Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

The dead Aries Astrant was only part of whatever remained, because something else was still moving beyond him.

Marek approached carefully.

Rhovan noticed. ”What are you doing?”

”Checking something.”

Rhovan looked confused, although the concern in his expression was much more obvious.

Marek ignored him and stopped a short distance from the body. He did not need Rhovan to tell him that touching the black line directly would be idiotic. Instead, he focused on what he could distinguish.

The Aries Astral Mark belonged to the dead man. But whatever this black thing was, it did not. ℴ

The distinction was simple enough for Marek to understand, but the moment he tried to establish the boundary in his mind, the shadow stopped moving across the painted line.

It turned toward him.

Marek froze.

’Shit.’

The shadow moved first.

It stretched across the pavement, rose, and reached his hand before Marek could pull away. A sharp pain ran from his fingers to his shoulder as though something had tried to finish a movement through his body.

Rhovan’s golden light immediately spread across the ground, but Marek raised his free hand.

”Don’t,” Marek said. Rhovan stared at him.

Marek clenched his teeth and focused on the distinction he had already made.

The Aries Authority was not his target. Whatever fear or obligation had driven him to keep rescuing people did not belong inside Marek.

Marek focused only on the foreign thing and refused everything else connected to it.

He opened the Case.

The black line along the corpse’s Astral Mark suddenly became visible in its entirety. It stretched thinly away from the Mark, and Marek felt something on the other end resisting him somewhere beyond the body.

’So there really is something else.’

Marek defined the Case around the foreign fragment alone, refusing everything else connected to it.

The shadow jerked across the pavement.

Pain climbed farther up Marek’s arm, but he refused to widen the boundary. At its edge, he could feel other things waiting behind the contamination—the remains of Aries Authority, the dead man’s final emotions, and something farther away that Marek could not properly identify.

He refused all of them.

The black thread tore free. One of the broken scales around Marek’s Mark glowed gray as the foreign fragment entered it. The scale closed before anything else could follow.

For several seconds, Marek could still feel the foreign fragment moving inside the newly occupied scale. It was not violent, but it refused to stop, repeating the same motion as though searching for another step.

Rhovan’s attention shifted from the corpse to Marek. ”You defined the Case yourself.”

Marek breathed through the lingering pain. ”Was I not supposed to?”

”You were. That’s the point.”

Marek stared at him.

Rhovan’s expression became faintly amused again. ”Congratulations, oh Dear Ophiarch. Your Cycle I has reached Degree I—Initiation.”

Marek looked down at his shoulder.

’That’s it? What the hell is Cycle I, Degree I, anyway? Wait... the reports mentioned Rhovan being at a certain Cycle.’

”What is that?”

Rhovan looked at him and explained, ”In the Prime Continuum, you become stronger by ascending into Higher Cycles. In my case, I am currently at Cycle V, the Fabled Luminary, of the Way of the Leo, as you have seen in the reports disseminated by the government.”

”So, the higher the Cycle, the stronger you become? So, that’s why you could easily defeat that Aries Astrant earlier? But what’s a Fabled Luminary?”

”It’s the Cycle’s Identity... a title that is given to you once you enter that Cycle.”

”What’s mine, then?” Marek asked.

Rhovan snapped his fingers, and the coat he gave Dario magically disappeared from the latter’s arms. Then, it appeared in front of him as though it had teleported, and he wore it once more. Putting his hands inside the coat’s large pockets, he answered, ”As far as I can remember, it is called the... Vacant Keeper.”

”That does not sound grand compared to your Fabled Luminary, but it somehow perfectly encapsulates what I can currently do,” Marek replied. ”How about the Degree I you mentioned? What does it mean?”

”As expected of the Thirteenth I recognize as the Ophiarch, advancing without even knowing the concepts of Cycles and Degrees. Truly magnificent! Very talented!” Rhovan praised him like some divine being.

Marek closed his eyes and tried to calm down. ”Just explain to me.”

”Yes, oh Dear Ophiarch,” Rhovan said as he bowed in front of Marek.

Nadia rolled her eyes, and Dario slapped his forehead. This man had always been pretentious from the very start.

”If you keep calling me that, I’ll call you Rhovanski.”

Rhovan then shivered as he hugged himself, his face the epitome of ecstasy. ”Oh, Goddess of Dreams... is this real? I was given a nickname by the Ophiarch himself! It’s unbelievable!”

”...”

’It fucking backfired. I underestimated this man’s obsession.’

Rhovan forced a cough, put his hands in his coat pockets once more, then explained, ”Your Awakening opened Cycle I and gave you an Authority, but it remained Unfixed. It answered through instinct, pain, or danger, not deliberate control. As the Vacant Keeper, your Authority separates an active condition from its carrier and opens one of your Thirteen Scales to contain it. You can keep thirteen compatible conditions. That’s the limit.”

He looked at the others. ”I taught them the same. Kellan is Cycle I, Sparkborn, under the Way of the Aries. Dario is Cycle I, Weightborn, under the Way of the Taurus. Nadia is The Echo under the Way of the Gemini; Eren, the Measured Soul under the Way of the Libra; Silas, the Trace Hunter under the Way of the Scorpius; and Rafe, the Farwatcher, under the Way of the Sagittarius. All of them at Cycle I.”

”That explains their better control. You guided them to Degree I.”

Rhovan nodded. ”A Cycle is your Authority. A Degree is your control over it. Degree I is Initiation: deliberate activation under simple conditions. Before now, something provoked your Cases. This time, you opened the Case deliberately, targeted the fragment, defined its boundary, and refused everything else. You gained no new power; you made your existing one obey. Your Cycle I is no longer Unfixed.”

He looked at the sky. ”Each Cycle has five Degrees. Complete all five, fulfill your Cycle’s unique Sunblind Condition, and you may attempt the next Cycle. The rest of you will learn that as you advance.”

He stopped the moment he noticed that Marek’s expression changed drastically. Marek wasn’t listening anymore, because he suddenly felt a pull from the gray scale toward the painted line. The shadow beneath the Aries Astrant was still moving, and only part of the black line had disappeared.

”This is not yet finished,” Marek said.

”No, Dear Ophiarch,” Rhovan replied as he followed Marek’s gaze toward the road. ”You contained what reached your Case. Whatever started this is still connected to this place.”

The gray scale pulsed again.

Marek focused on the foreign fragment already contained inside the gray scale, making sure nothing else could follow it. ”Then, we’re finding out what it is.”