The volumizer zips over to me, like even the device knows it’s my turn to speak. As heads pop back up, everyone is watching me with hope shining in their eyes, and the dignitaries beside me all step back, leaving me alone as they await my speech.
I clear my throat, but I can only think of one thing to say.
“I’m sorry. I can’t lead you.”
And I turn and leave the stage.
35
I FLEE TO THE CANCRIAN embassy, and duty bound to me once more, Sirna follows.
I cross the plank and enter the second bungalow, and then I climb up the stairs until I’m on the rooftop with the aquarium beneath me. I try not to think of how much Stan would have loved to see it.
“Rho.”
“Don’t lecture me,” I snap, whirling on Sirna. “You know I’m doing the right thing. You saw through me from the start. You always knew I didn’t have what it takes to be Holy Mother, but I was too naïve to listen. You were right: I was unprepared, I was selfish, and I took everything personally. I was wrong for this role since the first day, and deep down, I knew it.”
“You’re right,” she says, and I savor her honesty the way a parched person savors water. “I thought you were a fame-seeking child who would only manage to alienate our House from the rest of the Zodiac at a time when we needed the others’ help more than ever.”
She gestures to the people in the center of the village. “But one look at what’s happening down there is all it takes to prove how wrong I was.”
“They’re not here for me. They’re here because they don’t want to die—”
“They’re here to fight. And you’re the one they’re asking to lead them.”
“Well it’s just as crazy as when they asked me to lead the armada. They should be looking to Eurek or Ferez or Hysan—”
“Who told us about the Dark Matter?” she demands. “Who told us about Ophiuchus? Who told us about the master?”
“If not me, someone else would have uncovered this stuff—”
“But it was you, Rho.” Sirna’s ebony face fills with light, and I’ve never seen her look so hopeful.
“And to be clear, I saw how wrong I was about you two minutes into our first conversation.”
I frown. “That’s not true—”
“It is. We were in my office, and I’d just told you that your dad and brother were lost again. Then I cruelly pressed on with the political agenda, and I waited for you to fall apart so I could be proven right in time to spare Cancer the humiliation of you standing on that podium and name-dropping Ochus. I remember you shut your eyes, and I was sure you would break down. But when you opened them again, I didn’t see a girl in pain. I saw a Guardian.”
Her eyes are still bright as she rests a hand on my shoulder and brings her face so close that I feel her warm breath on my skin. “You plowed forward with our agenda, and in your voice I heard Holy Mother Origene’s resolve. And I knew then that you would always protect us, even when you had nothing left for yourself.
“I may not have agreed with all your choices, and I will probably continue to disagree with you from time to time. But I had the same relationship with Mother Origene—as you’ve seen, I’m not one to keep my doubts to myself.” She allows herself a small smile, and it makes her look so much younger. “But I have no doubts you’re our true Holy Mother, Rho. And neither should you.”
As if to prove it, she takes something out of her pocket.
It’s the Cancrian Star Stone.
“This belongs to you now.”
I don’t want to accept it, and yet just like the first time I laid eyes on it, I can’t help myself from wanting to touch it. She sets the smooth black opal in my hand, and goose bumps race across my arm.
It feels fated to be standing here, having my Guardianship restored in the same spot where it was once stripped from me. After all, every Holy Mother’s ceremony must be blessed by the Cancer Sea.
“We leave for planet Ophiuchus tonight, and we’re counting on the Thirteenth Guardian to close the portal,” she says, reverting to her all-business demeanor. “We anticipate the enemy knows our plan and will do whatever they can to stop us. Ophiuchus has the strength of a mortal now, so if they kill him, it’s over. We need you in this fight.”
“I’m not a fighter, Sirna.”
“No, but you’re our best seer. And when we get to that world, we’re going to need our Guardians to work together to pick up the Psynergy trail to Ophiuchus’s crash site.”
“I haven’t accessed the Psy in a long while,” I admit.
“Then I suggest you use this time wisely and go square things up with the stars.”
• • •
Black opal in hand, I visit the reading room on the top floor of the third bungalow, where I helped Mathias find his Center again after his capture.
I feel along the Talisman’s ridges to unscramble the constellation puzzle and unlock it.
The Archer. Sagittarius.
Nishi drowns my thoughts, and I immediately descend to my Center. I didn’t think it’d be this easy, but at the mere thought of my best friend, it’s practically unavoidable. She is my soul.
Now that Aquarius is gone, I’m not afraid to enter the astral plane—but the Psynergy is still erratic. I have a feeling the only way to heal the Psy is to heal ourselves.
I stare at the stars and try pushing down my pain so I can See something. Only instead of my eyes registering movement, it’s my ears that hear a sound. It’s indistinct muttering . . . and it’s coming from Helios.
As I approach the holographic sun, I flash back to when I met Ophiuchus in the slipstream and I hesitate. But curiosity gets the best of me, and I reach out to touch it.
The reading room disappears, and I’m transported to a vast, grassy field that extends endlessly in every direction. I take a few befuddled steps forward and gaze in awe at the greenery around me.
No time to dawdle, we don’t have long.
I spin around to see a familiar wizened face.
Moira!
You sure took your time finding me. I don’t know how much longer I could have held on.
But you’re—
In a coma, yes, but my spirit is free in the astral plane. It’s strange seeing her without her Perfectionary in hand. Before I move on to Empyrean, I have a message for you from the Luminaries, and I don’t have long.
There are Luminaries with me, I cut in, frowning. Why couldn’t they tell me?
Because they don’t know this information, and if you continue interrupting me, you won’t either. She knits her eyebrows, adding more wrinkles to her olive face, and I determine the best course of action is to stay quiet.
The Luminaries were formed by Empress Virgo, my House’s Original Guardian. She Saw the Last Prophecy, and she suspected one of her brethren to be behind the vision, so she couldn’t confide in any of them. Instead, she broke off a piece of her Talisman and gave it to her most trusted Advisor and instructed her to form the Luminaries.
The Virgo Star Stone contains a true Psy Veil, so the person using it can enter the Psy invisibly, without being seen by anyone—including Aquarius. That’s how the Luminaries have kept their location secret this whole time.
Moira’s mossy eyes fix on mine with deadly focus, and since she’s usually a multitasker, it feels like a lot of pressure to hold her full attention.
We are the last outpost of the astral plane, she says heavily. We’re why the Last Prophecy vision has never gone away. As long as we’ve been here to anchor the Psy, he couldn’t twist it too far. That’s why it’s imperative no one ever know where we are—we are the only safety net the astral plane has. Of course, it’s all moot if the Zodiac dies.
Remembering what Aquarius wanted from them, I ask, Where does the portal lead?
Moira dismisses my question with a curt wave of her
hand. The stars of the Zodiac cannot See beyond their own existence.
But Aquarius said the Luminaries were hiding a prophecy from him—
That’s because we wanted him to think that, she says with a note of pride.
You were baiting him? I ask, staring at her in shock.
The Luminaries have always hoped to prevent the Last Prophecy by uncovering the Guardian’s identity before he could set it in motion, so we tried luring him out. But when he realized we were searching for him as hard as he was searching for us, he stopped chasing our fake vision, and—
She seems to sense something in the air because she starts speaking faster than usual. You need to know that it will take the same amount of energy to close the portal as to open it. So without the Unity Talisman, you must find the spot where Ophiuchus crashed onto his planet, as the soil there will still retain remnants of his Star Stone—
We already know all this, I say, and then I inhale sharply as the greenery around us flickers. What was that?
The portal’s activation is accelerating the Psy’s instability. Moira is still speaking too quickly. The Psynergy being Psyphoned from Pisces has opened a doorway through the Dark Matter. If you can release that energy back to Pisces, it will restore that House, and that act will balance out Aquarius’s death.
Can Ophiuchus do that?
The ground beneath our feet starts quaking violently, and Moira has to raise her voice over the noise. He has a role to play, but yours is more important.
Mine? I shout back as the shaking grows deafening.
Ophiuchus will serve as a conduit for absorbing the excess Psynergy—but as there is no Talisman to destroy, you’ll need to do the Psyphoning.
I feel my presence in this dimension fading, like the Psynergy is trying to buck me off, and I struggle to cling to my Center. But I’ve never—
Psyphoned? Why do you think I’ve been waiting around all this time? The ritual requires someone strong enough in the Psy who can pull on Psynergy from the whole Zodiac, she explains. But if the process kills you, all will be lost. You must survive it.
And how exactly do I do that? I call back over the noise.
You’ll need an anchor. Something in this world with a strong enough pull on your soul to ground you here. Someone worth coming back for.
The one thing I don’t have.
She seems to know that already because she comes closer and says, If you want to save the Zodiac, you have to jumpstart that oversized Cancrian heart.
36
WHEN I LEAVE THE ASTRAL plane, I set out for the Libran embassy. There’s no judge or jury in the courtroom, so I go straight through to the hotel, which is equally void of people. The emptiness is becoming disturbing, and as I cut across the dichromatic lobby with white marble walls and black floors, a wallscreen catches my eye.
Hysan is addressing a crowd of Librans somewhere in this hotel, and from the ticker text scrolling beneath the footage, it seems like his message is being broadcast through his whole House. I move closer, and once I step within the radius of light on the floor, the audio pops on.
“My story begins with two Knights in the service of Lord Vaz’s Royal Guard. Their names were Helen and Horace Dax.”
Hysan is standing in front of a golden wall designed to look like the Libran flag, his voice as somber as his expression. “My parents died before my first birthday, and they left me in the care of an android into whom they’d programmed all their teachings. I followed in my inventor father’s footsteps, and it was one of my designs that caught Lord Vaz’s eye at the Pursuit of Justice Symposium when I was nine. I received private tutoring from him until the day he confided in me that he had Seen his death and planned to name me his successor. Only he didn’t believe anyone would willingly follow an eleven-year-old boy, and he needed his jury to approve of his selection. So we created Lord Neith.”
Hysan pauses and his chin tilts down a fraction, his gaze dropping to the floor for a few breaths. It’s the first time he doesn’t seem cool and in control in front of a crowd, and I realize this is probably the hardest thing he’s ever done. By exposing all the secrets that have defined him, his old way of life is lost to him forever.
His nest is gone.
“We each view the universe through our own telescope, so I don’t expect any of you to see this from my perspective,” he says, lifting his eyes to the crowd again. “I only hope you will try to understand it.
“Until recently, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with my keeping this secret from you. I thought that as long as I protected my House and my people, as long as you were well taken care of, it didn’t matter who the man was behind the android. I guess you can say that mindset is a product of how I was raised. But over the past few months, my eyes have been opened to how wrong that was, and how unjust I have been to you. I should have trusted you.”
Even though he’s addressing his House, I can’t help feeling like he’s speaking directly to me. Then again, probably every friend of his watching this feels that way. It’s part of Hysan’s charm.
“In a few hours, we will embark on a journey that could either be the end of the Zodiac or a new beginning for all of us. There isn’t time to go through a proper trial or cross-examination now, but if we survive, I vow to submit to any fate I am sentenced to. I am profoundly sorry for deceiving you. It has been an honor to serve you these past seven years, and whatever happens next, I will always be proud to be a Libran Knight.”
As I watch him up there in his golden suit, his gaze focused and his jaw set, I no longer see the cocky teen Guardian with mysterious eyes and a mischievous smile.
I see a man.
• • •
I take the elevator up to the penthouse suite even though I know he’s not there yet, and I prepare myself to wait. But as soon as I lean against the wall, the door swings open.
“Lord Neith!” Without thinking I wrap my arms around the android, and I’m surprised when I feel him hugging me back.
“Lady Rho, what an honor it is to see you again.”
We pull away, and I see actual tear tracks on his Kartex cheeks. I’d always wondered if he could cry.
“You were watching Hysan’s speech?” I ask as I follow him into the workspace.
“Every word.”
“I’m so relieved you’re okay,” I say as I walk through the holographic facts and figures floating in the air. “You had us worried back on Pisces.”
“Hysan could not risk reactivating me while Aquarius was alive. Lady Rho, I must apologize to you for how I behaved the last time you saw me—”
“You weren’t yourself,” I say quickly. “It’s not your fault.”
The door opens, and I spin to see Hysan entering the penthouse. His head hangs down and his hair falls over his face, and he looks despondent—then he glances up and sees me.
His shoulders roll back, and light flashes in his eyes. “My lady.”
“I must recharge,” says Lord Neith, and he goes up to Hysan and lays a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve never been prouder of you,” he says in an undertone. “I know Lord Vaz feels the same way, for much of my personality was molded after his. Right now he would be saying: You are a true Lord and Knight.”
Hysan’s ears go pink, and I look down so I won’t intrude. Then he and I wind around the worktables and enter the main suite. “May I offer you anything?” he asks once we’re in the living room.
I shake my head and say, “I just spoke with Empress Moira.”
His brow wedges with concern. “In the astral plane?”
“Yes.” We’re standing behind a levlan couch that looks a lot like the one from the suite on Aries where I first kissed him. I angle myself away from it.
“She told me how to close the portal. It’s a ritual that takes place in the Psy, so Ophiuchus and I will need to be protected while we perform it.”
He nods, and the green of his gaze fades like he’s multitasking. He’s probably inwardly accessing his Scan. “Would you like to select the members of your regiment, or would you rather General Eurek assign his best Majors?”
“I . . . there’s something else,” I say, steeling myself for what I came here to tell him. “I think you should lead us.”
“And why is that?” he asks, his tone tensing.
“You’re smarter than me,” I say, not meeting his eyes, “and you’re better at telling people what they need to hear.” Since he doesn’t disagree, I go on. “You know every world almost as well as your own. You had the best strategy for taking back our camp on Aries. You figured out Aquarius’s plan before anyone else—”
“So use me.”
In my shock I look up. His green gaze is electric.
“If I’m such a good strategist, use my mind to strategize,” he clarifies, but I can’t escape the feeling that there was an accusation in his words. Use me.
Have I used Hysan?
“But I still haven’t heard a single good reason why I should lead over you,” he finishes, crossing his arms and leaning on the couch’s backrest.
“Then tell Eurek to lead,” I say, suddenly wishing I hadn’t come here. “I’ll play my part with Ophiuchus and do what Moira asked of me, but I won’t be placed in charge of an army against my will again.”
The last part comes off sharp and accusatory, and I bite my lip to shut myself up and keep from wreaking more damage.
“My turn to make my case for your leadership?” he asks, and I shrug to avoid arguing. “You inspired me to trust others and let go of my secrets. You inspired Mathias to be more open-minded and let go of what’s past. You inspired Pandora to speak up and let go of her fear. You inspired Nishi to fight the system and let go of her personal pain—”
“Stop!” The anger comes with such force that I feel something in my chest fracturing. “It’s you all who inspired me—Nishi gave me confidence, Mathias gave me strength, you gave me hope—”
Thirteen Rising Page 26
