Chapter 9: Sol Awakens

It began quietly.

No thunder. No crack in the sky. Just an eerie, golden hush that settled over Cape Town as the eclipse approached its peak.

At first, it was beautiful.

Then it became unbearable.

Jordan was in her room, the curtains half-drawn, head bent over her Life Sciences notes.

The page was blurry.

She rubbed her eyes, tried again.

Focus.

Glucose. Glycolysis. Adenosine triphosphate—

She stopped.

Her brain stalled. She dropped her pen and slumped back, staring at the ceiling.

 How nice would it be if the universe just… pulled her out of this test? Out of varsity. Out of Cape Town itself. Even just for a day.

She sighed, shook her head.

 Fantasy thinking. Get through the notes first.

The room was hot. Sweltering. Stifling, even though the air outside had been cool all day. Her neck was damp with sweat, and her hands shook slightly as she pushed her textbook away.

"Why is it so—"

She stood up, fumbled with the window latch, and pushed it open. A gust of dry air hit her face, but it didn’t help. The heat was coming from her.

Her arms.

Her chest.

Her skin—

It was glowing.

Jordan looked down at her hands.

They were red. Not just sunburnt—lit from within, like coal ready to burst. Her pulse throbbed in her ears. Her scalp prickled. She stumbled backward, gasping.

Then the pain hit.

It was searing.

She screamed.

Her knees gave way, and she hit the floor with a thud. Her body arched as the fire consumed her from the inside out.

Her mother burst through the door a second later, panicked, arms full of laundry.

"Jordan?! What—"

She stopped.

There was no air left in the room.

Just light.

Unnatural, brilliant, blinding light pouring from her daughter’s body.

And fire.

Jordan’s scream tore through the house as her body ignited — her skin glowing like magma, hair lifting as if caught in a storm.

 The air rippled with heat. A shockwave exploded outward, hurling her mother against the hallway wall.

Glass shattered across the street. Dogs barked. Birds took flight.

Then silence.

Only a ring of flame was left on the floor.

And Jordan, floating inches above it — unconscious, scorched, but untouched.

Elsewhere — AZO Headquarters, Geneva.

BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP—

Sirens flared red across the control room.

Miloslav’s chair spun around. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

Xulu didn’t answer. He was already moving, coat swirling behind him, pulling up data streams from the main screen.

“Confirmed,” said an operative. “Celestial convergence has reached critical. Pulse detected. Epicentre—Cape Town, South Africa.”

“ Readings are off the chart. We’re calling it a Solar Trigger.”

Miloslav leaned in. “So the myths were true.”

Xulu nodded grimly. “Yes, a Zodiac has awakened.”

Briefing Room — Moments Later

The Ten were already assembled.

Ava sat near the back, legs crossed, eyes closed. She hadn’t spoken yet.

Xulu stood by the display, voice calm but clipped. “We’ve confirmed a spike in Aether output. One of the twelve has emerged. Jordan Daniels. Eighteen,1st year University  student. Her flare-up was not subtle. We need a retrieval team in Cape Town in the next thirty minutes.”

“Which sign?” someone asked.

“We don’t know yet.”

“Could be Leo,” offered Miloslav. “Fire signature’s strong.”

“No,” Ava said quietly, her eyes still closed.

Everyone turned to her.

She opened her eyes slowly — golden, reflective, unreadable.

“Not Leo. She might be Aries.”

 

Chapter 9 (cont.) — Sol Has Awakened

The flames devoured the house in minutes.

Neighbours screamed, phones trembled in frantic hands, and smoke rose in black towers above the street.

But no one could stop looking up.

Suspended above the collapsing roof, Jordan hovered — arms slack, hair burning gold in the eclipse’s glow. Her body was a silhouette wrapped in blinding light, casting long shadows over rooftops, streets, and terrified faces below.

Then she moved.

Or rather, the light moved with her — slowly, deliberately, drawn by an invisible tether.

Toward Table Mountain.

Some people fell to their knees.

Others ran.

One child pointed up, whispering, “Look mom! An angel…”

But it was no angel.

It was power. Ancient. Returning.

The eclipse about to reach totality.

And Jordan vanished.

Spirit Realm

She gasped — but there was no sound. No air.

Only space.

An infinite dark. Not black, but void. Like existence had been stripped bare.

Jordan floated, still glowing, the only light for miles.

Then a voice spoke.

“Sol has awakened.”

Her breath caught.

“Who said that?” she whispered. Her voice echoed strangely — as if time itself bent to listen.

“Don’t be afraid,” the voice said. Calm. Deep. Timeless. “You may think of me as… a narrator. One who remembers all that ever was.”

Her light flickered in the vast emptiness. “Where am I?”

“The birthplace of everything  The true Realm. Where truth walks uncloaked. It is where the Zodiacs were first born — and where their return was always foretold.”

Jordan’s hands trembled. “What… what’s happening to me?”

The voice hummed gently — like wind stirring through old stars.

“You carry the flame of the first. Sol. The Ram. The Herald. The Awakener.”

“You are the Sun Zodiac.”

Images surged through her mind, unbidden:

A sky split in twelve. A great beast made of stars, ramming open a sealed gate. Fire coursing through the veins of a new-born world. Twelve thrones, empty… waiting.

“When sun and moon align, a door opens — briefly. That is the Celestial Convergence. A moment when spirit and flesh collide. You, child of earth, were chosen to carry the key.”

“You will not walk this path alone. Others will awaken soon.”

Jordan tried to ground herself — to breathe, to feel.

“But why me?”

“Because you are the first spark.”

“And fire… always comes first.”

She looked down — but there was no down. Only the pulse of her own light, growing brighter.

The light within her flared—stronger now, steadier.

She looked around the void, and something shifted.

The dark wasn’t empty anymore.

It was… curtained.

As if behind the veil, entire galaxies flickered — faint impressions of stars, oceans, mountains, lives. But they were mirages, like shadows painted across glass. She stood in the eye of a cosmic theatre.

And then—
Twelve flames ignited.

Not around her — within the darkness itself. Distant at first, like lanterns across a vast field.

Each flame had a shape.
Each shape, a presence.
Each presence… a soul awakening.

“They stir,” the narrator whispered. “The Twelve.”

One burned like a golden lion.
Another, a scale tipped in storm.
One curled like a serpent in snow.
One dripped like ink from a poet’s pen.
One howled in chains.
Another knelt, cloaked in prayer.
One, half-beast, half-boy, laughed as he shattered a mirror.

Jordan stared, eyes wide. “Who are they?”

“Your kin,” the voice said. “Your counterparts. You are the light among the twelve — a harmony written into the bones of creation.”

The flames pulsed in and out of view — dreamlike, like they could disappear if she blinked too hard.

“Long ago, the Zodiacs walked the world as stewards of balance. But the Convergence was fractured. Their spirits scattered. Reborn through centuries. Forgotten by most.”

Jordan clenched her fists.

“Why return now?”

A pause.

“Because the cycle nears its end.”

“The world stirs with things long buried. Powers that hunger. Monsters you saw in your dream — they are real. And they are moving.”

“Balance will break unless the Twelve rise again.”

Jordan’s throat tightened.

She remembered the city burning. Monsters crawling through smoke. The mountain ablaze.

The stars falling.

“And if we fail?” she asked quietly.

“Then Sol dims forever.”

“And everything burns.”

Suddenly, her body jerked backward — pulled.

The Spirit Realm cracked open like glass, and Jordan fell through the void—

Light screaming off her in arcs of white fire.

Cape Town — Table Mountain (Eclipse Peak)

A thunderclap boomed over the city.

A blinding streak of light tore through the clouds and slammed into the summit of Table Mountain.

Wind rippled outward in a shockwave, knocking birds from the sky and shattering glass from Signal Hill to the harbour.

Fire exploded upward like a geyser — only to collapse inward just as quickly, forming a molten crater.

At the heart of it…

Jordan knelt.

Breathing.

Alive.

But not the same.

Maya’s hand snapped shut, forming a sigil mid-air.
A flash — and they vanished.

They rematerialized just below Signal Hill, landing hard on sun-scorched gravel as the sky trembled above them.

A low hum vibrated through the air — like the atmosphere itself was screaming.

Keith staggered. “We’re close. I can feel it.”

The wind carried a sharp heat, unnatural and dry — like lightning had scorched through the clouds.

Keith exhaled slowly, then shut his eyes.

“Spirit Expand.”

His aura exploded outward like a ripple in still water.
Invisible to the naked eye, but powerful enough to shake the birds from nearby trees.

Then—

His eyes snapped open.
He stumbled back a step.

“No—no, no, this is insane.” His voice cracked. “I’ve never… this presence—nothing’s ever felt like this.”

Maya looked at him, alarmed. “You okay?”

But Keith was staring into nothing. Or rather, into everything.

His spirit had collided with a force far beyond what he was trained to process.
It was like staring into the core of a star—and realizing the star was staring back.

He was sweating. “It’s not just energy. It’s conscious. Like it’s looking back at me”

“Then stop staring back,” Evan muttered.

He closed his eyes, fingertips to his temples.

“Eagle Eyes.”

The spiritual essence poured into his corneas, glinting faint gold. His pupils dilated, then narrowed, like a hawk’s zeroing in.

His gaze swept across the cityscape in rapid shifts.

“North… nothing. East—wait…” His breath caught.

His eyes locked on Table Mountain.

From here, it should’ve looked like a silhouette. A horizon line. A tourist trap.

But now… it looked like something out of a dream.

A girl. Floating.

Wreathed in blinding fire.

“Table Mountain’s burning,” Evan whispered.

 “But only at the top. Something’s floating over it. Someone.”

A rumble cracked through the sky.

Another surge detonated —Just like the first one.

The shockwave tore through the ground beneath them, knocking Maya into a crouch. The air hummed like it was tearing apart.

Keith cried out, clutching his skull.

“I can’t—! I have to switch off—”

His Spirit Expand shattered like glass under pressure, forcibly retracting into his core.
He collapsed to one knee, panting, pale.

“If that wasn’t a Zodiac,” Maya said, eyes wide, “then what was it?”

Ava’s voice crackled through their earpieces.

“Status?”

Maya tapped her comm. “We’re at Signal Hill. Keith’s burned out. Evan spotted a figure floating above the mountain — it could be center of the surge.”

Ava’s voice was low. Urgent.

“We just picked up a second spike. Confirming: second. Are you sure there's only one source?”

Maya looked to Evan.

Evan, still channelling, frowned. “Wait…”

His vision sharpened. Zoomed further.

“…There’s something else. Another ripple. Behind the flames. Just for a second. It looked like—”

He paused. “A tail?”

The line clicked.

Miloslav’s voice cut in — calm, cold, calculated:

“Confirmed. We’ve had readings from multiple spirit frequencies. The first surge was Sol. The second is something else entirely.”

“The emergence of a second Zodiac.”