Zodiac (33 page)

WHEN WE LAND ON PHAETONIS,
a full military motorcade squires us into the city from the spaceport. Captain Marq rides with us.

I expect to be taken to the hippodrome, so I’m surprised when we head into the international village. Today, it’s completely void of people, and leftover glasses and trinkets from the festival still litter the ground. My chest hurts just thinking of the night of Helios’s Halo, back when we had a tomorrow to fight for. When the Houses were friends. When Mathias smiled.

A special session has been convened to hear my report of what happened in the Wasp, and I’ve memorized what I’ll say. I’m going to share that Ophiuchus has a master—like Caasy predicted—and I’ll tell them about his plan to bring back the Thirteenth House.

I cross the plank into the Cancrian embassy, following Sirna. I’m relieved not to be in the arenasphere facing the Plenum for this report. After everything that’s happened, home is the only place I want to be.

Sirna walks ahead and leads me to the second bungalow, the only one I haven’t visited yet. The lobby is an open sandbox, filled with hammocks and embassy Waves for guests. The roof is an aquarium, housing various varieties of fish, seahorses, crabs, sea snakes, and even sharks. Sirna and I head straight to the top story—a vast, open-air ballroom.

The floor beneath us is the aquarium, and I realize it must span the entire height of the bungalow. The heavy fabric sky of Phaetonis hangs over us as Sirna walks off to her seat at the long table facing me, and then I’m left alone, staring at Guardians and ambassadors from the twelve houses.

There’s no audience today. No soldiers, no cameras, no holo-ghosts. Just all the representatives who are still alive to attend.

Everyone is glaring at me. My eyes land on blade-faced Charon, who rises. I thought he’d been suspended.

I give Sirna a questioning nod, but she lowers her eyes.
What’s going on?

“Rhoma Grace.” Charon’s voice thunders through the quiet, and I flinch. “You have been charged with cowardice. How do you plea?”

Cowardice.
The word echoes tauntingly in my ears, the way
treason
did, when Admiral Crius accused Mom. None of this makes any sense.
I’m on trial?
I thought I was here to give a report on Ophiuchus.

I catch Sirna watching me, so I lift my chin, determined to act with honor. “Ophiuchus outmaneuvered us, but—”

Charon bangs his fist on the table. The silence that follows has an echoing quality. “Guilty . . . or not guilty?”

I open my mouth, but I don’t know how to answer. My warnings launched the armada. They trusted me. I led them.

But it was Ochus who did the slaughtering.

Ochus.

When I fail to answer, Charon bangs his fist again. “Did you not claim that your Psy shields would protect our ships from your boogeyman?”

“The shields worked, but they were sabota—”

“Yes or no!” shouts Charon. “Did you not deliberately lead our fleet into the perilous Kyros Belt, the most dangerous part of Zodiac Space, an ice field you knew would claim most of our ships?”

“No! That’s not what happened. Admiral Ignus did a stellar job of leading us through the ice.”

Angry conversations rustle down the table, and Charon says, “Perhaps the admiral will testify.” He looks around the room, smug and confident. I’m sure he knows what happened to Ignus. Sirna told me he went down with his ship.

“Admiral Ignus died a hero,” I say. “He and all the others. Someone betrayed us.”

“Yes. Someone did. You.” Charon points at my chest. “You breached our trust, Rhoma. You weren’t ready to be a leader; you were a child seeking fame. That’s why the first thing you did after you were sworn in was run away. Not that it’s entirely your fault—your Cancrian mother didn’t set the best example. You then commanded your bandmate—a Sagittarian not subject to your control—to continue spreading your rumors and win you more fans. In the meantime, you and your lover stole a ship from House Libra—again, not in your Cancrian jurisdiction—and shortly thereafter you wormed your way before us and manipulated the Plenum into following you on a dangerous and doomed mission that you were always planning to survive,
alone
. We were all just part of your path to Zodiac fame, and you never cared who you hurt, did you? Not even your Guide, Lodestar Mathias Thais.”

Hearing Mathias’s name, I feel paralyzed. There’s a deadly, booming silence that follows Charon’s accusation, and it feels like it’s radiating from inside me. I don’t even hear my heartbeats or breaths. There’s just a vacuum where life had been.

“I’m a Cancrian,” I say, my voice low and shaking, “a
nurturer
. What you’re suggesting, it isn’t in my soul.”

“Isn’t it true the original plan was for Mathias to pilot your Wasp?” asks Charon, and I gasp. “Yet you went around his back to Admiral Ignus for an instructional program so you could fly it yourself. You’d been planning to abandon him all along.” His voice is no longer loud or impassioned, simply factual. He knows he’s won.

“Why . . . would I hurt Mathias?” I ask, my voice nearly gone.

“Because if he came with you, he would learn the truth—that there is no Ophiuchus.
Admit your treason, child.
”

“Objection.” Sirna’s on her feet. “This girl stands accused of cowardice, not treason.” Even though she’s defending me, she still won’t look at me.

“Fine,” says Charon. “We have heard enough. The defendant has admitted her guilt. Excellencies, what say you?”

“No, I haven’t—”

“We of Aries find the defendant guilty.”

Charon nods. “How says the Second House?”

“Guilty,” rumbles the Taurian.

“How says the Third House?”

The diminutive ambassador from Gemini hops up into her chair, reminding me of poor, lost Rubidum. “The Third House says guilty.”

Charon calls the Fourth House to vote, and now it’s Sirna’s turn. Sirna at least will stay loyal. She stands, and her voice rings low but clear. “House Cancer votes guilty.”

I freeze, stunned, while the rest of the Houses continue to vote. It’s unanimous. Albor Echus reads my sentence. “Rhoma Grace, you have been found guilty and are forever banned from this Plenum.”

None of this makes sense. They asked me to lead the armada—I wasn’t even allowed in on the strategy meetings—and now I’m the only one to blame?

I stare at the glass beneath me, and for a moment I wish it would break so I could just return to the Sea and be done with breathing. Then I think of Mathias, and I push that wish away.

Sirna rises and solemnly walks up to me. I think she’s finally going to explain what’s happening, but instead she removes the Cancrian coronet she herself placed on my head this morning. I watch her in bewildered confusion, and then my brain kicks in, and I understand what’s happening.

A Guardian can only be sworn in on her own House’s soil—that’s why we had the salt water at my ceremony—and the same goes for stripping a Guardian of her power. They couldn’t do it at the hippodrome. . . . It’d have to be done at the embassy.

Sirna clears her throat and speaks loud and clearly across the roofless room. “You are hereby stripped of your title as Guardian of the Fourth House.”

THE VERY LODESTARS I SENT
here now hustle me out of the embassy, alone, and escort me across the plank. Then they turn me loose on the streets of the village.

I don’t know where to go. For the first time, I’m on my own. I have no faithful protector, no safe house, no embassy to run to. I don’t even know how I’m going to get off this planet.

I amble dazedly around, like I’m in a stupor. After weeks of racing forward at breakneck speed, I’m done. My services aren’t needed anymore.

I watch the world around me as though I’m not part of it. I don’t feel like I’m part of anything anymore.

I was deceived after all. Mathias warned me to slow down and think things through, but I couldn’t see past my own obsession. And now I’ve lost both him and Hysan—and the respect of our entire solar system.

Suddenly I realize people have started to trickle out from embassies. Mostly Acolytes and university students—those who didn’t set out in the armada. When they see me, they point and come closer.

Something moldy explodes on my head, and immediately more vegetables start flying toward me. The crowd converges around, calling me filthy names that bleed into each other.
Traitor! Murderer! Coward!

They throw their dead at me, too.
My husband, my father, my sister, my friend, my daughter
—everyone lost someone. And like the Plenum, they too need someone to blame. War leaves all kinds of wreckage.

I recognize one of the faces among them—Lacey, the Piscene from Helios’s Halo. Her face is splotchy and wet with tears. “You were supposed to save us,” she says through her sobs.

A thrown flute glass shatters and slices a cut across my cheek. Fighting tears and covering my face, I drop to my knees, as the circle closes around me. I wonder if the same people who chanted my name to lead them days ago will now rip me to shreds.

Suddenly an air horn blares. “Stand back,” says a man’s voice. “Clear the area.”

I raise my head. My attackers are retreating, but no soldiers are in sight.

People stumble backward, shielding their faces, and a few of them fall to the ground. I hear slaps and punches, but I can’t figure out what’s happening—until an invisible hand grips my upper arm and lifts me to my feet.

“Your veil, my lady.”

A collar slips around my throat, and a golden figure appears before my eyes.

Hysan came back.

“We’re invisible now. Let’s get out of here.”

He takes my hand and hurries me through the crowd, shoving people aside. As soon as we leave the village, we race toward the train station.

The city around me is brimming with energy, but I can’t access it. I feel as though I’m watching and hearing through a glass wall, unable to cross over and join reality. Only when we’re seated inside a train car do I manage to catch my breath. “Thank you,” I say, feeling too fragile to say more.

He frowns and touches my cheek. “You’re hurt.”

The cut throbs, but it’s minor. “Why are you here, Hysan?”

Dimples half mark his cheeks, like his smile is only halfway back. “You’re not an easy girl to forget.” He wraps my hand in his. “Plus, you’re my only real human friend.”

He makes it hard not to stop everything and kiss him sometimes. “How did you get here so fast?”

“Equinox.”
His eyes glitter. “We’ve been traveling at hyperspeed ever since Ambassador Frey contacted us.”

“Frey voted to expel me.”

“He had no choice. He and Sirna struck a deal to keep you out of prison.”

We steal into the spaceport, and as before,
Equinox
is parked at the far edge of the vibrocopter pad, veiled from view. Hysan assures me
Equinox
’s Psy shield remains intact, thanks to his Talisman.

When we climb aboard the ship, two people are waiting for us—or rather, one person and an android.

Lord Neith sits at the helm, playing digital mah-jongg with ’
Nox
, while a little girl watches and suggests moves. It’s
Rubidum
.

“Rubi! You made it!”

When I leap to hug her, she fends me off. “Ugh. What’s that muck on your clothes?”

I step back so I won’t drip on her. “Your zeppelin came through okay?”

She twitches her nose at the smell. “No, our fuel tanks exploded, but the honorable Lord Neith saved me. Whoever designed my escape pod needs a brain transplant.” She rips a few cristobalite beads off her tunic and flings them at the wall. “The worst is, we fell into a trap of our own making.”

“You trusted a seventeen-year-old,” I say.

Hysan puffs out his cheeks. “My Psy shields were flawless. I tested them myself.”

“Hysan, I wasn’t referring to you. Ochus warned me the very first time I saw him that people would never believe me. And everything I’ve done to prove him wrong has only worked in his favor. Now the whole Zodiac thinks I’m a coward. They actually think I meant for things to work out this way.”

“You can’t take the blame alone, Rho.” Rubidum tears off another bead. “We all allowed rage to blind us.”

“I guess I can cross off politics from my future.”

She and I laugh weakly, but Hysan looks at me steadily, his sunny gaze trapping me in its beam. “The stars picked you, Rho. Humans—in their infinite injustice—have wronged you, but you’ll find your rightful place again. Your light shines too brightly not to be a beacon for others.”

• • •

I head to my usual cabin to clean up. With Hysan nearby, I almost feel like I’ll pull through . . . but my guilt makes it hard to spend a lot of time in his presence.

The moment I’m alone, all the words Charon flung at me at the embassy seem to fill the room, and I curl up in a corner of the floor, trying to escape them. But maybe I am a coward.

I didn’t tell Mathias about Ochus’s death threat before we left Oceon 6. I didn’t tell him about Hysan. I couldn’t even express my feelings or hear about his.

I just shut the door on him. I abandoned Mathias. Like I abandoned Dad and Stanton. And the people of Virgo. I don’t know what light Hysan and Agatha can possibly see in me, when all I seem to bring people is darkness.

When I finally get up to drop my suit in the refresher, I shake out the pockets. Mathias’s Astralator falls out.

I pick it up, running my fingers along the slippery mother-of-pearl. This belongs with his parents, not me.

Poor Amanta and Egon. Like Hysan and me, they’re orphans, but in a different, far worse way.

I spend a long time in the ultraviolet shower, letting the light singe away every trace of dirt. The wound on my cheek stings, so I hold my face close to the UV faucet to sterilize the germs. When I step out of the stall, Sirna’s waiting.

“Rho. I wish I could have taken your place up there.” She holds out a fresh Cancrian uniform tailored to my size. “Forgive me for not warning you. It was part of our agreement with Charon.”

I take her outstretched hands. “Duty’s a harsh master,” I say, repeating her words. “But I’m not a Lodestar. I don’t have a right to wear that.”

“It’ll do for now.” She helps me slip it on. “Events had to play out this way. If we’d pushed back too hard, Charon would have engineered something worse than expulsion. Try to understand.”

I touch the Royal Guard glyph on my pocket, the three golden stars. Like the ones on Mathias’s suit.

“I’m not giving up, Sirna. I just . . . need time to think and get ready.”

“Rho, you’ve done plenty.”

I gaze into Sirna’s sea-blue eyes. “Agatha will be interim Guardian until a new one is selected. She’s the most senior Advisor. Watch over her.”

Sirna gives a solemn nod. “Of course we will. I must return to the embassy, but I wanted to bid you farewell first. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.” We hug, and she turns to go—then I remember the Astralator. “Wait, Sirna. Could you take something back to the Thaises?”

Her expression falls with sadness as I hold out the Astralator. “It was Mathias’s . . . and his sister’s before that.”

She stares at it but doesn’t accept. “We mustn’t interfere with the wishes of those who have gone. Mathias wanted you to have this. His parents have other things to remember him by. . . . This is yours.”

• • •

When Sirna leaves to resume her role at the Plenum, Rubidum refuses to go, and I’m glad. She’s two hundred and eighty years older than me, but she feels like my kid sister, and now we’re both homeless.

Neith and Hysan man the helm, and as
Equinox
lifts off and climbs away from House Aries, I watch the planet Phaetonis disappear without regret. Far in the distant sky, unknown stars circle beyond our galaxy, spreading outward without end.

I can’t fathom infinity. Telescopes see only so far, and even the Ephemeris reveals no more than our visible universe. No ship will ever travel fast enough to reach the edge of Space. Anything might lurk out there. Anything is possible.

Even Empyrean.

Rubidum comes up beside me. “See something?”

“Just thinking.”

She presses her forehead to the glass. “Scientists say that somewhere in the universe, every event under the sun repeats itself an infinite number of times in every possible variation.”

“I like that.” Could it be that somewhere beyond our sight, Mathias still lives, and another, better Rho Grace still swims in a sapphire sea?

Rubidum nudges my arm. “Your fans will set you up as a martyr. You’ll be more famous than ever. That’s what I foresee.”

“You got that from the stars?”

“Yes. I’m not a Guardian for nothing. Hysan’s right, you know. You
are
the true Mother of Cancer. The stars haven’t pointed to another.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“Your Lodestars haven’t located new astrological fingerprints as Potentials to replace you.”

A far more terrible theory forms in my mind: Maybe Cancer doesn’t have a new Guardian because Cancer is gone forever.

But I can’t think that way.

“I need more training, Rubi.” I hug my knees to my chest. “I have a ton of stuff to learn.” Even as I speak, my eyes sting at the memory of Mathias’s advice.

Hysan comes up behind us. “So where to?”

“The moons of Aquarius have stellar ski spas,” says Rubidum. “Or we might try sun-sailing on planet Leo.”

“I’d like to find my brother,” I say, even though I know it’s selfish. “He’s probably in the refugee camp on Hydragyr.”

“House Gemini.” Rubidum turns to the glass and squints in the direction of her world. Her red-rimmed eyes remind me of the people in her court, so lively and creative, now burnt to ash. “I’ve been dreading the sight, but . . . yes, I believe it’s time to return.”

“Gemini?” Hysan twists his lips like he’s tasting vinegar. “Neith, my liege, the ladies have decided. Set a course for the Third House.”