Zodiac (26 page)

“Seventy-seven years ago,” she starts, sitting upright in her body-massaging pillow, “our Mother Origene’s predecessor, Mother Crae, saw a disturbing omen in the vicinity of the Sufianic Clouds. Although Crae didn’t describe it in detail, she did appoint a panel of our leading Zodai to reexamine the folklore. In the process, a scholar named Yosme traveled to House Aries to study the earliest version of the myth. Yosme unearthed another scroll written in an older, more archaic language. He translated it as
The
Chronicles of Hebitsukai-Za, the Serpent Bearer.”

“So does that mean . . . Za and Ophiuchus are the same person?” I ask, nestling into my clump of fluffy, oversized cushions.

“The two legends were too similar to be coincidence. The
Hebitsukai-Za
scroll was a major scientific find.”

“Why has no one heard of this Hebitsukai-Za before?” asks Mathias. He’s lying on his back on the hard marble floor. He says the firmness helps for Yarrot.

“The report was buried,” says Sirna, cradling her teacup. Hysan, who’s in a nook of the room reviewing holographic books, now turns to her with rapt attention.

“Mother Crae feared that certain new details in the Za account were too alarming to make public. So Yosme’s report was sent into deep archive, and after Mother Crae’s death, it was forgotten. We only found it by scouring the history files and searching for the extra-encrypted documents, the ones that don’t appear on a search unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. We had to break into our own security system to access the master list, and that’s where we found this report.”

“What are the alarming new details?” I ask, hugging my knees.

“They have to do with time.” Sirna Waves Yosme’s book of the myth of Hebitsukai-Za over our heads, and the four of us lie on our backs and look up, reading the text and reviewing its images.

The first picture shows travelers from another universe passing through a time warp to settle our Zodiac Galaxy. Hebitsukai-Za was the last in the group to traverse the time warp, and when he emerged, his body was entwined in the ropey coils of an enormous worm that was biting its own tail, simultaneously devouring itself and growing longer. This worm was Time.

Passing through the time warp had altered the laws of physics and created an unstable leak between the old universe and our own. The two universes were in imminent danger of sliding together and collapsing. So the terrified travelers sealed off the time warp, but only after Za had brought the time-worm through.

The book’s images mesmerize me. They show how the worm could turn its head both forward and back, thus ruling the direction of time. Recognizing what chaos this might cause, the travelers tried to kill the worm, and by accident, they bludgeoned Za to death. But the worm needed a host, so it reversed time and resurrected Za.

When the book ends, a new image rotates in the air. “This is the glyph of the mythical House Ophiuchus,” says Sirna.

I study the familiar staff entwined by two serpents, the emblem we call the Caduceus, or healer’s wand.

“Now look at this one,” she says. A second emblem materializes next to the first. This one shows a stylized outline of a man trapped in the coils of a single giant worm biting its own tail. When Sirna overlays the two images, the resemblance is too strong to miss.

“Myths speak to us through metaphor,” says Hysan.

“I don’t know what it adds up to,” says Sirna, shutting off the holograms. “It’s only legend.”

“Maybe nothing,” says Mathias.

“Or maybe everything,” I mutter, my inner sense foaming with possibilities.

On a sudden impulse, I sit up and say, “Sirna, could you call up ‘Beware Ochus’?” When the holographic poem hovers above us, I read it out loud and linger on the line
A wound even time could not mend.
All these references to time
 . . .
are they just coincidence, or could they be clues?

Before Sirna leaves, I find an excuse to pull her into the privacy of a bedroom. As soon as we enter, she lowers her gaze, and I realize she knows what I’m going to ask.

And I already know her answer.

“WE DON’T KNOW WITH ABSOLUTE
CERTAINTY
.
 . . .”

“But you’re pretty sure,” I whisper, dropping onto the bed and clutching my chest. She doesn’t say anything, so I look up. From the expression on her face, I know Dad’s gone.

I turn away, staring at the floor but not seeing it.

I don’t feel pain.

I don’t feel anything.

Yet.

“I’m sorry if I’ve been rude to you,” says Sirna, her voice constricted. “I’ve misjudged you, Guardian.” She draws something small and shiny from her pocket.

“Mother Origene gave me this. . . . Now I’d like it to be yours. Please wear it always to honor our House.” She opens her hand and a thin gold chain dangles out. On it hangs a simple pendant holding a single rose-colored nar-clam pearl.

Like the ones on the necklace Mom made me . . . the one I lost on Elara.

That day, Stanton was bitten by the Maw, and we rushed him to the healers, who did what they could for him. . . . But no one could say with certainty if he would ever wake up. Stanton was out for five hours, and Mom and I spent every one of those three hundred minutes trying to find his fate in the Ephemeris.

But it was Dad—not the stars—who kept Stanton safe. He sucked the poison from his wound after the attack, and while Mom and I were off predicting if my brother still had a future, Dad was caring for Stanton in the present. He sat beside him and held his hand all five hours.

Whenever I’ve thought of that day, Mom’s stood out in my memory as having saved us. She killed the sea snake. So why am I only seeing the true hero now, when it’s too late?

“Please promise me you’ll never take it off,” says Sirna, pulling me out of my sink-sand past and clasping the gold chain around my neck. “Let it bring Cancer to you, wherever your travels lead.”

• • •

I wish Sirna a tender goodbye, and after she leaves, Mathias tells Hysan he needs to talk to me privately. I can barely speak, but he thinks it’s because of what happened at the Plenum and where I plan to go tomorrow.

I can’t tell him or Hysan about Dad. That would make it too real.

“Please, Rho.” It’s Mathias in the room with me instead of Sirna, but my eyes keep finding the same spot of the floor, like I can’t stop reliving the realization of Dad’s death.

“It’s my duty to raise objections. I’m just trying to help you think clearly.”

“I know,” I manage to say. “I’m just tired.”

His baritone grows gentler. “I’m going to do some scouting tonight with my mom, see if I can find out who’s after you. I’ll be back in the morning. Just try to get some sleep . . . and think things over.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow to find Ophiuchus,” I say in a dead voice.

Mathias goes without answering.

When I’m alone, I strip off my clothes and step inside the shower. Once the water is scaldingly hot, I sit on the tile floor, huddled against the wall, and I let the sticky steam fill me with something—
anything
but this awful, gaping, deadly absence.

I rub Sirna’s rose pearl between my fingers, thinking of Dad. The last time we saw each other, I was on vacation from the Academy, a year and a half ago. Stanton was home, too, and it was almost like going back to when we were kids, and the three of us lived together. Mom’s ghost still haunted the bungalow’s darkest corners, but mostly she was gone, and we had a great visit.

The last day of vacation, I helped Dad clean our old schooner. I told him about starting a band with my best friends Nishiko and Deke, and we even talked about my plans after the Academy. It was the closest he and I had come to a real conversation in years.

There’s so much I wish I’d told him. The tears flood my eyes all of a sudden, one for every truth, story, and feeling I should have shared with him—all the unsaid things I kept stuffed inside my shell.

I should have told him why I left home. I should have asked how he felt after Mom took off. I should have admitted I was angry with her, but that I was angry with him, too—for not protecting me from her mania.

Everything pours out from me in sobs that shake my chest and scrape my throat, like my memories and emotions are trying to claw their way to my surface.

By the time I turn the faucet off, my eyes feel desiccated and my fingers look shriveled. I slip into a cottony white robe and sit in front of the mirror, passing a brush through my wet hair, staring into my dull and deadened eyes. Their pale green reminds me of the bioluminescent microbes that glow in the inner lagoon where Dad keeps his nar-clam beds.

Where Dad
kept
his nar-clam beds.

My exhalation gets caught in my throat and won’t come out. Just like my brain won’t accept this nightmare as my new reality. Dad can’t be gone.

Suddenly, I hear drumming in the distance. No—
knocking
. It sounds faint and far off, like it’s coming from somewhere in my head.

Then I realize someone is at my door.

My face comes back into focus in the mirror. Enough time has passed that my hair is dry. Since I’ve been brushing it nonstop, it’s almost straight. I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting here, thinking of Dad. Of our home on Cancer. Of everything I’ve already lost.

So what’s the harm in one more gamble—one last trip into Space?

“Rho? Everything okay?”

Hysan’s voice wraps around my soul like a blanket, and I feel myself pulling out of this stupor, peeking out from my shell. This cold aloneness isn’t what I need right now. I need warmth.

“Come in,” I say, tucking the pearl necklace under my robe and cinching the belt tighter.

“I brought you something to sleep in,” he says, stopping short when he sees me. “Your hair . . . I like it.”

“Thanks,” I say, taking the sleeping shirt and stretchy pants he hands me. He’s wearing his gray coveralls again, and there’s a stylus in one of the pockets, like he’s been working.

“Room service will bring you anything you need—toothbrush, food, clothes. Just tell the wallscreen what you want, any time.” He’s silent a moment, then turns to leave.

“Will you stay with me awhile, or do you have somewhere to be?”

My whisper hangs in the dimly lit room, the words so low I’m worried he didn’t hear them.

“Somewhere is where you are, my lady.”

His voice is like a caress; it brushes softly down my spine, until every knotted nerve within me begins to loosen and liquefy. Until all my body wants to do is finally let go. I’m tired of holding on so tight when everything has already fallen apart.

“Can room service bring us any Abyssthe?” I ask when he’s in front of me again. “Or that Geminin drug?” I’m only half joking.

Hysan frowns as he registers the heaviness in my gaze. “What’s happened? Something’s changed from before.”

“My heart stopped beating,” I gasp between waves of emotion, “and I can’t feel anything anymore.” I won’t tell him I’m an orphan now, like him. I won’t say those words yet.

Instead, I move closer, until all that’s between us is the lumpy knot of my robe, pressing against my waist.

“You be my drug then,” I say, looking into those green eyes. “Make me feel something . . . while we still can.”

“You’re sure?” he whispers, his breath soft against my skin. He combs his fingers through my hair. “You’re not afraid?”

“Of you?”

“Of crossing a line. I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.” His stare scans my face like a laser, and I wonder if I even need to speak my answer, or if he’s already found it.

“I don’t have many lines left to cross,” I whisper. “And this one hardly seems like the worst.”

My friends on Elara are gone. Millions more Cancrians have died since. Virgos, too. Dad, Mathias’s sister, Deke’s sisters, Kai’s parents . . . I can’t stop any of it. Ochus is too powerful to avoid or defeat, and he’s bound to destroy me, too.

After all, I’m at the top of his death list. Any moment I’m going to go like the rest of them, and I’ve barely lived. My world’s axis is off-kilter, and I can’t set it right.

Other than Nishi, I’ve never cared for anything or anyone that wasn’t Cancrian before. Hysan is wrong for me in so many ways—the Taboo, the innate differences between us, the timing. And, of course, Mathias. But that’s how I know this is right. Because it isn’t something I
should
or
need
to do—for the first time since becoming Guardian, I’m doing something I
want
.

Fingers shaking, I clumsily undo the knot around my robe, until the white belt falls limp on either side. The robe’s curtains sway a little, leaving the slightest sliver of space between them.

Hysan plants his hands on my hips, but he doesn’t remove my robe. Instead, he leans in until my eyes naturally close, and I feel his lips brush mine. “I’ll do anything you want,” he whispers, his voice husky. “You set the rules.”

My heart’s beating too quickly to speak again.

What a strange way to discover I’m still alive.

I dated a little at the Academy—but I’ve never been kissed like this before. When Hysan’s mouth meets mine, it’s like he’s discovered a new flavor, something foreign and delicate, and he’s savoring the taste. His lips are gentle and curious, yet experienced, and the more carefully he kisses me, the stronger my desire for him builds.

I shiver when his hands slip beneath the robe and trace my hipbones. His fingers feel light and velvety on my skin, and I gasp as they travel up my sides, curving in with my waist and grazing the sides of my breasts. When he reaches my shoulders, his hands slide down along my arms, shedding off the white robe entirely.

It falls to a soft heap on the floor, leaving me naked, save for the necklace Sirna gave me. I’ve never stood like this in front of a boy before. I feel every cell in me constricting with shame and fear, my face burning what must be a brilliant crabshell red, and I get the urge to cover myself back up—

“You’re so beautiful, Rho,” whispers Hysan, touching the pearl on my necklace, cutting off my thoughts. I forget to be self-conscious when I see the openness in his face. He’s vulnerable, too.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he murmurs into my neck, “and I’m crazy about you.”

A shot of something new spikes my blood. In this moment, I don’t feel like a girl or a Guardian or a teenager or an Acolyte or like any person I’ve been before.

For the first time, I feel like a woman.

I never even knew there was a difference.

Hysan takes off his gray coveralls, removes a wrapper from a pocket, and then eases me onto the bed. The sight of protection suddenly makes what’s happening real.

As I lie back, his hands come down on either side of me, and his arm muscles bulge as his body presses down. I couldn’t be more aware that the only clothes between us are his boxers.

“Hysan . . .”

He looks at me, his messy hair falling over his golden face and soft eyes. “Rho, we can stop if you’d like—”

“I don’t want to stop,” I say, pulling him closer. “I just wanted you to know,” I breathe into his ear, “I like you, too.”

His cheek curves against mine. Then our mouths crash together again, and for a night, he makes me forget the burning hole in my chest.