"I think you knew we were going to fail," I said softly. "You told Akos that your visions were layered over each other, that Ori would be in the cell at the same time Ryzek faced me in the arena. But you knew they weren't, didn't you?" I paused. "And you knew Akos would have to face Vas. You wanted him to have no choice other than to kill him, the man who murdered your husband."
Sifa touched the autonav map so the colors reversed--black for the expanse of space, and white for the route we were taking through it--and sat back in her chair, her hands in her lap. I thought she was just waiting to answer me, at first, but when she didn't say anything for a while, I realized she had no intention of doing so. I didn't press her. My mother had been intractable, too, and I knew when to give up.
So it surprised me a little when she spoke.
"My husband needed to be avenged," she said. "Someday Akos will see that."
"No he won't," I said. "He'll only see that his own mother maneuvered him into doing the thing he most hates."
"Maybe," she said.
The darkness of space wrapped around us like a shroud, and I felt calmer, consoled by the emptiness. This was a different kind of sojourn. Away from the past, instead of away from the place I was supposed to call home. Here, the lines between Shotet and Thuvhesit were harder to see, and I almost felt safe again.
"I should check on Akos," I said.
Before I could get up, her hand had closed over my arm, and she had leaned close enough to me that I could see streaks of warm brown in her dark eyes. She flinched but didn't pull away.
"Thank you," she said. "I'm sure that choosing mercy for my son over revenge against your brother was not easy for you."
I shrugged, uncomfortable. "I couldn't very well free myself from my own nightmares by bringing Akos's to life," I said. "Besides, I can handle a few nightmares."
CHAPTER 40: AKOS
AFTER THE SHOTET TOOK Akos and Eijeh from their home and dragged them across the Divide; after Akos broke free from his wrist cuffs, stole Kalmev Radix's knife, and stabbed him with it; after they beat Akos so badly he could hardly walk, they took the Kereseth brothers to Voa to present them to Ryzek Noavek. Down the cliff face and through the dusty, winding streets, sure they were both about to die, or worse. Everything had been too loud, too crowded, too little like home.
As they walked down the short tunnel that led to the front gate of Noavek manor, Eijeh had whispered, "I'm so scared."
Their dad's death and their kidnapping had cracked him open like an egg. He was even oozing, his eyes always full of tears. The opposite had happened to Akos.
No one cracked Akos.
"I promised Dad I'd get you out of here," he'd said to Eijeh. "So that's what I'm going to do, understand? You'll make it out. That's a promise to you, this time."
He'd put his arm over his older brother's shoulders, pulled him tight to his side. They walked in together.
Now they were out, but they hadn't walked out together. Akos had had to drag him.
The hold was small and dank, but it had a sink, and that was pretty much all Akos cared about. He stripped to the waist, his shirt too stained to salvage, made the water as hot as he could stand, and worked the greasy soap into lather in his hands. Then he stuck his head under the faucet. Salty water ran into his mouth. As he scrubbed his arms and hands, scraping at the dried blood under his fingernails, he let himself go.
Just sobbed into the stream of water, half horrified and half relieved. Let the splatter sound drown out the strange, heaving noises coming from his own mouth. Let aching muscles shudder in the heat.
He wasn't really upright when Cyra came down the ladder. He was hanging on the edge of the basin by his armpits, his arms limp around his head. She said his name, and he forced himself to his feet, finding her eyes in the cracked mirror above the faucet. Water ran in rivers down his neck and back, soaking the top of his pants. He turned the water off.
She reached over her head to drag her hair to one side. Her eyes, dark as space, went soft as she looked him over. Currentshadows floated over her arms, draped themselves across her collarbone. Their movements were languid.
"Vas?" she said.
He nodded.
In that moment, he liked all the things she didn't say more than the things she did. There was no "Good riddance," or "You did what you had to do," or even a simple "It will be all right." Cyra didn't have the patience for that kind of thing. She fell on the hardest, surest truth, again and again, like a woman determined to crush her own bones, knowing they would heal stronger.
"Come on" was all she said. "Let's find you some clean clothes."
She looked tired, but only in the way a person was tired when they'd had a long day at work. And that was another thing about her, too--because so much of her life had been hard, she was steadier than other people when hard things came. Maybe not in such a good way, sometimes.
He pulled the stopper out of the drain so the reddish water disappeared, izit by izit. He dried off on the towel next to the sink. When he turned toward her, the currentshadows went haywire, dancing up her arms and across her chest. She winced a little, but it was different now, not so all-consuming. This was a Cyra who had a little space between her and the pain.
He followed her up the ladder again, down the narrow hall to the storage closet. It was stuffed full of fabric--sheets, towels, and at the bottom, spare clothes. He pulled on an oversize shirt. It felt better to be wearing something clean.
By that time Cyra was on her way to the nav deck, empty now that the transport ship was set to orbit. Near the exit hatch, his mom and Teka were wrapping Ori's body in white sheets. The galley door was still shut, his sister and Isae inside.
He stood at Cyra's shoulder, at the observation window. She'd always been drawn to sights like these, big and empty. He couldn't stand them, but he did like the winking of the stars, the glow of far-off planets, the dark red-purple of the currentstream.
"There is a Shotet poem I like," she said in clear Thuvhesit. He'd heard her speak just a few Thuvhesit words in all the time they'd spent together. That she spoke it now meant something--they were on equal footing, in a way they couldn't have been before. She had just about died to make them that way.
He frowned as he chewed on that. What a person did when they were in pain said a lot about them. And Cyra, always in pain, had almost given her life to free him from Shotet prison. He would never forget it.
"The translation is difficult," she continued. "But roughly, one of the lines reads, 'The heavy heart knows that justice is done.'"
"Your accent is very good," he said.
"I like the way the words feel." She touched her throat. "It reminds me of you."
Akos took the hand that was on her neck and laced his fingers with hers. The shadows snuffed out. Her brown skin had turned dull, but her eyes were alert as ever. Maybe he could learn to like the big empty of space if he thought of it like her eyes, soft-dark with just a hint of warmth.
"Justice is done," he repeated. "That's one way of looking at it, I guess."
"It's my way," she said. "Judging by your expression, I assume you've chosen the path of guilt and self-loathing instead."
"I wanted to kill him," he said. "I hate that I wanted to do something like that."
He shuddered again, and stared at his hands. All cracked from hitting things, the same way Vas's had been.
Cyra waited awhile before responding.
"It's hard to know what's right in this life," she said. "We do what we can, but what we really need is mercy. Do you know who taught me that?" A grin. "You."
He wasn't sure how he'd taught her about mercy, but he knew the cost of it, for her. Mercy for Eijeh--and sparing Ryzek's life, for the time being--meant she had to hold on to the worst of her pain for even longer. It meant trading triumph at last for Isae's anger and the renegades' disgust. But she seemed at ease with it, still. No one knew how to bear other people's hate like Cyra Noavek. Sometimes she even encouraged it, but tha
t didn't bother him so much. He understood it. She really just thought people were better off staying away from her.
"What?" she said.
"I like you, you know," he said.
"I know."
"No, I mean I like you the way you are, I don't need you to change." He smiled. "I've never thought of you as a monster or a weapon or--what did you call yourself? A rusty--"
She caught the word nail in her mouth. Her fingertips were cool, careful as they ran over the scars and bruises he wore, like she was taking them back. She tasted like sendes leaf and hushflower, like saltfruit and like home.
He put his hands on her, sighing into her skin. They got bolder, fingers laced with fingers, knotted in hair, taking in fistfuls of shirt. Finding soft places nobody else had ever touched, like the bend in her waist, like the underside of his jaw. Their bodies pressed together, hip bone against stomach, knee against thigh . . .
"Hey!" Teka yelled from across the ship. "Not a private place, you two!"
Cyra rocked back on her heels, and glared at Teka.
He knew how she felt. He wanted more. He wanted everything.
CHAPTER 41: CYRA
I DESCENDED THE STAIRS that led beneath the renegade ship to the hold, where my brother was locked in one of the storage rooms. The doors were solid metal, but each one had a vent near the low ceiling so air could circulate through the ship. I approached his room slowly, running one finger along the smooth wall. The lights flickered above my head as the ship shuddered.
The vent was at eye level, so I could see inside. I expected Ryzek's body to be limp on the floor next to bottles of solvent or cans of oxygen, but it wasn't. At first I didn't see him at all, and I gulped air, frantic, about to scream for help. But then he stepped into my line of sight, his body cut into stripes by the blades of the vent.
Still, I could see his eyes, unfocused but full of contempt.
"You're more of a coward than I thought you were," he said in a low growl.
"It's interesting being on this side of the wall this time," I said. "Be careful, or I will be as unkind to you as you were to me."
I held up my hand, letting smoky current unfurl around it. Tendrils of ink-darkness wrapped around my fingers like hair. I ran my nails along the vent, lightly, marveling at how easy it would be to hurt him here, with no one to stop me. Just the opening of a door.
"Who did it?" Ryzek said. "Who poisoned me?"
"I already told you," I said. "I did."
Ryzek shook his head. "No, I've been keeping my iceflower blends under lock and key since the first assassination attempt that you participated in." He was almost, but not quite, smiling. "And by 'lock and key,' I mean a gene lock, accessible by Noavek blood alone." He waited a beat. "Locks that we both know you were, and are, unable to open."
My mouth dry, I stared up at him through the narrow space. He had security footage of the first assassination attempt, of course, so he had likely seen me trying to open the lock on his door with no success. But it didn't seem to surprise him.
"What do you mean?" I said, quiet.
"You do not share my blood," he said, pronouncing each word deliberately. "You are not a Noavek. Why do you think I started using those locks? Because I knew only one person would be able to get through them: me."
And I had never tried to get past them before the assassination, because I had always kept my distance from him. Even if I had, I was sure he would have kept a convincing lie ready for the occasion. He was always prepared to lie.
"If I'm not a Noavek, then what am I?" I said sharply.
"How should I know?" He laughed. "I'm glad I was able to see your face when I told you. Emotional, volatile Cyra. When will you learn to control your reactions?"
"I could ask the same of you. Your smiles are getting less and less convincing, Ryz."
"Ryz." He laughed again. "You think you've won, but you haven't. There are things I haven't told you, your true parentage aside."
Within me everything was turbulent. But I stood as still as I could, watching his lips part in that smile, his eyes crinkle at the corners. I searched his face for a sign of shared blood, and found none. We didn't look alike, but that in itself was not strange--sometimes siblings took after different parents, after distant relatives, bringing long-forgotten genes back to life. He was either telling me the truth or he was playing with my mind, but either way, I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me react any further.
"This desperation," I said in a low voice, "does not become you, Ryzek. It's almost indecent."
I reached up, and pressed the vents flat with my fingertips.
But I could still hear him as he said, "Our father . . ." He paused, and corrected himself. "Lazmet Noavek is still alive."
CHAPTER 42: AKOS
HE LOOKED OUT THE observation window at the dark sky. A strip of Thuvhe showed on the left, white with snow and cloud cover. No wonder the Shotet had named the planet "Urek," which meant "empty." From up here, its blankness was the only thing about it worth noting.
Cisi offered him a mug of tea, yellow green. The blend for fortitude, judging by its shade. He wasn't any good at mixing that one, since he'd spent most of his time working with hushflower, to put people to sleep and to kill their pain. It didn't taste like much--bitter like a new stem, freshly snapped--but it made him steadier like it was supposed to.
"How's Isae?" he asked her.
"Isae is . . ." Cisi frowned. "I think she heard me, on some level beyond her grief. But we'll see."
Akos was sure they would, and probably not what they wanted to see. He'd seen the hate in Isae's face as she glared at Cyra near the hatch door, her sister's body laid out behind her. One talk with Cisi couldn't take away hate like that, no matter how much warmth there was between them.
"I'll keep trying," Cisi said.
"That is the distinct feature of all my children," their mom said, climbing the grate steps to the nav deck. "They are persistent. To the point of delusion, some might say."
She said it with a smile. She had an odd way of complimenting people, their mother. He wondered if she had been counting on his delusional persistence when she arranged for them to get to the prison too late. Or maybe she really hadn't counted on Eijeh interrupting her plans with some oracle maneuvering of his own. He would never know.
"Is Eijeh awake?" he asked her.
"Awake, yes." Sifa sighed. "But just staring blankly, for now. He doesn't appear to hear me. I don't know what Ori did to him, before . . . well."
Akos thought of the two of them, Eijeh and Ori, on the platform, clutched together. The way she had said good-bye like he was the one leaving instead of her. And then he had, slipping away just because she touched him. What could Ori's touch do? He'd never asked her.
Sifa said, "We'll have to give it time, and see if we can use Ryzek to restore him. I think Cyra had a few ideas for that."
"I bet she does," Cisi said, a little darkly.
Akos sipped Cisi's tea, and let himself feel something like relief. Eijeh was out of Shotet, Cisi and Sifa were alive. There was some peace in knowing that all the men who had invaded their house and killed their father were gone now. They were marks on his arm. Or they would be, when he got around to carving Vas there.
Their little ship rotated, showing less of Thuvhe and more of the space beyond it, all dark but for the speckle of stars and the glow of a distant planet. Zold, if he remembered his maps right, which was not a guarantee. He'd never been much of a scholar.
It was Isae who broke the quiet, marching out of the galley at last. She looked better than she had a couple of hours before: She had pulled her hair back tight, and found a shirt to replace her bloody sweater. Her hands were clean, even under the fingernails. She crossed her arms, and took a wide stance at the edge of the nav deck platform.
"Sifa," she said. "Pull us out of orbit and set the autonav for Assembly Headquarters."
Sifa sat in the captain's chair and said--shooting for casual, and wi
nding up at nervous--"Why are we going there?"
"Because they need to see, firsthand, that I am alive." Isae gave her a cold, appraising stare. "And because they will have a cell that can hold both Ryzek and Eijeh until I decide what to do with them both."
"Isae . . ." Akos started. But there was nothing to say that he hadn't already said.
"Don't test my patience; you'll find it has limits." Isae had gone full chancellor. The woman who had touched his head and told him he was Thuvhesit was gone now. "Eijeh is a Thuvhesit citizen. He will be treated like one, just like the rest of you. Unless, Akos, you would like to declare your Shotet citizenship and be treated the same as Miss Noavek."
He was no Shotet citizen, but he knew better than to bicker with her. She was grieving.
"No," he said. "I wouldn't."
"Very well. Is the autonav set?"
Sifa had pulled up the nav screen, which floated in little green letters in front of her, and was typing in coordinates. She sat back in her chair.
"Yes. We'll arrive in several hours."
"Until then, you will make sure that Ryzek Noavek and Eijeh are kept under control," Isae said to Akos. "I have no interest in hearing from either of them, understand?"
He nodded.
"Good. I will be in the galley. Let me know when we begin our approach, Sifa."
Without waiting for an answer, she marched away again. He felt her footsteps vibrating through the floor grate.
"I have seen war in every future," his mom said out of nowhere. "The current guides us there. The players change, but the result is the same."
Cisi took their mom's hand, and then Akos's. "But we're together now."
Sifa's troubled look gave way to a smile. "Yes, we are together now."
Now. For just a breath, he was sure, but it was something. Cisi rested her head on Akos's shoulder, and their mom smiled at him. He could almost hear the feathergrass scratching at their house's windows in the wind. But he still couldn't quite smile back.
The renegade ship arced away from Thuvhe. Up ahead he saw the cloudy pulse of the current making a path through the galaxy. It bound all the planets together, and though it didn't seem to move, every person could feel it singing in their blood. The Shotet even thought it gave them their language, like a tune only they knew, and they had a point. He was proof of that.