Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

Amara stayed through the rest of the light period. Marek did not realize she still intended to leave until Dario brought food into the shelter room and she asked him to fill two bottles with enough water for travel.

Marek stopped opening a can of meat and looked at the bottles.

"Where are you going?"

"Away from here."

Marek looked at her. "That is not a location."

"Correct." Amara scooped a piece of luncheon meat from her can and ate it. "You asked where I was going, not where I would end up."

Marek watched her for a moment. "Are you going to tell me where you’ll end up then?"

"I don’t know yet."

Marek picked up his own can and took a bite of the meat with one of the crackers Dario had brought.

Dario had brought enough food for the people still using the smaller room, but Nadia and Eren took theirs outside when another volunteer called for help moving a stack of supply boxes. The shelter had become busier as the light period wore on. Volunteers passed the doorway carrying medicine and folded cloth, while someone farther down the corridor called names from a handwritten treatment list.

Marek sat across from his mother.

Nobody at the table asked about Project Meridian, the Twelve Houses, Celeste, or anything else that had made the last several days more complicated than they already were. Amara asked whether he had been sleeping instead.

"Yes."

She stared at him.

"Enough."

Her stare did not change.

Marek continued eating his crackers. "Sometimes."

"That sounds more accurate."

She asked about his coffee next, which caught him off guard enough that he stopped chewing. "Do you still drink too much of it?"

"I don’t drink that much."

"Your fingers used to shake when you had too much."

Marek looked at his hand as though it had betrayed him. "I never told you that."

"You think I stopped noticing things because you spent most of your time at the university?"

"No, but surveillance would have been less embarrassing."

"Drink less coffee."

"I haven’t been drinking too much coffee lately."

Rhovan sat at the other end of the table with his own food, listening without pretending otherwise.

Marek looked at him once. "You don’t need to remember any of this."

"I wasn’t planning to."

Amara glanced at Rhovan. "He was."

Rhovan gave her an offended look, but before he could say anything, Dario laughed from the doorway. Marek ignored both of them and just focused on eating.

Amara noticed Marek checking his backpack before he closed it again. Eight noodle packets remained inside, exactly where Mara had left them. "She still likes those?"

"She took three and told me to keep eight."

"That sounds like her."

"She also decided two of mine are emergency noodles."

Amara paused. "Which two?"

"She refused to tell me."

A laugh escaped her before she could hide it. Marek looked down at the bag, still unconvinced that Mara’s logic made any sense. She had apparently decided that not telling him which two were the emergency noodles would make him protect all eight, which unfortunately had worked.

He closed the backpack and returned it beside his chair.

Amara asked about Mara’s training after that. She already knew what Venielle had shown her before leaving the Botanical Institute, so Marek mostly told her about what happened after he arrived. Mara had asked plenty of questions before agreeing to leave with Venielle, and from what Marek had seen, she had not simply accepted whatever was put in front of her.

"Did Venielle pressure her?" Amara asked.

"No."

"Did you?"

Marek stopped eating.

Amara waited.

"I had opinions."

"That was not what I asked."

"I argued with her."

"I assumed that part."

Marek leaned back slightly. "She wanted to stay. I agreed after she made that choice. I wasn’t the reason she stayed."

Amara watched him for a moment, then gave a small nod before returning to her food.

Amara seemed pleased with the answer. Marek looked down at his food before she could say anything about it.

"She knew what she was agreeing to as much as anyone could," Marek continued. "Venielle answered her questions. I asked more. Mara got annoyed with both of us."

Amara smiled slightly. "That sounds about right."

"You weren’t there for my part."

"I didn’t need to be. She was already tired of my questions before you arrived."

Marek remembered Mara mentioning that their argument had lasted more than forty minutes. Apparently, she had not been exaggerating.

The room grew warmer as more people passed through the treatment area. Someone had opened one of the side doors to let air through, carrying in dust from the road and the smell of fuel from the vehicles parked outside. Emergency lamps remained on even though the light period had not ended, their pale glow barely noticeable against the brighter corridor.

Marek waited until Amara finished eating before asking what she and Venielle had discussed when they were alone.

Amara set her spoon inside the empty can. "You’ll have to ask Mara about anything she discussed with Venielle privately."

"I’m not asking about that. I want to know whether the House of Gemini is going to become a problem."

Amara considered the question. "It could."

Marek’s jaw tightened.

"She knows enough to decide whether she keeps listening to Venielle," Amara continued. "That matters more to me than whether the House approves of her choices. Your sister’s fourteen, but I believe she can already handle herself well."

"What happens when the House decides it wants her?"

"Then Mara gets to decide what she wants from the House."

"And if they don’t care what she wants?"

Amara looked at him. "Then that becomes a different problem."

Marek had no easy argument against that. He had already gone through the same problem with Mara. A powerful House did not automatically erase her choice, but pretending that power meant nothing would be just as foolish.

Celeste’s voice reached him quietly behind his right ear. "Some warnings are useful before they become lessons."

Marek frowned. "You two are very good at answering one question in a way that produces three more."

Amara’s mouth shifted slightly. "You inherited that complaint from your father."

Tomas entered the conversation through that one remark, and Marek noticed the tiredness around his mother’s eyes almost immediately. He still wanted to know what Tomas had found beneath Meridian and why Celeste believed people connected to it were already reaching Earth.

He left those questions alone.

A volunteer came in for the empty cans while Dario returned with one of Amara’s filled bottles. The second was still at the water station because several other people were waiting to refill their own containers.

Amara took the bottle and checked the cap.

"You’re really leaving tonight..." Marek said.

"Yes."

He had known that since the moment she asked for water, but hearing her confirm it made the room feel smaller.

Later, while Nadia helped clear the table and Dario went back for the second bottle, Rhovan followed Amara toward the shelter entrance. Marek was close enough to hear him when he spoke.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You usually do."

Rhovan glanced at her. "How strong are you?"

Amara looked at him. "That’s rude."

"I’ve been trying to answer it since I met you."

"And?"

"I can’t."

Amara studied him briefly. When Dario returned with the second bottle, she took it without answering.

Rhovan continued watching her, his expression more serious than Marek was used to seeing. And Marek understood that whatever he had been trying to measure had remained outside his reach.

"Still no idea how strong she is?"

Rhovan shook his head. "Not enough to give you a number."

Marek wanted more than that. It was difficult to reconcile Rhovan’s uncertainty with the woman standing a few steps away from them. Amara still looked painfully thin, her body carrying injuries that had not completely healed. But Celeste had once been Cycle XI, and Rhovan still could not get a proper read on her.

Marek was beginning to suspect that meant something.

As they moved back inside, Amara mentioned that she had heard parts of some of Marek’s private conversations with Celeste.

Marek stopped walking. "How much of our conversations do you actually hear?"

"Not everything," Celeste said.

Amara looked at him. "Enough."

Marek stared at her. "I preferred not knowing that."

Amara laughed.