Zodiac (Zodiac, #1)(113)
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.