Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

The light faded gradually, and by the time the next dark period settled over the road outside, the shelter had switched almost entirely to emergency lamps. Their pale light reached through the entrance and stopped a few meters beyond the curb, where damaged vehicles and temporary barriers became dark shapes against the street.

The shelter had quieted only slightly. A few people were already settling against the walls with blankets, while volunteers checked the remaining water and medical supplies for the night.

Amara packed while all of it happened around them, though what she had gathered barely looked sufficient for travel. The two bottles went into a cloth carrier with several portions of food, and she tucked a small pouch beneath her gray jacket. Marek saw no phone among her things and no map either.

Marek watched her check the pouch again. "What’s in that?"

"Things I need."

"That explains nothing."

"It explains enough."

He was about to ask again, but Amara looked at him in a way that reminded him too much of the conversation they had already had that morning.

Marek let the pouch go, although that did not stop him from thinking about everything else.

For more than a week, Marek had learned that finding his mother was rarely about knowing where she had been. It was about noticing where she had chosen not to be.

Amara could pass through a place, help someone, leave almost nothing behind, and somehow still make him feel as though he had arrived only minutes too late.

Now she was standing in front of him, alive, and preparing to walk away on purpose.

He found that harder to accept than he expected.

"Why do you have to leave tonight?" he asked.

Amara finished adjusting the strap around the water carrier before answering. "Because people from the Prime Continuum are already here."

"Rhovan is from the Prime Continuum."

"I am aware."

"Venielle too."

"Yes."

"So that isn’t the part you’re worried about."

Amara remained silent.

Marek waited.

Amara looked toward the entrance. Outside, somebody was asking a driver whether the eastern road still connected to the old commercial district. The driver had passed through earlier and said it did, although the route now took him several blocks farther south than it used to.

"More are coming," Amara said. "And not everyone who wants something from you needs to hate you."

Rhovan, who had been checking the road from the doorway, turned back inside.

"You mean the House representatives?"

"Among others."

"How soon?"

"If I knew the hour, I would have given you one."

Rhovan did not question whether the delegations were coming. They had already heard enough to know that much. What changed was the way Amara spoke as though their arrival mattered enough for her to be somewhere else before it happened.

Marek looked at her. "And you’re leaving because of the Houses?"

"Not only because of them."

"Then because of Meridian?"

Amara’s hand stopped on the strap.

Marek noticed, but he did not press immediately.

"You told me people connected to what Dad found are already reaching Earth," he said. "Are they the same people?"

"I didn’t say that."

"Are they?"

Amara looked tired again, though her voice stayed level. "I don’t know enough to answer that safely."

Marek almost asked what made an answer unsafe. He stopped himself because he knew exactly what would happen. She would refuse, he would change the wording, and they would spend another half hour circling something she had already decided not to explain in the first place.

Instead, he asked, "Are you in danger?"

"I’ve been in danger for days."

Marek frowned. "That isn’t funny."

"I wasn’t joking."

Marek looked at the bottles, the food, and the small amount of space beneath her jacket where the pouch had disappeared. None of it looked sufficient for someone planning to move through roads that could change between one light period and the next.

"Do you at least know where you’re going to be sleeping?"

"When I need to sleep."

"That was not the question." He rubbed one hand over his face. "Mom..."

"I’ll find some place."

Amara stepped closer to the entrance, and Marek followed. Rhovan moved aside without being asked.

A government vehicle passed slowly at the far end of the road. Its roof lights were off, but reflective strips along the side flashed whenever they caught the shelter lamps. Several civilians stopped to watch it before returning to whatever they had been doing.

Amara waited until it disappeared.

"A government can control someone while believing it’s protecting them," she said. "A House can do the same and call it safety. Neither one has to think it’s doing anything wrong."

She looked at Marek before continuing.

"And people can interfere with someone they love while believing they are rescuing them."

He knew that part was for him.

"You could have left me out of the comparison."

"I could have."

"But you didn’t." Marek exhaled through his nose.

He knew what she meant. He had already been isolated and moved around under procedures meant to keep people safe. Venielle had warned him that a House could take custody of someone and genuinely call it protection. Even Marek had spent too long pushing Amara for an answer she had already given him because he was afraid of what might happen to her.

"What do you think the Houses will want from me?" he asked. "Ophiuchus? Meridian?"

"Ophiuchus is enough reason. Meridian may be a different problem."

"And Dad?"

Amara’s eyes moved to him.

She did not answer.

Marek waited before accepting the silence. Forcing something out of her before she left would not make whatever answer he received more useful.

"Do I need to leave this shelter?" he asked instead.

"Not because I’m leaving."

"That wasn’t what I asked."

Amara almost smiled. "No. Not yet. But don’t let anyone convince you that cooperating means surrendering every decision after the first one."

Marek thought of the Twelve Houses arriving on a world that had only recently learned they existed. Rhovan had already told him that Earth’s governments would not simply disappear because older institutions arrived, but power would still change every negotiation that followed.

"And if they tell Earth they’re here to help?"

"Listen."

"That’s all?"

"Listen first. Then ask what they want in return, what authority they think they have here, and what happens if Earth says no. Earth shouldn’t agree to anything until it knows the answers."

Marek nodded slowly.

The advice sounded like something Amara could have given him before Day 367 about contracts, hospital forms, or anybody asking for a signature without properly explaining what was written above it. Only the scale of the problem had changed.

Amara adjusted the water carrier again.

Marek looked at her gray jacket, at the repaired section of one sleeve, and at the faint line near her eyebrow that had already started healing. The familiar detergent smell had mostly disappeared beneath dust and travel, but enough of it remained that standing beside her still felt dangerously close to home.

"When will I see you again?" he asked.

"I don’t know."

He appreciated the answer more than another promise she could not guarantee, even if it was not the answer he wanted.

Amara seemed to reconsider. "I will find you."

"That is what you keep doing."

"Then trust my record."

Marek looked down the dark road. "Your record includes avoiding registration desks, changing routes without telling anyone, and making me track you through laundry."

"That worked."

"It should not have worked."

"But it did." Amara reached up and touched the side of his face. "If you see Mara before I do, tell her I love her."

Marek said no more and just nodded, his head lowered.

The words came too close to goodbye for his liking. Amara must have noticed because she put the bottles down and hugged him before he could find another question to delay her with.

Marek wrapped both arms around her.

The shelter continued around them as usual, but Marek barely noticed anything beyond his mother’s arms around him.

She pressed one hand against the back of Marek’s head.

He remembered being much shorter than her and pretending he was already too old for the same gesture. He did not complain now.

"You’ll contact me if you can?" he asked against her shoulder.

"Yes."

"And if something changes?"

"Hmm."

"If you—"

"Marek."

He stopped.

Amara pulled back enough to look at him. "I know."

The answer reminded him of Mara at the Botanical Institute, and that was probably why he finally allowed the rest of the conditions forming in his head to remain there.

Amara picked up the bottles again.

Rhovan had moved several steps away from the entrance, giving them room. Dario and Nadia were farther inside with the volunteers. Nobody tried to turn the departure into a ceremony.

Amara stepped outside.

She had only gone a few meters when Marek called after her.

"Mom."

Amara turned, and Marek discovered that after spending most of the day finding questions to ask her, he had no useful one left.

"Be careful."

She nodded. "You too."

Amara continued toward the darker part of the road beyond the shelter lamps.

Marek stayed at the entrance as Amara walked away.

Water gathered around her feet and climbed while swirling around her body, slowly washing away the gray of her jacket until even her outline began to blur.

She looked back once.

Marek took one step.

"Mom... please don’t go..." he muttered.

Amara smiled before the water closed over her completely.

"Take care... Mom..." he whispered, lowering his head.

Then she was gone.

The water fell across the pavement and ran between the cracks. Marek stood there long after there was nothing left to see.

He had spent more than a week trying to find his mother.

But this time, he let her leave.