I shut my eyes and twist my Ring, and I enter the solar system of souls. I see a light a great distance away, and instead of moving toward it, I feel like the world is moving around me.
When the light jolts into me, I open my eyes with a gasp—and I see Mathias’s face in front of me, his blue eyes like twin midnight skies.
I reach out and touch his cheek, which has a bloody scratch on it. “Is this real?” I whisper breathlessly.
“I’m here,” he whispers back, resting his hand over mine.
I hear movement behind me, and I turn to see a panting Hysan and Pandora surfacing from the swamp, and I realize we’re standing in some kind of crater that looks like it was once a body of water.
Mathias dashes over to Pandora and wraps her in his arms, while Hysan comes up to me. “I’ve never seen anyone but Neith run that fast,” he says, his voice choppy.
“I was running?” I ask in awe. “I didn’t feel anything!”
“Your connection to the stars is so strong that when you gave yourself over to Mathias’s Psynergy, it pulled you forward at such a brisk pace that Pandora and I could barely keep up.”
“Where is the location where you first fell?” I hear Eurek shouting.
Hysan and I run over to where the Ariean Guardian and Ophiuchus are facing off. Gathered in a protective circle around them are Neith, Gyzer, Gamba, Mom, Skarlet, Traxon, Engle, Numen, Qima, and half a dozen other Zodai I don’t know.
“Ezra isn’t answering me!” says Gyzer the instant he sees me.
“She’s fine, she’s with Brynda,” I say quickly, and his whole face slackens with relief. “What’s happening here?” I demand, looking from Ophiuchus to Eurek.
“He won’t tell us where to go,” says Eurek angrily. “We’re running out of time and Zodai, and he still hasn’t made up his damn mind what side he’s on!”
Ophiuchus glares defiantly at me, like he’s bracing himself for my outburst. But I don’t say anything. I just approach him slowly, the way one would a wild animal, and I lay a gentle hand on his arm. Then I close my eyes, and I channel the Psynergy surrounding us until I’ve penetrated his consciousness.
You may be a star, I whisper into his mind, but like Aquarius, you’ve been given the power of choice: You can be our light or our darkness. You can save the Zodiac or doom it. You can be the monster the Original Guardians invented . . . or you can reclaim your place as the Guardian of Unity and teach us what it means to stand together.
When I pull away from him, he opens his eyes, and his starlight bathes my face as he whispers, “This is the place.”
So he did bring us to the right location.
He rests a hand on my arm now, and my heart is suddenly infused with emotions that aren’t my own. My eyes shut, and I see how ever since the armada he’s been helping us, even though his heart has questioned his actions. He’s acted on his faith in Unity, though his fear has made him doubt his path. His fear of us and how hateful we can be as a species.
But for the first time, seeing new generations of Zodai from across the Houses come together like this, he has hope.
“Spread out,” commands Eurek to the others. “Rho and Ophiuchus are going to enter the astral plane and close the portal. We need to buy them all the time necessary.”
Hysan turns to me, and he cups my face in his hands. “You’re my hero,” he says, and he kisses me gently—like it’s only a short goodbye and I’ll be right back.
But when it’s over, his lips linger on mine for a moment, and he breathes, “I’m so proud of you, Rho. Come back to me, please.”
I circle my arms around his neck and hug him, holding him close to me, and I whisper, “Meeting you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And I’m not saying that because I’m not coming back—I’m saying it because I am. We have too much unfinished business.”
When we let go, I turn to face Ophiuchus. I don’t say bye to Mom or Mathias because I intend to come back. I refuse to let this be the end of the Zodiac.
Ophiuchus walks away to the center of the crater, and I understand this wasn’t a body of water—this is where he crashed as a star when he landed on this planet. When he gets to what could be the midpoint, he digs into the moist soil with his bare hands, until I hear his nails scrape against something solid.
Then he closes his eyes to Center himself, and standing across from him I do the same. Within seconds, I feel my soul completely leaving my body and accessing the astral plane. Only when I open my eyes, I’m still standing in the same place.
I watch Ophiuchus step out of his skin, like a hologram, and I leave my physical shell, too. I turn around and scan everyone around us—they don’t seem to see our ghosts. They’re still staring between our frozen bodies and our surroundings, making sure no one finds us.
The Thirteenth Guardian’s skin alternates from dark to light as he comes closer, his Dark Matter hair falling into his panoramic eyes, the silver irises bright and alive. Are you ready?
I nod.
He closes his eyes in concentration, and he begins to tug on the Psynergy from his land. I feel the pull immediately, and I see that Hysan and Eurek do, too, because they clutch their chests. After a while, Mom and Gamba do the same, until all the Zodai around us can feel the yank on the Psynergy they’re breathing.
The air molecules start shaking around us, like an earthquake in the sky, and I hold tightly to my own Psynergy so I don’t lose my Center.
Suddenly I hear scratching noises, and I look around to see the Ophiuchans crawling out from the swamp and approaching us slowly. My friends all gather closer to our bodies, facing the creatures with their Barers out, their bodies curved inward from the pain in their chests.
But the Ophiuchans keep slithering forward until they’re standing next to the Zodai, watching us. And all at once, they close their eyes.
Suddenly I feel an influx of Psynergy in the astral plane that blows me back a few steps. Ophiuchus opens his eyes and sees his people, who’ve come to donate their Psynergy to him.
I’m shocked to see tears streaming down Ophiuchus’s snakeskin cheeks, and I feel him growing stronger in the Psy, until the Psynergy swirls around us like a hurricane, and at last he begins to glow like a true star.
This is where my part comes in.
I take a deep breath and step forward. Then I take his hand, and I begin to pull in his Psynergy. Once it filters through me, the Psynergy is no longer trapped on Ophiuchus, and it’s free to return to Pisces.
It feels like I’m overdosing on Abyssthe.
Feelings and sensations that have nothing to do with the present begin to pass through me, and my mind is hit again and again and again with pieces of people’s lives, like I’ve inhaled the stardust that makes up existence, and now the whole universe is being processed through my brain. If not for Hysan anchoring me—if not for my longing for a life with him and my hope to see him again—I don’t know that I could hang on.