Page 3 of The Bound Zodiac

Rowan’s hand brushed my lower back. “Focus, Jupiter. Our magic needs to learn how to play nicely in tight quarters before we bond.”

My belly flipped at the thought, but I nodded, the three of us falling into a loose triangle as the simulation bane materialized. Shadowy voids cracking through the fuselage like little veins and fractures in reality.

The first one lunged from the cockpit area, and I ripped a portal open on instinct, silver light shearing the air. Lucas’s water surged in a pressurized arc, freezing the rift edges to stabilize it, while Rowan’s gravity tugged the creature off-balance, slamming it into the fake aisle.

Their powers brushed mine, the friction causing the air to crackle, water cooling the starlight’s burn, gravity bending the portal’s trajectory just enough to keep it from buckling. It was weird, I could feel their magic inside of me, sliding around to find purchase. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but it kind of freaked me out a little. I’d barely even had enough time to get used to the Nightfall Shield’s magic, let alone five more warriors.

A second bane tore through the overhead compartment, and I shoved down the urge to solo it. “See? This is why it’s stupid,” I hissed, dodging a claw swipe as Rowan yanked me closer. “They’d never pick this target. Too isolated, no real energy payoff.”

“Less talking, more syncing,” Lucas growled, his tattooed wrist flashing as he flooded the aisle with a liquid barrier. My portal flared wider under the combined pull, swallowing the thing whole before Rowan crushed it flat with a gravity pulse.

Sweat beaded on my brow as the third wave hit, the plane tilting in the sim. Rowan’s hand found mine. “Okay Jupe, pull the bastards in!”

I exhaled, letting the starlight bloom fully, portals blooming in controlled bursts around their strikes. It still felt objectively pointless, but the magic was learning us, threading us together, which would hopefully make the bonding smoother when the time came. There was no telling what a ten person bond would do.

The magically simulated bane were obliterated as I pulled them across the event horizon of my portals, my magic too potent for them to withstand. Starlight tore them to pieces in the blink of an eye.

The sim dissolved with a soft chime, the fuselage melting back into Imperium’s stone walls and the frozen passengers fading to nothing. I braced my hands on my knees, sucking air. Three portals held simultaneously, each one anchored to a different point in the cabin, and my vision still swam with silver afterimages.

“That’s better,” Lucas said, pulling up the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. “You’re getting faster.”

“Faster isn’t the damn problem.” I straightened, glaring at the spot where the portals had blipped away. “The problem is I can’t hold more than three without wanting to puke.”

Rowan’s hand found my shoulder. “You will. It’s like building muscle. You push past the burn, your body eventually adapts to it.”

“Unless my brain explodes before then…” I muttered more to myself.

The truth was, portals were deceptively hard. Not the opening part, that was easy, almost too easy now. The starlight wanted to pour out of me, wanted to rip through the air and stitch together whatever two points I asked it to. The problem was the holding it steady for long enough to pull the bane in, or create an evacuation in case we ever needed to get the fuck out of dodge.

Each portal was a live wire, a seam in reality that I had to keep feeding energy into it or else it would snap shut on its own. One portal? Fine. Two? Manageable. Three? I could hold them for maybe five minutes before the headache set in. Four? I’d tried it once last week and nearly passed out, Theo having to catch me before I face-planted.

And the distance-specific ones were a whole other beast. Opening a portal to a specific person? That was almost intuitive now, like my magic had a GPS built in. I could feel the thread of someone’s signature and yank it toward me, reel them in with my starlight. I’d done it with Lucas and Rowan at Dominion without even thinking, pulled them across the Atlantic in a blind panic because I’d felt Draco dying through the bond. But I hadn’t tried an ocean-crossing portal since.

I could open big portals now, too. Massive ones, wide enough to drive a truck through. Those were easier than holding multiples, honestly. One big portal felt like stretching a muscle. Four small ones felt like trying to juggle chainsaws while riding a unicycle.

“Come on, babe,” Lucas said, slinging his bag over one shoulder. “We should head down and get some food in you before you keel over. Don’t want you weak for the meeting tonight.”

My stomach dropped. Right. The meeting. Ugh, could it be more ominous?

Tonight was the night I’d been dreading and anticipating in equal measure. The Order of Ophiuchus was gathering in the chamber beneath Imperium’s foundations. The chamber built directly over the spot where the First Crossing portal had been torn open thousands of years ago. The spot where the last Ophis had sacrificed himself to seal the rift and strand our entire species on Earth.

No pressure. None at all.

I waved Lucas and Rowan off toward the dining hall, promising I’d catch up after I’d showered and changed. The training session had left me feeling gross, sweat clinging to my skin and my hair plastered to the back of my neck. Plus, I needed a minute alone to collect myself. I took the long route back to my tower, maybe, just maybe stalling a bit.

My room was exactly how I’d left it, cluttered but comfortable, with Noodle coiled in a tight ball on my pillow, dead to the world. He didn’t so much as twitch when I closed the door.

“Lazy mooch,” I muttered, but I was smiling as I stripped off my training clothes and padded into the bathroom.

The shower was mercifully hot, and I stood under the spray longer than I should have, letting the water pound the tension out of my shoulders. My muscles ached from the sim, that deep, satisfying burn that came from pushing past my limits. I shampooed my hair twice, scrubbing until my scalp tingled, then conditioned it until the black strands slipped through my fingers like silk.

By the time I stepped out, wrapped in a towel, Noodle had finally deigned to acknowledge my existence. ‘You have mouse?’ His little tongue slipped from his mouth, tasting the air several times.

I stalked over to the mini fridge and pulled out a sealed plastic bowl. “You know, you could hunt them for yourself. Since you’re ‘The Rat King’ and all.” I pulled a single dead mouse from the bowl and flung it to the floor, suppressing a gag.

He slithered off of the bed and made a beeline for the mouse. ‘A king must have his servantssss.’

“Yeah yeah…”