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.
I didn’t tell Mathias about Ochus’s death threat before we left Oceon 6. I didn’t tell him about Hysan. I couldn’t even express my feelings or hear about his.
I just shut the door on him. I abandoned Mathias. Like I abandoned Dad and Stanton. And the people of Virgo. I don’t know what light Hysan and Agatha can possibly see in me, when all I seem to bring people is darkness.
When I finally get up to drop my suit in the refresher, I shake out the pockets. Mathias’s Astralator falls out.
I pick it up, running my fingers along the slippery mother-of-pearl. This belongs with his parents, not me.
Poor Amanta and Egon. Like Hysan and me, they’re orphans, but in a different, far worse way.
I spend a long time in the ultraviolet shower, letting the light singe away every trace of dirt. The wound on my cheek stings, so I hold my face close to the UV faucet to sterilize the germs. When I step out of the stall, Sirna’s waiting.
“Rho. I wish I could have taken your place up there.” She holds out a fresh Cancrian uniform tailored to my size. “Forgive me for not warning you. It was part of our agreement with Charon.”
I take her outstretched hands. “Duty’s a harsh master,” I say, repeating her words. “But I’m not a Lodestar. I don’t have a right to wear that.”
“It’ll do for now.” She helps me slip it on. “Events had to play out this way. If we’d pushed back too hard, Charon would have engineered something worse than expulsion. Try to understand.”
I touch the Royal Guard glyph on my pocket, the three golden stars. Like the ones on Mathias’s suit.
“I’m not giving up, Sirna. I just . . . need time to think and get ready.”
“Rho, you’ve done plenty.”