory—from the disasters on Leo and Taurus to what’s happened to your moons—they’re also altering history to cover their tracks. That means they’ve been planning this for a very long time.”