They bow as we approach, touching their hearts: a Virgo sign of friendship. My friends and I return the bow to exactly the same degree, but this ceremonial homage doesn’t feel natural. I just want to touch hands and get on with it.
“Holy Mother Rhoma, you have our deepest sympathy for your troubles.” The courtier with the largest tassel on his cap makes a complicated gesture, flaring the wide sleeves of his robe before offering me the hand touch. “Empress Moira has foreseen your arrival. Please be concise when you speak with her. She has little time today.”
I nod, feeling more nervous than ever. The man’s eyebrow ring flashes green. “The empress will receive you now. Your companions may wait here.”
“But . . . they’re my Advisors. I want them with me.”
The head courtier bows again. “What need is there for Advisors when Guardians meet as friends?”
Hysan nudges my arm and whispers, “Moira sets the rules here.”
Mathias darts forward. “I’m not leaving you.”
An inner door slides open, and an attendant beckons me in. My knees feel weak. I glance back and forth between sunny Hysan and brooding Mathias. Then I smile at Mathias. “You said I was born for this.”
With a quiet frown, he steps back, and I follow the attendant into Moira’s chambers. The Virgo court is not the opulent palace I expected. It’s more like the corporate headquarters of a major corporation.
The attendant shows me into a triangular conference room containing a small black table and six green chairs. One wall is solid glass, and when I look out, Moira’s landscape spreads below like an ocean of grain.
“I suppose you didn’t come for the view.” I spin to see the speaker.
The woman who’s entered behind me busies herself with a Perfectionary in her hands and won’t meet my eyes. She wears a simple gray tunic and no ornament save the emerald pins in her hair. She’s even smaller than me, and wizened. “Are you Empress Moira?”
“My schedule’s quite full, so please state your business.” I’ve never seen such wrinkled skin—she looks sun-dried.
I offer my hand for a touch, but she won’t look up from her Perfectionary—the Virgos’ Wave. Virgos are extremely organized, diligent, and anal-retentive. They all carry around a booklike digital device they rarely part with—it holds their schedules, notes, photographs, diary entries, everything that has any value to them—and it even has an opening for inserting samples of soil, seeds, fertilizers, etc., for analysis.
“I’m Guardian Rho from Cancer.”
“Obviously.” She doesn’t waste words. Or facial expressions.
“Empress Moira, I’ve come to warn you. Our moon collision—someone deliberately set it off with a Psy weapon. Your House may be next.”
At last, she looks up. She eyes me closely as we trade the hand touch. Then she sits at the table and continues browsing her Perfectionary. “Go on.”
I sit down, too, and I tell her my theory that all the recent disasters have been triggered by Psy attacks from Ophiuchus.
I can’t believe it’s possible, but Moira becomes even more emotionless. “You speak of myth. The Zodiac holds only twelve Houses.”
“Well, that’s what I thought, too.” Once again, I narrate my account of Ophiuchus, and even I see how meager the evidence sounds. I describe how the Dark Matter thickened around Virgo, how the entire region around her House went black, but all I have are words, ordinary words. If only I could make Moira feel the terror that shook my bones when Ochus appeared in my Ephemeris.
“He tried to kill me. He wants to silence me.” I’m practically wringing my hands.
Moira keeps her eyes on her Perfectionary. When I finish my tale, she says, “We’ve seen your Sagittarian comrade’s warnings of doom in the news. Such alarmist talk may appeal to the young, but not to me. And when I learned Hysan Dax escorted you here, I thought perhaps there was more to your story—he usually has more sense than this.”
I blink. Alarmist talk?
She taps her Perfectionary. “Has any other Zodai confirmed your sighting of this alleged Dark Matter past the Twelfth House?”
I bow my head a fraction. “Not that I know of.”
“And has anyone in recorded history ever witnessed a Psy attack like the one you’re describing? Or seen Ophiuchus?”
“I . . . I’m not sure.”
“They have not.” She gives me a quick scowl, then turns away. “What’s your age?”
“I’m sixteen, galactic standard. I’ll be seventeen in a few . . . days.” I’d gotten used to saying weeks.
“And how long have you trained?”
“Not long,” I admit.
Moira sighs and really looks at me. “Mother Origene was my dearest friend. It pains me how your House has suffered. For these reasons, I will spare a moment to show you that there is no monster in the Psy. Afterward I hope you will return home to lead your people.”
She gives a quick series of voice commands to darken the glass wall and dim the lights. A small device lowers from the ceiling. It looks like a metal spider. When I understand what it is, I gasp—it’s transforming the entire conference room into an Ephemeris.