Zodiac (22 page)

“What’s inside the sphere?” I whisper to Mathias.

“That’s the arenasphere. When the Plenum’s not here, the locals use it for holographic wrestling. It’s actually a big business here.”

I’ve seen that on my Wave before. Contestants alter their holograms to look like imaginary beasts—flying horses, gargoyles, three-headed dogs. The technology is similar to what powers the Imaginarium on Gemini.

There’s a holographic newsfeed nearby, and Mathias and I sprint over to hear it. The footage is of ground fighting on the Sagittarian moon, where immigrant Scorps have turned against their Sagittarian employers, demanding the right to practice religious rituals in the workplace. Sagittarians are extremely tolerant people, which makes me wonder what kind of rituals the Scorps want to practice.

Since Sagittarius is a large constellation with many livable planets, I hope Nishi and her family are far away from the fighting. We don’t hear anything about Cancer, but there’s a report on the charred wasteland of Tethys in House Virgo. Where the needle city once towered, a crater now gapes like a dark wound, fringed by smoking rubble.

The fire was contained, but the sky is full of ash, shading out the sunlight, and much of the oxygen has burned away. Zodai predict a bitter winter on the planet’s surface. Years of grain harvests will fail, causing universal food shortages. All survivors have been evacuated to Virgo’s lesser planets, where the main problem now is overcrowding. Empress Moira remains in critical care.

Virgo’s cries still echo in my head when we return to the front desk to check with Hysan.

“They’ve finally agreed to contact your representative. Ambassador Sirna is on her way.” His verdant eyes narrow on mine. “What is it?”

“What
isn’t
it?”

“We’re still around to
bemoan our state, my lady.” His lips hitch into his crooked smirk. “So that’s something.” No matter how dark the circumstances, Hysan can always find the light. It’s my favorite thing he does.

When she arrives, the sight of Sirna’s Cancrian face warms me like a hug. She’s in her thirties, with dark hair, ebony skin, and sea-blue eyes, and she’s wearing Cancrian formal attire: a long, flowing skirt coupled with a coat that bears the four sacred silver moons. But up close, I realize she’s not smiling. “Honored Guardian, we meet at last.”

We exchange hand touches, and after I introduce my friends, she says, “Your long silence perplexes us. We don’t understand your presence here when our people need you so desperately at home.”

I open my mouth, but Mathias interrupts. “Ambassador, there’s no place our Holy Mother would rather be than home. She’s come here with an urgent message for all the Houses.”

“The same message your classmate has been spreading?” Sirna’s eyes sharpen. “We’ve seen the video she’s sent to all the news outlets. We know your band is touring school campuses and using their performances as a cover to spread rumors about the childhood monster Ochus and win you more followers. Do you intend to incite hysteria? With all the suffering in our House, would you use our tragedy to promote your personal cult?”

I’m so astounded by the accusation that I can barely take my next breath, much less compose an answer. Hysan cuts in, deepening his voice with authority, “Ambassador, your Guardian will address the Plenum. Please arrange this now.”

“Yes, please,” I say, my voice wispy. “It’s vital.”

As much as Sirna might like to, an ambassador can’t refuse a direct order from her Guardian. Sirna talks to the clerks, and somehow they manage to squeeze me into today’s schedule. I’ll speak in less than two hours. Even though we just won a small victory, it doesn’t feel that way.

Once the arrangements are made, Hysan says, “I have to meet the Libran representative. I will see you at the Plenum, my lady.” He bows and takes off, and I can’t tell if his lack of eye contact is intentional, or if he’s just preoccupied.

Sirna escorts us to her office on a lower level beneath the giant sphere. “You can wait here,” she says. “I have other duties.”

“What’s the latest news from Cancer?” I ask.

“Worse every day.” With a curt goodbye, Sirna takes off to a committee meeting, leaving me standing there, gaping at her words and easy cruelty.

Her basement office is chilly and sterile, with scarce furniture. There are two benches, a desk, and a saltwater aquarium. Two soldiers stand guard outside the door. Mathias sweeps the place for surveillance tech. “It’s not secure,” he whispers. “There’s at least a dozen brands of spy devices in this room alone.”

“So we won’t talk.” I watch the miniature seahorses in the aquarium, then sit down on one of Sirna’s hard steel benches. “I’m going to think of what to tell the Plenum. You should find your parents and let them know where we are.”

He frowns. He never smiles anymore. “I’d rather not leave you alone.”

“Go,” I say. “We said we’d check in with them. I’ll wait until you’re back to get into trouble.”

With a reluctant grunt, he leaves, promising to be back right away. A little later, and with barely a sound, the door eases open, and Sirna returns, signaling silence before I can speak.

She touches a blue, clam-shaped brooch pinned on her collar, just at the base of her throat, and when it flashes, I realize it’s her Wave. Next, she takes a silver ball from her sleeve and tosses it up in the air. The ball sprouts wings and flies around the room, whining like a sand flea.

“My office is always being watched,” she whispers. “But this scrambler can blind prying eyes for a few minutes.”

She watches the little scrambler buzz around the room. Then her quick blue eyes roll back to me. “Why did you desert our House, Guardian?”

Her question feels like a slap, and her ferocious expression makes me feel like a little girl again. “You’d better have an answer ready,” she says, “because many here will ask.”

I try to infuse my voice with authority, the way Hysan did when he spoke to her earlier. “You know why I’ve come.”

“I know the ring of moon rubble has changed our ocean tides,” says Sirna, almost hissing the words at me. “We’re seeing massive dislocations. The marine food chain is breaking down at every level. There were further shifts to the planet’s core. More tsunamis. We’ve had to start evacuations . . . planet-wide.”

Her last word stands out in the sea of blankness of my mind.

Planet-wide.

I left Cancer to save the Zodiac . . . and now my home is dying.

“Only our largest cities are still above water. Our islands and low-lying communities have been drowned.”

“W-what about my family?”

“
Your
family? I hope you’re referring to the entire population, Holy Mother. As Guardian, you’re Mother to
all
Cancrians, or did you forget?” She exhales loudly and stares at the scrambler, pursing her lips.

My heartbeat is suspended in her silence.

In a milder voice, she says, “Your father and brother are missing. I’m sorry, Guardian.”

MISSING?

I’d just recovered them. I didn’t even get to see them when they were found—how can they be lost again?

My heart feels like it’s doubled in size, and my ribs can barely contain it. I squeeze my eyes shut to keep the tears back because I don’t want to give Sirna more reasons to look down on me. But the biggest thing fueling my journey was the fact that Dad and Stanton were alive. I couldn’t have found the strength to leave Cancer, to draw Ochus away, if I hadn’t seen with my own eyes that my family was safe.

How can home ever be home without them?

I feel the way I did my first night on Oceon 6: bereft, Centerless, alone. Like once again, I’m being asked to give more than I have left. Only this time, it’s not just Cancer at stake. It’s the whole Zodiac.

“We have a larger problem,” says Sirna, as though my family were just a bullet point on a long list of items. “Did Crius inform you of my duties here?”

I blink a few times, letting the pain fill me a little longer, and Nishi’s words come back to me:
It’s okay to feel your pain before walling it off.

The thought of her makes me almost smile, and it reminds me that she hasn’t given up. She hasn’t gone home to see her family, even though there’s trouble now on Sagittarius, too. She’s still out there, still fighting for me. For our cause. For our world.

I can’t fall apart now.

“You’re our ambassador,” I say, straightening in my seat, my voice steady and brisk. I haven’t heard myself sound this way before. “You represent our interests at the Plenum.”

Sirna seems to consider the change in me before speaking again. “Then Crius didn’t tell you.” She crosses her arms with a frown. “I’ll have to educate you myself. But first, you’ll swear
on your Mother’s life
never to reveal what I’m about to say.”

“I swear.”

She leans close and whispers, “I oversee a group of agents in the Cancrian Secret Service. My agents have uncovered information about a clandestine army gathering on the Aeriean planet Phobos.”

The thought of Cancrian spies is still more funny than interesting, and I don’t have time to worry about a gang of humans speaking surreptitiously when there’s an immortal Guardian bent on our destruction. “I don’t know anything about an army. My goal is to warn the Plenum about Ophiuchus.”

“Oh, grow up!” she shouts, springing to her feet. I jump up, too, and we both glare into each other’s faces. “You’ll find an army can be a hell of a lot more destructive than a children’s-book monster,” she growls.

“Then I hope you never have to meet that monster face to face, Ambassador.”

I blast out of the room, banging the door shut behind me.

• • •

Our sea is in turmoil. Our people are in exile. My brother and dad can’t be found. In a daze, I wander beneath the colossal steel globe of the arenasphere, stumbling into people and kiosks.

Dozens of Aerian Acolytes race past, conducting the Plenum’s urgent errands, but to me they’re just shadows. Mathias would advise me not to dwell on individual grief, and yet, oddly enough, I’m thinking about my mother.

She feels more present today than she has in years. After all, she’s the person who taught me to believe in my fears.

I’ve never told anyone, but when Mom left, I wasn’t upset. I was
free
.

For Dad, the change was overnight. He was quiet to begin with, but he barely spoke again. For me, the sadness started later. First I rejected the things that reminded me of her—Yarrot, Centering, reading the stars—then I clung to them like they could bring her back.

Stanton missed her the most. She was different with him. When it came to me, she was more instructor than mother, but with Stanton, she was a friend. She would ask him to tag along with her on errands, and she’d pull him into arguments with Dad, as if Stanton were an adult who could referee. When she would get to that point, Dad usually let her win.

After she left, Stanton began telling me stories about her, ones I hadn’t heard before. His favorite was the one about Hurricane Hebe.

Mom had seen it coming in her Ephemeris, so she warned our neighbors and filled our storm cellar with bags of fresh water, dried kelp, and medical supplies. But Hebe didn’t strike our atoll. It only blew a few trees down and knocked over the nar-clams. Dad teased her all day for overreacting.

Mom didn’t defend herself. She was seven months pregnant with me at the time, and while Dad rescued his nar-clams, she loaded up her schooner with the supplies she’d set aside. Six-foot waves still roiled the sea, and when she placed little Stanton in the schooner’s front seat, Dad railed at her and tried to stop my brother from going.

“Stanton has to come,” she said. “It’s fated.”

So they set off to Naxos, the next nearest island, eighteen kilometers away. The stars had told her Naxos would take a direct hit, and it had. For five days, she and little Stanton helped the Naxos families dig through the ruins for survivors, and on the fifth day, Stanton wriggled down through a tiny hole into a collapsed cellar and found an infant still alive.

If it hadn’t happened to my own brother, I’d never believe it.

Will fate lead someone to rescue Stanton and Dad if they’re in trouble now? Or should I abandon what I’m doing and be the one who finds them? If only I could use an Ephemeris again. . . .

Through the haze of my thoughts, a recognizable figure walking toward me becomes clearer. I almost can’t believe my eyes.

“Dr. Eusta?”

“Honored Guardian. How glad I am to have found you in time.” He doesn’t look glad. His beady eyes glare at me.

“What are you doing here?” When I offer a hand touch, my hand passes right through him. He’s still a hologram.

“Ambassador Sirna has informed us of your plan to speak at the Plenum. You must not do this. You’ll bring shame on our House.”

“But, Doctor, I—”

“Cancer will be the laughingstock of the galaxy. Do our anguished people deserve such a blow?”

“And do the other Houses deserve nothing?” I ask, blood rushing to my cheeks. “I can’t stand by in silence.”

His face distorts with rage. “Your own House suffers grievously, and Admiral Crius commands you to return. He sent me here to bring you home.”

When he shows me Crius’s written order, I squint at the virtual document, confused. Crius doesn’t have the authority to command me. He’s my Military Advisor, so he can only overrule me in times of war, and only if he and the majority of my Advisors vote that my life is in danger. But . . . this doesn’t feel right.

Dr. Eusta glances aside. “Another emergency. I must go. But hear me well, Guardian. Do not speak at the Plenum.”

The doctor’s hologram flashes away, and I blink as if waking from a stupor. Mathias is standing in front of me, gently shaking my arm.

“Rho, I’ve been searching everywhere for you. The session’s beginning. We have to go in.”

“Right,” I say, still a bit dazed. “Did you find your parents?”

“Yes. We’ll talk later. Let’s hurry.”

We step into the ruby-colored stair pipe, and its walls turn everything blood red. I’m still reeling from my meeting with Sirna, and the doctor’s visit has not boosted my confidence—nor did Mathias’s advice last night. I still have no idea what I’m going to say. I feel more uncertain of myself than ever.

Mathias guides me out of the pipe at the first level, where a round door opens for us. The vast echoing arenasphere is a hollow globe lined in dark quilted fabric like a jewel box. Tiers of sleek chrome seats ring its curved walls, and virtual screens move through the air, forming panes of flickering color.

The sphere’s almost empty when we enter, and the air has an exhausted staleness. The entire upper half is one giant holo-tap. Only a few lackadaisical holo-ghosts drift under the ceiling, viewing the session like passing clouds. And as I watch them, it strikes me what felt wrong about Dr. Eusta:
He wasn’t a ghost.

How did he project his hologram all the way from Cancer without a time lag? He spoke to me as if his signal was coming from nearby.

Mathias pulls on my hand, and I have to speed up to keep pace with him as he leads us deeper into the arenasphere. For the Plenum session, the Arieans have rigged a temporary platform in the bed of the sphere, a half-moon stage facing an arc of tall gilded seats reserved for the ambassadors. When I step onto the stage, three flying micro-cameras buzz around me like gnats.

I have no idea what Nishi likes about the spotlight. Looking out at the vast arena from the stage, the only thing keeping me together is the hope of the finish line. If I can manage to convince even a few Houses of the danger we’re in, we’ll have allies. Then there will be others besides us on the case.

I rub my sweaty palms on my yellow suit with the glyph of the four silver moons. What a sight I must make: a girl almost too short to see over the top of the lectern, wearing a mismatched uniform. I have to stand on tiptoe to face my meager audience of only seven sleepy-eyed ambassadors and their entourage of adjuncts, Acolytes, and aides. It’s the end of the day, and they look like the last thing they want to do is hear another speech.

Brick-red Albor Echus sits at the center, representing Aries. His opulent fur robes can’t hide his double chins or bulging belly. Next to him is a rail-thin man with a face like a knife blade. His nameplate says he’s Ambassador Charon of Scorpio. The Virgo ambassador’s chair is empty, as are several others.

I spot Sirna. She’s leaning back with her arms crossed under her chest, looking sullen. I should have reached out to her when I was made Guardian. There are so many things I should have done.

Crius is right to order me home. Mother Origene won people’s devotion through her deeds. I’ve done nothing but disappear.

Mathias stands at attention in his blue Cancrian uniform near the main door. Just as I’m about to begin, Hysan makes an entrance, bumping fists and slapping backs with people from every House, looking resplendent in a charcoal-gray court suit. He winks at me, and my stomach does a small flip.

He sits behind his own Libran ambassador, a stylish, bearded blond man whose nameplate reads Ambassador Frey. Leaning forward, Hysan whispers a few words to Frey, and they smile as if they’re sharing a private joke.

I take a deep breath and stammer the formal greeting Mathias taught me. “Hail, Excellencies, Most Honorable. Thank you for hearing me today.”

The faces of Sirna, Dr. Eusta, and Mathias all seem to be swimming in my head, their words making me hesitate.

Am I wrong to insist on honor when we’re dealing with an enemy who has none? Ophiuchus is manipulating people, pretending he doesn’t exist—would it be so bad if I manipulated as well, blamed Sirna’s army or some other boogeyman for the bloodshed? Isn’t that the point of the children’s-book monster after all—to be scapegoat for a bigger evil?

What I need is for the Zodiac to unite. Regardless of what name I give him, there’s still someone out there after us, and the ship’s logs documenting a Psy attack prove at least that much. When Moira awakens, she can tell them it’s Ophiuchus, and I’ll back her then.

“I’ve come to warn you,” I say, a slight tremble in my voice. I clear my throat and put more force behind my words. “Every House in the Zodiac is in danger.”

There’s an edgy stirring in the audience, and I glance overhead, waiting for Ochus to strike. When nothing happens, I stiffen my shaky knees and start my story by counting off all the recent natural disasters in the newsfeeds, sharing my theory that they’re part of a pattern, and then insisting they were triggered by someone who’s manipulating Psynergy to control Dark Matter.

A louder hum of protests begins. As I watch people’s faces, any words of a Thirteenth House turn to sand in my mouth.

Then I flash back to the Strider and the bubbles breaking the sea’s surface. I see the gray light of Thebe flickering in the Ephemeris. If I’m not brave enough to speak now, I’ll be like one of the Guardians in Mom’s Ochus story—too afraid to believe in my fears.

Agatha’s blessing comes back to me:
May your inner light always shine, and may it guide us through our darkest nights.

I think this is exactly the kind of moment she was referring to. The darkness shrouding our galaxy is growing so thick, it’s getting hard to tell right from wrong—even for our leaders. Agatha advised me to stay true to my Cancrian values, even—or especially—when the temptation to do what’s easy over what’s right feels greatest. And now I know what I’ve come to say.

“Some of you will not want to believe me, but I beg you to have open minds. Everything I am about to tell you can be confirmed by Empress Moira, as soon as she recovers. There is a part of our galaxy that has been hidden from us, I don’t know how or for how long. The Thirteenth House isn’t just a fable we tell our children—it’s a real constellation, just past Pisces. A House called Ophiuchus.”

The audience stirs like a nest of sea spiders, and the ambassadors whisper among themselves. But I’m not finished. “Its original Guardian was exiled, condemned to immortality in the darkest reaches of space. And now he’s returned to the Zodiac for revenge.”

I start describing how he felt solid in the Psy, and I have to raise my voice to speak over the audience. I rap the lectern with my knuckles, but no one seems to hear. Finally, Hysan stands and yells, “Quiet! Let her speak.”

I catch his eye and nod my gratitude. He smiles at me, and for a moment I see the same teenage guy who was in the sea of representatives at my swearing-in ceremony. He didn’t know me then, but still he had my back.

When the audience settles down, I say, “Ophiuchus must be stopped. We can only do that if we quit arguing among ourselves and come together to form a plan.”

More people are entering the arenasphere now, people from all corners of the Zodiac. The seats are filling up, and the noise level rises. A dozen more tiny cameras buzz around me. Word of my speech must have spread already, so I keep talking, as loud as my lungs will allow.

“If this enemy can damage a House as wealthy and powerful as Virgo, no one’s safe. Our only chance is to band together.”