Thirteen Rising

by Romina Russell

  Inside the mountain, there’s no flurry of activity, no healers or Majors going about their work. The silence and emptiness is gloomy, and my blood chills with every step. When I eventually manage to find my way to the central area with offshoots to the hospital and The Bellow, I follow the scent of fresh air toward the smallest of the tunnels, the one that leads to Phaet’s secret golden forest.

  I unlock the door, and we step into a cool, sunny day. Ezra and Gyzer survey the view around us in awe—since they’ve been with the Party this whole time, they haven’t seen this camp yet—but I hurry down the stone ramp, horrified by what I might have done.

  Everything looks too still, and I scan the three fortresses ahead, wondering where my friends are.

  “Which of the three holds the greatest power?” asks Gyzer, coming up beside me and staring at the same view.

  “The first one has a communal reading room—”

  “But barely anyone is getting visions these days,” Ezra interrupts.

  “The second one has our arsenal of weapons,” I say nervously.

  “But Aquarius already has weapons, and his are more destructive,” says Gyzer.

  “The third one is intelligence.”

  We look at each other, and immediately we head in the direction of the final Fort.

  “We have no idea how many of Aquarius’s people are in there,” I say as we run. “We need a strategy to take back control of the camp.”

  “We can start a fire,” suggests Ezra.

  “A fire?”

  “That will probably give us all the time we need,” says Gyzer approvingly.

  “Time for what? What are you guys talking about?”

  “Just distract people,” Ezra tells me. “When they’re not looking, we’ll do the rest.”

  There’s no one guarding the fortress’s front doors, and the planet’s emptiness is becoming disturbing—but then I step into the large entrance hall full of semiprivate cubicles, and a Party member I vaguely recognize freezes.

  “Oh—I didn’t realize he’d sent you!” she says, seeming reassured by the sight of Ezra and Gyzer with me. “This way.” She waves for us to follow.

  We head down a passage that spills into a large room with a high-arched ceiling and so many windows that sunlight illuminates every corner. A dozen Marad soldiers outline the perimeter, surrounding thirteen people seated around a massive wooden table.

  My heart punches my chest, and I’m as shocked to hear it as I am to see the sight before me.

  Hysan, Nishi, Mathias, Pandora, Skarlet, and Eurek occupy half the seats. The other half are taken up by six Party members. The woman in the thirteenth chair has her back to me, but I recognize her sultry voice.

  “We really need to get going, so for the last time: Agree to join us, or we’ll lock you up along with everyone else on this planet. You have right now to decide.”

  “Captain,” interrupts the Party member who escorted us. “We have a very important visitor.”

  Imogen turns around slowly, and when she sees me, her glossy red mouth curves into a smile. Then she spots Ezra and Gyzer behind me, and her smirk widens.

  “I knew it!”

  27

  “KNEW WHAT?” I ASK AS dryly as I can, hating that my heart has chosen this moment to resurface when now, more than ever, I need to be cool and calculating. “Aquarius sent me here to try to convince them. He had a feeling you’d fail.”

  “Right,” she says, standing on her spindly heels, her red lips still stretched in a too-confident smirk. “And you just happened to come with two of your former generals?”

  “You were my former general,” I say, softening my voice to try a gentler approach. “If your devotion to the cause is complete, why distrust ours?”

  “Because Aquarius has no idea you’re here,” she says, resting her hands on her waist, near where she holsters her Sumber. “If he did, I would have had warning of your arrival. I have a big imagination, but even I have a hard time believing you’ve changed sides.”

  “I’m here to convince them to join us,” I say, trying to keep my disdain for her out of my tone. “Whether or not you trust me makes no difference—we both still want the same thing.”

  Her copper-flecked eyes narrow shrewdly, and then her hands drop down at her sides. “Okay . . . go ahead.”

  She grips the back of her chair and pulls it out for me. “Convince them.”

  I have no idea what Ezra’s plan is or how soon from now it will take effect, so I just have to keep everyone interested. I sit down and for the first time make eye contact with my friends.

  Nishi glares at me, and she looks as livid as the two Arieans beside her. Mathias is stoic and Pandora is concerned, but I only glance at them peripherally. It’s Hysan my gaze locks on to.

  His features are as unreadable as Mathias’s, but where the latter’s face is more of a familiar military mask, Hysan’s is almost expressionless. His hair is scruffy, his cheeks look sunken in, and his lively eyes have dulled, like his inner sun has set for good. Yet his shoulders are squared and his jaw is hard.

  I suck in a deep breath, trying to call up my words from the place behind my booming heart. All thoughts of what I would say abandoned me as soon as I saw I’d have a Tomorrow Party audience. But I also didn’t realize how hard it would be to sit across from the family I deceived—and the Guardian whose secret I revealed.

  Even though I’m not looking at him, I can feel Eurek’s furious scowl burning into my head, like his ember eyes might have real firepower. It seems the Guardians are all in support of making sacrifices for the greater good, just as long as it’s not their House doing the sacrificing.

  “This isn’t about sides,” I begin, wishing I possessed some of Aquarius’s or Blaze’s magnetism. “This is about our species’ survival.

  “Our ancestors came through a portal to get to the Zodiac because they, too, had a difficult decision to make, and the fact we’re here at all is a testament to their strength.”

  Hysan looks unmoved, and I swallow and try again. “Aquarius is offering us a way out of this galaxy because Dark Matter will soon swallow our sun. I don’t like the way he’s gone about this any better than you—let’s not forget that Pisces and Cancer sacrificed more than any other House,” I add, and I venture a look at Eurek. His jaw stays clenched, but his eyes dial down their flames a little.

  “Right now what matters is that we not spend this time fighting but communicating. We have to face the reality we have, not the one we want—”

  “Do you really think he’s working this hard to convince us to come along because we’d make a fine addition to his Zodai collection?” Hysan’s voice is so soft, it’s more of a murmur, and yet every word is perfectly audible.

  “The six people you’re closest to on this base also happen to be the Tomorrow Party’s only recruitment priorities. Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”

  Skarlet pipes up. “I’m not close to her—”

  But Hysan continues speaking in his low voice, cutting her off. “He wants us because he needs a way to control you.”

  Imogen cackles and perches on the table in front of me. She looks at me and says, “Now I’m not even sure you know what side you’re on!”

  “Look who’s talking!” snaps Nishi, panning her scorching amber gaze to Imogen. “Aren’t you the same person who came to Centaurion pledging to help defend Sagittarius from terrorists, before joining those same terrorists and shooting me into a world of my nightmares?”

  “You broke into Blaze’s files and planned to betray us,” says Imogen. “But I didn’t kill you, and I spared you from worse pain.”

  “Worse pain?” Nishi’s face is red with outrage, and she looks at me then back at Imogen. “Do you understand what those nightmares were like—”

  “The other pellet would have been worse,” says the Gemini
n, and for the first time she doesn’t seem to be toying with us. “To dream of everything and everyone you long for . . . only to lose it all. Again. And again. And again . . . Trust me, that takes longer to recover from.”

  “You’re right, I really should be thanking you,” snarls Nishi as she shoots to her feet. Only now she’s directing her anger at me.

  “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you realize that if Aquarius really cared about us, he would have warned the Zodiac of this danger ages ago, so we could have had time to prepare? He’s only kept it to himself because he’s the one causing the Last Prophecy—he’s choosing who’s worthy of survival and dooming the rest of our species!”

  “He’s saving us!” interjects Imogen. “He’s doing what natural selection would do on its own—he’s just expediting it.”

  “And you’re fine with that justification for mass extermination?” Nishi is still looking at me.

  “He doesn’t have to justify himself!” shouts Imogen, at last losing her cool and leaning forward on the table toward Nishi. “We don’t question the stars, Stargazer. We obey them—”

  A bullet suddenly whizzes between Imogen and Nishi and hits the middle of the table, bursting into flame on contact with the wood.

  Everyone dives away, and as I drop to the ground, I look up at Ezra and Gyzer. They’re standing back to back with their wrists raised and Arclights aimed at the soldiers. Within seconds, they’ve systematically taken out every single Marad member in the room before the soldiers could even fire their Murmurs. I remember them being the best shots of anyone on Centaurion, but this is on another level—I’ve never seen anyone shoot like that.

  Someone yells for them to stop, but I don’t know who it is. Across from me, Mathias has also dropped to the floor, and he’s shielding Pandora’s and Nishi’s bodies with his own.

  When the sound of scuffling behind me cuts out, I finally sit up and look back: Eurek has single-handedly disarmed the six Tomorrow Party members, and Skarlet has Imogen in a headlock.

  I hear a hissing sound and I whip around to see Hysan using a fire freezer—a small silver gun that turns the flames on the table to icy curls of smoke.

  “You’re going to love The Bellow,” says Skarlet into Imogen’s hair. “It’s the perfect place to spend the Zodiac’s last days.”

  She and Eurek tie up the Party members, including a now-speechless Imogen, but Hysan is stalking over, looking furious.

  I brace myself for his words—

  “You killed them!” he shouts at Ezra and Gyzer. “You shot the Marad soldiers dead!”

  “Yes, and we saved your asses!” Ezra shouts back. I’m surprised she’s glaring back at him just as furiously, since she usually idolizes him, but then I recognize her expression as the same one Brynda wore on Pisces. Ezra’s hurt by Hysan’s secrets.

  After his broadcast, everyone who ever thought they were Hysan’s friends realized they were wrong.

  “So Party members get rounded up and arrested, but Marad soldiers get a bullet to the head? Does that sound like justice to you?” he demands. “I gave you weapons that aren’t lethal, and I know you have Tasers—”

  “There’s no room for second-guessing in war,” says Eurek, cutting off Hysan’s outrage. “We need to free our camp from the Marad soldiers holding our Zodai hostage in the other fortresses. Once we’ve rounded up all the prisoners and locked them up in The Bellow, we’ll address next steps.”

  His gaze stops on me and hardens. For a moment I think he’s going to recommend locking me up in The Bellow, too, but suddenly Pandora comes over and links her arm with mine. “Where should we meet you?” she asks Eurek.

  “My chambers. I’ll arrange an urgent holo-meet with the other Guardians so we can debrief them.” He looks to Skarlet, Ezra, and Gyzer. “We’ll either have to take out one Fort after the other, or we can split up into two teams of two.”

  “I have another idea,” says Hysan, and they grudgingly look to him. “You can access the central air cooling systems in the main halls of both structures, where I planted Bind bombs weeks ago, in case we ever needed them.” He ignores the way the air tenses when he admits to more secrecy. “They’ll disperse through the air in seconds, and everyone in both fortresses will fall asleep. Then we can arrest the Marad soldiers and explain everything to the Zodai when they wake up.”

  Bind is House Libra’s signature weapon: a wispy white powder made from ground-up minerals found deep within Kythera’s core that seeps quickly into a person’s muscular system and puts the body into a deep sleep. Librans are immune to small doses of the powder from breathing in trace amounts of it every day.

  Eurek finally nods. “That’s a better plan,” he says, biting off each word like it’s bothering him. “How do we set them off?”

  “I’ll go with you—”

  “I know how to activate them,” Ezra cuts in. “You stay here and sort this shit out.” She waves between Hysan and me.

  “Let’s go,” says Eurek, marching out with his team, and then I’m left alone with Hysan, Nishi, Mathias, and Pandora.

  With the others gone, Pandora lets go of my arm and returns to Mathias’s side.

  Only Nishi meets my gaze, and I almost wish she wouldn’t. There’s so much disappointment on her face that I flash back to the day at the International Village after I was stripped of my Guardianship—the day the Zodiac turned against me. Only this time, it’s the people I love most looking at me like I’m worthless.

  “I understand if you want to lock me up in The Bellow,” I say, and at this, Mathias’s indigo blue eyes shoot up to mine. He doesn’t look stoic anymore . . . he looks sad.

  “I came back because I don’t want you guys to die,” I say, realizing I’m speaking the absolute truth for the first time in a while. “If you choose death, then I’ll die with you. But I’m begging you to reconsider, for your sakes.”

  Nishi blows out an exasperated breath and brings her hands up to her face. “You are so infuriating, Rho. You sold your soul to save my life—did you seriously think I would thank you for it? You really think I could live with that price?”

  “I’m sorry, Nish—I just couldn’t bear the thought of you in there another moment—”

  “You couldn’t bear it. Because it was something you had the power to fix! I was someone you could still save, unlike Stan.”

  The air blows out of my lungs, but new oxygen doesn’t replace it. “I know I could have handled things better, but that doesn’t matter now, because I brought you the information you’re looking for.”

  Mathias and Nishi’s expressions shift from upset to curious, and they edge closer. “You know how he’s going to open the portal?” asks Nishi, and I nod. “How?”

  “He’s—”

  “Why tell us if you think Aquarius is right?”

  Hysan is still speaking in a low voice, the facial hair swallowing his usual glow.

  “Because you have the right to decide your own fate.”

  “I don’t want you to tell us,” he says resolutely, crossing his arms. “Not unless you’re with us again.”

  “Hysan—” starts Nishi.

  But to my shock, it’s Mathias who rests a hand on her shoulder and says, “Let him talk.”

  Hysan’s green gaze locks onto mine like a lie detector. “Why did he attack your House and Virgo and Gemini?”

  “To redirect the Dark Matter that was being disturbed by Guardians Origene, Moira, and Caasy’s experiments.”

  “That’s not true,” says Pandora, stepping forward. “We worked it out. We believe it was to destabilize the Psy.”

  I turn to Hysan questioningly, and he explains. “Aquarius’s plans were too close to fruition to risk the Zodai foreseeing them. So to disrupt the Psy, he had to take out its anchors—today’s greatest seers. Since a Guardian’s strength comes from their Psynergetic connection to their
world and their people, he had to take out chunks of these worlds’ populations to truly weaken the Psy’s pillars.”

  “But the Dark Matter—”

  “Is only a threat because Aquarius is a threat,” says Hysan. “The signs he’s been seeing started showing up the moment he set on this idea and began taking steps toward it.”

  I look to Mathias, who’s nodding in agreement with Hysan, and I remember what he told me when he taught me about the Collective Conscious: In the brain, everything is relative. Most of us don’t intentionally try to misrepresent anything—but the lies we tell ourselves, the truths we repress, the things we conceal in the physical realm . . . they inform reality in the Psy. Even in an abstract dimension, ideas built on flawed foundations will fail.

  “Aquarius is the one bringing the Zodiac down,” says Nishi. “He’s a star with free will—that gives him too much power.”

  Everything I’ve learned over the past few days starts to connect in my mind, forming a new constellation of facts. Ophiuchus was meant for that role because he was Unity: It went against his very nature to think of just himself. The other Guardians weren’t offered the same power because it would have had a corrosive effect—they weren’t meant to hold it. By interfering, Aquarius has distorted the astral plane.

  He may be all knowing, but Nishi’s right: He’s not just a star—he’s a star with free will. And he keeps making the same choice as the humans he looks down on: He can’t let go.

  He’s created his own darkness.

  “Which came first: fate or free will?” I say softly, quoting Aquarius. Mallie said she joined him because she Saw herself joining the Party. But who sent her that vision?

  He manipulates the Psy by creating the visions he needs, Hysan said when Crompton revealed himself as the master in the Cathedral. He’s been recruiting people for his plan by altering their destinies.

  “I say free will,” says Nishi, and the anger in her face is gone, like a candle that’s been blown out. “What do you say?”

  “Aquarius is going to open the portal by sacrificing Ophiuchus on his own soil,” I blurt out.