Page 80 of The Bound Zodiac

But ten thousand years was a long, long time, and I’d heard once, I’m not sure where, that nature always found a way. Life always found a way. And I believed it now with every shred of my soul. Because on the valley floor, cutting a path through the grass toward the base of the cliff, were riders.

They moved in formation, a dozen, maybe fifteen of them, mounted on creatures that looked like horses. They were massive, their bodies a deep, luminous violet shot through with tiger-like stripes of white and orange. Their manes flowed like liquid shadow, and their hooves struck the ground with a sound that carried all the way up the cliff.

The riders were armed. I could see the glint of weapons—spears, curved blades, something that looked like a crossbow. Their armor was dark and sleek, fitted to their bodies. But most of all, they were Aelari. I could feel the faint hum of zodiac magic, distant but unmistakable, rolling off them.

My Ophis magic, what I could conjure in my current state, reached for them, searching, hoping, desperate to find the familiar signature of my own designation, to feel another Ophis in the flesh.

And there they were.

All of them.

Every single rider carried that familiar starlight in their veins.

I felt it radiating outward, vibrating through my bones, my blood, the fissured skin. It was the same frequency. The same harmonic that lived inside me, that had lived inside me since the day I manifested, that had made me feel like a freak and a weapon and a miracle all at once.

The starlight that poured from my wounds wasn’t bleeding anymore. It was reaching. Stretching toward the riders like tendrils of silver thread, connecting across the distance, and I could feel them reaching back.

Ophis. Every single one of them was Ophis.

Survivors. Descendants. Family.

My knees buckled, and Lucas caught me, his arms locking around my waist, holding me upright. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I could only stare down at the valley floor as the riders drew closer, their mounts’ hooves thundering against the violet grass, and the starlight in their veins burned brighter with every step, answering mine, calling to mine, singing the same song my blood had been singing my entire life without me ever knowing the words.

As more of our people gathered behind us, watching the riders come closer, close enough to see their individual faces, I raised a single hand in greeting, letting starlight glitter and sparkle over the tips of my fingers, bright enough for them to see across the plain.

And then, as if they could feel me too, the rider in the very front raised a hand right back, and starlight winked back at me, saying welcome, sister.

Welcome home.

EPILOGUE

JUPITER

Three-ish months later?

Several months later, or so we’d roughly calculated since the Ophis planet’s days were longer than Earth’s, I sat on the balcony of a crystal spire, and watched the twin suns go down over the city they called Aurelian.

The fissures in my skin had healed. Mostly. Silver lines still traced my arms, my collarbones, the backs of my hands. My hair had stayed white, root to tip, no sign of the original color coming back, and at some point I’d stopped waiting for it to. Everything on this planet was silver or violet or emerald anyway. I fit in better here than I ever had on Earth, I supposed.

Noodle was stretched along the railing, soaking up the last of the warmth. His thoughts were slow and satisfied.

I turned, sensing a presence behind me, and found Percy leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, still in the dark fitted armor the Ophis military had lent him. It suited him better than it had any right to. He looked like some kind of sexy ass Spartan warrior in combat boots.

He dropped into the chair beside mine, and was immediately snoring five seconds later, utterly exhausted. The bond gave a small, warm pulse, and I could feel where each of my bonded mates were at. Aiden, Draco and Jamie were lending a hand in the refugee quarters, while Rowan and Lucas were just beyond the border of the large city, near the sea, where a portal highway had been in use for centuries, apparently. Portals that once again connected the thirteen worlds together across the Milky Way.

Theo and Eris were meeting with some of the Order elders, discussing the logistics of bringing more Aelari over from Earth, and where to begin.

The riders who’d greeted us that first day had been Ophis. Every single one. Their starlight had called to mine, and mine had answered, and for one blinding, overwhelming moment, I’d felt less alone than I ever had in my entire life. They’d climbed the cliff on foot, their mounts, called the Cree, couldn’t make the ascent. When they reached the crest, they’d stared at the crowd of bedraggled, bloodied, shell-shocked refugees scattered across the hillside in utter bewilderment.

But there was also recognition. Not of individuals, but of kin. Of blood. Of the magic that lived in all of us, the same magic that lived in them. They’d dropped their weapons, and the woman at the front—her name, I’d later learn, was Seraphine—had walked straight up to me and pressed her forehead to mine, and the starlight in her veins had tangled with the starlight in mine, and I’d sobbed like a child.

They’d brought us to a place called Aurelian. Carried the wounded on their Cree, walked alongside the rest of us, and the whole way down into the valley, I’d kept waiting for the punchline. For the catch. For the moment when someone would reveal that this was all some elaborate trap, or that the city was actually a ruin, or that the bane were still here, lurking in the shadows.

But Aurelian was real. The crystal towers were real. The bridges connecting them, the gardens spiraling up their sides, the markets and homes and public squares. All of it was real, and all of it was inhabited by Aelari who looked at us like we were ghosts. Like we’d stepped out of a story they’d been told as children, a tragedy so ancient it had morphed into myth.

The first twenty-four hours were just chaos and confusion. There were the obvious emergencies like injuries, missing children, people halfway to full breakdowns, and a full-on stampede of Aelari civilians trying to get a look at the spectacle.

Some were terrified. Some looked suspicious, while others were welcoming. It was hard to say, since the language barrier was a son of a bitch and nobody had gotten past the basic “hello, please don’t stab us” phase of translation until at least a week in.