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For my sister, Meli, whose inner flame could power solar systems.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
The Houses of the Zodiac Galaxy
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Acknowledgments
THE HOUSES OF THE ZODIAC GALAXY
THE FIRST HOUSE:
ARIES, THE RAM CONSTELLATION
Strength: Military
Guardian: General Eurek
Flag: Red
THE SECOND HOUSE:
TAURUS, THE BULL CONSTELLATION
Strength: Industry
Guardian: Chief Executive Purecell
Flag: Olive green
THE THIRD HOUSE:
GEMINI, THE DOUBLE CONSTELLATION
Strength: Imagination
Guardians: Twins Caaseum (deceased) and Rubidum
Flag: Orange
THE FOURTH HOUSE:
CANCER, THE CRAB CONSTELLATION
Strength: Nurture
Guardian: Holy Mother Agatha (Interim)
Flag: Blue
THE FIFTH HOUSE:
LEO, THE LION CONSTELLATION
Strength: Passion
Guardian: Holy Leader Aurelius
Flag: Royal purple
THE SIXTH HOUSE:
VIRGO, THE TRIPLE VIRGIN CONSTELLATION
Strength: Sustenance
Guardian: Empress Moira (in critical condition)
Flag: Emerald green
THE SEVENTH HOUSE:
LIBRA, THE SCALES OF JUSTICE CONSTELLATION
Strength: Justice
Guardian: Lord Neith
Flag: Yellow
THE EIGHTH HOUSE:
SCORPIO, THE SCORPION CONSTELLATION
Strength: Innovation
Guardian: Chieftain Skiff
Flag: Black
THE NINTH HOUSE:
SAGITTARIUS, THE ARCHER CONSTELLATION
Strength: Curiosity
Guardian: Guardian Brynda
Flag: Lavender
THE TENTH HOUSE:
CAPRICORN, THE SEAGOAT CONSTELLATION
Strength: Wisdom
Guardian: Sage Ferez
Flag: Brown
THE ELEVENTH HOUSE:
AQUARIUS, THE WATER BEARER CONSTELLATION
Strength: Philosophy
Guardian: Supreme Guardian Gortheaux the Thirty-Third
Flag: Aqua
THE TWELFTH HOUSE:
PISCES, THE FISH CONSTELLATION
Strength: Spirituality
Guardian: Prophet Marinda
Flag: Silver
THE THIRTEENTH HOUSE:
OPHIUCHUS, THE SERPENT BEARER CONSTELLATION
Strength: Unity
Guardian: Master Ophiuchus
Flag: White
PROLOGUE
WHEN I THINK OF MY adolescence as an Acolyte on Elara, I feel lighter. Like I’m back inside that semi-weightless world.
My memories from those years always wash over me in waves.
The first wave is the largest, and when it breaks, hundreds of Snow Globes bubble to my surface, showering me with memories of my best friends, Nishiko Sai and Deke Moreten. My life’s happiest moments live in this wave’s wake.
As the current carries Deke and Nishi away, a second, gentler swell always rolls in, and my skin ripples as I surf through a montage of mornings spent in the silent solarium, soaking in Mathias’s presence and Helios’s rays. When the warmth begins to recede from my skin, I always try to pull away, before the third wave can overtake me.
But by the time I remember to swim, I’m already caught in its riptide.
When the memory crashes over me, I’m submerged in a cement block at the Academy: the music studio where Nishi, Deke, and I used to meet for band practice. Where the first two waves flood my mind with my favorite moments from the moon, the third always brings me back to this exact moment, in this exact place, a year and a half ago.
Nishi, Deke, and I had spent the whole day in the studio, while Nishi taught us how to play a popular Sagittarian song called “Who Drank My Abyssthe?”
“Not good enough,” she complained right after my closing hit, before the cymbals had even stopped echoing. “You guys have to stay present through the whole song. You’ve been fumbling through the bridge every time.”
“I’m done,” Deke announced, shutting off his holographic guitar in protest.
“No, you’re staying, and you’re going to focus,” hissed Nishi, blocking his path to the door. “We’re going again.”
“You drank the Abyssthe if you think that’s happening!” he shot back. Then, rather than trying to get around her, he flopped to the floor and sprawled out like a starfish.
“Wait, you’re right.”
Nishi’s abrupt attitude reversal was as unpredictable as the pitch progressions of her vocals, and from the stunned expression on Deke’s face, she may as well have started speaking in a new alien language. “Rho, please tell me you heard that,” he said from the ground, “because I’m starting to think maybe I drank the Abyssthe—”
“There’s a bigger problem than your focus,” Nishi went on, staring at the cement wall as if she could see scenes within it that were invisible to our Cancrian senses. “I think we need a bass player.”
Deke groaned.
“We’ll post holograms in the music department,” she went on, turning to me, her gaze hopeful and searching for my support. “We can hold auditions here after class—”
“Why does it matter how we sound?” I interr
upted.
The tightness in my tone sent a new, tense charge through the air, so to soften the effect, I added, “It’s not like we’re getting graded.”
We only started the band to improve our Centering. Our instructors at the Academy taught us that art is the purest pathway to the soul, which is why the Cancrian curriculum required Acolytes to rotate through diverse disciplines until we found our clearest connection to our inner selves. Only then, once we’d found that core connection, could we specialize.
Nishi had always known that singing was her calling, but it took Deke and me longer to figure ourselves out. It was only at Nishi’s insistence the year before that we finally gave music a shot. I chose the drums because I liked surrounding myself with the armor of a booming beat and a shell of steel, sticks, and hard surfaces. Deke was a skilled painter, but he wasn’t passionate about it, so he decided to learn guitar.
“Well . . .” Nishi looked from me to Deke, her features forming a familiar, mischievous expression. Deke sat upright in anticipation, watching her with reverence. “I kind of . . . signed us up for the musical showcase next week!”
“No way!” he blurted, his eyes wide with fear or excitement, maybe both.
Nishi beamed. “We’ve been working so hard the past six months, and I thought we could see what others think. You know, for fun.”
“You’re the one who just said our sound wasn’t working,” I said, only half-heartedly trying to keep the sharpness out of my voice. I stood up behind my set and crossed my arms, my drumsticks sticking out at the angle of my elbows.
“But we’re nearly there!” Nishi grinned at me eagerly. “If we find a bass player in the next couple of days, we can totally teach them the song in time—”
I set my sticks down on the snare, and the rumbling note it made felt like punctuation to end the conversation. “No, thanks.”
Nishi pleaded, “Please, Rho! It’ll be a blast!”
“You know I have stage fright—”
“How can any of us—you included—know that, when you’ve never even been on a stage?”
“I know because I can barely address the classroom when an instructor calls on me, so I can’t begin to picture myself performing for the whole Academy!”
Nishi dropped to her knees in mock supplication. “Come on! Just this once! I’m begging you to try it. For me?”
I took a step back. “I really don’t like it when you make me feel guilty for being who I am, Nish. Some stuff just doesn’t come in the Cancrian package. It’s not fair that you always want me to be more like you.”
Nishi snapped to her feet from her begging position. “Actually, Rho, what’s not fair is you using your House as an excuse not to try something new. I came to study on Cancer, didn’t I? And adapting to your customs hasn’t threatened my Sagittarian identity, has it? Seriously, if you opened your mind once in a while, you might surprise yourself—”
“Nish.” I spoke softly and uncrossed my arms, opening myself up to her so that she would see how much I didn’t want to fight. “Please. Let’s just drop this, okay? I really don’t feel comfortable—”
“Fine!” She whirled away from me and grabbed her bag off the floor. “You’re right, Rho. Let’s just do the things you like.”
I opened my mouth, but I was too stunned to speak.
How could she say that to me? Every time she or Deke wanted to do something foolish—sneak into the school kitchen after curfew to steal leftover Cancrian rolls, or crash a university party we were too young to attend, or fake stomachaches to get out of our mandatory morning swims at the saltwater pool complex—I always wound up going along with them, even when I didn’t want to. Every single time I was the one who caved.
“Deke, what do you think?” shot Nishi.
His hands flew up. “I’m Pisces.” Nishi rolled her eyes at the expression, which is what people say when they don’t want to take sides in an argument. It comes from the fact that the Twelfth House almost always remains neutral in times of war, as their chief concern is caring for the wounded of every world.
“Forget it.” Nishi stormed out of the studio. And for the first time following an argument, I didn’t go after her.
Deke got to his feet. “I think one of us should talk to her.”
I shrugged. “You go then.”
“Rho . . .” His turquoise eyes were as soft as his voice. “Would it really be so bad?”
“You’re telling me you actually want to play in front of the whole school?”
“Just the thought of it terrifies me—”
“Then you agree with me!”
“I wasn’t finished,” he said, his tone firmer now. “It terrifies me, yeah, but . . . that’s what’s exciting about it. It moves you toward the fear instead of away from it.” In a gentler voice, he asked, “Aren’t you bored with the redundancy and routine of being an Acolyte? Don’t you ever want to escape yourself?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine with being predictable. I don’t like surprises.”
“All right,” he said with a small but exasperated smirk. “You’re obviously not listening to me, so I’m going to try Nish. See you at breakfast tomorrow, Rho Rho.”
Alone in the studio, all I could feel was my anger. Did my friends seriously just abandon me for finally standing up for myself?
I blasted out of the room and charged through the all-gray halls of the quiet compound to my dorm-pod. Once there, I changed out of my Academy blues into my bulky, bandaged space suit with the colorful plastic patches covering snags in the outer fabric.
Curfew was closing in, which meant most people were already in their rooms for the night. But I felt claustrophobic, like the compound was too cramped to contain all my emotions. So I shoved on my helmet and, rather than stuffing my Wave up my glove where it could sync with my suit and provide a communication system, I spiked it on the bed on my way out the door, leaving it. I didn’t want to hear from Nishi or Deke.
Then I shot out to the moon’s pockmarked face without any of my usual safety checks, my anger so scalding it consumed every thought in my head. In my firestorm of feelings, I forgot Mom’s final lesson.
For a moment, I forgot my fears were real.
1
TWELVE TOY ZODAI—DYED DIFFERENT House hues—are arranged in a row. All are missing limbs, a few have been decapitated, and the blue one is just a clay torso with an X slicing its chest.
It’s the clearest message the master has sent us yet.
One world down, eleven soon to fall.
Squary is a cold cement bunker on House Scorpio that runs the length of the island it’s built beneath. It used to be a weapons testing zone, until Stridents detonated a nuclear device decades ago, and the facility had to be quarantined. It’s also where the Marad was working on its secret weapon when the Scorp Royal Guard barged in and arrested the handful of soldiers that had been living here.
Stanton and Mathias stand with Strident Engle at the other end of the room, studying the real star of the scene: the Marad’s missile monstrosity, with its nuclear core that has the potential to devastate a whole planet, if operational.
But I hang back by the toys on the table, unable to look away from their mutilated bodies . . . until a blade stabs my arm, slitting my scars open.
I gasp and jump back, hugging myself. I know the pain is just a memory of the real thing, but it still makes me nauseous, and beads of sweat tickle my forehead. I snap my gaze to the guys, hoping they didn’t notice.
They didn’t.
They’re still scoping out the weapon, the three of them indistinguishable from one another in their bulky black radiation suits and facemasks.
“So this is everything?”
Stanton’s voice breaks the radio silence inside my heavy suit. “Aside from this weapon, five years’ worth of compressed meals, and the creepy toys, you didn’t find
anything else? Nothing to tell us where the Marad’s headquartered, or who’s leading the army, or what the master’s plan is?”
“We found the Risers we arrested.” The second voice belongs to Strident Engle, a Zodai in Chieftain Skiff’s Royal Guard who’s been guiding our visit to House Scorpio.
“Have they said anything yet?” presses Stanton.
“They will, once we find a way to break them.”
One of the figures flinches and takes half a step back. That must be Mathias.
“If you couldn’t break them in two months, what makes you think they can be broken?” I identify Stanton’s shape by his familiar stubborn stance, how he tilts his head and crosses his arms.
“Every man has his breaking point,” says the Strident.
“That’s ignorant.” My brother looks toward Mathias. “Some men are unbreakable.”
Mathias doesn’t acknowledge the compliment as he ambles away from them. Stan’s been praising him a lot since learning of everything he’s been through. And yet, even now, my brother’s warm words lack actual warmth. There’s something else cooling their effect, only I can’t tell what it is.
Mathias joins me by the table and stares at the toys. I wonder if he, too, feels Corinthe’s blade cutting him open.
“None of the other Houses have any leads or ideas?” I say into the facemask’s radio system, mostly to escape my darkening thoughts.
“We agree it’s likely they knew we were coming, given they had enough time to make this macabre masterpiece for us,” says Engle, recycling the same theory the Houses have been repeating to each other. He and Stanton stride over to join Mathias and me. “And if the Riser who betrayed you—Aryll—sent a warning, they had enough time to get rid of anything they didn’t want us to find.”