Thirteen Rising

by Romina Russell

  Hysan studies my eyes like he’s searching for something, and after failing to find it he says, “As you wish, my lady. I’ll go make the arrangements.”

  He takes my hand again and brings it to his lips. Then he presses a soft kiss on my skin.

  I wait for the Abyssthe-like rush that usually follows, but I don’t feel a thing.

  When he goes out through the tent’s sapphire flap, I dart to my traveling bag and dig into its pockets until I find what I’m looking for—the Veil collar Hysan loaned me on Aquarius. I slip it around my neck, and without replacing the red robe with real clothes or even throwing on shoes, I activate the invisibility and chase after him.

  He moves so swiftly that I have to run to catch up. The soles of my feet sting from stepping on sharp objects, and my sore muscles scream in agony. I’m going to need a pain tonic to sleep tonight.

  The clouds above are growing as dark as charcoal, but the red sun is still burning in the twilight sky, its laser-like light a fiery torch illuminating our way. We cut through the woods, and I fall as far back as I can so the crunching of copper leaves won’t give me away.

  I speed up once we’re out in the grassy field, in the shadow of the mountain. Up ahead a dozen rivulets tangle through the hilly landscape, delivering fresh water from the cobalt sea to the three fortresses.

  I follow Hysan along the banks of the closest stream. The water wraps around the smallest hill and disappears behind it, and as we trace the curving shoreline, I spy a man in a navy blue Lodestar suit.

  Mathias.

  I stop moving so they won’t hear my heavy breathing. Mathias has trimmed his hair in a Zodai style again, and he’s smooth-faced, like the days before his capture. It’s Hysan who looks disheveled now, his locks too long and poking into his eyes, his features masked in facial hair.

  “How is she?” asks Mathias while Hysan is still far away.

  I edge as close to them as I dare, keeping my breaths as subtle as possible. “Devastated,” says Hysan once he’s in front of Mathias. Sadness floods his voice, and he doesn’t sound anything like the person he was moments ago.

  “I should go see her,” says Mathias, squaring his shoulders like he’s ready to march to my tent right now.

  “Give her a moment . . . and maybe a head’s up,” says Hysan, and I wonder if he’s picturing the state in which he found me.

  Mathias nods, the furrow of his brow forming a wall between his eyes. “Did you ask what she wants to do about the . . . body?”

  Everything in me hardens, and I almost gasp. The thought of my brother’s corpse makes the world spin around me, and I force myself to fall a few more steps back.

  “I couldn’t—not yet,” says Hysan, and he clears his throat like he’s trying to cut a path through a wave of emotion. “He’s frozen, so there’s no rush to decide.”

  “What about—”

  “No.” Hysan’s voice is almost forceful as he anticipates whatever Mathias was about to ask. “In fact, I think we should push that news to tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” says Mathias, who’s suddenly comfortable taking orders from Hysan. “I’ll let her know.”

  So Hysan and Mathias are working together to keep information from me? I guess my nightmares weren’t so far off the mark after all.

  I lower my gaze to the green ground to calm the icy storm rising within me. Somewhere in my subconscious, somewhere so deep I needed the Sumber to unlock it, I must have known they never fully trusted me. And that means they can’t be trusted.

  “All she cares about is Nishi,” I hear Hysan say, and I look up to see Mathias blowing out a hard breath.

  “You were right, then,” he says. “For a Cancrian, the loss of a loved one is . . . well, when we succumb to an emotion as powerful as grief, it can completely overtake us if we’re not careful. I’d hoped, since she coped so well with her father’s death, that she might rise from this loss as well—”

  I fall back a few more steps, enough that they can’t hear me when I crumple to the ground.

  Coped so well? What is he talking about?

  “It’s too much,” says Hysan mournfully. “She’s lost too much, she’s been put through too much, and now she’s drawn the line at Nishi—she’s all that anchors her, and Rho’s determined to locate her. Once she does, she’ll go to her straight away, everyone else be damned.”

  “So what you’re saying,” says Mathias almost too softly, “is you don’t think we should give her a full report.”

  My eyes latch on to Hysan’s face with an intensity that should be able to ignite fires. His jaw tightens, like he’s tasting something bitter, and he says, “We can’t tell her where Nishi is . . . not yet.”

  The rest of my body suddenly comes into sharp focus, shattering the shell of numbness that had been shielding me from this nightmare.

  Despair clangs through my bones, and I try to keep listening past the pain, past the déjà vu of the dream that prophesied Hysan and Mathias’s betrayal.

  “She’s not going to like that plan,” says Mathias. “And I can’t say I’m a fan either.”

  “Nor I,” says Hysan, his voice growing more forceful, “but unless you have a better one, I don’t think Rho is in the right mind to hear this information, not when Nishi and Aquarius are in the same place. We can’t just show up on Leo and start shooting—Aquarius will See us coming.”

  Leo.

  That’s where Nishi is.

  “We need a real plan,” Hysan goes on, “one we coordinate as a team with the other Houses, and that will take more time.”

  “Can Rho be convinced of that?” asks Mathias hopefully. “Can we explain the importance of combining Nishi’s rescue with our strike on the master?”

  Hysan shakes his head, and after a moment Mathias says, “Okay then. I’ll talk to the others about redacting the report we give her at tonight’s meeting.”

  I push down on the outrage surging up from my core, and I turn back the way I came. Invisibly, I stalk through the field, then the forest, then the keep, until I’m back inside my sapphire tent, and only then do I bury my face in my pillow and scream.

  When my throat is a raw flame of pain, I fall limp on the bed and wait for the aching to crush my heart, for the tears to flood my eyes, for the loneliness to scorch my soul.

  But nothing happens.

  I’m not even angry anymore.

  I’m just done.

  I’m sick of being handled by the people around me. Since becoming Guardian, everything I’ve done has been dictated by someone else—Crius, Mathias, Hysan, the Plenum, Ophiuchus, Aquarius. Most of them men, all of them older, and each one convinced they could decide what’s best for me.

  On Scorpio, Strident Engle told me I’ve been playing someone else’s game, and he was right. Everyone thinks they’re so much smarter than me. They’re so sure they know better. Even though I’m the one who uncovered Ophiuchus. I’m the one who Saw the Dark Matter. I’m the Wandering Star.

  And I’m sick of their condescension. I’m sick of them. I’m done being a pawn in everyone else’s game—now it’s time to make everyone play my game.

  I don’t need Hysan or Mathias or a Zodai army.

  I can save Nishi on my own.

  8

  I MAKE MY WAY TO the keep after changing into my Lodestar suit.

  In the entrance hall, I follow Skarlet’s instructions and turn down the corridor she pointed to earlier. Red flames flicker from torches bracketed high up on the stone walls, and the passage ends in a vast dining hall lined with long communal tables. I go straight to the buffet bar and stack my plate with hunks of unidentifiable meats and rainbow-colored vegetable cake.

  Most people haven’t arrived for dinner yet, so I sit at an empty table and dig into my meal. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten solid food that before I know what I’ve scarfed down, my plate is
empty and my stomach is grumbling in discomfort. I have to lie back in my chair to keep the foreign food from making a spectacular exit.

  “Wandering Star.”

  I sit up at the sight of an auburn-haired girl in an aqua-colored Zodai uniform. “Hi, Pandora.”

  She bows and sets her tray down across from me, and then she reaches over the table to trade the hand touch. “It’s wonderful to see you awake,” she says as she sits, and there’s a lightness in her expression that feels unfamiliar since I’ve only ever known her at her unhappiest. “Your leadership has been missed.”

  I observe her silently, but she doesn’t seem bothered by my curious gaze. She just gives me a small smile as she brings a bite of the vegetable cake to her mouth. The shadows that haunted her after her capture seem to have retreated, and there’s a glow in her ivory skin—a glow I used to be familiar with.

  She’s at peace.

  “Tell me what’s happened since the Cathedral,” I say. I need the information as much as I need to distract myself from the feeling that’s so loudly radiating from her Center.

  Her face grows serious, and she puts her fork down. “We left Pisces right after the Marad took off. Every House left a team of Zodai to continue looking after the Piscene people, but the Guardians had to return to their Houses to prepare for whatever the master’s planning. Hysan has been instrumental in organizing our resistance—he seems to know people on every House, and it’s thanks to him we’ve been able to rally so many Zodai so quickly.”

  The food jostles uncomfortably in my stomach again, and I shift positions in my chair. “What have you been up to for the past few weeks?”

  “We’ve set up three camps, each in a different Fort.” She holds up a finger for each one. “The first is metaphysical, where seers are trying to find answers in the stars; the second is physical, where we’re training in weaponry to face the Marad; and the third is intelligence, where we’re using advanced technology to collect clues about the master and the army and the Last Prophecy.”

  “Have you guys made any progress?”

  “Well . . . we don’t know much about what’s coming, but there has been progress of a different sort.”

  I tilt my head questioningly, and she says, “None of the teams on Phaet are divided along House lines—people from any House can contribute in whichever way best suits their skills. It doesn’t matter where we come from because it’s more important that we’re here. It makes me think about the kind of world Black Moon would have been.”

  Her eyes are large and bright as she waits for my reaction, and I try to summon some vestige of excitement. When I can’t I ask, “So what have you been doing?”

  “I’ve been helping out in metaphysical,” she says, deflating slightly. “Mathias is in weaponry, and Hysan is in intelligence. We could definitely use you in the metaphysical camp.”

  I stare at the crumbs on my empty plate and don’t answer because I know I’m never going back into the Psy again. If I do, Aquarius will be able to read me, and he’ll know he’s won. He’ll know I have nothing left.

  “Maybe you’ll actually See something.”

  I look up. “What?”

  “No one’s been able to See anything. Not even Guardians.” She drops her voice to a low whisper, like she’s afraid the Psynergy might overhear us. “The master is doing something to the astral plane. It’s like the jitteriness was a precursor, and now everything is pure static. Reports from Primitus are that the Pegazi have vanished into the woods—they’re no longer interacting with people. It’s like the stars have stopped whispering to them.”

  She’s turning her Philosopher’s Stone round and round in her hand, and I remember that the devices are linked to everyone in an Aquarian’s Clan, so she probably receives regular updates. I’m sure the Eleventh House has fallen into chaos now that Supreme Advisor Untara is dead and the Guardians are accusing Crompton of being the master. But at least Pandora can be in constant contact with her family. With her sister.

  My gut burns, and I need to change the subject fast. “You’re a Zodai now,” I say, admiring her official aqua uniform. “How’d that happen?”

  Her glow seems to brighten. “We’ve all been promoted. Everyone who’s come to fight has been declared a full fledged Zodai by the Plenum—”

  “Rho!”

  Mathias sets his tray next to mine, and then he pulls me up into a tight hug. “It’s so good to see you awake,” he murmurs musically in my ear, his muscled arms pressing into my numb skin. . . . But just as with Hysan, I barely feel his touch.

  Mathias flashes me a rare toothy grin when he pulls away and says, “Anything you need, I’m here for you.”

  I spy him trading shy smiles with Pandora as we sit down, and their expressions don’t seem to hold any of the insecurity from before. “We’ve organized a meeting of senior officers to bring you up to speed right after dinner,” Mathias says to me as he cuts himself a bite of pink steak.

  “Good,” I say, my gaze distracted by a familiar statuesque Ariean sashaying into the dining hall, escorted by an even more familiar golden-haired Knight.

  Hysan grins at whatever Skarlet says, and she yammers on even as he pulls out a tray for her, and they start piling food onto their plates. The smile is still on Hysan’s face as they turn around and scan the tables for a place to sit.

  My hand curls into a fist on my lap. How can he be so carefree when I told him what Nishi’s going through?

  Hysan grows alert when he sees me, and he and Skarlet stride over to our table. He takes the seat to my other side.

  I’m stuck between Hysan and Mathias. How original.

  “My lady.”

  I nod back my greeting and to avoid trading the hand touch, I reach for my glass of water.

  “We’ll have a full report for you tonight,” Hysan goes on in a tense voice. “I’ve made it clear rescuing Nishi is a top priority, and it’s the first operation we’ll plan.”

  Skarlet sits next to Pandora, measuring me through her catlike eyes. I stare back at her just as blatantly, until she smirks and takes a swig of her drink.

  “So Brynda and Rubi aren’t here?” I ask in general, without meeting anyone’s gaze.

  “They’re organizing their House’s defenses and recruiting Zodai for our army,” says Hysan. “We need to be careful about whom we approach, since the only advantage we hold is that Aquarius doesn’t know Arieans terraformed this planet. The Majors believe the Everblaze protects this world’s secrets from the Psy. So if we approach the wrong person, we risk discovery—that’s why we have to transport everyone here ourselves.”

  “What about Ezra and Gyzer?” I ask without looking at him. “You sent them to Aquarius to spy on the Tomorrow Party—have you checked to make sure they’re okay?”

  Hysan hears the sharpness in my voice because it takes him a moment to answer. “We asked them to join us here, but they . . . they decided it would be better if they infiltrated the Party and became our spies. Ezra and I built a special device with a heavily encrypted code to communicate that should be near-impossible to break.”

  I sit up. If Ezra and Gyzer are with Imogen and Blaze, that means they’re with Nishi, too. “Have you heard from them? Have they told you where the Tomorrow Party is?”

  “Not yet,” he says, and on my other side Mathias sets down his fork and doesn’t meet my gaze.

  From the corner of my eye, I notice a tall girl in a brown suit slowing down as she walks past our table. She has dark skin and darker eyes, and she’s scrutinizing me so closely that she doesn’t seem to realize I’m staring back. Her gaze drifts to Hysan next, and when I look at him, I find he’s glaring at her. Like they know each other.

  The girl blinks and strides away. Hysan locks eyes with me next, and I see the next lie starting to form on his lips—when I suddenly realize I don’t care what he’s hiding. Whatever’s
going on with Hysan and his harem of women, it’s just a distraction.

  “She’s—”

  “I don’t think I’m up for a meeting tonight after all,” I say, cutting him off.

  Mathias, Pandora, Skarlet, and Hysan watch me in bewildered silence, until Hysan finally says, “But I thought you said there was no time to waste—”

  “I’m tired,” I say loudly. “I’ve been through a lot, don’t you think?”

  “Of course,” Mathias answers, jumping in. I spy him shooting Hysan a warning look over my head. Then he touches his Ring, like he’s accessing the Collective Conscious to send out the necessary alerts.

  “General Eurek would still like to meet with the rest of us,” says Hysan, his gaze as distant as Mathias’s, like he’s syncing with either the Psy or his Scan.

  Skarlet stands, her plate spotlessly clean. “Let’s go then.”

  “Rho, would you like someone to walk you back to your tent?” asks Mathias as he rises, too.

  “I can escort you, my lady,” injects Hysan, also getting to his feet. His meal is the only one that’s untouched.

  “That’s okay,” I say, remaining seated in the space between the guys as I stare after Skarlet, the only one of the group who’s started walking away to bus her tray.

  “Skarlet will take me.”

  • • •

  When we leave the dining hall, the others exit the keep through the front door while Skarlet and I head the back way, toward the tents.

  As soon as we’re alone, she rounds on me. “You don’t feel like going to the meeting, fine—but you’re not the only leader here. I have a duty to my House and the Zodiac, and I didn’t sign up to play babysitter.”

  “Well I need your help.”

  “With what? Pulling you a bath?” She crosses her arms, her breath blowing down on me like an angry wind. “I know you’re used to lady’s maids and all that fluff, but that’s not how things work on Aries.”

  “Are you refusing a direct order from your superior, Major Thorne?” My voice is thin as ice.