Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

Venielle agreed to explain the basics of Gemini training after Marek spent enough time watching Mara practice that his questions became impossible to ignore. He promised not to interrupt every sentence with another one, which Mara clearly did not believe for a second.

Rhovan, who had already returned from checking the western roads, stayed near the edge of the training area and seemed equally interested in seeing how long Marek would last. He made it less than five minutes before breaking the promise, and Rhovan looked far too amused by the result.

Two identical metal keys were placed on the table between them. Venielle pointed to one.

"This is the source," she said. "The other is the copy created from it."

Marek frowned. "So the one on the right is the original?"

"Yes."

Before he could get comfortable with the distinction, the keys switched positions too quickly for him to follow. Venielle asked, "Which one is the source?"

Marek studied both for several seconds before admitting, "Unknown."

"Exactly," Venielle replied. "The correspondence still maintains which one is the source. You simply lost track of it. Looking at them now won’t give you the answer."

He frowned. "That still sounds like a trick with identical objects, not Gemini Authority."

Mara laughed from the other side of the table. "You promised not to interrupt."

"I had a question."

Rhovan covered his mouth. Venielle ignored both of them and explained that Gemini Authority did not begin with the idea that one answer was real and the other was fake. At lower Cycles, Earth Astrants often reproduced voices, motions, reflections, or surface identity because those relationships were easy to understand.

The deeper rule was correspondence: the relationship between a source and the copy created from it. As long as Gemini Authority maintained that relationship, both sides could continue to exist.

"People on Earth will probably call the second one a copy," Venielle said. "That becomes dangerous if the Astrant starts treating ’copy’ as another word for disposable."

Marek looked at the keys again. "Because once you create the copy, you’re responsible for what happens to both."

Venielle nodded. "That is closer."

Rhovan added, "One came first. That doesn’t make the other one worth less."

Marek glanced at him. Venielle did too, and the brief recognition between them was not friendly enough to be familiarity or distant enough to be nothing. Marek noticed it but said nothing. He could ask about it later.

The next exercise used two standing mirrors. Mara positioned herself between them while Venielle altered one surface so the reflection on the left lagged slightly behind her movements.

When Mara turned to face the other side, the reflection on the left remained facing forward for half a second before following.

Venielle pointed toward it. "What is that?"

"My reflection."

"Normally, yes." Venielle touched the edge of the mirror. "But if Gemini Authority creates a copy from that reflection, then you become the source and the copy becomes the other side."

Mara looked at the mirror. "And the connection between us is the correspondence."

"Exactly."

Marek glanced between Mara and the reflection. "So the difficult part isn’t creating the copy. It’s keeping track of which side came from which."

Venielle nodded. "That is one of the first things a Gemini Astrant must learn."

Mara folded her arms. "Easy for you to say. I’m the one who has to remember which me came first."

"Which is why you’re practicing."

Marek folded his arms. "So you’re teaching her not to treat the copy as disposable just because it came second."

"Among other things," Venielle replied. "Creating a copy also means maintaining the correspondence that connects it to the source. A Gemini Astrant who loses track of that can cause considerably worse problems than two identical keys."

Rhovan stopped smiling.

Marek caught the change immediately and glanced at him. "What?"

"Nothing."

"That was definitely not ’nothing’."

Mara raised one hand between them before Marek could continue. "Can we finish my lesson before my brother starts interrogating Rhovan again?"

Marek looked at her. "I wasn’t interrogating him."

"You were about to."

Venielle gave Mara a small nod. "He was."

Marek gave her a flat look. "You’re enjoying this."

"No."

The answer came quickly enough that he did not believe it.

The lesson moved to two doors along the greenhouse wall. One opened into an ordinary storage room containing gardening tools, folded tables, and several boxes of supplies.

The second door should have opened into the room beside it. Instead, when Venielle pulled it open, Marek saw another storage room on the other side. It contained the same tables, the same shelves, and the same gardening tools, but everything had been reversed as though he were looking through a mirror.

Marek stared through the doorway. "That’s a copy of the first room?"

"Yes," Venielle replied. "The original room is the source. Gemini Authority created the second one from it, and the correspondence connects the two."

Marek looked from one doorway to the other. "And Mara is supposed to keep track of which room is which?"

"Among other things."

Mara sighed. "You make everything sound much more dangerous when you say it like that."

"Because it usually is," Marek said, ignoring his sister. "What happens if the correspondence fails while somebody is crossing?"

Venielle seemed to have expected the question. "The passage would collapse. That is why Mara will not be maintaining one herself at her current level."

Marek’s expression changed. "Collapse how?"

"Marek."

He looked at Mara.

She pointed toward Venielle. "She literally just said I’m not allowed to make one on my own yet."

"That doesn’t answer what happens."

"It answers whether it’s going to happen to me."

Marek knew she had a point, but that did not make the unanswered part any less concerning.

Mara smiled when he finally stepped away from the door. "See? Nobody is throwing me into some kind of mirror space."

Marek frowned. "Calling it mirror space somehow makes it sound worse."

"It sounds better to me."

Venielle continued before either sibling could drag the argument farther.

Venielle had Mara alternate between the ordinary door and the Gemini passage several times, explaining which route she was using each time and what maintained the correspondence.

Nothing about the exercise was particularly dramatic or dangerous. There were no flashes of power, distorted rooms, or explosions of light. Whenever Mara became vague about which route she had used or what maintained the correspondence, Venielle stopped her and made her repeat the exercise.

The point was not how quickly Mara could use the correspondence. She needed to know which room was the source, which one was the copy, and what kept the correspondence between them intact.