WHEN WE LAND ON PHAETONIS, a full military motorcade squires us into the city from the spaceport. Captain Marq rides with us.
I expect to be taken to the hippodrome, so I’m surprised when we head into the international village. Today, it’s completely void of people, and leftover glasses and trinkets from the festival still litter the ground. My chest hurts just thinking of the night of Helios’s Halo, back when we had a tomorrow to fight for. When the Houses were friends. When Mathias smiled.
A special session has been convened to hear my report of what happened in the Wasp, and I’ve memorized what I’ll say. I’m going to share that Ophiuchus has a master—like Caasy predicted—and I’ll tell them about his plan to bring back the Thirteenth House.
I cross the plank into the Cancrian embassy, following Sirna. I’m relieved not to be in the arenasphere facing the Plenum for this report. After everything that’s happened, home is the only place I want to be.
Sirna walks ahead and leads me to the second bungalow, the only one I haven’t visited yet. The lobby is an open sandbox, filled with hammocks and embassy Waves for guests. The roof is an aquarium, housing various varieties of fish, seahorses, crabs, sea snakes, and even sharks. Sirna and I head straight to the top story—a vast, open-air ballroom.
The floor beneath us is the aquarium, and I realize it must span the entire height of the bungalow. The heavy fabric sky of Phaetonis hangs over us as Sirna walks off to her seat at the long table facing me, and then I’m left alone, staring at Guardians and ambassadors from the twelve houses.
There’s no audience today. No soldiers, no cameras, no holo-ghosts. Just all the representatives who are still alive to attend.
Everyone is glaring at me. My eyes land on blade-faced Charon, who rises. I thought he’d been suspended.
I give Sirna a questioning nod, but she lowers her eyes. What’s going on?
“Rhoma Grace.” Charon’s voice thunders through the quiet, and I flinch. “You have been charged with cowardice. How do you plea?”
Cowardice. The word echoes tauntingly in my ears, the way treason did, when Admiral Crius accused Mom. None of this makes any sense. I’m on trial? I thought I was here to give a report on Ophiuchus.
I catch Sirna watching me, so I lift my chin, determined to act with honor. “Ophiuchus outmaneuvered us, but—”
Charon bangs his fist on the table. The silence that follows has an echoing quality. “Guilty . . . or not guilty?”
I open my mouth, but I don’t know how to answer. My warnings launched the armada. They trusted me. I led them.
But it was Ochus who did the slaughtering.
Ochus.
When I fail to answer, Charon bangs his fist again. “Did you not claim that your Psy shields would protect our ships from your boogeyman?”
“The shields worked, but they were sabota—”
“Yes or no!” shouts Charon. “Did you not deliberately lead our fleet into the perilous Kyros Belt, the most dangerous part of Zodiac Space, an ice field you knew would claim most of our ships?”
“No! That’s not what happened. Admiral Ignus did a stellar job of leading us through the ice.”
Angry conversations rustle down the table, and Charon says, “Perhaps the admiral will testify.” He looks around the room, smug and confident. I’m sure he knows what happened to Ignus. Sirna told me he went down with his ship.
“Admiral Ignus died a hero,” I say. “He and all the others. Someone betrayed us.”
“Yes. Someone did. You.” Charon points at my chest. “You breached our trust, Rhoma. You weren’t ready to be a leader; you were a child seeking fame. That’s why the first thing you did after you were sworn in was run away. Not that it’s entirely your fault—your Cancrian mother didn’t set the best example. You then commanded your bandmate—a Sagittarian not subject to your control—to continue spreading your rumors and win you more fans. In the meantime, you and your lover stole a ship from House Libra—again, not in your Cancrian jurisdiction—and shortly thereafter you wormed your way before us and manipulated the Plenum into following you on a dangerous and doomed mission that you were always planning to survive, alone. We were all just part of your path to Zodiac fame, and you never cared who you hurt, did you? Not even your Guide, Lodestar Mathias Thais.”
Hearing Mathias’s name, I feel paralyzed. There’s a deadly, booming silence that follows Charon’s accusation, and it feels like it’s radiating from inside me. I don’t even hear my heartbeats or breaths. There’s just a vacuum where life had been.
“I’m a Cancrian,” I say, my voice low and shaking, “a nurturer. What you’re suggesting, it isn’t in my soul.”