Carve the Mark

  Akos fell. The grit they had tracked in clung to his arms. He watched Teka dragging Isae and Cisi away, one hand on each arm. He felt relief, even as blood or sweat tickled the back of his neck; he wasn't sure which. His head throbbed from the impact with the wall. Vas was strong, and he was not.

  Vas licked his lips as he stalked toward Akos again. He kicked, hitting Akos's armored side. And again, this time driving the toe of his boot into Akos's jaw. He sprawled flat on his back, covering his face with his hands, and groaned. The pain made it hard to think, hard even to breathe.

  Vas laughed. He bent over Akos, grabbed the front of his armor, and pulled him half off the ground. Flecks of his spit hit Akos's face as he spoke.

  "In whatever life there is to come, give your father my greetings."

  This, Akos realized, was his last chance. He put his hand on Vas's throat. Not even grabbing, just touching, the best he could do. Vas gave him that startled look he'd given before, that pained look. He was bent, leaving a strip of skin exposed beneath his armor, right over the waistband of his pants. And while Akos was touching him--forcing him to feel pain again--he drew the knife he kept in the side of his boot, and stabbed with his left hand. Up, under the armor. Into Vas's gut.

  Vas's eyes were so wide Akos saw the whites around his bright irises. Then he screamed. He screamed, and tears came into his eyes. His blood was hot on Akos's hand. They were locked together, Akos's blade in his flesh, his hands on Akos's shoulders, their eyes meeting. Together they sank to the ground, and Vas let out a heavy sob.

  It took Akos a long time to let go. He needed to make sure Vas was dead.

  He thought of his dad's button in his mom's hand, its sheen worn away by his fingers, and pulled his knife free.

  He'd dreamt of killing Vas Kuzar so many times. The need to do it had been a second heartbeat in his body. In his dreams, though, he stood over the body and raised his knife to the sky and let the blood run down his arm like it was a wisp of the currentstream itself. In his dreams, he felt triumph and victory and vengeance, and like he could finally let his dad go.

  In his dreams, he didn't huddle near the cell wall, scrubbing at his palm with a handkerchief. Shaking so badly he dropped the cloth on the glowing floor.

  Vas's body looked so much smaller now that he was dead. His eyes were still open halfway, and so was his mouth, so Akos could see Vas's crooked teeth. He swallowed down bile at the image, determined not to throw up.

  Ori, he thought. So he stumbled toward the door, and started running.

  CHAPTER 37: CYRA

  RYZEK TOOK HIS HAND away from his stomach. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, right by his hairline. His eyes, usually so piercing, were unfocused. But then his mouth drew down in a frown that was unexpectedly . . . vulnerable.

  "It's you who made a mistake," he said, in a higher, softer voice than I had ever heard from him. It was a distinct voice, memorable: Eijeh's voice. How could both Ryzek and Eijeh be living in the same body, surfacing at different times? "By forcing his hand."

  His hand?

  The sound of the crowd around us had changed. No one was even looking at Ryzek anymore. All heads were turned toward the raised platform from which he had just descended, where Eijeh Kereseth now stood alone with a woman in front of him, a knife held at her throat.

  I recognized her. Not just from the footage of the kidnapping that had played on screens throughout the city the day she was taken, but from the past day of watching Isae Benesit talk, laugh, eat. This was her double, Orieve Benesit, face unscarred.

  "Ah yes, this is the blade I was waiting for," Ryzek said with a laugh, his natural voice returning. "Cyra, I'd like you to meet Orieve Benesit, chancellor of Thuvhe."

  Her throat was purple with bruises. There was a deep cut in her forehead. But when our eyes locked across that substantial distance, she didn't look like someone who was afraid for her life. She looked like someone who knew what was coming and intended to meet it with a straight back and a steady look.

  Did Ryzek know she wasn't really the chancellor? Or had she convinced him she was? Either way, it was too late. Too late.

  "Ori," I said. In Thuvhesit, I added, "She tried to come for you."

  I couldn't tell if she heard me, she was so still.

  "Thuvhe is just a playground for the Shotet," Ryzek said. "It was easily penetrated, its chancellor effortlessly taken by my faithful servants. Soon, its chancellor will not be the only thing we take from it. This planet is ours to be claimed!"

  He was rallying his supporters. Their roar was deafening. Their faces twisted with glee. The mania made the currentshadows wrap around my body, tight as ropes binding a prisoner, and I flinched.

  "What do you think, Shotet?" Ryzek said, lifting his head to the crowd. "Should the chancellor die at the hand of one of her former subjects?"

  Ori, still looking at me, didn't make a sound, though the amplifier drifted so close to her head it almost hit Eijeh. The one who carried my brother's horrors inside his head.

  The chant began immediately. "Die!"

  "Die!"

  "Die!"

  Ryzek spread his arms wide, like he was basking in the sound. He turned, slowly, beckoning more and more of it, until the thirst for Ori's death felt like a tangible thing, a weight in the air. Then he held up his hands to quiet them, grinning.

  "I think it's Cyra who will decide when she dies," he said. He lowered his voice a little. "If I fall--if you don't supply me with an antidote of some kind--she will fall, too."

  I said weakly, "There is no antidote."

  I could save her. I could tell Ryzek the truth--the truth I had told no one, even Akos, as he begged me to preserve what little hope he had left for his brother--and delay her execution. I opened my mouth to see if the truth would come out, despite my paralysis.

  If I told Ryzek the truth--if I saved Ori's life--we would all be trapped in this amphitheater, surrounded by a sea of Ryzek's supporters, with no victory to claim for the renegades.

  My mouth was dry. I couldn't swallow. No, it was too late for Orieve Benesit. I couldn't do it. I couldn't save her without sacrificing us all. Including the true chancellor of Thuvhe.

  Ryzek swayed, and I stepped forward, weapon outstretched, to meet him as he fell. I thrust the knife, and his weight dragged us both to the ground.

  High above us, Eijeh Kereseth--curly haired, wide-eyed, and gaunt--drove the currentblade into Orieve Benesit's gut.

  And twisted it.

  CHAPTER 38: AKOS

  AS ORI COLLAPSED, AKOS heard a bloodcurdling scream. Ryzek fell on his side, his arms crossed in front of his body and his head limp against the dirt. Cyra got to her feet, knife in hand. She had done it. She had killed her brother, and the last hope for Eijeh's restoration.

  Isae was shoving her way through the crowd as everything turned to chaos. She was clawing, her teeth gritted, fighting her way to the platform. Akos hoisted his body over the arena barrier and sprinted across the dirt, past Cyra and Ryzek, over the other barrier and into the crowd again. People elbowed and kicked and pressed, and his fingernails came away red with somebody else's blood, and he didn't care.

  Up on the platform, Ori grabbed Eijeh's arms to hold herself up. Blood sputtered from her lips as she tried to breathe. Eijeh hunched over her, holding her elbows, and together they dropped to the ground. Ori's brow wrinkled, and Akos watched, not wanting to interrupt.

  "Bye, Eij," she said, her voice caught by the hovering amplifier.

  Akos bent low and barreled into the last of the crowd. Children screamed someplace far away. A woman moaned as someone trod on her--she couldn't get up, so people were just running over her.

  When Isae got to Eijeh and Ori, she threw Akos's brother back with a roar. In half a tick she was on top of him, her hands around Eijeh's throat. And he didn't seem to be moving, even though she was choking him to death.

  Akos didn't move right away, he just watched her do it. Eijeh had killed Ori. Maybe he deserved to die.
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  "Isae," Akos said with a croak. "Stop."

  Ori was reaching for her sister, fingers straining at the empty space. It was only when Isae saw it that she let go of Eijeh and crouched next to her sister instead. Ori held Isae's hand tight to her chest, and their eyes met.

  A small smile. Then gone.

  Akos pushed his way onto the platform, where Isae was bent over Ori's body. Ori's dark clothes were wet with blood. Isae didn't cry, or scream, or shake. Behind her, Eijeh was--for some reason--lying still, eyes closed.

  A shadow passed over them. The renegade ship, glowing orange, yellow, and red, coming to their rescue, piloted by Jyo and Sifa.

  Teka was already crouched over the control panel on the right side of the platform. She was trying to pry the screen away from the rest of the mechanism, but her hand was trembling around the screwdriver, so she kept losing the screws. Finally Akos drew his knife and forced it between screen and mechanism, pressing them apart. Teka nodded her approval, and jammed her fingers inside to disable the force field.

  There was a flicker of bright white as the force field winked out. The transport ship sank into the amphitheater, and hovered as low as it could go without crushing the seats. The floor hatch opened over them, and the steps came down.

  "Isae!" Akos shouted. "We have to go!"

  Isae gave him a look that was like poison. She put her hands under Ori's arms and tried to drag her toward the ship. Akos went to Ori's legs, to help, but Isae snapped, "Hands off her!" so he stepped back. By that time, Cisi had made it to the platform, and Isae didn't yell at her. Together they carried Ori's body up the steps to the ship.

  Akos turned to Eijeh, who hadn't moved from where he was when Isae tackled him. When Akos shook his older brother's shoulder, he still didn't move, so Akos touched his fingers to Eijeh's throat to make sure he was still alive. And he was. Strong pulse. Strong breaths.

  "Akos!" Cyra shouted from the arena floor. She was still next to Ryzek's body, knife in hand.

  "Leave it!" he shouted back. Why not just leave his body to carrion birds and Noavek loyalists?

  "No!" Cyra said, her eyes wide, urgent. "I can't!"

  She held up the knife. He hadn't looked close before; all he had seen was Ryzek's body, limp, and Cyra standing over it with blade drawn. But when she gestured toward the weapon, he saw that the blade was clean. She hadn't stabbed Ryzek. She hadn't stabbed him, so why had he collapsed?

  Akos remembered Suzao's face hitting his soup in the cafeteria, and the guard outside the amphitheater door, going limp, and it was obvious: Cyra had drugged Ryzek.

  Even though he knew Cyra was more than Ryzek's Scourge, or even Ryzek's Executioner--even though he had seen the better parts of her, getting stronger in the worst environment possible, like the hushflower that bloomed in the Deadening time--somehow, he'd never considered this possibility:

  Cyra had spared Ryzek. For him.

  CHAPTER 39: CYRA

  THE HATCH DOOR OF the renegade ship closed behind us. I checked Ryzek's pulse before untying the rope from his chest. It was weak, but steady, just as it was supposed to be. Given the timing of his fall, and the strength of Akos's sleep blends, it would be a while before he woke. I hadn't stabbed him, though I had taken great pains to make it look as if I had, in case anyone was watching closely on the sights.

  Yma Zetsyvis had disappeared in a pale blue flourish in the chaotic aftermath of the challenge. I wished I had gotten the chance to thank her, but then, she hadn't poisoned Ryzek for me; she had believed it would kill him, as I had led her to believe it would. She probably would have hated my gratitude. And when she found out that I had lied to her, she would hate me more than before.

  Isae and Cisi crouched on either side of Ori's body. Akos stood behind his sister. When she snaked her hand back to reach for him, he was already stretching toward her; they clasped fingers, Akos's gift freeing Cisi's tears.

  "May the current, which flows through and around each and all of us, living and passed, guide Orieve Benesit to a place of peace," Cisi murmured, covering Isae's bloody hands with her own. "May we who live hear its comfort clearly, and strive to match our actions to the path it sets for us."

  Isae's hair was stringy and wet with spit, sticking to her lips. Cisi brushed it away from her face, tucking it behind her ears. I felt the warmth and the weight of Cisi's currentgift, settling me into myself.

  "May it be so," Isae finally said, apparently closing the prayer. I had never heard Thuvhesit prayers before, though I knew they spoke to the current itself, rather than its alleged master, like the smaller Shotet sects. Shotet prayers were lists of certainties rather than requests, and I liked the honesty of Thuvhesit tentativeness, the implicit acknowledgment that they didn't know if their prayers would be answered.

  Isae stood, her hands limp at her sides. The ship lurched, sending us all off balance. I didn't worry that we would be pursued across the skies of Voa; there was no one left to order it.

  "You knew," Isae said, looking up at Akos. "You knew he had been brainwashed by Ryzek, that he was dangerous--" She gestured to Eijeh, still lying unconscious on the metal floor. "From the very beginning."

  "I didn't think he would ever--" Akos choked a little. "He loved her like a sister--"

  "Don't you dare say that to me." Isae bent her fingers into fists, her knuckles turning white. "She was my sister. She does not belong to him, or to you, or to anyone else!"

  I was too distracted by their conversation to stop Teka from kneeling next to Ryzek. She put her hand against his throat, then his chest, sliding it under his armor.

  "Cyra," Teka said in a low voice. "Why is he alive?"

  Everyone--Isae, Cisi, Akos--turned to Teka, their tense moment broken. Isae looked from Ryzek's body to me. I stiffened. There was something threatening about the way she was moving, speaking, like she was a coiled creature ready to strike.

  "The last hope for Eijeh's restoration lies in Ryzek," I said, as calmly as I could. "I spared him for the time being. After he returns Eijeh's memories I will happily cut out his heart myself."

  "Eijeh." Isae laughed. And laughed again, madly, looking at the ceiling. "The drug you gave Ryzek put him to sleep . . . yet you chose not to share this with him when my sister's life was threatened?"

  She stepped toward me, crushing Ryzek's fingers under her shoe.

  "You chose the dim hope of a traitor's restoration," she said, low and quiet, "over the life of a chancellor's sister."

  "If I had told Ryzek about the drug, we would have been trapped in that amphitheater with no leverage and no hope of escape, and he would have killed your sister anyway," I said. "I chose the path that guaranteed our survival."

  "Bullshit." Isae leaned close to my face. "You chose Akos. Don't pretend it's any different than it is."

  "Fine," I said, just as quiet. "It was Akos or you. I chose him. And I don't regret it."

  It wasn't the whole truth, but it was certainly true. If simple hatred was what she craved, I would make it easier for her. I was used to being hated, especially by the Thuvhesit.

  Isae nodded.

  "Isae . . . ," Cisi began, but Isae was already walking away. She disappeared into the galley, closing the door behind her.

  Cisi wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.

  "I can't believe this. Vas is dead, and Ryzek is alive," Teka said.

  Vas was dead? I looked at Akos, but he was avoiding my eyes.

  "Give me a reason not to kill Ryzek right now, Noavek," Teka said, turning to me. "And if that reason is something about Kereseth, I will hit you."

  "If you kill him, you won't have my cooperation in whatever plan the renegades concoct next," I said dully, without looking at her. "If you help me keep him alive, I'll help you conquer Shotet."

  "Yeah? And what kind of help would you be, exactly?"

  "Oh, I don't know, Teka," I snapped, finally breaking my spell to glare at her. "Yesterday the renegades were just squatting in a safe house in Voa, clueless, an
d now, because of me, you're standing over the unconscious body of Ryzek Noavek with Voa in utter chaos behind you. I think that suggests my capacity to help the renegade cause is considerable, don't you?"

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a few seconds, then said, "There's a storage area below deck with a heavy door. I'll toss him in there so he doesn't wake up on us." But she shook her head. "You know, wars have been started over less. You didn't just make her angry, you enraged an entire nation."

  My throat tightened.

  "You know there was nothing I could have done for Ori, even if I had killed Ryzek," I said. "We were all trapped."

  "I know that." Teka sighed. "But I'm pretty sure Isae Benesit doesn't believe it."

  "I'll talk to her," Cisi said. "I'll help her see it. Right now she just wants people to blame."

  She shed the jacket she wore, leaving her arms bare and covered with goose bumps, and draped it over Ori. Akos helped her tuck the edges under Ori's shoulders and hips, so her wound was hidden. Cisi brushed Ori's hair into place with her fingers.

  They both left, then, Cisi to the galley and Akos to the hold, with heavy footsteps and trembling hands.

  I turned to Teka.

  "Let's lock my brother up."

  Teka and I dragged Ryzek and Eijeh to separate storage rooms, one by one. I rooted out more sleeping elixir to drug Eijeh. I wasn't sure what was wrong with him--he was still unconscious and unresponsive--but if he woke up as the same warped man who had murdered Ori Benesit, I didn't want to deal with it yet.

  Then I went to the nav deck, where Sifa Kereseth sat in the captain's chair, her hands on the controls. Jyo was nearby, using his screen to contact Jorek, who had returned home after Ryzek fell, to get his mother. I sat in the empty chair beside Akos's mother. We were high in the atmosphere, almost past the barrier of blue that separated us from space.

  "Where are we going?" I said.

  "Into orbit until we make a plan," Sifa said. "We can't go back to Shotet, obviously, and it's not safe to go back to Thuvhe yet."

  "Do you know what's wrong with Eijeh?" I said. "He's still catatonic."

  "No," Sifa said. "Not yet."

  She closed her eyes. I wondered if the future was something she could search, like the stars. Some people had mastery over their gifts, and some were simply servants to them--I had never stopped to wonder, before, which category the oracle of Hessa fell into.