Zodiac (Zodiac, #1)(112)

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.”





43


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.