“Thank you, Nood. You’re pretty too.”
‘Am I coming?’
“Absolutely not. You’ll cause chaos.”
‘I know.’He sounded awfully smug.
“Don’t get used to it. You only get to hide out while I settle in and figure this place out. Don’t get too comfy in here.”
He ignored me and immediately shut his eyes, pretending to sleep.
I didn’t particularly feel like explaining that I could speak to snakes quite yet. It wasn’t just Noodle. I could speak with literally any serpent. Mom said it was one of my zodiac manifestations, and that all Ophis could do it going back to the first people. But I couldn’t reveal it to anyone until my secret was out.
I left him with the run of the room, which he would use to explore every inch of it and probably end up somewhere I’d have to search for later, and I made my way downstairs to the Convocation Hall, which I’d located on my walk-through yesterday. It was a vast domed room on the main floor with tiered seating around a central floor space.
It was already three-quarters full when I arrived, twelve hundred students settling into rows. I could sense the nervous excitement and anticipation already. I found Tye and Lydia three rows up on the left side, slid in beside them, and Lydia immediately took my hand and squeezed it without saying anything. I looked straight ahead at the declaration stage and focused.
The podium was in the center of the floor, a single column of black stone, waist-height, with the casting stone set into the top of it. The casting stone was about the size of a dinner plate, smooth and dark until someone touched it, and then it would read the zodiac signature in a person’s magic and display the designation in light. I’d seen videos of the process during my Assembly training. It was straightforward. You touched it, it told everyone what you were, you went and stood with your designation group. Simple.
For twelve of the thirteen designations, absolutely simple.
The director of Dominion Academy was a tall woman with silver-streaked hair. She introduced herself as Director Maren Waverly and she spoke in a clipped, posh accent that was vaguely British. She covered rules, expectations, the trainingcalendar, the shield bonding protocols, and the weight of the responsibility they were all undertaking, and she did it all in under fifteen minutes, which I appreciated enormously.
Essentially, we would be training for the next four years to become the elite of the elite. Some were simply scholars, future politicians and other would-be professionals, but most were zodiac warriors who would form what are calledshields, which were teams of 4-5 warriors, and a powerful axis as their bonded mate. Or if you didn’t want a mate, you could choose a platonic axis, but it made it hard to have relationships outside of your shield when you spent every day of your lives together.
Your shield had to be chosen carefully. Some were already formed, but were looking for their axis. Warriors tended to train from a young age, and prestigious families paired their children up with other prestigious families to create strong ones, according to their logic. But pedigree didn’t always matter. Sometimes zodiacs from no name of consequence at all could end up being the most powerful.
“Declarations will proceed in standard order. First years, when your designation group is called, all new members of that group will proceed to the casting stone. Touch it, and you will officially declare yourself. We will proceed through the twelve designations alphabetically.”
Twelve designations, alphabetically. Aquarius first. Aries second. Cancer third. And so on through to Virgo.
No thirteenth. Not alphabetically, not technically. Because no one here except Director Waverly, and the Assembly representatives sitting in the side gallery, and Tye and Lydia beside me, knew that there was a thirteenth.
I was going to be called separately, at the end, after the twelve. Orion had arranged it that way so that the announcement would be controlled. There would be a statement. A formal introduction. The Assembly representativeswere here partly for optics and partly because they genuinely did not know how twelve hundred zodiacs were going to react to the news that the 13th was real and was standing in the same room as them.
I put my hands flat on my thighs and waited.
Aquarius went first, and there were about forty of them. They filed past the casting stone in a line and each one touched it, a blue-white light sparked up and showed the wave symbol and everyone in that group went to stand along the right wall. Tye and Lydia were in this group. Lydia had squeezed my hand before she stood, and Tye had clapped me once on the shoulder, and then they both went and I was alone. It didn’t take long at all. Each new inductee touched the stone, it flared to life, and that was that. They were officially in.
Aries was next. I watched the Nightfall Shield from across the room. They were sitting in front with several other prominent shields, made up of powerful warriors. There were a few females scattered among them, which made me feel slightly better. Trainees looked up to these people. They were elite warriors with reputations of utter lethality. They were considered leaders of their designations.
Percy was sitting at the end of a row near the front, arms crossed. When Aries was called, he stood up with the rest of his group but didn’t have to touch the stone. He’d already done this during his first year. He watched his fellow Ares touch the stone, giving several of them curt nods as they passed.
Draco’s Scorpio declaration came, and when the stone lit purple for them, the scorpion sigil blazed up above their hands. Eris was Gemini, his designation’s trainees lighting up with several colors at once. Aiden was Leo, the stone lighting up bright, warm gold.
We cycled through all twelve zodiacs, and soon the room began to fill with excited chatter, people eager to be dismissed.My stomach knotted as Director Waverly looked out at the hall and said, “There is one more declaration.”
The room went quiet. There were no whispers, only the echo of silence that made my skin crawl. People looked around in confusion, and I didn’t blame them. Three years ago I’d have felt the same.
“What I am about to say is true,” she continued, and I noticed her spine get slightly straighter. “The Assembly has verified it, andIhave verified it. The declaration you are about to witness is unprecedented in recorded zodiac history.” She paused. “The 13th Zodiac has manifested. The designation of Ophis is present in this hall.”
The room exploded into freaking chaos.
“That’s impossible!” someone shouted from the Taurus section.
“The 13th is just a legend!” called another voice.
I watched as several shield teams surged forward toward the podium, their faces contorted with disbelief and indignation. A shield of five large male warriors—the Dreadwatch, I believe they were called—stepped forward. Their leader, a tall man named Rafe, expressed his desire to speak with someone from the Assembly immediately.
