And then we’re racing through the mountain, and I feel like I’m moving as swiftly as when Candor carried me. Ophiuchus pushes my head down with his chin, and I’m like a turtle being shoved into her shell until I can’t see anything. An instant later shots explode all around us, and I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for a bullet to lodge into me.
Soon the air changes from warm and musty to cool and earthy, like we’re aboveground and soaring across Phaet’s surface. Ophiuchus’s grip is as firm as stone, his hold steady and his stride stable, but I can’t see what’s going on.
When he finally slows down, I peek my head up. We’re on a landing pad filled with ships from across the Zodiac. He sets me down roughly, and I’m dizzy on my feet, so I drop to the ground and close my eyes to get my bearings.
“There’s no time for weakness,” he barks, and I glare up at him. But he’s not watching me—he’s looking behind us. I follow his gaze, but I don’t see anything.
“They’re coming. The Bellow’s guards have alerted the whole base. We only have minutes. Let’s go.”
He strides up to a round red ship with twisty wings that look like ram horns, and as I get up to follow him, I notice the Ariean pilot pointing his pistol at Ophiuchus’s chest.
Even though the man is nearly a giant by human standards, he’s still a full head shorter than the Thirteenth Guardian. “Stand back!” he warns him, his hand trembling.
But Ophiuchus keeps moving forward, and the man begins to discharge his weapon. The bullets burn through the white healer’s scrubs but bounce right off of Ophiuchus. When he’s just a foot away, the man throws the whole gun at the Guardian’s head, but the latter merely tilts his face to avoid it.
Then he curls his fingers around the man’s neck, and the Ariean’s knees buckle as he runs out of air. I want to tell him to stop, but I can’t find my voice. When the man finally faints, Ophiuchus lets go, opening the ship’s door with brute force and motioning for me to follow.
I feel like I’m wading through water as I wind around the man’s comatose body. Part of me wants to drop to the floor and make sure he’s still breathing—but a smaller, newer part of me wonders if it even matters.
Everyone here has committed their lives to this cause. Didn’t Fernanda say teamwork meant making sacrifices for the greater good? Besides, if I can’t defeat Aquarius, we’ll all be blown to pieces and none of this will matter.
I board the ship, which is much smaller than Equinox, and Ophiuchus shuts the door behind me. But instead of accessing the control helm, he turns toward the nose’s glass window and closes his eyes. He looks like he’s Centering.
The engine fires up.
He’s not touching any buttons or speaking any commands—he’s navigating the ship with his mind.
“How are you doing that?” I ask, clinging onto a handrail as we shoot into the air.
“I’ve told you before,” he says, his eyes still shut. “Everything is Psynergy.”
I hold on tightly as the ship shudders through Phaet’s atmosphere, and I’m relieved when my feet don’t float off the floor. Though the walls are shaking, Ophiuchus stays completely still, even without holding onto anything. Once we jump into hyperspeed and the ride stabilizes, I finally let go of the railing, and while Ophiuchus remains Centered, I check out the rest of the ship.
My tour is brief: All I see is a lavatory, a galley, and a cabin. This is clearly a one-person military vessel.
I take a moment in the cabin to catch my breath. The Zodai were right to sedate and restrain Ophiuchus, but they should have realized that if he’s really as powerful as they feared, those measures might not be enough.
Since the master already knows everything about me, I decide to learn everything I can about him, from the only being alive who knows the true Aquarius. So I return to the front of the ship, determined to yank Ophiuchus out of the astral plane and back to reality—but when I see him, I freeze.
A shadow has fallen over Ochus, and he’s curved and hunched over, the way he was when time took its toll on him in our battle during the armada. I keep as far back from him as possible as he suffers in soundless torture, his expression contorted with misery, and I desperately hope this doesn’t affect his ability to navigate the spacecraft.
I don’t know how many hours pass, but gradually, Ophiuchus reverts to his full strength. When the process finishes, he’s breathing heavily and his eyes fly open.
“What was that?” I whisper from my spot on the floor against the far wall. We’ve been silent for so long that the sound of my voice feels intrusive.
“All power has a price,” he murmurs, his gaze turned toward the stars.
“So—does that mean—Aquarius has a weakness, too?”
“Whatever he’s doing is warping the Psy and undoing the astral plane. I have no idea what he’s capable of, or how to stop him.”
I think of Hysan’s theory about the portal through Helios. I’m sitting next to one of the only two souls still around to confirm or debunk it.
“Where do humans come from?”
A dreamy expression relaxes Ophiuchus’s features, and he closes his eyes again. He’s silent for so long that he’s either asleep or deeply Centered, and I’m about to call out to him when the ship goes completely dark.
“What’s happening?” I whisper.
The darkness begins to recede from the center of the room, like curtains being drawn, and a rocky landscape unfolds around us. I feel like I’m viewing a Snow Globe.
The nose fully vanishes as the memory overtakes everything, and I get to my feet and scan the vast, barren terrain. Above us is a high-tension fabric dome that seems to be held aloft by air pressure, like the domes of Phaetonis.
That’s where we are. Where history says the humans first landed.
As soon as I have the thought, I begin to notice an antiquated fleet of ships on the far horizon, high above the dome’s protection. There must be thousands of vessels. They look like metallic insects getting ready to launch an attack.
Time takes one stride forward, and now the people have disembarked and they’re packed inside the dome. There must be a million of them.
I’m not sure how I come up with the number—it’s like I’m not simply seeing our history, but embodying it. Hysan once told me the Guardian’s Talismans contain the essence of a survival skill—the meaning of the thing itself. And that’s how this feels.
Which makes sense, since Ophiuchus is a living representation of his Talisman.
The humans are all standing around anxiously, as though they’re waiting for something. They were invited here, I realize. Some still have their air masks on, like they distrust this dome. I look around me just as they do, trying to find the reason for this gathering. And then I see them.