All Signs Point to Yes

by Cam Montgomery, g. haron davis, Adrianne White

Genres: YA LGBT & Pride; YA Contemporary

Synopsis

A literal star-studded anthology that delivers a love story for every star sign straight from the hearts of thirteen multicultural YA authors.

A haunted Aquarius finds love behind the veil. An ambitious Aries will do anything to stay in the spotlight. A foodie Taurus discovers the best eats in town (with a side of romance). A witchy Cancer stumbles into a curious meet-cute.

Whether it’s romantic, platonic, familial, or something else you can’t quite define, love is the thing that connects us. All Signs Point to Yes will take you on a journey from your own backyard to the world beyond the living as it settles us among the stars for thirteen stories of love and life.

These stories will touch your heart, speak to your soul, and have you reaching for your horoscope forevermore.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Contributors:

g. haron davis (Aries)
Adrianne White (Aquarius)
Cam Montgomery (Ophiuchus)
Tehlor Kay Mejia (Gemini)
Mark Oshiro (Libra)
Eric Smith (Scorpio)
Emery Lee (Pisces)
Byron Graves (Virgo)
Karuna Riazi (Cancer)
Roselle Lim (Taurus)
Alexandra Villasante (Capricorn)
Lily Anderson (Sagittarius)
Kiana Nguyen (Leo)

Release date: May 31, 2022

Publisher: Inkyard Press

Print pages: 304

Sample

ARIES

Venus in Aries

• Extremely direct, assertive, and at times seemingly selfish
• Adventurous, energetic, and daring
• Flirtatious and playful
• Very fond of spontaneity
• Loves the thrill of the chase—but might get bored with the catch

ruler and killer

g. haron davis

The first time Chi killed for Coronet Álava was mostly accidental but thrilling nonetheless. The only spell she’d learned from her mother, gods rest her soul, should’ve protected the man from harm. Something must have gone wrong, the wrong word uttered at the wrong time or some other elementary-level mistake, because he looked up at Chi with lifeless eyes, widened in surprise, as she siphoned his essence from his arm.

“Forgive me,” she said once she finished collecting his blood. She closed the top on the glass jar and set it aside. His dead-eyed stare set her skin crawling. She used her two forefingers to shut his eyelids. “May the gods have mercy.”

The task was sustenance, and perhaps she’d thought too small, but there seemed nothing better to sustain those like the Coronet than fresh blood. She’d read once that they liked type O negative. It took her nearly a week to find someone with that rarity, someone her mother would have referred to as unmissable. Had she known that she would fail at protecting his soul from death, she would’ve put him out of his misery to begin with. But regrets didn’t serve anyone, and she couldn’t waste time dwelling on a life lost if it meant her own life would be so dramatically improved because of it.

The jars clanked in her satchel as she moved along the road back toward the castle. Her grip tightened on the strap as a chill passed through her; each noise seemed like it would give her away at any second, would alert a patroller to her presence and they’d see all the blood and she’d be immediately arrested and killed. But no one looked her way. No one cared at all, and for that she was grateful. Sometimes it paid to be so nondescript, so unremarkable.

It took twenty minutes to walk back to Vela, and in that time, uncertainty settled into Chi’s bones. Was her hunch in assuming the Coronet would want blood correct? Had she taken a life callously and without cause? Would this somehow disqualify her from winning the Coronet’s hand? She shook her head quickly as if that might banish her racing thoughts, and once she reached the castle gates, she stopped to admire her temporary home.

Eddows Castle loomed over Vela, high on a hilltop and surrounded by a thick forest of aggressive-looking trees. Growing up, Chi had listened to stories about what went on in the castle, how people would venture in but never return, the screaming that echoed through the canyon below. She’d been in and around the castle for hours and hadn’t heard anything but couldn’t deny that the place felt...alive.

Hungry.

She squared her shoulders and nodded at the guards at the gate, who let her through after scanning the participant identification card around her neck. Her hands clutched the strap of her bag even tighter as she funneled all her anxiety into that grip. Never let them see on the outside how you feel on the inside, her mother always said. Right now, Chi couldn’t afford to let anyone know she was terrified.

Two other participants were already waiting in the front courtyard of the castle when Chi approached, and she silently swore. Hopefully, being first didn’t hold much weight in this competition. And besides, she was still early; from her estimates, there had been at least a hundred people left after the first round of dismissals, all with varying motives and interest levels, listening to the Coronet’s abettor Erze drone on about the competition, the rules, the prize.

The Coronet would be reaching their seventeenth year on Saturday, and as tradition dictated, they would need to have a betrothed in place for a year-long engagement and marriage ceremony to come on the occasion of their eighteenth birthday. Normally, or at least for

the short duration of Chi’s lifetime, royals had their betrothed already, and an engagement celebration would simply be a formality. But the Coronet hadn’t had any suitors. They had hardly shown any interest in the typical royal courtship traditions. They hadn’t shown interest in much of anything beyond maintaining their garden.

Chi eyed the black roses to her left and smiled a bit. The Coronet had an extensive assortment of dark flowers, plants with beauty and lethality, trees whose twisted branches looked haunted. The whole courtyard exuded a sickly-sweet scent that seemed designed to draw in unsuspecting victims. It was beautiful, but not everyone felt that way. And judging by the faces of other suitors waiting in the courtyard, these people didn’t understand the Coronet the way Chi did.

She’d followed the Coronet’s life closely, ever since her mother had mentioned one day when Chi was small that she and the Coronet shared a birthday. Chi wasn’t much concerned with celebrating her own birthday, but it fascinated her to have a connection, no matter how superficial, to a royal. She watched the Coronet grow up as she herself did. She spent night after night lying on her straw pallet, beside her mother and some stray animals, wondering what it would be like to be sleeping in a real bed like the Coronet surely was. She knew every fleeting obsession, every milestone. She knew she belonged there.

None of the competitors present in the garden seemed the type to pique the Coronet’s interest, and she felt grateful for that, too. Across from her, a portly, dark fellow with fancy shoes and crisply creased pants sat swatting and scowling on a bench near the hemlock. Some gold-horned butterflies had taken a liking to something about him, probably some tacky fragrance he’d no doubt bathed in. Chi lowered her head to hide her smile when a butterfly landed right on the man’s glistening bald head. He was almost certainly not competition.

After nearly an hour of waiting, a horn startled Chi. She clung to her bag, then relaxed once it registered that this wasn’t a siren signaling a raid or dragon attack; the guards were simply announcing the deadline for returning to the castle. The gates began to shut, and a young woman in the distance started to run forward, shouting. None of the guards acknowledged her cries, and two drew their guns as she clung to the iron bars to plead her case.

“Please remember,” Erze’s voice boomed from seemingly nowhere, “we enact certain rules and restrictions for a reason. Punctuality is extremely important to the Coronet, and if you cannot adhere to that one simple requirement, then you have no business being here.”

Chi peered over her shoulder shyly to watch the commotion at the gate. She felt for the woman on one level; to be so close and fail must have been heartbreaking. But that was life, and that meant one less person between her and the Coronet.

“We began the process with nearly seven hundred of you,” Erze said. Their hands were clasped in front of them, a large black sunhat covering their face. Only their blood-red lips were visible as they spoke. “Now less than a quarter of you remain. The number you were assigned at the start of the day indicates the order in which you will submit your offering of sustenance for the Coronet. When your number is spoken, you will come forward and give 

your offering to the curators. The Coronet and all relevant persons will inspect each and every offering. When the trial reconvenes in the morning, only twenty-five of you will remain. We wish to waste neither the Coronet’s time nor yours. If you are eliminated, you will be removed from the premises immediately. If we find there has been fraud, or cheating, or any other kind of deception, you will be removed from the Kingdom.”

Chi shuddered involuntarily. Her mother had been removed from the Kingdom three years prior, taken to the edges of town and given an unceremoniously grim execution under suspicion of witchcraft. An accurate suspicion but devastating nonetheless. Witchcraft had been outlawed in Vela for centuries, dating back to the Great Rebellion, when hundreds of witches attempted to overthrow Coron Sonor IV. The manifesto left behind claimed they needed to dethrone him based on his refusal to afford witches the same freedoms as other beings, like the fae or lycanthropes. But Chi’s mother often said the real reason was that the witches wanted to rule, exhausted by centuries of Aponmhir rule and subsequent oppression. Witches once had the upper hand, and they wished to have it again.

The rebellious witches failed, and they were hanged.

Chi knew the stories of her lineage. She knew that several of her ancestors took part in the Rebellion, a point of pride her mother would speak of with reverence. She also knew only a small fragment of that power lived within her. Still, fear took hold at the thought of someone learning she had murdered a man with a spell—a poorly-cast spell, at that. And if someone found out, she’d be removed—worse, she would never get her chance with the Coronet.

A guard yelled her number—613—and snapped Chi out of her spiral of negativity. She straightened her spine and held her chin high despite the snickers and whispering of other contestants. She was among the youngest there, from the looks of the others, and probably the poorest as well. But her mother had taught her that shame belonged only to the shameful, and her existence was to be celebrated, not hidden away.

The jars clanked as she set them on the offering table. The curator stared at them, then at Chi. Rather than admit to nerves, Chi simply smiled. The curator rolled his eyes and motioned for the jars to be collected, and the next number was called. Chi exhaled in relief: so far, so good. Her gaze lifted to the castle as she turned to walk away, and for a second, she swore she saw curtains move in one of the windows.

---

With all offerings amassed beneath a white tent, it was time for the contestants to be escorted to their temporary living quarters. The apartments sat hundreds of yards away from the main castle, hunched in the shadow of the woods surrounding the property. Chi hesitated entering; she’d been desperate for a proper place to sleep for years but thought for a moment she’d rather go back to Squatter’s Field than this place. A white X on the doorframe made her shiver.

Protection from becoming a meal. Or worse.

A guard read off Chi’s number and pointed her toward a room on the second floor, and Chi felt a small bit of relief upon walking through the open door. She hadn’t been paired with a man, thank the gods. Men made her nervous, especially the thought of sleeping in the same room as a male stranger. But her new roommate was a girl who looked only a touch older than Chi herself.

The girl stood on the other side of the room fiddling with the sheets on the bed as if they hadn’t been made up to her standards. Her dark violet hair rested in tight French braids on the sides of her head, and her mouth was turned down in deep concentration. She was stunning, a kind of beautiful that Chi hadn’t seen apart from the Coronet.

Chi immediately felt doomed to lose this competition.

“Hello,” Chi called out. The girl by the bed paused and looked up, and Chi gasped a small bit. “Oh.”

She hadn’t intended to sound rude, but she also hadn’t been expecting the girl to have white eyes. She’d heard once, many years ago, that that was a sign of the Marked. Those who’d fallen out of favor with the gods. Those who used magic in wicked ways and thus were stricken with unseeing eyes. A foolish take, and certainly not one Chi believed, but for just a second...

For just a second, Chi forgot that of the two of them, she was the one with wicked magic.

“If you’re going to pity me, don’t,” the girl said in a voice like velvet sliding along skin. Chi shivered. “I get enough of that every day.”

“I don’t pity you,” Chi said. “I was startled. Not that your appearance is startling, I just—”

“I’m Alberta.” Chi sighed, grateful for the interruption keeping her from further making a fool of herself. When she stepped forward to shake Alberta’s outstretched hand, she noticed how much softer Alberta’s dark brown skin was. Not a worker, it seemed. “Call me Bertie.”

Bertie, a few hairs shorter than Chi, returned to fussing over her bedding, and Chi wondered if she ought to give her own name. Names were sacred, she’d been taught. Names had power.

“In polite society,” Bertie said while fluffing a pillow, “someone introducing themselves means you do the same.”

“I’m not acquainted with polite society.” Chi paused. “Ana.”

“Nice to meet you, Ana. Turn out the light.”

Chi did as instructed, then moved toward the second bed and pressed a hand to it. It had been so long since she’d slept in a proper bed, and even then, no bed she’d ever been on was even remotely as cushy as this one.

The pull of a good night’s rest spoke to her more fervently than a bath or making polite conversation with her temporary roommate. She set her bag down and carefully lowered herself to a seat, bouncing a bit. She couldn’t keep herself from smiling. A quick rest of her eyes, she told herself as she shifted to press her head against the pillow, and then she’d get up to bathe. Just a few seconds.

She awoke with a start. Something sharp scraped against the window nearest her bed, slow and deliberate. It sent a shiver through her, and she shifted to see if Bertie heard this as well.

The scraping tapered off, but Chi didn’t have relief for long. She listened to the window slowly open, and the night air chilled her only slightly more than these noises. She closed her eyes again and hoped to appear asleep. It seemed like a possibility to keep safe, or at the very least to not see whatever was about to happen.

“Girl.” The breeze carried a familiar voice into the room, a whisper that wrapped around Chi and made her eyes spring open again.

It was the Coronet.

At her window.

On the second floor.

“Girl,” the Coronet whispered again with more insistence. Rather than continue to feign sleep, Chi rolled over to look toward the window.

The Coronet appeared, visible from the waist up, hands rested against the windowsill. Their dark brown curls flowed around their shoulders as if underwater. Their eyes reflected an unsettlingly intriguing silvery violet. And the moonlight above added a mischievous glint to their smile. Their sharp, dangerous smile.

Chi wanted nothing more in that moment than to touch those teeth.

“You used magic,” the Coronet commented. It had no weight of accusation or anger—simply a statement of fact.

“I—”

“Don’t worry,” the Coronet said. “No one noticed. No one was looking for it. I, however,” the Coronet leaned closer, and Chi found herself leaning in along with them, “I find myself fascinated by the old tales. The witches. Like you.”

“I’m not a witch,” Chi said. Her voice shook as much as her hands did, but at least she could fiddle with her skirt to occupy her hands.

The Coronet smiled wider. A chuckle roiled from deep within them that Chi could swear gently shook her bed. She glanced to her roommate again, but Bertie hadn’t so much as rolled over. She wondered how anyone could sleep through all the noise.

“She can’t hear me,” the Coronet said. “Because I don’t want her to. Don’t be frightened. Invite me inside.”

Chi gulped. She had read, many years ago in an old tome of her great-grandmother’s, that Aponmhir had powers. That they differed across variants, but some traits were universal among them. That they had powers of persuasion, could read minds, some even—

“I can hear you,” the Coronet said in something of a song. “Your thoughts. They’re very loud. Let me in? I’ll tell you all about what I can and can’t do.”

It happened with such swiftness that Chi couldn’t quite recall even agreeing or saying the words Come in, but she suddenly found herself face-to-face with the Coronet. Eye to eye. Very nearly nose to nose. The Coronet made themself comfortable in Chi’s bed, and the two of them lay face to face. Chi’s hand came to rest against the Coronet’s curvy hip, and she 

marveled at the silky fabric of their skirts. She felt a bit like a mouse in a trap, the way the Coronet watched her. She didn’t dare move.

“I’ve never met a witch so young,” the Coronet said. “But I suspect you’ve never met an Aponmhir.” Before Chi could respond, the Coronet reached long, slim fingers out and caressed her cheek. “You’re very pretty, little witch,” they muttered. “I’ve decided to help you win.”

Chi’s heart thumped harder against her ribs as the Coronet’s fingers grazed down her neck. “Why?” she asked in a whisper.

“You intrigue me,” the Coronet said. “Call me Álava.”

The Coronet—Álava—moved even closer to Chi, and she felt their cold breath against her lips and desperately wanted to breathe it in. She shivered as Álava moved their hand to her waist and gasped as she felt her skirt being slowly shifted up her legs.

“The competition in the morning,” Álava said, and their lips grazed Chi’s, “will be a test of logic. You’ll be given a scenario to work through. It’s very boring. I cannot choose someone who knows nothing about what it might take to run a nation.”

In the last few months, Chi had found herself letting her mind drift to thoughts of Álava, to the way the Coronet’s lips would feel against hers, to lying wrapped up in each other and simply listening to one another breathing. She’d had so many fantasies of a moment like this that she momentarily considered she’d drifted off to sleep unknowingly. The Coronet’s icy fingertips against her thigh made her shiver enough to know this wasn’t another dream.

“Wait,” Chi said quietly. “I don’t... I’m not...”

She’d only spoken of her discomfort with being touched beneath her clothes once, with an older boy who worked the stables of a farm near her old home. He hadn’t taken her very seriously, laughing at the idea, and Chi vowed not to say anything to anyone else. But Álava would never laugh at her.

Álava smiled and pressed another soft kiss to Chi’s lips. “Understood,” they said quietly as they smoothed Chi’s skirts back down. “You’re a fascinating specimen.”

“So are you,” Chi said. Álava laughed, a quick hard breath against Chi that made Chi smile. “The protection marking doesn’t work on you.”

“Those are fake,” Álava said, scoffing. They began to twirl one of Chi’s curls around their pinky. “None of those so-called protections work. They’re simply a placebo.”

“But I still had to invite you in.”

“I respect consent.” Álava paused, then cupped a hand to Chi’s cheek. “You should rest. I’ll be in the room with you for the next trial. Watch me for cues.”

Chi nodded, and Álava crawled closer. They straddled Chi momentarily, staring down at her as if they considered making her a m

The heavy velvet drapes of the conference room allowed not one ray of light in. Chi could hardly believe it was nearly eight in the morning; with only a few strategically-placed candles, including one directly in front of her, it seemed like midnight or later. It felt like a séance would begin any second.

Instead of a planchette, Erze, sitting directly to Chi’s left, slid a notebook and pen toward her.

“You may take notes,” Erze said. This time, their face was covered with a lacy black veil. Chi couldn’t recall ever seeing Erze’s face, and her mind wandered to all the possible reasons for that. “I’ll not repeat myself. Your goal is to present a reasonable resolution to the dilemma I present to you. You may ask three questions before giving your response. Upon completion, we will dismiss you to discuss your response. If your resolution is deemed unacceptable, you will be escorted off of the premises immediately. Do you understand?”

Chi understood that she couldn’t let that happen. She understood that she had to relax and breathe and try to think like a royal and not like an obsessive sixteen-year-old orphan. Her gaze shifted to Álava, at the far end of the table directly in front of her, nearly buried by all of the puffy black fabric of their outfit. Álava smiled and gave a slight nod, and Chi gave her own affirmation.

The scenario went completely over Chi’s head. She knew nothing of land disputes or official treaties. It bored her to no end, and she had to keep pinching the palm of her hand to keep herself from drifting into daydreams. She did her best to focus on the scenario laid out to her, and when Erze stopped talking, she looked to Álava.

A dull pain started behind her left eye. She squinted some and rubbed at her eye, then shuddered as a chill went through her.

The Coronet was in her head. Clear as a ringing bell. She could hear them plainly, and yet Álava wasn’t saying a word from the other side of the table.

“I... Well, a revision of the treaty would be necessary,” Chi said with none of her own certainty but plenty of Álava’s. “It would be best to hold a meeting, then agree to new terms. If that didn’t work, the matter might need to be escalated. But likely it wouldn’t come to that.”

The air thinned, and the pain dulled as soon as she stopped talking. Álava’s smile in the candlelight seemed soft, but still a bit terrifying. Chi didn’t know how to feel about how much that element of potential danger excited her.

She jumped as Erze stood suddenly, their chair scraping against the floor. “Thank you, 613. You may go,” they said.

Chi stood slowly, still not entirely sure if she’d done the right thing. She made her way toward the door, toward Álava, and felt her heart speed up as she approached. Even better, Álava stood once Chi was close enough. Chi stopped, and Álava extended a hand to her.

“Nice to meet you, 613,” Álava said. Their handshake was brief, but it sent Chi’s head spinning to touch Álava again.

And then, she noticed the note pushed into her hand. Rather than draw attention to it, she bowed to Álava and made her exit into the hall. She smiled briefly at the people waiting, then hurried to find a private spot to open her note.

Side courtyard 8

Chi’s heart leapt once again, ...

eal. Instead, they leaned closer and kissed Chi again before continuing on their way to the window. When Chi gathered her wits to look out, Álava was gone, and Chi was solidly, wildly in love. 

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