The more momentum we gather, the more sustained the brightness becomes, until it illuminates the whole tunnel. I hear Pandora gasp somewhere behind me.
“Pisces is powered by people’s movements,” explains Brynda in a voice that carries to the whole group. “It’s a process called piezoelectric energy. Every Co-Op is constructed from special ceramic and crystal compounds that convert kinetic energy into electricity, because Piscenes don’t believe in wasting anything, not even a single joule of energy.”
“People generate their own power,” says Mathias thoughtfully. “So when society breaks down, so does the system.”
“Which is exactly what’s happening now,” says Rubi, looping her arm around my free elbow.
“Since Piscenes aren’t moving around much at the moment, there isn’t power throughout most parts of each planetoid,” explains Brynda. “It’s a mess.”
The three of us walking side by side is a tight fit for this tunnel, but I’m glad they’re here to keep me upright. If not for their forward momentum, I’m not sure I could move. Between my mother’s presence and Nishi’s absence, life is too upside down for me to stay right side up.
When we reach the passage’s end, we enter an enormous domed lobby with semitransparent pink walls that splinter the daylight and bounce Helios’s rays into the whole space. A brilliant gemstone representation of our solar system floats above us, the colorful crystal planets twinkling over our heads.
The view on the ground is far less bright: At least one hundred comatose bodies are lying on elevated beds all across the lobby, while Sagittarian Stargazers and Geminin Dreamcasters in lavender and orange uniforms monitor patients’ vitals and draw blood and tissue samples from their unconscious bodies.
“Hospitals are so overcrowded that Prophet Marinda has instructed every Piscene to stay home so they’ll fall asleep in their own residences,” Brynda tells us in an undertone as we edge along the perimeter of the scene. “Some Disciples volunteered to be test subjects for scientists and healers to draw blood from so we can search for a cure. Those are the people you see here.”
As I pass the bodies, something starts to feel off. I’m not Centered, but my mind feels airy, like I’m leaving the physical plane. Only my Ring isn’t buzzing from the influx of Psynergy. If anything, it’s becoming colder. There’s a strange pull in the air that makes me think of the Nightwing seer.
“MAMI!”
A young girl’s terrified scream cleaves the air, and we all stop moving.
She looks no older than six or seven, and she’s holding tightly to the hand of a sleeping woman, whimpering softly. A prepubescent Dreamcaster tries to coax the girl away in soft tones, but she only starts to cry louder. “Please, mami! Wake up! I’ll be good, I promise!”
Her cries are daggers, and my breaths grow so shallow I can hear them. If I look behind me, I’m pretty sure I’ll break down with her.
The Guardians on either side of me start moving again, carrying me in their momentum, as the girl’s wails drown everything else. “I’m scared! Please don’t leave me, mami, please. . . .”
Brynda and Rubi stop moving again, and I wonder if they’ve finally noticed I’m not breathing, but then I see that Stan’s peeled away from the group. He’s going to comfort the girl.
My brother’s barely taken two steps before he stops dead in his tracks. I follow the line of his gaze to a buxom blond bombshell in a form-fitting yellow dress approaching us.
But when Miss Trii registers the little girl’s cries, she abruptly changes direction.
The Dreamcaster steps back as Miss Trii moves closer, and the girl stops crying as she looks into the android’s otherworldly face. Miss Trii gracefully lowers herself to the girl’s height and wipes away her tears with her delicate fingers.
“Would you like to cry together?” she asks sweetly, and the girl nods. Miss Trii opens her arms and wraps her in such a tender, motherly embrace that I’m instantly envious of Hysan.
She strokes the little girl’s back, and when they pull apart, the android plants a kiss on her head. “When a heart is as large as yours, it’s beating for more than just one person. Your mami lives in there, too. The best way to help her is by taking care of yourself to protect both your hearts. So how about you let Yana take you to eat something, and then I’ll come tuck you in for a nap?”
The girl nods again, and when she embraces Miss Trii once more, I see a small Hysan hugging his android when he needed a mom growing up.
Forgetting the dangers of looking back, I turn and cast my gaze for him. He’s with Lord Neith, standing apart from the group and not paying attention to Miss Trii or the little girl. They seem to be arguing. I’ve never seen them disagree before, but Lord Neith looks visibly upset.
“If a teenager spoke to me that way,” says Rubi to me indignantly, her eyes also on Hysan, “he would be out of my inner circle. I don’t care how clever that boy is—Lord Neith is too lenient for his own good.”
On my other side, Brynda is also watching Hysan, but her expression holds more curiosity than judgment. Like she’s catching on to something.
Hysan is becoming too overextended to protect his secrets.
“How wonderful to see you all here,” says Miss Trii, who’s finally made it over to our group. But her pleasant expression melts into a frown when she notices Hysan and Lord Neith.
“Hysan, are you arguing in public? And with your Guardian?” Her hands hook onto her hips, and Hysan stops speaking abruptly. “I hope I’ve raised you better than that.”
My brother mouths the phrase “raised you” to himself, like it’s a question he’s trying to answer. Everyone else looks just as confused.
“Come here and kiss me hello,” she chides Hysan, and though his ears go pink, he courteously walks over and pecks her on the cheek. Lord Neith looks at Miss Trii disapprovingly; she must be tinkering with her settings again.
“Any chance Hysan has a sister?” my brother whispers in my ear.
It’s the most Stan has sounded like himself in months, and I actually grin.
“Rho, how lovely to see you again!” Miss Trii flashes me an expression full of Libran charm and tilts down to kiss my cheek.
“You too, Miss Trii.”
She goes around greeting everyone except Kassandra. The android seems to disapprove of her on such a fundamental level that I can almost feel the magnetic repelling force keeping them apart. “Prophet Marinda’s health is rapidly deteriorating, so healers are tending to her,” says Miss Trii. “Let’s get you all settled into rooms, and we’ll call you when she’s able to meet.”
Brynda and Rubi pull me ahead again, and the bright lobby is swallowed by another dark tunnel. As the pink crystal around us lights up with piezoelectric energy, Brynda lets go of my arm and falls toward the tail of the group.
I hear her ask Hysan, “The woman you sent to be Marinda’s nurse raised you? How old is she?”
After a moment Hysan’s polite voice answers, “You know I have the utmost respect for your curiosity, but my personal life will have to wait. My Guardian beckons.”
Brynda wordlessly returns to my side, and from the way she continues to sneak glances behind us, it’s clear Hysan’s diplomatic brush-off only made her more curious. But there’s also something else in her expression.
She looks hurt.
Hysan is supposedly a friend of hers, but she doesn’t seem to know much about him. His secrets keep even those close to him from ever truly knowing him.
Just like Kassandra.
We arrive at a wide balcony facing a line of door-less ceramic lifts. “Lord Neith, you’ll be in Guardian accommodations,” says Rubi. “I can take you if you’d like, while Brynda shows the others to their quarters.”
“Thank you, honored Rubidum, that would be delightful,” he says, nodding at her. “Envoy Hysan, please come along so we can finish
our discussion.”
“Yes, my liege,” says Hysan, and as he follows Rubi and Neith onto a lift, his green eyes find mine. My Ring buzzes, and I hear his voice in my head.
Talk to your mom.
I spin away from him and join the others as they step onto a different lift, and once we’re all aboard the three-walled platform, Brynda hits the button for the tenth floor.
Since the lift ascends at medium speed, we can see what each level is like as we pass it. The next story boasts an enormous room cluttered with couches, chairs, tables, Stargazers, and Dreamcasters. Since Pisces is the only House without its own signature communication device, Piscenes have technology rooms where they can send holographic communications and catch up on news. I barely have enough time to take in the wallscreens, the handheld tablets on the tables, and the semiprivate terminals in the back before we reach the next level.
The rich, earthy musk of paper rushes into the elevator, and we look into a deserted reading room that’s not of the Psy variety. This is a place for reading texts—only unlike the holographic titles available in the suite at the Libran embassy, the stories here are tangible.
From a quick peek, I see the Piscene reading room is filled with shelves upon shelves stuffed with books of every size and color, and as the view vanishes, I inhale deeply the papers’ perfume. The mingling scents of so many trees makes me sad, and I lean against the wall. I can’t remember the name of the last book I read.
When we get to the tenth floor, it’s just a short wing of six rooms, and each of our traveling cases is waiting outside our assigned door. Somehow Brynda’s people knew not to bring Nishi’s.
“Bathrooms are communal,” she says apologetically, leading us to double doors at the end of the hall with a unisex lavatory sign. “This House is pretty economical with its space, so there’s no closet in your rooms. But you can store your clothes in the lavatory lockers.” We enter a roomy lounge lined with lockers, benches, and sinks. Past the lounge are a handful of bathroom stalls and curtained showers. A single, small mirror hangs on one of the ceramic walls.
There are no traditional gender roles on Pisces, no divisions between the sexes. Piscenes believe the body’s sole purpose is to be a vessel for the soul, and as the soul is limitless and infinite, it cannot be contained by physical attributes like one’s looks, sex, skin color, or body type.
“Here are the keys to these six rooms,” says Brynda, handing one to each of us. “Rho, you want to hold on to Hysan’s for him?” My cheeks warm, and I take it. “I’ve got to check in with my guys, but I’ll be back.” She gives my arm an encouraging squeeze, and as everyone drags their bags into their room, only Kassandra and I stay out in the hall.
I finally meet her blue eyes.
She opens her mouth to speak, but I turn away and grab my traveling case. Then I walk into the sixth room, and I leave the ceramic door wide open behind me.
30
THE ROOM IS TINY: THE bed takes up most of the space, and one wall is all pink crystal looking out at the ocean. Brynda must have chosen this room for me because it’s located along the compound’s perimeter so I have a view.
I stare at the silver surf until I hear the thud of my door closing, and then I wait until my breathing has slowed to turn around.
She’s sitting at the far end of the bed, watching me. This room feels like too small a space to contain this conversation.
“I’m sorry I had to leave you,” she begins, her tone more self-pitying than apologetic. “There was nothing I wanted more than to stay with you and your brother, but when I became a Riser, my destiny changed. For your sakes, I had to—”
“Save the performance for Stan.”
She stops speaking and casts me a dark look that sends me careening back in time.
My dad and my brother always worshipped her; she had this air of feminine fragility that made them handle her with care. But even as a kid I saw through that act. I’ve always known there’s nothing frail about her.
“You abandoned us long before you left us.” My voice somehow stays even despite the feelings flooding my heart. “We grew up cut off from our extended family. You never let us know anything about them or you. You raised me in an atmosphere of fear. I want to know why.”
“My past isn’t—”
“Your past is the only thing I’m interested in hearing about,” I say, cutting off whatever excuse she was about to make. I cross my arms and press my back against the window. “So if you don’t want to discuss it, I have nothing to say to you.”
She looks away and falls silent, the way she used to whenever my reads fell short of her expectations. The sharper lines of her Aquarian face make the expression seem more austere now than it did then, and for a moment she doesn’t even look familiar anymore.
Then the blue blaze of her eyes shines on me again, and I’m face-to-face with my childhood nightmares.
“My mother was an imbalanced Riser.”
I blink, and as her words swim through my veins, they chill me from the inside. If Ophiuchan blood runs so strong in my family that there’s been a Riser in consecutive generations, what does that mean for Stan and me?
“Even before she shifted, there had always been a darkness in her. The changes just brought that violence to her surface. She drove most of our family away, but my dad refused to leave her. And worse, she refused to leave us.” She swallows, and her voice grows softer. “Living with her was . . .”
She can’t finish the sentence, and her eyes glint with what might be moisture. Only it couldn’t be. I’ve never seen her cry, not even when Stan nearly died.
I think I’m more shocked by my mother’s humanity than by Ochus’s, and without making the decision to move, I sit on the bed, leaving as much distance as possible between us.
“One day, when I was about your age, I finally fought back.” Her voice sounds sturdier now, either because of where she is in her story, or because I sat down, or both. “When I defended myself and realized I’d become stronger than her, I felt an overwhelming sense of power—and then I couldn’t stop myself. To this day, I don’t know if she was still alive when I left her.”
The water in her eyes freezes to ice. Pity and revulsion fight for control of my heart, but even stronger than those feelings is my astonishment. Who is this woman who calls herself my mother? How much of her story did Dad know? I twist toward the window, no longer sure that sitting down was the right move.
“I jumped into the family schooner and sailed it as far as it would take me. That night was the first time I saw myself Rising into an Aquarian.”
“Where did you go?” I ask, my voice scratchy, my face still turned away from her.
“I found an island where I could be comfortably anonymous, but I was a teenager without family, so I was conspicuous. I knew I needed a place to belong. I slept in my schooner at night, and during the days I’d scrounge for food at the local market. And that’s where I met your dad.”
The first spark of light warms her narrative. “He sold nar-clam pearls at his parents’ stand. He was by far the youngest salesman, and though he had no actual salesmanship, people appreciated his honesty and the quality of his pearls. He was also kind. When a woman couldn’t afford the pearls she wanted for her wedding coronet, Marko would often loan them to her for the ceremony.”
In a Cancrian wedding, a woman’s coronet means more than her ring or her dress because she creates it herself. It represents the person she’s been up to this point, on her own, and the instant she’s wed, her partner removes it.
“We watched each other for a while before speaking, and our courtship escalated quickly. But before asking him to marry me, I made him promise never to ask me about my past. So at our wedding, we took a vow to live every day in the present and never look back.”
As I picture everything she’s describing, I start to miss Dad so much that even breathing
becomes painful. Moments I haven’t thought of in years suddenly creep up through the crevices of my mind’s memory walls. The evenings when Stan would go out, and Dad and I would sit on the couch watching my favorite holo-show together while splitting a bucket of sugared seaweed. The mornings when he’d take me to school, and he’d go the long way because he knew how happy it made me to sail past the sea otters on Calliope Island.
“But when he introduced me to his parents, they disapproved of our vow and distrusted me for refusing to discuss my past.” The spark in her voice is snuffed out by her inner winter. “They never warmed to me and eventually, a rift formed between your dad and his family. So we set out to start our own family, alone.”
On Kalymnos we had the smallest plot of land because we owned a single bungalow. Our neighbors, the Belgers, had about eight of them, and they lived surrounded by Jewel’s maternal grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. I always wanted a big family—and now I know why we never got to have one.
Kassandra needed an identity, and she used Dad to get one. He became her camouflage. She pulled him away from his family, and a decade later, she abandoned him and us.
“I know how monstrous this must sound to you,” she says softly, “but I loved your dad. He was the best person I’d ever met, and I hoped his influence would save me. I didn’t need the stars to tell me I would Rise. I’ve always known I harbor my mother’s darkness in me.”
Glaring at her, I ask, “So what made you decide to direct that darkness at me?”
The emotion fades from her eyes, like clouds clearing from an icy blue sky. “Not long after you were born, I had a vision of Helios going dark and our solar system coming to an end. I looked for corroboration in the Collective Conscious, and I discovered an ancient myth called the Last Prophecy that I vaguely recalled hearing about when I was younger. The very next day, I was on the porch nursing you in the hammock and gazing at the sea, when a hooded woman appeared before me. She said she was part of a secret group of seers who had Seen the Last Prophecy, and she invited me to join their ranks.
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