Carve the Mark

  The Storyteller sipped his tea, set it down, and wiggled his fingers in the air. When I had first seen him do it, I had giggled, thinking he was acting strange. But now I knew what to expect: faint, hazy shapes appeared in front of him. They were smoky, not lit up like the hologram of the galaxy we had seen earlier, but the image was the same: planets arranged around a sun, a line of white current wrapping around them.

  Akos's gray eyes--the same color as most of the smoke--widened.

  "Then one of the oracles had a vision, that our ruling family would lead us to a permanent home. And they did--to an uninhabited, cold planet we called 'Urek,' because it means 'empty.'"

  "Urek," Akos said. "That's the Shotet name for our planet?"

  "Well, you didn't expect us to call the whole thing 'Thuvhe' the way your people do, did you?" I snorted. "Thuvhe" was the official, Assembly-recognized name for our planet, which contained Thuvhesit and Shotet people both. But that didn't mean we had to call it that.

  The Storyteller's illusion changed, focusing on a single orb of dense smoke.

  "The current was stronger there than anywhere we had ever been. But we didn't want to forget our history, our impermanence, our reclaiming of broken objects, so we began to go on the sojourn. Every season, all of us who were able would return to the ship that had carried us around the galaxy for so long, and follow the current again."

  If I had not been holding Akos's hand, I would have been able to feel the current humming in my body. I didn't always think about it, because along with that hum came pain, but it was what I had in common with every person across the galaxy. Well, every person but the one beside me.

  I wondered if he ever missed it, if he remembered what it felt like.

  The Storyteller's voice became low, and dark, as he continued, "But during one of the sojourns, those who had settled north of Voa to harvest the iceflowers, who called themselves the Thuvhesit, ventured too far south. They came into our city, and saw that we had left many of our children here, to await their parents' return from the sojourn. And they took our children from their beds, from their kitchen tables, from their streets. They stole our young ones, and brought them north as captives and servants."

  His fingers painted a flat street, a rough figure of a person running down it, chased by a rolling cloud. At the end of the street, the running person was subsumed by the cloud.

  "When our sojourners came home to find their children missing, they waged war for their return. But they were not trained for battle, only for scavenging and for wandering, and they were killed in large numbers. And so we believed those children lost forever," he said. "But a generation later, on a sojourn, one of our number ventured alone on the planet Othyr, and there--among those who did not know our tongue--a child spoke to him in Shotet. She was a child of a Thuvhesit captive, collecting something for her masters, and she didn't even realize that she had traded one language for another. The child was Reclaimed, brought back to us."

  He tilted his head.

  "And then," he said, "we rose, and became soldiers, so we would never be overcome again."

  As he whispered, as the smoke of his illusions disappeared, drums from the city's center pounded louder and louder, and drums all throughout the poor sector joined in. They thudded and rumbled, and I looked to the Storyteller, mouth drifting open.

  "It is the storm," he said. "Which is all the better, because my story is done."

  "Thank you," I said. "I'm sorry to--"

  "Go, Little Noavek," the Storyteller said with a crooked smile. "Don't miss it."

  I grabbed Akos's arm and pulled him to his feet. He was scowling at the Storyteller. He had not touched the cup of sweet purple tea that I had poured for him. I tugged hard to get him to follow me up the steps of the Storyteller's house and into the alley. Even from here, I could see the ship drifting toward Voa from far off. I knew its shape the way I had known my mother's silhouette, even from a distance. How it bowed out at the belly and tapered at the nose. I knew which scavenges had yielded its uneven plates by how worn they were, or by their tints, orange and blue and black. Our patchwork craft, large enough to cast all of Voa in shadow.

  All around us, all throughout the city, I heard cheers.

  Out of habit, I raised my free hand up to the sky. A loud, sharp sound like the crack of a whip came from somewhere near the loading bay door of the ship, and veins of dark blue color spread from it in every direction, wrapping around the clouds themselves, or forming new ones. It was like ink dropped into water, separate at first and then mixing, blending together until the city was covered in a blanket of dark blue mist. The ship's gift to us.

  Then--as it had every season of my life--it started to rain blue.

  Keeping one hand firmly in Akos's, I turned my other palm to catch some of the blue. It was dark, and wherever it rolled across my skin, it left a faint stain. The people at the end of the alley were laughing and smiling and singing and swaying. Akos's chin was tipped back. He gazed at the ship's belly, and then at his hand, at the blue rolling over his knuckles. His eyes met mine. I was laughing.

  "Blue is our favorite color," I said. "The color of the currentstream when we scavenge."

  "When I was a child," he replied wonderingly, "it was my favorite color, too, though all of Thuvhe hates it."

  I took the palmful of blue water I had collected, and smeared it into his cheek, staining it darker. Akos spluttered, spitting some of it on the ground. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for his reaction. He stuck out his hand, catching a stream of water rolling off a building's roof, and lunged at me.

  I sprinted down the alley, not fast enough to avoid the cold water rolling down my back, with a childlike shriek. I caught his arm by the elbow, and we ran together, through the singing crowd, past swaying elders, men and women dancing too close, irritable off-planet visitors trying to cover up their wares in the market. We splashed through bright blue puddles, soaking our clothes. And we were both, for once, laughing.

  CHAPTER 12: CYRA

  THAT NIGHT I SCRUBBED the blue stain from my skin and hair, then joined Akos at the apothecary counter to make the painkiller so I could sleep. I didn't ask him what he thought of the Storyteller's account of Shotet history, which blamed Thuvhe, not Shotet, for the hostility between our people. He didn't offer his reaction. When the painkiller was done, I carried it back to my room and sat on the edge of my bed to drink it. And that was the last thing I remembered.

  When I woke, I was slumped sideways on the bed, on top of the blankets. Beside me, the half-empty mug of painkiller had turned on its side, and the sheets were stained purple where it had spilled. Sunrise was just beginning, judging by the pale light coming through the curtains.

  My body aching, I pushed myself up. "Akos?"

  The tea had knocked me unconscious. I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. But I had helped him make it; had I made it too strong? I stumbled down the hallway and knocked on his door. No, I couldn't have made it too strong; I had only prepared the sendes stalks for it. He had done the rest.

  He had drugged me.

  There was no answer at his door. I pushed it open. Akos's room was empty, drawers open, clothes missing, dagger gone.

  I had been suspicious of his kindness as he coaxed me into leaving the house. And I had been right to be.

  I yanked my hair back and tied it away from my face. I went back to my room, shoving my feet into my boots. I didn't bother with the laces.

  He had drugged me.

  I wheeled around and searched the far wall for the panel we had pushed through yesterday to slip out of the house. There was a small gap between it and the rest of the wall. I gritted my teeth against pain. He had wanted me to leave the house with him so I would show him how to get out. And I had armed him with that Zoldan knife, I had trusted him with my potion, and now . . . now I would suffer for it.

  I think you're lying to yourself about what I am, he had said.

  Honor has no place in survival, I had taught h
im.

  I charged into the hallway. There was already a guard walking toward me. I braced myself against the door. What was he coming to say? I didn't know what to hope for, Akos's escape or his capture.

  The guard stopped just shy of my door, and bent his head to me. He was one of the shorter, younger ones--baby-faced and carrying a blade. One of the ones who still stared wide-eyed at my arms when the dark lines spread over them.

  "What?" I demanded, gritting my teeth. The pain was back, almost as bad as it had been after I tortured Uzul Zetsyvis. "What is it?"

  "The sovereign's steward, Vas Kuzar, sends word that your servant was discovered trying to flee the grounds with his brother last night," the guard said. "He is currently confined, awaiting the sovereign's assigned punishment. Vas requests your presence at the private hearing, in two hours, in the Weapons Hall."

  With his brother. That meant Akos had found a way to get Eijeh out, too. I remembered Eijeh's screams after he first arrived here, and shuddered.

  I went to the "private hearing" fully armed, dressed as a soldier. Ryzek had left the curtains down in the Weapons Hall, so it was as dark as night, lit by the wavering light of the fenzu above. He stood on the platform, hands behind his back, staring at the wall of weapons above him. No one else was in the room. Yet.

  "This was our mother's favorite," he said as the door closed behind me. He touched the currentstick, suspended on a diagonal from the wall. It was a long, narrow pole with blades at either end. Each of the blades contained a channeling rod, so if the weapon touched skin, dark shadows of current wrapped around the whole thing, from end to end. It was nearly as long as I was tall.

  "An elegant choice," he said, still without turning around. "More for show than anything; did you know our mother was not particularly proficient in combat? Father told me. But she was clever, strategic. She found ways to avoid physical altercations, acknowledging her weakness."

  He turned. He wore a smug smile.

  "You should be more like her, sister," he said. "You are an excellent fighter. But up here . . ." He tapped the side of his head. "Well, it's not your strength."

  The shadows traveled faster beneath my skin, spurred on by my anger. But I kept my mouth closed.

  "You gave Kereseth a weapon? You took him through the tunnels?" Ryzek shook his head. "You slept through his escape?"

  "He drugged me," I said tersely.

  "Oh? And how did he do that?" Ryzek said lightly, still smirking. "Pinned you down and poured the potion into your mouth? I don't think so. I think you drank it, trustingly. Drank a powerful drug prepared by your enemy."

  "Ryzek--" I started.

  "You almost cost us our oracle," Ryzek snapped. "And why? Because you're foolish enough to let your heart flutter for the first painkiller who comes around?"

  I didn't argue. He had spent a long time searching the galaxy for an oracle, with my father and without. In one night, that oracle had almost escaped. My doing. And maybe he was right. Maybe whatever small trust I had felt for Akos, whatever appeal he had held, had come because he offered me relief. Because I was so grateful for the reprieve from pain--and from isolation--that my heart had softened. I had been stupid.

  "You can't blame him for wanting to rescue his brother, or for wanting to get out of here," I said, my voice quaking with fear.

  "You really don't get it, do you?" Ryzek said, laughing a little. "People will always want things that will destroy us, Cyra. That doesn't mean we just let them act on what they want."

  Ryzek pointed to the side of the room.

  "Stand over there and don't say a word," he said. "I brought you here to watch what happens when you don't keep your servants under control."

  I was shivering, burning, and I looked like I was standing under a canopy of vines, marked by their shadows. I stumbled to the side of the room, my arms clutched tightly around me. I heard Ryzek's order to enter.

  The huge doors at the other end of the room opened. Vas walked in first, armored, his shoulders back. Behind him, flanked by soldiers, was the sagging, stumbling form of Akos Kereseth. Half his face was covered in blood, coming from a gash in his eyebrow. His face was swollen, his lip split. Beaten already, but then, he had gotten good at taking a beating.

  Behind him walked Eijeh--also bleeding and beaten, but more than that . . . vacant. His face was rough with a patchy beard, and he was gaunt, a shred of the young man I had seen from my hidden vantage point two seasons ago.

  I could hear Akos breathing from where I stood, sputtering. But he straightened at the sight of my brother.

  "My, my, aren't you a sight," Ryzek said, descending the steps slowly. "How far did he get, Vas? Past the fence?"

  "Not even," Vas said. "Got him in the kitchens, coming out of the tunnels."

  "Well, let me clarify your miscalculation, for future reference, Kereseth," Ryzek said. "Just because my late mother enjoyed the old-fashioned appearance of this house doesn't mean that I didn't outfit my home with the most advanced security measures possible after her passing. Including motion sensors around secure rooms, such as your brother's."

  "Why are you keeping him here?" Akos said through gritted teeth. "Does he even have a currentgift? Or have you starved it out of him?"

  Vas--casually, lazily--backhanded Akos. Akos crumpled, clutching his cheek.

  "Akos," Eijeh said. His voice was like a light touch. "Don't."

  "Why don't you tell him, Eijeh?" Ryzek said. "Have you developed a currentgift?"

  Akos peered past his fingers at his brother. Eijeh closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, nodded.

  "Rising oracle," Akos murmured in Shotet. At first I didn't know what he meant--it was not a phrase we used. But Thuvhesit had different words for all three oracles--one falling, close to retiring; one sitting, prophesying from the temple; and one rising, coming into the fullness of his or her power.

  "You would be correct in assuming that I have not been able to make him use his gift for my benefit," Ryzek said. "So instead, I intend to take it."

  "Take it?" Akos said, echoing my own thoughts.

  Ryzek stepped closer to Akos and crouched in front of him, his elbows balanced on his knees.

  "Do you know what my currentgift is?" he said lightly.

  Akos didn't answer.

  "Tell him about it, Cyra dear," Ryzek said, jerking his head toward me. "You are intimately acquainted with it."

  Akos, bracing himself with one hand, lifted his eyes to mine. There were tears mixed with the blood on his face.

  "My brother can trade memories," I said. I sounded empty. Felt like it, too. "He gives you one of his, and takes one of yours in return."

  Akos went still.

  "A person's gift proceeds from who they are," Ryzek said. "And who they are is what their pasts have made them. Take a person's memories, and you take the things that formed them. You take their gift. And at last . . ." Ryzek ran his finger down the side of Akos's face, collecting blood. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, examining it. "At last, I will not have to rely on another to tell me the future."

  Akos threw himself at Ryzek, moving fast to give the soldiers the slip, his hands outstretched. He pressed his thumb hard into the side of Ryzek's throat, pinning his right arm with the other, teeth bared. Animal.

  Vas was on top of him in seconds, yanking him by the back of his shirt and punching him hard in the ribs. When Akos was flat on his back, Vas pressed a shoe to his throat, and raised his eyebrows.

  "One of my soldiers did this to you once," Vas said. "Before I killed your father. It seemed to be effective then. Stay still or I will crush your trachea."

  Akos twitched, but stopped thrashing. Ryzek picked himself up, massaging his throat and brushing dust from his pants and checking the straps of his armor. Then he approached Eijeh. The soldiers who had walked in with Akos were now flanking Eijeh, each one with a firm grip on one of his arms. As if it was necessary. Eijeh looked so dazed I was surprised he was still awa
ke.

  Ryzek lifted both hands, and touched them to Eijeh's head, his eyes focused and hungry. Hungry for escape.

  It was not much to watch. Just Ryzek and Eijeh, joined by Ryzek's hands, stares locked, for a long time.

  When I first watched Ryzek do this, I was too much of a child to understand what was going on, but I did remember that it had taken only a moment for him to trade one memory. Memories happened in flashes, not as drawn-out as reality, and it seemed strange that something so important, so essential to a person, could disappear so quickly.

  Breathless, all I could do now was watch.

  When Ryzek released Eijeh, it was with a strange, bewildered look. He stepped back, and looked around like he wasn't sure where he was. Felt his body like he wasn't sure who he was. I wondered if he had thought about what trading his memories away would cost him, or if he had just assumed that he was so potent a personality there was more than enough of him to go around.

  Eijeh, meanwhile, looked at the Weapons Hall like he had only just recognized it. Was I just imagining the familiarity in his eyes as they followed the steps up to the platform?

  Ryzek nodded to Vas to take his foot from Akos's throat. Vas did. Akos lay still, staring at Ryzek, who crouched beside him again.

  "Do you still blush so easily?" Ryzek said softly. "Or was that something you grew out of, eventually?"

  Akos's face contorted.

  "You will never disrespect me with silly escape plans again," Ryzek said. "And your punishment for this first and only attempt is that I will keep your brother around, taking piece after piece from him until he is no longer someone you wish to rescue."

  Akos pressed his forehead to the ground, and closed his eyes.

  And no wonder. Eijeh Kereseth was as good as gone.

  CHAPTER 13: CYRA

  THAT NIGHT I DIDN'T take a painkiller. I couldn't rely on Akos to make it anymore, after all, and I didn't really trust myself to make it alone yet.

  When I returned to my room I found the dagger I had given Akos on my pillow. Left there as a warning, by Ryzek, I assumed. I locked Akos's room from the outside.