slowly approached me and gently laid his hand on my shoulder. I stood my ground and didn’t back away, even though he was close enough I could see the striations in his matte black horns. I should have run, because by the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. Aries gave me the same look Kes did before bringing me to the cemetery.
This was going to hurt. I braced for it, squinting as I winced, and prepared for the pain. But it never came.
Instead, for a split second, I felt comfortable warmth. Somewhere in the brilliant darkness, Aries held me tight. I could feel the tips of his claws, but they didn’t bite into my skin. I was all too aware of his chest pressed against mine. In a blink, his comfortable warmth disappeared as the world around me came rushing into view. Then I felt nothing but a cold so frigid, it took my breath away.
We stood in front of a mountain range, the tops of which were encrusted with snow and glaciers, glittering like jewels in the afternoon sun. “Where are we?” I asked through chattering teeth.
“Home,” he said wistfully, staring at the mountaintops like he remembered them and had missed them terribly. “The Zodia have divided the earth equally, each of us taking a portion. This is mine.”
Aries closed his eyes. He swept his hands, palms up, into the air before him, and the ground began to rumble underfoot. Not enough to knock me off balance, but enough to make me hold my arms out to steady myself. From beneath the ground, as if it had been sunken in water and was being raised from the depths, Aries unearthed his kingdom.
Sleek, dark columns erupted from the arid soil to form a forest of stone, each one so tall, I had to squint against the sky to see the stone-capped tops. Beyond the dizzying rows of columns rose an even taller castle, complete with balconies and sharply tipped turrets.
I stood beside him, stunned, my mouth agape as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. He glanced at me in his periphery.
“I must gather mine among the divided,” he finally spoke, “and call forth the other eleven Guardians so that they may assist them and keep the peace.”
I closed my eyes, picturing the terror that those born under the Aries sign were about to experience and wishing there was some way to help them.
Aries said my name and waited until I looked him in the eye. For a long moment, he watched me as if I were a puzzle, something to figure out. “I have to claim them and bring them here where they can be safe. They’ve watched all the others disappear. My people are the only ones still scattered. They’re frightened.”
“Have you ever done this before? Collected your people?”
He shook his head. “Before… it wasn’t necessary. The separation occurred at birth and was the way of life.”
Before what? What happened that made things so drastically different? How long were he and the others asleep?
Behind him, his home stood proudly. His castle’s shadow yawned over the land as the sun slowly slipped toward the west. Aries turned in a circle, stretching his hands out and speaking in that secret language I didn’t recognize. In a blink, thousands – no, hundreds of thousands – of people appeared, stretching as far as I could see in every direction but the mountain behind us. Men, women, and children. Wealthy, impoverished, and everything in between. Every race. Every religion. Every age and walk of life was represented. Everything that used to separate us from one another didn’t matter now that the Zodia were here.
Visibly frightened, his people huddled together against the cold, howling wind. Infants screamed. They’d been torn from their mothers and fathers, from those who loved them, and now rested in the arms of complete strangers. Did Aries consider how he might feed them? What about those who were ill? I caught sight of a man wearing a thin hospital gown, shivering in the biting air. Some wore pajamas. Some bikinis and board shorts. Some donned business suits, some jeans and tees, while others wore parkas.
There were jewel-toned saris, muted plaid kilts. Some wore shoes. Some were barefoot. There were men wearing keffiyehs, and one who wore a blood red bandana atop his head, sporting a leather jacket with moto patches. One girl about my age wore a gown, complete with a sash and