Page 39 of The Bound Zodiac

He unrolled another chart, this one a painting, or a rendering, done in ink. A landscape of mountains under a violet sky, three moons hanging in a staggered line overhead, one silver, one gold, one the color of charcoal.

“Three moons,” he said, tapping each one with a bony finger. “The silver one, Cassius, was closest. It completed its orbit in roughly fourteen hours. The golden one, Sylvari, took three days. The gray one, Phebos, took eleven.”

Jupiter’s pen was moving again. I could see her hand shaking, just slightly. This was the world of her people. Her extinct ancestors.

“The bane found the Ophis world first,” Richard continued, his voice dropping ominously. “It was the anchor of Aelari magic, the gravitational center of the entire web. When the bane breached it, the entire system began to fail. The other worlds didn’t fall one by one. They fell in a cascade. Portals were shut permanently. Portals that had been maintained for centuries. The Ophis held the door as long as they could, and when they couldn’t hold it anymore, they saved as many as they could. It was pure luck that there was an Ophis in the refugee party. In their escape from Scorpio, the last of the five hundred and seventy-two Aelari souls made it through his portal, in which he sealed behind him with the bane at his back.”

The chamber was silent, and my chest constricted. I could picture it all so easily. How scared they must have been in those final moments. I must have imagined the scenario a million times over the years.

Growing up, my parents, who were currently living in Geneva, working at the Assembly headquarters there, taught me as much as they could about the evacuation to Earth and the settlement that followed. Well, as much as was recorded after the fact. My dad was a historian through and through, and was responsible for the preservation of many of our artifacts. Richard actually mentored my father when he first joined the Order at eighteen.

But it was my mum who knew more about Ophis history than just about anyone I knew. She was a writer, and her main function as a member of the Order was to record and observe. Their positions at Assembly headquarters were essentially covers for their real missions, which were gathering intelligence and feeding it to the Order. I only ever saw my parents on holidays or the occasional video chat when our timezones allowed for it.

Being a member of the Order was all I dreamed about as a child. To be a part of history. To preserve our stories for generations after we’re gone. I never once in my life considered the fact that I might meet an Ophis. The day I told my parents who I’d met at the gala, I could barely contain my excitement.

I think the sentiment was shared throughout the Order, though we had to maintain some semblance of professionalism I supposed. If you considered fucking her until she screamed and shook and pulsed all over my cock, professional. I didn’t have to tell my parents those details though, obviously.

Richard looked at Jupiter for the first time, really looked at her, and his magnified eyes were bright. “You are the first Ophis born in over ten thousand years. The magic in your blood remembers that sky. It remembers those moons. Every time you open a portal, every time you craft light, every time you darkrend, you are reaching for something that has lain dormant for so long, just waiting to be revived again. It’s as they say, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed.”

He picked up the dark metal device, turning it in his hands. “This tracked the Drakon navigators. Every Ophis that traveled between the worlds left a signature behind, and this device recorded it, allowing us to map out portal routes. The old highways between the systems.” He held it out to her. “It responds to Ophis magic.”

The moment her fingers closed around it, the device lit up. Three-dimensional lines bloomed from its surface, weaving and intersecting in the air above it, forming a map. Stars. Constellations. Pathways between them, glowing silver-white.

I’d seen star charts before. I’d studied them in the archives for years. But I’d never seen one that moved, that breathed, that adjusted itself in real time to the person holding it. Jupiter’s eyes had gone wide.

“See? It knows you.”

I woke from a dead sleep, wide fucking awake, and instantly knew something was wrong. No… Not wrong. Not exactly. Just…off. I lay there in the dark, hands folded behind my head, staring at the ceiling as the bond thrummed faintly. A fizzy, giddy kind of energy, welled up inside of me.

I sat up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, and scrubbed my hands over my face. The room was cold, and fog pressed against the glass. I got up and padded to the window anyway, looking out. Nothing but gray, shifting mist.

The giddy feeling hit me again, and this time, I knew exactly where it was coming from. I focused, following the thread down the bond. She glowed silver-bright, impossible to miss. So I sent a message down the bond.

‘Jupiter. You alright?’

She didn’t respond. So I sent it again, still feeling that giddiness sneaking through. Then finally, after asking a third time, her mental voice echoed in my head.

‘Meet me in the grove. And come quietly, please.’

I was too tired to argue. Besides, the giddy energy was contagious, the longer I lingered in it. I got dressed, fast in black trousers, boots, and a hoodie tugged over my t-shirt. I didn’t bother with the glasses as I only really used them for reading. Out in the corridor, the rest of the tower was dead quiet, the only sound the old building settling around itself. Noodle was nowhere to be seen, probably off causing trouble.

I slipped out the side door and into the fog. The world outside was silent, muffled by mist thick as soup. The grove was easy to find. Even with the moon obliterated by fog. I rounded the old boundary wall, ducked under a sagging branch, and⁠—

Stopped dead.

Crouched behind a gnarled oak, hair a mess of black silk in a ponytail that had clearly lost the will to live hours ago, and wearing …pajamas with Edward Cullen’s face on the ass. She was clutching a bag of marshmallows.

I just stood there, arms crossed, and stared at her for a full ten seconds of bewildered silence. The bond made her giddiness spike, like she was daring me to say something. I almost lost it. But I held steady. Barely.

“What in the bloody hell are you doing?”

She whipped around so fast she nearly lost her marshmallows, eyes wide and finger to her lips. “Shh!”

I stared. She beckoned me closer, waving frantically.

“Are you… hiding from something?”

“Lucas, if you don’t shut up and get over here, you’re going to scare it off.”