Like any one of them could be next.
Pulse pumping, I pan away from our House and search beyond the twelfth constellation, where the omen appears. It’s not there.
Has it finally disappeared? Or has it moved closer?
I scan the whole solar system, desperately searching for a hint of the writhing blackness, a sign of the opposition in our stars.
Nishiko glides over to me. “You see something. What is it?”
“I . . . don’t see the omen anymore. . . .”
As soon as I leave my Center, the map shrinks back down to the size of a puffer fish—the way it’s appeared to the others this whole time.
“But?” she asks. “Why do you sound bothered by its absence?”
“Because I still felt the sense of danger, only I couldn’t see the source. And there’s . . . something else.” I dread speaking the words, but I have to. Maybe if I’d spoken up earlier, we would have had warning. If I’d just told Instructor Tidus—
“What else? Rho, tell us!” Nishi squeezes my shoulder urgently.
“Sorry—I didn’t mean to keep you in suspense, I’m just—okay, listen. Earlier today, at my retest, I saw . . . I saw Thebe’s light flickering, and then it vanished. Like, disappeared from the map.”
My three friends exchange awed looks. Deke is the first to turn away. “Rho, this isn’t time for one of your tales.”
“Deke, you’re my best friend. Would I really be messing with you after what’s happened?”
He glares at me but doesn’t say anything. He knows I’m right.
“And what’d you see now?” whispers Nishi.
“Thebe is gone . . . and our other moons have started to flicker.”
None of us speaks. My friends are still caught in the gravity of my revelation, but I’m thinking of Instructor Tidus. She was the first grown-up since Mom who saw any potential in me.
Please let her have survived the blast.
Kai floats away from us, to a corner of the bunkroom. “I hope you’re wrong,” says Deke, following Kai and offering words of comfort.
“Maybe you’re not wrong,” whispers Nishi. “The omen and the flickering of the moons could be connected. Did you see anything else?”
“Nish, I don’t know anything,” I whisper back, growing unexpectedly angry. “None of what I saw was real. The Astralator proved I was wrong. I have no clue what you expect me to do.”
Deke frowns at us from across the room. “What are you gossiping about now, Nish?”
“I’m being serious,” she says. “I don’t care how, but Rho saw a threat, and we can’t ignore that.”
“It wasn’t in the stars, it was in my head,” I say, my words fueled by more hope than certainty.
“What about all the tragedies in the news?” she asks. The last couple of years, there have been a slew of natural disasters in the Zodiac. Mudslides in House Taurus. Dust storms and drought in the Piscene planetoids. Forest fires raging out of control on a Leonine moon. The past year alone, millions of lives have been lost.
“Maybe it’s the Trinary Axis again,” whispers Kai, like the thought itself is dangerous.
“Don’t even say that,” snaps Deke. “Events go in cycles, Kai, that’s all. It’s nature.”
We fall silent, and I wonder if we’re all still thinking about the Trinary Axis. A thousand years ago, the axis started a vicious galactic war that raged out of control for a century. When we studied it at school, it seemed unreal—just as unreal as the bodies on Elara.
“Those terrorist attacks in House Aries,” I say, “and those suicide bombers on the Geminin space freighter—that’s not nature’s way.”
“Fringe fanatics,” says Deke, sounding just like Stanton. “We’ve always had our share of lunatics.”
Nishiko draws me to the far end of the bunkroom, darts a wary glance at Deke and Kai, then whispers in my ear. “What if there is an enemy? Think about the timing of the blast.”
“You mean the Lunar Quadract?”
“Almost every Zodai and high-ranking government member in your House was on Elara tonight to hear your Guardian’s speech—”
“And our moons were at their closest conjunction,” I say, completing her thought. I chew on my lower lip as the full magnitude of her theory sinks in. If someone planned this, they really thought it through. A well-timed blast in exactly the right place, and our moons could crash into each other like marbles.
I feel myself blanch. I don’t want to consider this. Cancer has no enemies. Humanity has been at peace for a thousand years. “This was a tragedy . . . no one could have orchestrated it.”
Nishi frowns at me. “You’ve been seeing an omen.”