I queued up in line with the other students, forcing myself not to look back as I boarded. Inside, no one was crying, so I bit on my bottom lip hard enough to distract myself from the wound widening in my chest.
In the seat beside me was the sandy-haired boy. Peeking up at him, I was shocked to see tears freely fountaining from his turquoise eyes. He didn’t look happy or good-humored anymore, and I realized it was all an act for his family’s benefit. He was being strong for them. He reminded me of Stanton.
“I’m Deke,” he said, seeing me seeing him. He held out his hand.
“Rho,” I said as we bumped fists.
“Is that your brother’s jacket?” He must have watched me with my family, too. I nodded. “Is he your best friend?” I nodded again. “My sisters are mine. Want to be substitute siblings?”
“What’s that?”
“You be my sister and I’ll be your brother while we’re at the Academy.” He passed me some tissues, and I realized I’d been crying this whole time, too.
I nodded in agreement. He took my hand and held it in his, and suddenly I was no longer alone. Thanks to Deke, within minutes of leaving my family, I found a new one.
The ground shudders beneath me, and a sharp, piercing cry shatters the glass of my Snow Globe.
I try holding on to twelve-year-old Deke’s hand, but I’m already old again, and time is moving unmercifully forward. I open my eyes. Nishi is still lying on Deke’s body, her limbs nearly as limp as his. A scream cleaves the air—it’s my brother.
The Riser jabs him with the butt of her weapon, and the sound of a rib cracking echoes through the ship. When Stanton cries out again, I cry, too.
She hits him again, this time on the head, and I let out a shrill scream as my brother falls to the floor, unconscious. Aryll’s bound feet hook around Stanton’s arm, and he pulls my brother closer, until he’s dragged Stanton’s body to him. He holds him protectively.
“Shackle them to the wall this time,” the Riser commands the injured soldier. Nishi resists him only a little, as if her life force has been halved. The soldier whacks her across the head with his weapon, and I scream again as Nishi passes out. My throat is so raw I taste blood.
I watch Nishi’s placid, unblemished face hang sleepily as the soldier chains her to the wall, and I wish they would knock me out, too. Maybe Nishi resisted on purpose.
Aryll, who didn’t do anything aggressively defiant, is the only one who isn’t brutally punished. He’s in shock, leaning over Stanton like my brother is all he has in the world.
The injured soldier returns to the control helm as the Riser sets up a broadcast and goes over the plan with him. She speaks out loud now, clearly confident in her triumph and not worried that we’ll overhear. “Too bad we’re down to three expendable hostages. Would’ve been nice to be able to show off our weapons by offing the Sagittarian on the live feed. We’ll save the rest in case the crab gets tongue-tied later. Let’s pull the Virgo and Cancrian corpses into the shot. Get rid of the third body.”
She doesn’t even care enough about her own fallen comrade to give him a proper burial—let alone refer to him by name. I close my eyes as she puts her mask back on, and the transmitter lights up. In the Marad’s voice, she starts in on a new proclamation.
“We have captured Rho Grace, the fallen Cancrian Guardian. We have already executed two of her supporters”—Deke and Twain are still right there on the floor before me, but I can’t look—“and we will be executing the rest, live, within one galactic hour. The Zodiac is too fractured to be united, and the House system is on the verge of collapse. A new order must rise. First we will get rid of the Guardians, the last remnants of an old and outdated civilization. This Cancrian, though no longer a Guardian, represents the hopelessness of unity among you. In one hour, that fairytale will end.”
The transmission cuts out. The Riser removes her mask and stares at me, excitement flickering in her close-set eyes. She takes my trembling hand in her scaly one. Her touch is almost tender, reassuring. But then her stare grows cold again—and she yanks off my thumbnail.
I bite down on my tongue, tasting the metallic tang of blood again, my skin searing in agony. But I stay as mute as the dead bodies beside me.
Laughing softly, she plucks off the next nail. Tears stream down my face, the pain so great my head is drowning in it, and I grow too dizzy and nauseated to think clearly.
“If I were to kill you now, you would become a martyr, and that’s not the boss’s plan,” she whispers. “Before you go, you will denounce the House system and the whole Zodiac way of life for the entire galaxy to hear.” She turns and looks back at Nishi, Stanton, and Aryll. “If you aren’t feeling my message, don’t worry—I know how to get you in the mood.”
Then she wrenches the nail from my middle finger, and the world goes dark.
20
“YOU THINK THE STARS KEEP you safe at night . . . but they can’t protect you from what’s coming.”
I open my eyes. My vision is bleary, and my face feels wet. There’s water on my lips. I lick them thirstily and look around. Something’s hurting me. . . .
“You believe there are twelve kinds of people in the universe, but what about me? Where do I fit in, crab?”
The scene on ’Nox is blurry and out of focus. The Riser is still talking to me and seems to have been speaking to me this whole time . . . as if she didn’t realize or care that I’d passed out. I look down at my fingers. Every nail on my left hand has been removed.
When I see what the Riser is doing now, I bite back a scream—I can’t react, I can’t let her win, I can’t fall apart.
The pain I’ve been feeling comes into full focus. She’s slicing my arm open with a knife. She’s carving the twelve House symbols into my skin.
“You won’t belong to any House either when I’m done with you.” She’s already up to my elbow and midway through the Zodiac. The pain is so overwhelming that nausea is rising up again, and I can’t cling to the present for very long.
“You’re killing her!” screams Aryll, his face red and splotchy. He sounds like he’s been shouting himself hoarse for as long as I’d been unconscious.
The Riser holds up her knife, giving me a moment to breathe. “I can take care of that tongue for you, Red. While I’m there, I can pluck out that other eye, too, make you symmetrical again.”
She’s going to keep torturing me until it’s time for the broadcast, even if she kills me first. I can see from the look in her eyes that not even an order from the master can stop her from going too far.
The injured soldier is still at the control helm, watching the Riser closely. Again, they’re communicating in silence. After a few moments of this, she grudgingly puts down the knife. “Fine. You have two minutes to recover before I continue, crab.”
She takes a drink of water and then splashes some on my face. My only ally now is the time I have left until the broadcast, and all I can do is distract her as long as I can. Everything’s riding on the hope that Brynda, Rubi, and the others can get past the Marad’s technology and track our location. Before we’re all dead.
“H-hey,” I manage. “What . . . what House were . . . you from?” My voice is croaky and insubstantial, and it makes me cringe to hear it.
She shrugs disdainfully. “What do you care? I don’t. I don’t even remember. The Houses have nothing to do with me.”
Mom taught me about these kinds of Risers—the ones who shift so many times that they begin to lose their earliest memories, until eventually they can’t remember anything before their life in their current House cycle. They forget who they were, and even though they’ve taken on a new appearance in a new constellation, all that truly remains of them is emptiness. A void so vast they try to fill it with anything—money, sex, violence, power—whatever works.
“Do you have a name?” I chance.
�
�One I have chosen, not one that was given to me.” I note how important the distinction is to her. “I am Corinthe.”
“Is . . . is there anything you care about?”
“Killing you. Destroying whatever hope the Houses have left.”
“Why? What will that do?”
“Cleanse the planets so we can start anew,” she says in her raspy voice. “We won’t have to hide behind masks because we won’t need your acceptance anymore.”
“Corinthe, this isn’t the way. If you let us go, I’ll still appear on the broadcast with you and plead for your acceptance . . . even after everything you’ve done.”
“Break’s over,” she snarls. She yanks on my arm, and a spasm of pain shoots through me. I turn my head to the side and vomit on the floor.
“What an idiotic little fool,” Corinthe says fiercely. The blade of her knife pierces my skin, and the agony is unbearable. My whole arm is on fire as she carves the Scales of Justice into the crook of my elbow. “Acceptance of the new only comes with the ousting of the old. Just like the Trinary Axis. You have to overthrow the system to build a new one.”
“You’re . . . wrong,” I breathe. “You’re being . . . brainwashed.”
Corinthe has been ostracized, bullied, despised. Like Vecily’s friend Datsby. And now the master is exploiting her pain for his own needs. “Corinthe, you’re as much a victim as the rest of us.”
The knife digs so deep I can’t hold back my cry. I pass out as she starts on the Scorpion.
When I come to again, my whole arm is cut up, from wrist to shoulder. I’m pallid and weak, and I’ve lost a lot of blood. A light is flickering in front of me, and I realize Corinthe is beginning her broadcast.
“Took you three ampoules of wake-up gas,” she murmurs in her reptilian tone. “Do as I say, and I promise you a swift death. You’re nearly there already.”
A message scrolls across the wallscreens in the nose. It takes me a moment to see the words clearly.
My name is Rhoma Grace. I was a citizen of what was once House Cancer. I’m here to tell you I’ve realized that the House system is wrong. It must be overthrown. The only way for us to truly unite is to lose the twelve signs and come together under one banner. We are all Marad.
“No,” I croak.
Corinthe raises her weapon and points it at Stanton, who’s sitting against the wall, half-conscious, watching us. He barely has any strength to react.
“No.”
Not my brother.
I have to say what she wants. But she’s going to kill him anyway, says a small voice in my head. I might as well die staying true to my beliefs. Doesn’t matter, I argue with myself. I can’t do something that will cause Stanton pain.
My eyes fill with tears as I read the Marad’s words once more, this time preparing myself to speak them aloud. Charon was right, after all—I am a coward. My Cancrian heart doesn’t make me strong; it makes me weak. I’m about to betray everything I hold true, everything I’ve fought for, because of my irrational, irrepressible love for my brother.
I clear my throat and look into the transmitter. “My name is Rho—”
The transmission cuts out as every light in the ship shuts off. Equinox goes dark.
“What’s happening?” says Corinthe, sounding nervous for the first time.
“We’ve lost power,” says a man’s muffled voice. It takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from the injured soldier, who’s speaking through his mask. That means their communication system has been affected, too.
The nose is completely black, but I begin to hear faint footsteps nearby. “Try to—”
Corinthe is cut off abruptly, and soon I hear the sound of a scuffle by the control helm, too. Something heavy hits the floor.
For a moment I hold my breath, unsure what’s happening.
Then I hear him.
“Look alive, ’Nox.”
21
THE SHIP’S LIGHTS BLINK BACK on, and I see Lord Neith’s towering, white-haired figure at the control helm, binding the hands and feet of the injured soldier, who’s been knocked out. Hysan is tying up an unconscious Corinthe.
“Neith, are you okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” booms Lord Neith’s sonorous voice.
Hysan surveys the rest of the room, and our eyes meet. “Rho.”
The golden color drains from his skin, and I can only imagine the version of myself that’s reflected in his horrified gaze. He rushes over to where I’m sitting and bleeding out. He quickly but carefully undoes my shackles and scoops me up in his arms. In my periphery, I can see Lord Neith and Aryll tending to my brother and Nishi, but I can’t speak. Hysan is silent as he carries me into his cabin and sets me on his bed to rest. He hits a few keys on a wallscreen, and the healing pod emerges from a hidden floor compartment.
“I don’t want it,” I whisper, my voice so frail it splinters.
“Rho, you need to heal.” His words are thick with suppressed emotion. “Please.”
I shake my head, my whole body shivering. Hysan quickly pulls back the sheets so I can burrow in, and I surprise myself by repeating something Mom used to say: “Erasing a memory from the body doesn’t erase it from the mind.”
Hysan pours me a tonic for the pain, and as soon as I take it, I feel a sleepy sensation come over me. I’m still awake, but my muscles feel dormant even when I’m tossing and turning to try to get comfortable. Then he brings over a healing kit and carefully cleans my cuts. Hysan finishes by wrapping a long bandage around my arm, covering it completely. Then he tends to the raw skin beneath my nails and bandages the ends of my fingers.
Once I’m finally sitting up and seeing clearly, Hysan holds my uninjured hand in his and whispers, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Rho. I should have been here. I shouldn’t have left—”
“Stop.” I wrap my healthy arm around him and let myself fall apart, the way I did when I lost Mathias. Only this time, I lost Deke. My best friend. My second brother.
“H-how did you find us?” I ask when I’ve calmed down some, my face still buried in the crook of his neck.
“Sirna’s necklace.”
I stare up at him in surprise. I touch the rose-colored pearl, the token that’s become such a part of me I don’t even think about it. I owe my life to Sirna—again.
“Neith and I flew a Dragonfly over. It’s veiled and docks into a secret port on ’Nox, so the soldiers couldn’t detect us.”
“But how’d you override the Marad’s controls? When we tried to escape, Twain said . . .” My voice breaks on his name, and I forget what I was saying.
“I’m sorry, Rho.” Hysan kisses my hair, his heartbeat pounding faster in my ear. “I knew Twain. He was an absolutist—he was seeking something to believe in, and once he found it, he could only believe in it all the way, no compromises. I know he would have considered this a worthy death.” Even though his words are soothing, his voice is swimming in sadness. Twain was his friend for far longer than he was mine.
“Remember how I told you I built the Libran Talisman into ’Nox’s brain?” asks Hysan, and I nod. “Well, the Talisman is more powerful than anything manmade, and it responds only to me. So once I located you, I had no trouble gaining access.”
“What happened with Neith?” I ask, suddenly remembering why Hysan wasn’t with us earlier. And it’s a good thing he wasn’t, or none of us would be here now.
Hysan frowns. “I’m not sure. I have to run some more diagnostics when we land. I found him on the streets of Aeolus, completely disoriented. According to his Royal Guard, he was missing for more than a day, but he doesn’t know where he was. He’s lost time.”
There’s a knock on the cabin door. “Come in, Neith,” says Hysan.
The android’s regal figure shadows the doorway. “Lady Rho, I’m so relieved to see you safe.” As always, his quartz irises are str
ikingly human. “I have secured the hostages in the storage hold. Your friends’ wounds have been tended, and they are in their cabins resting. Nishiko might need the healing pod if you’re done with it.”
I jump to my feet, the movement so quick it disorients me, and Hysan has to steady me. “Easy, Rho. Relax.”
“I need to see Nishi.” Hysan offers me his arm, and Neith shows us to her new cabin. With a pang, I recall that until today, she’d been sleeping in Hysan’s with Deke.
I’m at her door, but I don’t immediately go in. I don’t know if I can face her. It’s my fault Deke is gone. She has to hate me for it, and I can’t bear to see that on her face.
“She needs you,” whispers Hysan. I nod and open the door.
Nishi is in a ball in the middle of the bed, her blanket of black hair nearly covering her whole body. When she looks up at me, there’s no blame in her eyes—only unending despair.
I don’t know which one of us moves first. All I know is we’re melting together to the floor, sobbing into each other’s ears.
The war’s over.
We lost.
Once I’ve convinced Nishi to use the healing pod, I check on Stanton and Aryll.
“Rho,” breathes my brother, hugging me as soon as I walk into the galley. We stay locked together a few moments, neither of us willing to step away.
“I want to kill her.” We pull apart and turn to Aryll. I’ve never seen his stare so cold before. “She deserves it,” he says defiantly.
“We can’t,” I murmur. “She and her army are our only leads to the master.”
“They’re murderers.”
Stanton looks as though he wants to agree with Aryll but knows better than to say so. “Aryll, let’s catch our breath first,” he says, resting a hand on his shoulder. Aryll doesn’t argue with him.
I sit in their silent company until I can’t wait any longer, and then I leave and head toward the storage hold.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Hysan’s already by the door, having predicted my next stop.
Wandering Star: A Zodiac Novel Page 18
