Zodiac (Zodiac, #1)(23)
“Did you read anything in the stars today?” she asks, her voice lower. Kai leans into the table, eager to listen. Deke stays still, staring at the table.
I shake my head. “Lately, I can’t . . . concentrate.” My voice breaks. At this, Deke’s head tilts slightly, and his eyes almost look up.
“Of course you can’t, Rho,” says Nishi, surveying me with her sharp amber eyes. She squeezes my hand. “You’re human, you can’t block out everything that’s happened to you and your House.” In a whisper only I can hear, she adds, “It’s okay to feel your pain before walling it off.”
I wipe a tear before anyone can see.
In what feels like barely any time at all, there’s a knock on my door, and the officer outside informs me it’s the base’s curfew. Kai hugs me on his way out. He seems to have reverted to his nonspeaking ways—he didn’t say a word the entire night.
I look down when Deke passes me, not wanting to feel the pain of his rejection again. But he stops in front of me. I chance a peek, and he offers me his fist for the hand touch. It’s not a hug, but I still take it.
When she’s the last one left, I grab Nishi’s hand. “Can you stay a sec?”
She’s the only person who trusted in my visions, even when I didn’t, so she’s the best person to consult now. She pokes her head out and tells the officer, “Holy Mother needs me a few more minutes. I’ll catch up.” When she closes the door behind her, there’s a gleam of excitement in her eyes. “What is it?”
I dive right in. “Back on Elara, I saw something . . . strange. I’d activated Instructor Tidus’s Ephemeris, and when she turned it off, a series of holograms drowned the room. They were diagrams that looked like the usual stuff we all have on our Waves—history of the galaxy, layout of the stars, facts about the universe. Only her version of the Zodiac included an unnamed constellation. A Thirteenth House.”
Nishi’s eyes grow wide. Cancrians can be very skeptical, often because we’re so quick to get our hopes up that our first instinct is to protect ourselves; but Sagittarians will accept even the most incredible truths, as long as they trust the source.
“Instructor Tidus wouldn’t have kept that fact stored on her Wave if she didn’t believe it was real,” says Nishi, her reasoning soon out-speeding mine. “That means there must be evidence somewhere of a Thirteenth House, enough evidence that she would trust it . . . and something that big will surely have a trail.”
“Follow it,” I whisper, darting a glance at the door to make sure we’re not overheard. I don’t want to panic anyone until I have all the facts. “Find out what you can.”
“Is this about the omen?”
I nod. “It’s always out past the Twelfth House. And I was thinking of the way the Dark Matter showed up in Leo and Taurus when I read the black opal that first night. The stars showed me something that wasn’t the future—it was the past. So what if the omen they keep showing me isn’t an omen—what if they’re pointing to who’s responsible?”
Nishi looks entranced by my theory. She whispers, “The Thirteenth House.”
I nod. “We need to be certain.”
She gives me a quick hug before bouncing to the door, probably already mapping out the ways she’ll tackle her search.
“We will be.”
8
THE DAY OF THE CEREMONY, my Advisors are busy making arrangements, so I train with Mathias in the morning. He’s teaching me what he says will be one of our hardest lessons: communicating through the Psy Network, the way the Zodai do.
He gives me my very own Ring, and as soon as I slip it on my finger, I feel a new energy seep into my skin, like the metallic silicon is bonding with me on a psychic level. An intense inner buzzing pulses through the area, as if my finger’s taken a huge swig of Abyssthe.
“Communicating in the Psy doesn’t require Centering because the Ring’s core is a pool of Abyssthe,” says Mathias. We’re in our normal training room, standing on a Yarrot mat, facing each other. “The Ring attracts Psynergy to you.”
I inspect the thick band. The fact that Abyssthe is such an important tool for the Zodai makes me feel even guiltier for using it the night of the attack. “Sounds like the Ring does all the heavy lifting.”
“Try it out.”
“Now?” I blurt. He nods, and I hold my hand out in front of me, wondering how I activate it.
“Reach inward toward the buzzing you feel in your hand,” he says, guessing at my thoughts. “When you tap into it, you’ll access the Psy. Only this time, there’s no Ephemeris to direct the energy for you, so you’ll need to control it yourself.” Noting the obvious confusion in my expression, he adds, “By telling the Psy where you want to go.”
“Will it feel like . . . taking Abyssthe without an Ephemeris?” Admitting to illegal behaviors probably isn’t the best way to convince Mathias I’m a good choice of Guardian.
“Sort of,” he says, eyeing me curiously. “When you drink Abyssthe without an Ephemeris, you’re attracting Psyngery to you, but you’re not channeling it into anything. This Ring uses the Psynergy from Abyssthe to connect you to all the other Ring-wearing Zodai across the galaxy. We are the Psy Network—the Zodai’s Collective Conscious.”