Zodiac (Zodiac, #1)(21)
Another stare-off.
Then, “As you wish.”
“Thank you.”
“In one week,” he says, picking up the old thread again, “there will be a ceremony and dinner in your honor, where you will be sworn in as our House’s new Guardian . . . Rho. It’s important you select the rest of your Advisors before then. During this week, I will also be training you.”
“What about my friends?”
“They have been given lodging on the base. They will be trained as Zodai, along with every surviving Acolyte.”
The word surviving is a punch to my gut. “I want to see them,” I say, my breathing shallow.
“I will try to arrange it.” He looks at me like he might say more, but instead he bows abruptly and strides to the door.
“Mathias?”
He stops and turns. “Yes?”
“I can’t do this.”
Speaking the words out loud, something hard and heavy shifts in my chest, allowing more air to reach my lungs. Like I’ve just removed an obstacle clogging my airways. I’m still as inadequate as I was seconds ago, but admitting it makes me feel like less of a fraud.
“The stars don’t lie,” he says, his soft baritone lacking its gentleness. “You’ve been chosen for a reason. Search your heart, and you’ll find it.”
His words of encouragement are as Cancrian as it gets, but they only make me feel worse.
I heard it in his tone, saw it in his eyes, sensed it in his demeanor.
Mathias doesn’t trust in me either.
? ? ?
The next day, I return to the room where I was made Guardian, and I sit with Crius, Agatha, Dr. Eusta, and Mathias, while they introduce me to eight people—the rest of my Advisors. They fill me in on procedure, traditions, expectations. . . . Thanks to Mom, I already have a basic understanding, but it’s still a lot to process.
In the afternoon, I join Mathias for our first Zodai lesson. We meet in a room filled with plushy mats, towels, and refreshments. Lola found me stretchy pants and an oversized shirt to wear for my training sessions.
Mathias is lying on his back on one of the mats, a strip of abs visible below the hemline of his shirt. Lola walks me to the threshold, and I catch her gaze straying to his bare skin before she leaves.
“First we’ll focus on refining your Centering technique,” says Mathias, once we’re alone. He sits upright. “I think the best way will be using Yarrot.”
I swallow, hard. “Yarrot doesn’t work for me.” He freezes, and we do that thing where we shut up and stare. After watching for so many years, we’re each still a complete mystery to the other—but we don’t ask those questions yet.
Looking into his eyes, I wonder what he sees. Sometimes the blue grows so soft when he’s watching me that I think he might care. Other times, like now, the indigo darkens, and I feel like all he sees is a little girl in grown-up shoes.
He rises to his feet. “I used to practice every day on Elara.”
“I remember.”
This time the stare is more familiar. As if beyond being Guardian and Guide, we could also be those two people who watched each other grow from afar—only now brought together, forced to grow up even faster.
“Maybe we could try one or two poses,” I cede, shrugging as if each movement won’t be a knife slicing my chest. Then I sit on the other mat and slip off my shoes.
I don’t get back to my room until late, every muscle in my body sore and aching. At first I could barely pull off the easiest positions and kept losing my balance, but by the end it was as though I’d never stopped practicing. Every arc, stretch, and sweep of movement was etched inside my mind, like the dancing of my drumsticks, or the swirling of Cancer in the Ephemeris—everything felt connected, like it’s all part of a grand choreography designed by our stars.
We cycled through all twelve poses until I could hold each one for fifteen minutes without breaking a sweat.
When I get to my room, I’m supposed to open the black opal and Center myself, to see what effect the Yarrot has—but I collapse in bed, exhausted, and I don’t wake up until morning.
? ? ?
Three days have passed, and it’s nighttime, I think. Oceon 6 has no windows, and its alternating periods of artificial light confuse my sense of chronology.
Everything’s confused. I’m still in shock.
Yesterday, I awoke in a frenzy, thinking I was late for class. Then I remembered. The Academy is gone. So are my instructors and friends. Maybe even my family. My old life is a sand castle that’s been washed away in the Cancer Sea’s new tide.
This other life feels surreal. I’m beginning to think the Advisors only chose me as Guardian because I’m young and easy to control, since they spend our morning meetings debating strategy among themselves and ignoring my suggestions. The way Mathias eyes me only strengthens my doubts. He keeps saying it’s my duty to play the part—but he doesn’t say it’s my rightful place.
Everyone else on this base looks at me like I’m their savior. I just wish they would tell me what I’m supposed to do.
This morning, Crius told us he found the real cause of the explosion on Thebe—a critical overload in a quantum fusion reactor. What he and Dr. Eusta want to know is how it happened. I keep telling them we already know how—Dark Matter was the trigger. But Agatha is the only one who believes me.