Zodiac

by Romina Russell

  Shock is like lightning—it only lasts an instant—but its replacement is hot, prickly shame. I would have preferred death on Elara to this choice. Whatever my mother did, I know my answer. There is no choice—not for me.

  “I belong on Cancer, with my family.” My voice is strong, and it makes me stronger. “Thank you for your offer, but I decline.”

  The admiral’s brow dips so low, it forms a wall between his eyes. “You understand you’ll be forced to live isolated from Cancrian society, forbidden to return to anything or anyone you know?”

  “I understand,” I say, opening my mind to memories I’ve been blocking out for a decade. They’re surprisingly well preserved and untarnished. I can’t believe I’ve found Mom again.

  “Will you please let me see her? Under our laws, she’s allowed a final visit with family.”

  He shakes his head. “That will not be necessary. We have never met your mother, nor do we know where she is. This was a test, which you have passed.”

  Confusion flits through my features quickly, followed by relief: Mom’s not a traitor, I can have my life again.

  And then anger.

  Another test.

  The white-haired lady takes a rickety step, leaning heavily on a cane. “I’m Agatha Cleiss, and this is my colleague, Dr. Emory Eusta.” She offers her hand, but I don’t exchange the traditional touch.

  Her lips stretch into a sad smile. “My dear, forgive us. We’ve tricked you in a most barbaric way. This terrible tragedy has forced us to act in a cruel manner, and this lie was the quickest route to the answers we sought. If you’ll take a seat, we will explain.”

  I bite hard on the inside of my lip, now angrier about the apology—it’d be easier to storm out of here if she didn’t seem so genuinely sorry.

  The bald man beside her looks so real that only when I see his arm pass through the corner of a shelf do I realize he’s a hologram. Since Dr. Eusta shows no sign of a time delay, he must be transmitting from nearby.

  I sit down on one of four cushioned chairs surrounding a square table, where a tray of water and sandwiches has been laid out. The sight of food makes my stomach rumble.

  Crius sits across from me. His sallow skin has a fatigued grayish cast, and his mouth twists in a skeptical frown. “Have some refreshment.”

  “No, thank you,” I say, over my stomach’s renewed protests.

  Agatha lowers her gnarled body into the chair next to mine. “Why do you think you were tested twice at the Academy?”

  “Because I failed the first time.”

  She smiles sadly again, and her misty green-gray eyes grow distant. Across from me, Admiral Crius takes a dark stone from his pocket and lays it on the table. It’s smooth and oblong, and though it appears dull black at first, the longer I gaze at it, the more brilliant colors I see within its depths. Viridian blue-green, aqua, indigo, amethyst, even a scattering of crimson. And it’s not dull at all. It’s glossy slick.

  “Black opal,” says Dr. Eusta. “It holds Guardian Origene’s Ephemeris.”

  “As far as we can tell,” adds Agatha, “it’s in perfect working order. We don’t know why it failed to show the approach of this catastrophe.”

  In this room at least, my theory about Astralators being insufficient is irrelevant. The Guardian and her Council are so good at foreseeing the future, they can interpret what’s coming from simply observing the stars’ movements. They don’t need an Astralator to tell apart what’s real from what’s imagined. That kind of natural Sight takes decades to develop.

  Crius gives a voice command to switch off the lights, and we’re enveloped in cottony blackness. Now I’m thoroughly confused.

  “Touch the stone,” says Agatha.

  It’s a strange request, but I do it. From the moment they brought out the opal, I’ve wanted to hold it.

  When I lift it in my hand, the stone feels warm. I roll it around my fingers, sensing tiny clefts in its smooth surface. The imperfections are so slight, they’re barely perceptible; but the moment I discover them, a shadowy mass begins to form in my mind, like I’m unscrambling a code.

  The longer I brush my fingertip along the ridges, the more defined the shadow grows, until I recognize the configuration of bumps as part of a constellation.

  Cancer.

  As soon as I identify the image, a light fountains upward from the stone, and I shriek as it scatters through the air, filling the room with stars. The others stand in shocked silence, but it’s not the stone’s power that’s stumped them—it’s mine.

  The opal is projecting a hologram of the universe. A large hologram, ovoid in shape, it’s the finest and most detailed Ephemeris I’ve ever seen. I stand inside its nimbus of light and spread my fingers, letting stars sparkle over my skin.

  “You’ve discovered its key,” says Agatha, the amazement in her tone less than encouraging. “The ridges on the stone shift their shape every time the Ephemeris shuts off, so the lock changes. The key is always an incomplete map, so only those most familiar with our solar system could even hope to fill in the blanks and open it.”

  “You mean that was another test?” I ask flatly.

  Dr. Eusta’s hologram moves through the Ephemeris like a pixilating shade. “Yes. And so is this.”

  Agatha rests her hands on the head of her cane and locks eyes with me. “Holy Mother used to say the future is a house of a million windows. Every Zodai sees a different view of the stars, so everyone’s reading is different. Some readings conflict. Some are wholly wrong. And some . . . may be deliberately misleading.”

  “We want to hear your reading of what happened to our moons,” says the blinking hologram of Dr. Eusta.

  “You want me to read Holy Mother’s Ephemeris?” I ask. The amazement in Agatha’s tone was nothing compared to mine.

  I can’t believe they’re asking for my interpretation. “I’m not well trained—I don’t use an Astralator. I was the only one in our year who failed the Academy’s test—”

  “Take all the time you need,” says Agatha, like she hasn’t heard a word of my protest. She and Admiral Crius sit back and wait, while the holographic Dr. Eusta floats around, like another celestial body on the spectral map.

  I blow out a hard breath and look around. I’ve never seen the Zodiac in such detail before. The soft glimmering lights rotate through the air with much higher resolution than even our planetarium’s Ephemeris at the Academy. Black holes, white dwarfs, red giants, and more, all shining in brilliant definition.

  It’s only now, inside this luminous representation of our world, that I realize I never lost my Center. Like Mathias said—Cancer sustains us.

  Home is within me, no matter where I go, no matter what happens to our planet or our people. As long as my heart is beating, it’s playing a Cancrian tune.

  Always.

  The thought fills me with such a strong sense of self that I feel large and invincible. In spite of everything the universe strips from me, it can’t take what’s inside my head and in my heart. Those things are mine forever.

  The room grows so quiet, I can hear my exhalations. I stare at the blue orb of Cancer, its surface bluer than in any Ephemeris I’ve looked through before, and I keep staring until I feel my soul drifting skyward. In the astral plane, I see the rubble field where our moons once orbited. And as I’m watching, the debris begins to flicker.

  My pulse picks up as I move closer. This map is so large that it’s the first time I can see what’s really happening when a moon flickers. It’s not fluctuations in the Psy Network, like I’d secretly hoped.

  In fact, the moons aren’t even flickering. I wasn’t seeing them vanish—I was seeing them get swallowed by something black and writhing, something thicker than Space. The tarlike substance is still there, guiding the rubble’s movement, like a puppeteer pulling invisible strings.

  It’s Dark M
atter.

  “No meteoroid did this,” I whisper.

  “Of course not. That was only a rumor,” mutters Dr. Eusta. “Our astronomers have already confirmed no foreign body struck our moons. No telescope or satellite registered any object. We can’t find any data because as soon as the explosion happened, every device in Thebe’s vicinity stopped working . . . which you know, since the power outage even reached Elara.”

  The pink space suit burns in my mind. Like it’s been branded there.

  I let the pain scorch my brain, welcoming it. I never want to forget the people we lost tonight. They are why I need to help, if I can. I take a few steps back, looking at the Zodiac as a whole instead of focusing on one constellation at a time.

  The first thing I notice is a flickering in House Leo. Then I notice another flickering in Taurus. These flickers are feeble, though. They don’t seem like threats—they’re more like ghosts of flickers past. The Psy Network is showing me that Dark Matter touched those Houses, too.

  “It’s a pattern,” I say, piecing it together out loud as I go. “The Leonine fires, the mudslides in House Taurus—these tragedies . . . they’re all connected.”

  At these words, my interrogators lower their eyes, and I get the sense they’re communicating with each other silently. They’re going to dismiss my readings as nonsense, just as the dean did. Only I won’t let them. Nishi was right: I can’t ignore my visions if there’s a chance they can help.

  “We are not asking about the past,” says Admiral Crius, once they’ve finished conferring in the Psy. “Now answer our question: What caused our moons to collide?”

  I force myself not to flinch at the violence in his voice. Then I say, “Dark Matter.”

  They don’t bother with the niceties of hiding their disbelief—this time, they say what they’re thinking out loud, to my face.

  “Dark Matter!” Dr. Eusta sounds halfway hysterical. “Are we done here now?” he asks the other two. “She’s wasted enough of our time, don’t you think?” Admiral Crius seems inclined to agree.

  “Where do you perceive Dark Matter?” asks Agatha, staring at the rubble. I point to where I see it, but she only sees black Space.

  She closes her eyes and touches her Ring. When she opens them again, she turns to the men. “Dark Matter is the only substance strong enough to suck the life force from a planet . . . and knock out our energy systems. If it’s now starting to appear in the Ephemeris . . .”

  Admiral Crius shakes his head. “It can’t be.”

  “But if it is,” insists Agatha, “that means it’s being manipulated using Psynergy. Only a powerful Zodai could wield Psynergy that way.”

  Crius suddenly leans forward, grips my wrist, and glares into my eyes. My whole arm throbs in agony from his crushing hold. He’s checking me for lies. The violence that’s been so close to erupting from him strangles my veins and suffocates my skin, but I refuse to even blink.

  “So it’s true,” whispers Agatha when the admiral pulls away from me in defeat.

  “Lights on,” he says.

  When the room brightens, the Ephemeris still glows, speckling Agatha’s wrinkled face with bits of color. Her lips are moving very fast, and I realize she’s talking through her Ring. Crius whispers hasty notes into his Wave. They glance at each other mysteriously, and each gives the other a slight nod. Then Agatha draws herself upright and smiles at me. “I think we are ready to proceed.”

  She takes the opal from my hand and lays it on the table. Instantly, the Ephemeris winks out, and Dr. Eusta’s hologram stops pixilating. Holographic screens start to beam out from Crius’s Wave and hover in the air above us. Each file bears the photo of a uniformed Zodai, but I’m too jittery to read the words.

  “Since the beginning of time, our Lodestars have been predicting the birth of each new Potential,” says Agatha, her voice soft and soothing . . . like Mom’s when she’d settle in to tell me a story.

  “Your astrological fingerprint is on that long list, and so you are one of the many Potentials we have been watching. By the time you arrived at the Academy, you had already studied everything you could about the Houses of the Zodiac, and it was noted by a few of your instructors that you had a keen interest in our world—and a hunger to learn that could rival a Sagittarian’s. You carried a tutorial Ephemeris in your Wave to read your friends’ futures on your own time, for fun. You even knew Yarrot, something only taught to the most advanced Zodai in our House.

  “You worked hard in your classes, and your only difficulty was using the Astralator. What you didn’t realize was that after putting so much work into your Centering technique and spending so much time reading the Ephemeris, you’d become a natural. Like us, you don’t need an Astralator.”

  Admiral Crius jumps in before Agatha’s words can sink in, gesturing at the holographic data crowding the air above us. “These files belong to the candidates we’ve selected as Advisors. They will be beamed to your Wave, as well as the surviving members of the Royal Guard. You’ll see one of your comrades on that list, Lodestar Mathias Thais.”

  I inhale sharply and turn around, only now remembering that Mathias is here. Even before seeing him, I already feel a rush of relief to have a familiar face nearby.

  Except when I look, Mathias isn’t looking back. He’s staring ahead, eyes forward, like he’s determined not to listen to our conversation. His demeanor is completely different from before, when he was drinking in every word, as if the exile in question was his and not mine. I don’t understand what’s changed.

  “Lodestar Thais would make a much better Advisor than me, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I blurt.

  “Excuse me?” Admiral Crius leans forward, and his expression makes me tremble. “Are you under the impression we want you to be an Advisor?”

  “Oh . . . no. Of course not.” Suddenly the thing I want most in the world is to melt into my seat cushion.

  Crius stands, and so does Agatha. Dr. Eusta floats over, and all three of them look down at me. “Rhoma Grace,” Crius starts, his tone making me wonder if we’re back on the subject of exile. “Please forgive our cruel methods.”

  Then—to my extreme shock—he and the others give me a deep bow.

  “The stars revealed a portent that some of us found implausible, but it seems we must accept it. As of today, we honor you as Guardian of the Fourth House, our beloved Cancer.”

  7

  BEFORE I CAN EVEN REACT, the black opal is thrust into my hands, and I’m ushered out of the room and into the arms of two women waiting outside the door.

  I’m half led, half carried along the dim passageways, flanked by the group of officers that met us at the hub when we first landed. I notice Mathias doesn’t come with me this time.

  Oceon 6 is a maze of corridors and sealed doors, and by the time we arrive at our destination, I have no idea how we got here. While the women deposit me in a spacious and cold room, the officers stay outside, probably standing guard.

  “I’m Lola, your Lady of Robes,” says the taller of the two. She’s wearing a Cancrian-style draped dress in periwinkle blue. It reminds me painfully of home, where wardrobes and architecture cascade and have a watery flow. “And this is Leyla . . . m-my little sister.”

  The humanity in her voice is what makes me look up. Lola seems to be about twenty, with a head of thick red curls hiding her small face. Beside her, Leyla smiles shyly, and with a jolt, I realize she’s younger than me. She can’t be more than fourteen.

  “I was apprenticed to Mother Origene’s Lady of Robes,” continues Lola, “and I was in the middle of my training when she . . .” Her face pulls together, and she casts her gaze to the floor. When she’s calm, she makes a small bow. “We are green, but we will do our hardest to serve you, Holy Mother.”

  I want to speak, but there’s something monstrous in my throat, and I’m afraid of releasing it.

>   Unlike her older sister, Leyla’s red curls are pulled away from her face, exposing a pair of round sapphire eyes. She seems to understand what I need and says, “Lola, let’s let Holy Mother rest.”

  They bow to me, and as their dresses swoosh past, I smell a hint of the Cancer Sea in the folds of their fabric. “Can I see my friends?” I whisper, my voice a hoarse rasp.

  Lola’s already in the hallway, but Leyla’s on the threshold, so she hears me. She turns her sapphire eyes to mine and says, “I’m so sorry, Holy Mother. We are under directions to keep you isolated and protected until the threat is identified.”

  She’s just confirming what I already know.

  I’m alone.

  When the door shuts, I look around the room. I must be in the sleeping quarters of the top-ranking Lodestar posted on Oceon 6. There’s a bed in one corner, a private bathroom, and a desk that’s been converted into a makeshift vanity for me. I should use this time to shower, find clean clothes. I should be trying to unlock the stars’ secrets in the black opal, to figure out how to keep our people safe.

  But this room is too empty.

  It doesn’t have my toothbrush or my drumsticks or the exotic seashells Dad used to bring me back from his dives to the seafloor.

  I’m empty.

  I’m being asked to give everything, when I have nothing left.

  I curl into a ball on the bed. Then I bury my face in a pillow, and I let the monster out.

  • • •

  By the time I’m done crying, my eyes are mere slits. I’m still in my compression suit because it’s so tight-fitting that I couldn’t squeeze a shirt and shorts underneath.

  I undo my messy ponytail and pull my hair up into a large puff that sits on my head, like a rat’s nest. I don’t care how I look. I don’t care if I’m proving I’m not Guardian material. I didn’t ask for any of this.

  There’s a knock on my door. “Come in!” I call eagerly, shooting up from bed. If anyone can work her way around rules, it’s Nishi.

  I’m so thrilled to see her, I throw my arms around her neck the moment she comes through the door. “Nish, I knew you’d—oh!” I pull away quick, like I’ve touched something scalding.