Thirteen Rising

by Romina Russell

  “Why are you here?” she asks, pulling away, her brilliant blue eyes studying my face as she probably analyzes the possibilities.

  “Gamba told me Aquarius is going to use Ophiuchus to activate the portal. Is that all you know, or do you have more information?”

  She takes a step back.

  The shadows under her eyes deepen and her mouth tightens, and she suddenly looks about twenty years older.

  “How . . . how do you know Gamba?” Her voice fades to a whisper midsentence.

  “Who is she?” I ask, and I’m fleetingly proud of how my voice stays even and my heart keeps quiet.

  “Where is she?” demands Mom.

  Her weakness for this girl makes me furious, and the anger is so near my throat that I can’t keep from lashing out. “Aquarius offered me a way to save Nishi—a trade for a less broken Luminary. So I offered him your daughter.”

  Pain explodes across my cheek, and I lose my balance and topple into the wall.

  She slapped me. I cup the left side of my face, water welling in my eyes as I glare at her. My breaths are loud and shallow, and my vision grows red.

  As Mom glowers back at me, a feral expression comes over her face that I’ve seen before. On the day the Maw bit Stanton. It’s how she looked an instant before she destroyed it.

  “I was wrong about you,” I say between breaths. “You are capable of motherly love. I guess it was just me who never inspired it in you.”

  Her eyes grow icy, and even the temperature in the room seems to cool. We stand in silence for a moment, until she finally speaks.

  “You were never mine to love.” Her tone is surgical and direct, just like the militant mother I remember.

  “It was always my purpose to deliver you to the stars.”

  • • •

  When I leave Mom’s room, I don’t know where I’m going.

  My old childhood nightmare keeps replaying in my mind: The Maw that bit my brother bites me instead, and Mom never swims fast enough to save me. Every time, I’d wake up right after the monster’s red eyes turned icy blue, but it’s only now I understand why.

  Mom rescued Stan from his fate that day, but she couldn’t rescue me from mine. In fact, she built me for it. Like an animal bred for slaughter.

  My whole life I assumed she was the problem, but what if I was wrong? What if it was me?

  Mom loved Stan, she loved Dad, she even loves this Gamba girl. But my own mother couldn’t love me. Even when I was just a baby, she understood that loving me could only lead to suffering.

  After all, loving me got Stan killed. Loving me got Mathias captured. Loving me got Hysan jailed. Loving me got Nishi Sumbered—

  “There you are!”

  I turn at the sound of Blaze’s voice, and I realize I’ve no idea where I am. “Hurry—there’s a news transmission coming in that Aquarius wants you to see.”

  I let him pull me forward, and we cut across to the ship’s west wing, where we enter some kind of briefing room where the Original Guardian is standing with a few of the Party members I met last night. At first I’m relieved Imogen isn’t here, but then I see who’s on the screen.

  Hysan is broadcasting from Phaet with a wall of a dozen Zodai— including Eurek, Mathias, and Pandora—behind him.

  “My name is Hysan Dax,” he says, “and I am the true Lord of House Libra.”

  My mouth is arid and my knees start shaking. I feel Blaze’s arm on my lower back, and I vaguely realize that he’s helping me stay upright.

  “Lord Neith is an android I built with my predecessor, Lord Vaz, because I became Guardian at eleven years old. I always knew there would be a day when I would share my story with you, but I hoped it would be in a time of peace, not war. I’m sorry for lying, and I will give you all the answers you deserve, but first we must survive.”

  Since I avoided looking directly at Hysan’s hologram earlier, I didn’t notice that a layer of stubble has crept across his face again. His golden locks look messy and unwashed, like he’s been running his fingers through them often.

  “None of us can escape the truth any longer,” he goes on, his voice gaining volume. “The Zodiac is in danger. I understand you’d rather be living your daily lives and pretending the threat isn’t real because it hasn’t touched you yet, but believe me, this darkness will spread. If you choose to remain ignorant and uninvolved, you may be kissing your kids goodnight before a morning that never dawns.”

  He pauses, and the passion that infected him earlier flickers for a moment. But when he speaks again, he sounds as determined as before.

  “Now I have a second confession to make: I broke the Taboo.”

  I’m definitely not holding myself up anymore, but Blaze doesn’t complain as I shift all my weight to him.

  “Wandering Star Rhoma Grace and I have been romantically involved since she became Holy Mother. I know her better than anyone. Which is why you have to believe me when I tell you that she has been compromised.”

  My head is buzzing and my body grows feverish. I barely feel conscious as Hysan says his final words:

  “Rho Grace is working with Ophiuchus and his master. She is a traitor to the Zodiac.”

  26

  “SHUT IT OFF,” COMMANDS AQUARIUS.

  I lost them all.

  They hate me.

  I hate me.

  “Leave us.”

  I’m somewhat aware of everyone exiting the room and Blaze gently depositing me in a chair.

  “You’re not alone, Rho,” says Aquarius, reading my soul as he sits beside me. “Letting go of yesterday is the most painful part of today. I don’t blame your friends for wanting to hold on to what they’ve always known, nor should you. But you’ve evolved past them now.”

  Part of me is listening, but most of me isn’t even here. It feels strangely freeing to be abandoned by everyone and everything I’ve ever loved, and I wonder how it will feel to die. Will Aquarius kill me himself when he learns I’m a double agent, or will he order Blaze to do it?

  “Don’t give up,” he says softly. “You’re in the embrace of a new family now. All you have to do is embrace us back. And if you’d like, your mother and the new Luminary can come with us.”

  I’ve rescued Nishi, I’ve cut ties with my friends, and now I have one final task. I have to uncover Aquarius’s plans and feed them back to Hysan. Then he can save the Zodiac, and I can finally let go.

  “Come with us where, exactly?” I ask, trying to pull myself together for one final push. “You keep talking about this portal through Helios, but we don’t even know where it leads or that we won’t get burned for flying too close to the sun. So if I’m going to go with you, I need to hear an actual plan.”

  “I understand. You proved your loyalty to me by giving up the location of the Zodai’s resistance, and now it’s my turn to be completely open with you.” His pink eyes are glassy and clear, his voice velvety soft. “After the original earthlings settled the Aquarian constellation, I hid their spaceships and had them stored on planet XDZ5709.”

  “Black Moon?”

  He nods. “That’s why I needed the permit of exploration from the Plenum. I’ve been sending teams of engineers to upgrade those ships for centuries, but with all the attacks lately, my shipments from various Houses were starting to attract too much attention.”

  “Why not build new vessels?”

  “Because I know nothing of the tunnel through Helios save for the fact that these ships made it through. I’ve outfitted them with the latest technology, and we have a full fleet ready to go. But on our way to Black Moon, you and I will make a pit stop to activate the portal.”

  “Where?”

  “The Thirteenth House.”

  I blink. I’m certain I didn’t hear him correctly.

  “Opening the portal requires an enormous release of energy
,” he explains. “The death of a star. Ophiuchus must be killed on his own soil.”

  Ochus knew.

  He told me on the way here that Aquarius would sacrifice him.

  How much more has he been keeping from me?

  “You know everything now,” says Aquarius, offering me the one thing I could never get from Hysan or Ophiuchus or Kassandra: transparency.

  Now I understand how Traxon must have felt when Blaze approached him at the royal palace and offered to tell him the truth, just moments after I refused to open up to him.

  “Rho, I believe you’re ready, the Tomorrow Party believes you’re ready, so the last person you have to convince is yourself. You’re no good to any of us if you give up or give in. I want you to want this the way you wanted to stop Ophiuchus months ago.”

  Aquarius’s eyes glow like the holographic globes from last night’s party, and I see a new universe of worlds swirling in their depths. “I want you to believe in yourself and in your species’ future. I want you to care about what lies beyond that portal, to be excited to discover what kind of planets we’ll find.” Even his skin is blazing with light, and more than ever he looks like the fallen star he is. “Will they be ruled by scientific laws we’ve never heard of? Will we meet new life forms? Will there be colors and dimensions and substances we’ve never seen before? Will we find the answers to existence’s deepest questions?

  “I know you feel finished,” he says, his voice becoming more Crompton-ish than godlike. “But if you’re willing to depart from the mortal plane, then you’ve already abandoned your friends. So don’t hold yourself back on their account.”

  Abandon. That word has always tugged at me, ever since childhood. But that’s not what I’m doing. I’m helping them. I’m here gaining Aquarius’s trust so I can relay his plans to them.

  I’ve given up on myself, but not on my friends—I will always root for them.

  “Death is a given, Rho,” he says soothingly. “It will happen whether you race into its arms or inch toward it slowly. It’s waiting for you, and it’s forever. Even I cannot hope to grasp eternity.

  “You have all of existence to spend in Empyrean—so why hasten to get there? It’s coming no matter what. Life is like a candle’s flame: It waxes and wanes until the wick is devoured, and then it’s gone. You have so much more light to give; don’t extinguish yourself.”

  I don’t say anything, but I don’t get the sense he expects me to.

  “I have to take a trip to planet XDZ5709 to inspect our fleet for the final time, and then the Party will commence shuttling passengers over while I come back for you and Ophiuchus. Once the portal’s been activated, we’ll regroup with the others, and at the end of the seventh day we’ll be on the first ship through Helios.”

  This is it.

  He’s leaving, and I know his plan. It’s my chance to let Hysan and the others know what’s going on.

  And yet, instead of feeling energized for this last act of my life’s story, I feel less sure of myself than ever. I’ve been pretending to be on so many sides that I’m not sure which one I’m really on anymore. Just like the artists of Artistry, I can’t tell where my performance ends and the real me begins.

  “Rho, this is the only chance humanity has. I know you want to believe the whole universe can be saved, but it can’t, and I’d rather some survive than none at all.”

  What if he’s right? asks a small voice in my head.

  I may disagree with the violence of his methods, and I may regret the fact that he didn’t warn us sooner so that we could have saved more people, but does that mean that everyone in the Zodiac should die just because Aquarius handled things poorly?

  Even after I relay this information to the Zodai, I still don’t see how they will be able to stop him—the master is too smart, and he’s been planning this for too long. But maybe I can at least try to convince them to listen to Aquarius and give him a chance.

  It has to be worth a shot.

  “I know I’m asking more from you than anyone else,” he goes on, “but I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t believe in you. Time is running out, and I need to know where you stand.”

  I feel like a once-finished puzzle that’s just been disassembled into thousands of tiny pieces. I used to be so sure of what was right and what was wrong . . . and now I don’t even know who I am.

  “Okay,” I say at last, and I know as I speak the words that I’m no longer acting. “I’ll go with you.”

  He knows it, too, because the light in his eyes blazes back, full blast. “Then I’ll see you in three days, and we’ll set out for the Thirteenth House.”

  • • •

  “Wake up.”

  I’d just fallen asleep when I’m shaken awake. The sun isn’t even up yet, so my room is in complete darkness as I shove someone’s fingers off my arm.

  “Get off me!” I wave my hand over my head, in front of the bed’s headboard, and it lights up revealing a teen girl with a mahogany face and a head full of braids.

  “What did you do?” demands Ezra. “What did you tell him?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I haven’t been able to reach Hysan since I led you to his hologram—our signal’s jammed. Did you tell Aquarius anything about Gyzer and me?”

  “Of course not. Hysan probably cut off communications after his broadcast as a precaution. Calm down.”

  She glares at me. “Gyzer was so certain you were just playing Aquarius. He insisted you’d turn around and come back to us the moment you learned his secrets. But looking at you now, you seem just as brainwashed as all the other elitists here.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I growl. Just like Traxon and Skarlet, Ezra is able to bring my anger out better than most people, and before I can think anything through I command, “Go commandeer us a bullet-ship.”

  Ezra crosses her arms defiantly. “What for?”

  “What do you think for? We’re getting off this planet.”

  • • •

  Just minutes later, Ezra and I meet Gyzer in the hangar deck, and we board one of the Party’s black bullet-ships. They’re a third the size of ’Nox and so dark that they probably blend in perfectly with Space.

  “It’s one of Aquarius’s own designs,” Gyzer says as we climb onboard. “It’s the fastest interplanetary vessel in the Zodiac. We’ll make it to Aries in just about fifteen galactic hours.”

  Hysan would probably flip for this ship, I think, and then my gut clenches at the thought of facing him.

  The spacecraft’s interior is as black as its exterior, and it has no cabins—just two individual sleep capsules built into the concave walls.

  Even though we encountered no obstacles leaving, we’re quiet until we’ve crossed the atmospheric barrier, which takes an alarmingly short amount of time. The three of us stay seated in the front of the ship, in a forced silence, until Gyzer finally turns from the control helm and clasps his soulful eyes on me. “Are you lost?”

  “Aquarius confided his plans to me, and now I’m going to let the Guardians know . . . like I always planned to do,” I say, sounding defensive even to myself.

  “But you’re no longer on our side.” Though he phrases it like a statement, it sounds like a question.

  “It’s not about sides,” I say, shrugging. “It’s about truth.”

  “And you believe the Last Prophecy is unavoidable?”

  “Can you prove that it’s not?”

  “I think you’re brainwashed,” says Ezra, doubling down on her accusation.

  I wait to hear what Gyzer thinks, but he doesn’t offer anything more on the subject.

  “I just hope they don’t shoot us down when they see we’re escorting a traitor,” Ezra goes on goadingly. “You really pissed Hysan off. I didn’t know Librans could even get that angry—”

 
“That’s enough,” I say, glaring at her.

  “Says the double-crosser,” she snaps.

  “Silence.” Gyzer’s mournful voice fills up the small space. He looks from Ezra to me and says, “Infighting is not productive.”

  “Gy—”

  “Don’t,” he warns Ezra, cutting her off midwhine. “If we can’t unite now, we’ll fail. If you can’t rise above your anger, you’re choosing death for all of us.”

  Ezra looks genuinely shamed, and her eyes roll down to the floor as fire torches her cheeks. Gyzer turns back to the controls, and a heavy silence swaddles us until Ezra looks at me and says in a much lighter tone, “So Hysan’s Guardian of Libra and Lord Neith is an android?” She shakes her braids in awe and leans in. “Show me the Ephemeris that Saw that twist coming.”

  • • •

  It’s bright out on Phaet when we near The Bellow, the red sun barely visible at this time of day. “Something looks wrong,” says Gyzer as we descend toward the landing pad—which is full of identical black bullet-ships.

  “You,” says Ezra, turning to me with fire in her eyes. “You told him the camp’s location!”

  Aquarius lied to me.

  He brought a whole fleet of ships here, and they never left.

  What if the Marad arrested everyone? What if they forced Hysan to give that broadcast? What if something’s happened to him or Nishi or Mathias or Pandora or—

  “You’re landing?” asks Ezra, rounding on Gyzer in shock. “What the hell are we going to tell them?”

  “That we’re here on Aquarius’s orders,” I hear myself say. “I’ll tell them he sent me here to try to recruit my friends.”

  Neither Ezra nor Gyzer disagrees with my plan, so we land. As soon as we disembark, half a dozen Marad soldiers approach us. When they see me, they pause.

  “We’re here on Aquarius’s orders,” I say disdainfully, and I keep walking purposefully toward the entrance into the mountain. Ezra and Gyzer keep back a respectful distance, playing the role of my Tomorrow Party guards.