“Dark Matter,” I say. “Somehow, he’s using Psynergy to manipulate it—”
Thunder explodes right above us, and the floor tilts. Lightning must have hit the capstone. A sconce falls off the wall, and a chair topples. Somewhere, we hear screaming. Then a crack splinters across the window, and Moira lunges to push me under the table, just milliseconds before the entire glass shatters.
With a sizzling roar, a million shards fly inward, shredding the walls, the table, the chairs, the skin of my arm. I look around and see Moira sprawled on her back, bleeding.
I rush to check her wounds. She’s clutching her arm to her chest, clenching her teeth in pain. Jagged chunks of glass encrust one whole side of her body. “Help!” I shout at the top of my voice. “In here! We need a doctor!”
Moira tries to push me away. In a broken voice, she says, “I’ve been blind to the stars. I looked, but I didn’t see. . . .”
Thunder detonates like a thousand bombs, and alarm horns blare. The head courtier charges in, and when he sees Moira, he kneels and tries to help her stand. “Talein,” she says, “get to your station.”
Grunting and wincing, she pushes us away and gets up without help. When she stands, her proud posture makes her seem taller than before. She plucks a shard of glass from her hip, then staggers to the gaping window frame. Outside, lightning crackles across a bruised and burning sky, and cinders gust downward, setting the grain fields on fire. In the oxygen-rich atmosphere, the flames rapidly spread. Moira doubles over and screeches, as if this is turning her soul inside out.
She catches the window frame to keep from falling, and her courtier and I run to grab her. We pick up an overturned chair and help her sit. Her eyes are squeezed tight, and one side of her face is streaming blood.
“Dear Empress.” The gray-haired courtier is weeping.
“Talein.” She pats his hand weakly. “I had hoped to live out my final years in peace.”
Another lightning bolt strikes, and a temblor rolls through the needle, throwing us from side to side. When it’s over, Moira gazes up at her courtier with a sadness that makes my chest ache. “Talein, call the rest of my Ministers. Call our fleet. We have to evacuate.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” The old man dips a mournful bow, then lumbers off.
The other courtiers have been waiting at the door, and when they try to crowd in, Moira motions them back. “Get to your posts. Launch our emergency plan.”
“Your surgeon is coming, Highness. Let us help you,” one of the women pleads.
“Help the people,” she wheezes. “Get them to safety. This Cancrian girl will wait with me until the surgeon arrives.”
When they’re gone, I use my sleeve to dab the blood that’s dripping in her eye. She’s sliding out of the chair, so I kick away the broken glass and help her lie on the carpet. Blood trickles from the wounds in her side. Where’s Mathias with his field-medic training? Hysan? What if they’re hurt?
I can’t think of them now. They’re fine, they have to be. But Moira may be dying. As I dab at her wounds, she gives me a sullen glance. “Let it be. We have little time, and we must talk. I felt Ophiuchus.”
Her words make me limp with relief. “So I’m not insane.”
“I have no way to . . . judge that.” Her voice is growing weaker. “But you were right about the Psy attack. You have a potent gift for . . . one so young.”
I hold her head in my arms. “Let me help with your evacuation. Tell me what to do.”
“No, you . . . have a more difficult task. You must . . . leave quickly.” Her words come out as hoarse croaks, and I wonder if the glass has punctured her lung. “I didn’t . . . know you at first. I have . . . long expected you.”
“Me?”
“You must go to Aries . . . and warn the . . . Planetary Plenum.”
Talking has worn her out. I gently lay her head on a chair cushion to cradle it, then stumble to the door and look for the doctor. The place seems deserted. Walls are ripped apart, furniture lies scattered, and broken glass litters the floors. There’s another loud crash, and ceramic tiles rain from the ceiling.
“Mathias?” I call. “Hysan?” Where are they?
I can’t desert Moira. My glass-riddled arm burns as I stagger back through the crunching glass. I sit beside her as a new bolt of lightning bangs into the needle somewhere below. Smoke from the burning grain rises in columns, and the air’s really heating up. Soon the atmosphere will be too hot to breathe.
Moira’s trying to talk again, so I lean close. “I’ll speak to the other Guardians . . . as soon as I . . .”
“Save your breath.”
At that moment, a young man and woman barrel in with a wheeled gurney. I back away so they can tend to Moira’s wounds, and then I run to find my friends.