I fix my eyes on Aryll and start walking toward him. “You’re dead,” I growl, but he doesn’t bother to raise his Scarab. He doesn’t look scared at all. He looks amused.
“Oh, Rho,” he says when I’m just a few feet away. “You’re just so . . . adorable.”
I raise my Barer in the shape of a sword.
Hysan springs over, and even though his expression is broken, I can see that he won’t let Aryll hurt me.
“Mathias!”
At the sound of Pandora’s piercing scream, Hysan and I look away. A Marad soldier has injured Mathias’s right arm, and he can’t raise his Barer. Pandora leaps in front of him, and I turn to Hysan desperately. “GO!”
He looks from me to Aryll like he’s going to disagree, and I say, “Hysan, trust me!”
And he does.
When he runs to help Mathias, I face Aryll again.
“That is some impressive pet training,” he says, his yellow eyes dancing. “You’ll have to show me that trick sometime.”
I raise my electric sword. “Let’s do this.”
“You think you’re so dark!” Aryll laughs at me as I approach. “All because you lost some people and had a few nightmares?”
He pulls out a dagger that looks like the one he used to kill Rubi. “You’re not dark, Rho. You only dream of darkness.” His voice drops to a whisper, like he’s sharing a secret. “True dark dwellers dream of light.”
He raises his dagger to stab me, but I dodge him. Then I shove my sword forward, but he dodges it, too.
“Your real name is Grey Gowan,” I say as we circle each other. “You were born on Capricorn. You had pale skin and black eyes and you were thirteen when you started shifting for the first time.”
“That’s a pretty story,” he says, flashing his sharp teeth in a cruel smirk. “But do you really think you can play on emotions that aren’t there?”
“You left behind a Snow Globe for your family, and Ferez found it. That’s why you didn’t like being on Capricorn when we were there. Some part of you realized you were home.”
“I’m home now,” he says, and there’s an edge in his voice that proves he’s not as indifferent as he claims. “And I’d say it’s time you went home, too—and reunited with your brother.”
He raises the dagger just as a flash of blond hair comes up behind him, and Aryll freezes as Mom presses a pistol to his temple.
“A family reunion!” he says gleefully. “Too bad there are no Grace men left to rescue you—”
Mom fires.
Blood gushes everywhere as Aryll’s head explodes. I recoil in shock as blood sprays my face and uniform, and I stare at Mom aghast.
There’s no emotion or hesitation on her face. There’s only the feral look she wore when she killed the Maw that attacked Stanton. And now she’s taken out the beast that murdered him.
“Mom,” I gasp, my hand clutching my chest. “Thank you.”
Her face softens. “Rho—”
A blade suddenly bursts through her chest.
“MOM!” I shout as her eyes fly open in horror. The metal withdraws, and she falls into my arms, blood spurting out of her wound.
We drop to the ground, and I stare into her pallid face, her bottomless blue eyes fading fast. “No, please, hang on,” I say, my tears dropping onto her. “Please don’t go, please. . . .”
But her death is instantaneous—the blade went right through her heart—and I look up to see Blaze holding the bloody sword that killed her.
“Oh, Rho,” he says, his face pinched in faux pain. “My deepest condolences about your mom.”
43
THE BLOODY POINT OF BLAZE’S sword slides under my chin and tips my face up. “On your feet,” he commands, and I rest Mom on the ground and rise.
I can barely see Blaze through the field of red that fills my vision. He’s murdered my mother and Nishi. I don’t care what Hysan would say—Blaze doesn’t deserve my mercy.
He deserves death.
“I’m not sure what I want to do with you,” he says, tilting his head, the cold metal still touching my chin. “You monopolized Aquarius’s attention. You impeded my plans to leave this universe. And now you’ve stolen my power.”
“Sounds to me like you’re a sore loser.”
“Well I’m still standing, so it sounds to me like the game isn’t over.”
“Put down your sword, Blaze.”
Hysan’s voice is void of light. He strides over to us and stands beside me, equally covered in blood and dirt and gashes. “It’s over.”
Mathias comes, too, Pandora propping him up since he’s injured. Sirna also approaches, and then Eurek and Gyzer and Skarlet and Engle, and other Zodai I don’t know. They all form a circle around Blaze, whose sword is still touching my chin.
In the distance, I hear a girl’s voice calling out for her mother, but I ignore it.
“Put down your sword,” commands Eurek.
Blaze looks desperate but unwilling to submit.
“You’re all fools! You know the Zodiac won’t change. It’ll be just like after the Trinary Axis—this will be another war for the history texts that will start out as a cautionary tale until someone gets the itch for some excitement and starts riling people up again. Aquarius was a visionary—he understood that we need to start anew! You’re just recycling the same bad foundation—”
“Drop your weapon,” Hysan repeats, and there’s so much strength and power in his voice that Blaze stops speaking.
His head hinges down, and to my surprise he drops the sword tip to the ground. And I hear the girl again, calling my mom’s name.
I start to turn to go to her, right as Blaze raises the sword again and moves in to drive it into my heart. I have no time to run or defend myself as the blade flies toward me—
A metal dart shoots into Blaze’s throat.
Beside me, Hysan is holding the small golden gun he used to stop Neith on Pisces. Blood fountains from the Leonine’s neck as he falls facedown on the ground, the sword still in his hand.
It’s finished.
“MOM!” calls Gamba for the third time, and I turn to see her flipping over bodies, searching for our mother’s face. She’s probably already glanced this way and seen that Mom isn’t one of the people standing here—what she can’t see is her body because it’s lying on the floor beside Blaze, inside the circle.
I move toward her, and when Gamba sees me, she freezes.
“No,” she says, stepping back from the truth she reads on my face. “No, she can’t—she’s not—”
She tries fighting me off, but I pull her to my chest and hold her there as she breaks down into sobs. We cry together, both of us sisters, both of us orphans, and we don’t stop until hands pull us apart. Hysan helps me to my feet, and I see that the Zodai have started gathering all those who have fallen on both sides.
The Dark Matter has thinned even more, and the sky looks like a gray dusk. More silver stars are visible as the hole in the blanket of blackness expands. We carry as many corpses between us as we can to the ships, where we find the rest of the Zodai survivors.
“Gy!”
Ezra comes running, and Gyzer drops the body he’s carrying to catch her as she leaps into his arms. When he sets her down, she turns to all of us, and without anyone having to ask she says, “Once the portal closed, those Ophiuchan creatures slipped away, and most of the Marad went with them. They just . . . stopped fighting us.”
We regroup with the rest of our fleet—which has been cut in half—and we begin to sort through the fallen bodies as every House claims their dead to send to Empyrean through their own customs. We position the fallen Marad soldiers against the tree line so their brethren can decide how to lay them to rest.
Every Tomorrow Party member Blaze brought with him died in battle. My gaze lingers on Mallie, and fo
r some reason I think of the young girl in the pink spacesuit who froze to death on Elara. Both senseless deaths, yet the Cancrian has been cast as a victim and Mallie a villain. But Mallie was a victim, too.
Suddenly the whole camp falls silent, and I look up from Mallie’s pallid face to a solitary Marad soldier who’s just stepped out of the swamp.
The Zodai point their weapons, but since she’s not holding a Murmur, nobody shoots. Then she rips off her mask, revealing a snakeskin face and lime-green eyes that are looking right at me.
“We outnumber you,” she says in a raspy voice. “You either agree to leave this planet and never return, or we’ll finish off what’s left of you.”
I step forward. “We’re sorry for the way Risers have been treated, and we want to offer you a place in the Zodiac.”
“You may feel that way, but the rest of the universe doesn’t. We don’t want your help. And we never want you coming back.”
“You have the technology to reach us if you ever need anything,” I say. “We will come if you call.”
She nods and retreats into the swamp. After a moment’s delay, activity resumes, and I hear a familiar voice that makes me ache with relief.
“You’re not touching me with that needle!”
I jog over to the makeshift medical area, where Brynda is sitting on a fallen tree trunk and being treated by an Ariean healer. “Don’t be a baby,” says the fiery-haired woman.
“You have a great bedside manner,” snarls Brynda. “I bet everyone raves about it.”
“No one’s complained about my manners in bed before,” says Kenza, shrugging. I recognize her from when I awoke from the Sumber.
“That’s not what I said, Red.”
Since Brynda’s expression is looking lethal, I jump in and say, “Hey, Brynda! You okay?”
“Rho!” she immediately turns away from Kenza and surveys me with her amber eyes, and once she’s sure I’m unharmed, she smiles. “I’m glad you’re okay. I’d be much better off if I had a proper healer—OW!”
Kenza used my distraction to stab Brynda’s arm with a needle, and as the Sagittarian Guardian raises her wrist like she’s going to fire a bullet from her Arclight, the Ariean flashes her an annoyingly antagonizing smile and darts off.
“You’re totally marrying her,” I say, and Brynda shoots me a glacial glare that has me walking my words back. “Sorry,” I say quickly, and I sit down beside her on the log.
“Hysan told me about your mom,” she says, her face and voice softening. “I’m sorry, Rho.”
“We’ve all lost people,” I murmur. I’m not ready to process it yet.
“I know . . . but sometimes it feels like the stars are picking on you the most. You’ve given up so much more than the rest of us.”
Home. Dad. Deke. Stan. Nishi. Mom. It’s hard to argue with her, so I don’t. “I’m sorry about Rubi. I know you two were close.”
She looks down at the marshy ground. “She was always doing something stupid—like dying to save my life. I wish I could yell at her for it.” When she lifts her gaze again, there are tears in her eyes.
“I know how you feel,” I say, thinking of Nishi. “We were lucky . . . to have friends like them.”
• • •
Most ships have already taken off to their home worlds, but the Arieans, Scorps, and Librans remain, overseeing the last of the cleanup.
“Wandering Star,” says General Eurek. “We’ve just heard from Prophet Marinda, whose health is improving by the minute. She reports that most Piscenes are coming out of their comas.”
I feel my face glowing with delight. “Thank you so much for telling me.”
“Thank you,” he says, and he offers his hand for the greeting. I reach out to bump fists with him, but he takes my fingers in his, and he plants a kiss on my skin.
Now my face begins to burn, but he spares me the struggle of speaking by saying, “It has been an honor to serve with you.” His orange-red eyes simmer with emotion as he adds, “You will always be welcome on House Aries.”
When he turns to go, I see Skarlet behind him, hidden by his burl and bulk. Even the cuts on her forehead and cheeks do nothing to mar her beauty or dampen the shimmer of her bronze brown skin.
“I’m going to hitch a ride back on an Ariean ship,” she says. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being a bitch.”
“Not your fault,” I say with a sly smile. “You can’t fight what you are.”
Her cat-eyes widen in shock—and then we both burst into sudden laughter, and when we try to stop, our gazes cross and we start up again, until we’re both clutching our stomachs and gasping for air.
Once I’ve calmed down enough to speak, I say, “I’m sorry, too.”
“I was thinking we could combine forces to see what we can do for Risers,” she says tentatively, “and try to make some changes in the Zodiac.”
“I’d like that.”
She nods, and we bump fists before she turns to go. But she’s only taken a step when she spins around and says, “For the record, I think Hysan made the perfect choice.”
• • •
When most of the Zodai have cleared out, I spy a glimmer of gold, and I see Hysan on the ground, tending to someone. As I move closer, I recognize Lord Neith.
The android’s nose is tipped open, and Hysan is uselessly trying to spark the Guardian back to life, but nothing is happening. Before I can say anything, Strident Engle comes over and rests a hand on Hysan’s shoulder.
“The Scarab’s poison can’t be extracted from a machine,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”
Hysan doesn’t answer him, and he keeps trying to revive Neith, like a healer who won’t give up on his patient.
Engle spots me and he comes over, his red eyes mournful. The sky is dark enough on this planet that he doesn’t need to wear sunglasses. “I’m sorry about Skiff,” I say.
I saw Sage Ferez earlier, and he told me the Scorp Guardian went down fighting. The only reason the Capricorn centenarian survived is because Skiff had him locked up on one of his House’s ships to keep him safe. He was a loyal friend to the end.
“So am I,” says Engle sadly.
I look at Hysan again, who’s now reviewing information from his Scan and still refusing to resign. “I don’t understand,” I say, speaking softly and hanging far enough back that Hysan can’t hear me. “He synced Neith with his ship on our way here—can’t he just download the data into a new body?”
Engle shakes his head. “That’s not how his artificial intelligence works. He could create a new Neith that has the same knowledge as this one—but it would never possess the same subtleties or . . . for lack of a better word, emotions.”
“So he’s . . . gone?” I ask incredulously, my heart plummeting for Hysan.
Engle frowns and nods. “I’m sorry, Rho.”
“I need to go to him, but I’ll be in touch soon,” I say, thinking of what Skarlet said about getting organized. Engle would make a good addition to our team—as would a lot of the Zodai here.
Kneeling next to Hysan I say, “I’m so sorry.” When he turns to me, there are tears in his eyes.
I’m so startled that I reach out and envelop him in a hug, the way he’d do for me.
“You were right,” he says when he pulls away, his green eyes so bright they glow. “What you said to me on Aries—I’ve never lost anyone before. I’ve never felt . . . this.”
He suddenly sits up, like he’s remembering something, and his eyes widen. “I should be comforting you, Rho. You lost your mom—”
I rest a hand on his cheek. “Don’t worry about me. Take care of yourself,” I whisper, and I hear Nishi speaking through me as I repeat what she once said to me. “It’s okay to feel your pain before walling it off.”
He kisses the inside of my palm, and I lean into his chest and
keep him company as we stare down at Neith in silence. In the distance, I spot Gamba digging a shallow hole in the ground that’s the length of . . . Mom.
“Go to her,” says Hysan, who’s following my gaze. “She needs you.”
I press a kiss on his lips, and they taste salty. “I’ll be quick.”
Gamba must have seen me coming, because when I’m just a few feet away she says, “I told Mom once how on Virgo they don’t launch their dead to Space—they bury them in the ground to become part of the soil.” She doesn’t look up from her work while she talks. “She told me that’s what she wanted when she went.”
“Can I help?”
“I’m done,” she says, standing up and wiping her hands on her pants. “Pretty sure it’s not deep enough, but she’ll decompose anyway.”
She kneels and lifts Mom’s corpse by the shoulders, and I pick up her feet to help her. We gently deposit her body in the hole, and then we look at her for a long moment. “I didn’t mean to take her from you,” says Gamba, her voice tight.
“You didn’t,” I say, fighting back my own tears. “I think you saved her.”
Gamba turns and starts shoving the soil over Mom, and I help her until her whole body is covered. Wiping my hands on my suit I ask, “Ready to get going?”
She finally meets my gaze. “I’m staying.”
“What?”
She sighs. “I may not be imbalanced like the Marad members, but I am a Riser, which means I hail from this world, and I clearly had a strong enough pull to it to change Houses. I’ve left the Luminaries, which means I can’t go back . . . I don’t belong anywhere else.”
“You belong with me,” I say, and the words come out almost angry. “We’re sisters.”
She looks at me and smiles, and a tear spills over her eye. “I guess that means I’ll have a place to crash when I’m ready to leave this world.”
• • •
Since Ezra and Gyzer left with the Sagittarians, it’s just Hysan, Mathias, Pandora, and me on Equinox.