Black Moon

by Romina Russell

  Link’s shoulders sag in defeat, and the Stridents lower their weapons and step aside. But before retreating, Link turns to my brother, like there’s more he wants to say.

  Stan speaks first. “I think this whole scene was just a way of projecting your guilt onto us.”

  “Guilt over what, Cancrian?”

  “Over letting the Marad into Squary.”

  Link lifts his hand so fast that Stanton doesn’t have time to dodge. The Scarab flies up in front of my brother’s face, but before the Scorp can fire it, Mathias snaps to life and pushes Stan to the ground.

  Engle leaps forward, too, and locks his arms around Link’s neck, shouting, “Lower your weapon!”

  Link struggles against Engle’s hold, and Tyron and the other Stridents stare at them, too stunned to react. “He just accused me of being a traitor!” shouts Link, his face growing red in Engle’s grip.

  “Wandering Star, take your party onboard,” calls Engle while he wrestles with Link.

  I look over to the star-shaped ship and notice that two flight attendants have been standing in the doorway this whole time, watching us in bewilderment. Mathias pulls Stan up the ship’s boarding ramp, and I follow behind. The flight attendants shut the door quickly behind us, and the sound of arguing is drowned out.

  The instant I glimpse the glamour inside, I momentarily forget what’s happening outside.

  The vessel is sparkly and pristine, and it’s shaped like a five-point star: The front wing holds the control helm; the back wings feature a lounge and lavatories, respectively; and each of the side wings holds a table, wallscreen, and luxurious levlan loveseat. The center of the ship is a vast open space, its floor made of glass so we can see the silver runway beneath us.

  Stan claims one of the side wings for himself, leaving Mathias and me to share the loveseat in the other wing. A triangular window runs over us along the wing top, tapering to a point, and sunlight filters in through the glass.

  I look to see what’s happening down at the spaceport. The other Stridents have left, but Engle is still standing guard at our gate, arms crossed over his chest.

  The ship begins its ascent, and an automated voice comes over the intercom. “The Tomorrow Party welcomes you onboard for this overnight journey. We should be landing on planet Primitus in approximately twenty-six galactic hours. Please ring an attendant if you need anything, and enjoy your time on board.”

  I stare at Engle’s pale figure until I can’t see him anymore. The wings shake violently as we pull out of Sconcion’s atmosphere, and my teeth chatter so much that I worry I’ve chipped most of the enamel away. Turns out sitting in a ship’s arm is much less fun than being tucked in its belly.

  By the time we reach the blackness of Space, the ride smoothens out, and I watch the dark blue planet rapidly recede through the windowed floor. Of all the Houses I’ve visited, I think Scorpio was the most unexpected. I didn’t imagine I’d find such a colorful world . . . or that I’d ever make a Scorp friend.

  “How’d it go with Skiff yesterday?”

  I look up from the glassy ground to meet Mathias’s gaze for what feels like the first time since he left my room last night to call Pandora. His eyes have a hint of that lost look they wore when we rescued him from the Marad, as if the confrontation with the Scorps dragged him back to his abduction. If he’s this shaken after facing a handful of his Zodai peers, how is he going to hold up before the master and his Marad?

  “Unclear,” I say, trying to shove back my concerns. “He’s as indecipherable as any Scorp. I have no idea if anyone on that House cares what happens to any of us. But I do know we need them.”

  Mathias nods in agreement. “Engle seemed to be coming around back there.”

  “Yeah.” I look past him to the other wing where my brother is sitting. He has his holographic headphones hooked into the ship’s entertainment system, while his eyes search the blackness beyond the window, his thoughts lost among the stars.

  “I wonder what made them think we stole something,” says Mathias, following my gaze to Stan. “And what they think we stole.”

  I swallow back my guilt over the Scarab, and it dislodges other feelings that are clogging my throat. “Were you okay . . . back there?”

  Mathias turns his gaze back to mine, and in his pained expression it’s clear that the way he froze up is already tormenting him, and I wish more than anything that I hadn’t brought it up. When the silence grows too long, I say, “You’ve been on Aquarius before, right?”

  He blinks like he’s adjusting to the new subject, then nods.

  “What’s it like?”

  “Mythic,” he says, and as the wrinkles fade from his brow, I know I picked the right topic. “The first time I saw that world, I thought I’d stepped into the pages of a storybook.”

  His gaze glazes over with the memory, and I let him relive it a bit before asking, “You were there when you were younger?”

  “I studied at the Lykeion when I was eight, just like my mother and my grandmother, going back seven generations.” His voice regains its musical quality, and its melody is like a song I never want to end. So I keep asking questions.

  “And the Aquarian culture?”

  “They’re some of my favorite people,” he says earnestly, and jealousy singes my neck at the thought that he might mean Pandora. “They’re thoughtful, insightful, bookish, socially conscious . . . and they’re also fun to talk to because they have a word for everything. Every feeling, every experience, every concept.”

  I think of Mom, and I wonder if she’s truly changed Houses. Does Mathias’s description apply to her now? What would it be like to meet her as an Aquarian?

  When I was younger, I used to daydream that Mom was alive and had simply lost her memory. I’d picture her living in a cozy bungalow on a small island where she’d spend her days reading people’s stars and her nights trying to remember the life she forgot.

  Cancrians would sail from far away to have their stars read by this mysterious and prodigious seer, and in every future she charted, she’d search for some hint of her past. I’d imagine myself seeking her out to hear my fortune, and the instant her bottomless blue eyes met mine, her amnesia would be magically lifted.

  One look at me, and she would know I was hers, and she was mine. She’d apologize for abandoning us and for the way she raised me, and together we’d return home to make new and better memories. Memories worth holding on to.

  Mathias’s Wave goes off, and when he accepts the call, the holograms of Amanta and Egon beam out. After we trade updates with his parents, the flight attendants emerge from the lounge to serve us lunch. Thanks to the ship’s imitation gravity, we eat real food—a colorful tray of fresh cut sushi—and not a compressed meal.

  They feed us again seven hours later, at what would be dinnertime on Sconcion, and afterward they dim the ship’s lights so we can sleep. Stan passes out in his traveling suit, but I use the lavatory to change into my bedclothes, while Mathias changes in our wing.

  When we recline our seatback, the couch converts into a bed, and we cover ourselves with the soft, cottony blankets the attendants gave us. The muffled white noise of the engine is the only sound in the pitch-black ship, and every now and then silver lights flitter through the glass. The atmosphere feels strangely charged . . . probably because I’m sharing a bed with Mathias.

  I roll onto my side and meet his midnight gaze. Starlight glints off the whites of his eyes.

  My breathing shallows, and I whisper, “Hi.”

  He reaches out and pulls me closer to him, hugging me to his chest and resting his chin on my head. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I don’t know why I froze up when the Stridents stopped us. I think it was just easier knowing how to act before, back when I still believed there was a ‘right’ way to do things.”

  His voice echoes in my ear, and he slowly starts
skating his fingertips up and down my back. A field of goose bumps blooms beneath my shirt.

  “When the Marad took me, I watched them murder and dissect bodies from every House to find the thing that made us different—why we fit in but they didn’t.” Despite the warmth of Mathias’s skin, my body grows cold. His hand pauses its movement along my spine, and I press a kiss into the neckline of his shirt.

  As his words resume, so do his caresses. “The problem is we’ve all been brought up to view the Zodiac that way. The fact that ninety-nine percent of us marry our own kind assumes there is such a thing as a ‘kind’ of human—that we can be sorted into a filing system of Cancrians and non-Cancrians. But we’re the same species. Not twelve, but one.”

  His heart is beating so rapidly in my ear that I pull away from his chest to look at him, and his hand goes still again. The vulnerability in his gaze makes me feel like the conversation is shifting from philosophical to personal.

  “I don’t know what’s right for House Cancer or the Zodiac anymore, but I have figured something out about us.” He swallows, and I can hear the dryness in his throat. “I think the only way we’re going to find out if what we have is real or a memory is if you put aside the duty you believe you owe Cancer, and the loyalty and guilt I know you feel toward me, and listen to yourself. I think to know what you want, you have to let go of what you want to want.”

  I start getting up from the couch-bed. “Mathias, if you have feelings for someone else and are trying to let me down—”

  “That’s not it at all,” he whispers, holding me so close that my chin is cradled in the crook of his shoulder. “I’m trying to be noble here,” he breathes in my ear, “because . . . it feels like that’s what the Libran would do.”

  Every muscle in me tightens, my body unprepared to hear Mathias reference Hysan. For the millionth-and-one time, the mere thought of him demolishes the weak wall I keep building and rebuilding to seal off my feelings, and once more I suppress those emotions.

  Mathias’s pulse quickens in my ear again. “I’ve been thinking of everything I admitted to you on Taurus about my capture. I don’t want the guilt you feel for what I endured—and the loyalty we’ve always had for each other—to affect your feelings. That wouldn’t be fair . . . to either of us.”

  “I don’t know how I feel,” I say, ashamed to admit the awful truth.

  He pulls back from me, and I’m worried he’ll push me away for my selfishness, just like Hysan did. “Mathias, please, don’t—”

  “It’s okay, Rho,” he whispers, tracing my jawline with his fingertip. “I’m not blaming you for being confused. When you sent that note about waiting for the war to be over to figure everything out, I think the old me would have approved. But this new me worries if we wait too long, we’ll miss our chance.”

  His baritone competes with my booming heartbeat, and he takes my hand in his and squeezes it. “The majority of Cancrians we know have died. The majority. I died, too, only I’ve been given a second chance. And while I’d like to try leaving a better Zodiac behind me before I move on to Empyrean, dying has also taught me how important it is to live while I’m still here.”

  He brings our joined hands to his lips and kisses my skin. I’ve never heard Mathias sound so naked before, and every cell within me is paralyzed, sensing the significance of this moment.

  “The other day I told you about the future I once dreamt of, before our House was attacked. But I didn’t tell you about the future I dream of now.”

  His indigo eyes are so clear that it feels like his soul has risen to his surface. “I’ve realized the future is different for each of us. For some it’s fifty years, for others it’s ten months, and sometimes it’s just a few minutes. I don’t know how long mine is, but I know how I want to spend it.

  “I don’t just want to fight for what I believe is right. I also want to be happy. I want to love fiercely, I want to see new worlds, I want to start a family . . . and above all, I don’t want to wait.”

  9

  I WAKE UP WITH MY limbs sprawled across the full length of the loveseat. Picking up my head, I see Mathias in the center of the ship cycling through Yarrot. I stare for a few seconds, noting that something feels different about his movements. The choreography seems off.

  I look around for Stan and spot him still sleeping, his body turned toward the window. I wonder how much longer until we land.

  “How’d you sleep?” asks Mathias, dropping down beside me and breathing heavily from his workout.

  “Good. Sorry if I hogged the bed.”

  “I’ve never woken up to an elbow in the face before.”

  I avert my gaze to hide my flush, feeling strangely shy around him this morning. Probably because we never concluded our conversation last night. Though I guess the point is we haven’t chosen our ending yet.

  “Was that Yarrot?” I ask, pulling up the menu of settings for the bed and bringing the backseat upright.

  “Aquarian Yarrot. Pandora taught it to me.”

  I nod, trying not to dwell long on the weeks they spent alone on Vitulus when I went to Tierre.

  “On Aquarius they use astrogeometry instead of astroalgebra to read the stars—”

  “I know,” I say, and I wish I didn’t sound so snippy.

  “Geometry carries real importance on House Aquarius. Since Yarrot poses are designed to mimic the twelve constellations, Aquarians are more precise about the shapes, so they perform the movements differently.”

  I nod and open my Wave to check messages, but the blue text before me blends into unintelligible shapes. Something about what just happened makes Mathias seem less familiar to me.

  After so many years of watching him practice the same Yarrot routine, this change in his approach feels like yet another sign that the old Mathias is gone. And it’s a reminder that I still don’t fully know this new one.

  • • •

  Soon the Water Bearer constellation comes into view. Seeing the Eleventh House makes my nerves tremble in anticipation, as if my blood has been replaced with jittery Psynergy. Like my heart knows I’m close to solving the mystery of Mom.

  Aquarius has three inhabited planets—Primitus, Secundus, Tertius—all equidistant. The planets’ atmospheres are amply oxygenated and perfectly pressurized, and a small moon orbits each one. When we’re close to entering Primitus’s atmosphere, one of the flight attendants emerges from the lounge and addresses us from the center of the ship.

  “I apologize for this brief interruption,” she says, and Mathias and I shut our Waves in unison. The blue screens floating before us vanish.

  “Per protocol, we’re now going to play a pre-recorded message from the leader of the Tomorrow Party, Lionheart Blaze Jansun.” I can tell the flight attendant is Leonine by her wide face, toothy smile, and tattooed eyelids. Each time she blinks, the Lion constellation flickers in her eyes.

  When she steps away, the Tomorrow Party’s elegant holographic logo fades on and off over the glass floor, and in my peripheral vision, I spy my brother sitting up.

  “Welcome to the Tomorrow Party.”

  A handsome holographic Leonine with a mane of blue hair bares his pointy teeth in a broad smile. “Who are we? A group of galactic unionists who believe passionately in our vision for a united Zodiac. We want to reshape our solar system into a place where we can be human beings first and House citizens second.”

  Holograms of all twelve constellations encircle him. “I’m Lionheart Blaze Jansun, and before I ask you to join us, I want to tell you a bit about myself. I was born into my House’s Power Pride, but even as a kid, I felt I didn’t belong there. When we turn twelve, Leonines leave home to embark on a walkabout—we spend the next few years rotating through schools throughout our planet’s nine nations. It’s our choice how much time we want to spend in each place, or if we want to try all nine at all. But eventually we’re expec
ted to pledge ourselves to a Pride.”

  Blaze passes a hand through his puffy blue locks, and I spy colorful streaks of rainbow highlights hidden in the deeper layers of his hair. “It was in the Leadership Pride where I felt I’d finally found my place. There I learned about Leadership’s prodigal son, the historical figure I was named after—Holy Leader Blazon Logax of the Trinary Axis. I was intrigued by the people of this Pride because they seemed the opposite of the ones I’d grown up with. Rather than prizing their personal interests above others, they prioritized others’ interests above themselves.”

  The passion in his voice and his striking straightforwardness make him seem wild and untamable. A true Lion.

  “It was there I had the realization that altered my life’s course: A powerful man wants people to dream of him, but a leader wants people to dream of themselves.”

  Fire flashes in his russet eyes, and a feral passion infects his voice. “I wasn’t born into the best world for me. I had to leave my first home to find my rightful one. So who’s to say any of us have been born into our true House? How can we know where we belong if we don’t know what we’re missing?”

  His words make me think of Ferez and his election to possess eleven technologies over one. And another memory slips in, something Hysan told me on Centaurion—I’ve visited every House of the Zodiac, and I have the overwhelming sensation that not everyone would be happiest where they are. The Leonine, the Capricorn, and the Libran all seem to be saying the same thing: In a universe ruled by fate, our power is in our choices.

  “When the Plenum honored Rhoma Grace with the title of Wandering Star, I felt something.” My pulse quickens when I hear my name. “Her strength and passion inspired me to go public with a plan I’d only dreamt of—a plan to build bridges across the Zodiac.