Carve the Mark

  The room held a long countertop with shelves above and below it, packed with vials, beakers, knives, spoons, and cutting boards, and a long line of white jars marked with the Shotet symbols for iceflowers--we kept a small store of them, even hushflower, though Thuvhe had not exported any goods to Shotet in over twenty seasons, so we had to import it illegally using a third party--as well as other ingredients scavenged from across the galaxy. Pots, all a shade of warm orange-red metal, hung from a rack above the burners on the right, the largest bigger than my head and the smallest, the size of my hand.

  Akos took one of the larger pots down and set it on a burner.

  "Why did you learn to fight, if you could hurt with a touch?" he said. He filled a beaker with water from the spout in the wall, and dumped it in the pot. Then he lit the burner beneath it and took out a cutting board and a knife.

  "It's part of every Shotet education. We begin as children." I hesitated for a moment before adding, "But I continued because I enjoyed it."

  "You have hushflower here?" he said, scanning the jars with his finger.

  "Top right," I said.

  "But the Shotet don't use it."

  "'The Shotet' don't," I said stiffly. "We're the exception. We have everything here. Gloves are under the burners."

  He snorted a little. "Well, Exceptional One, you should find a way to get more. We'll be needing it."

  "All right." I waited a beat before asking, "No one in army training taught you to read?"

  I had assumed that my cousin Vakrez had taught him more than competent fighting skills. Written language, for example. The "revelatory tongue" referred only to spoken language, not written--we all had to learn Shotet characters.

  "They didn't care about things like that," he said. "They said 'go' and I went. They said 'stop' and I did. That was all."

  "A soft Thuvhesit boy shouldn't complain about being made into a hard Shotet man," I said.

  "I can't change into a Shotet," he said. "I am Thuvhesit, and will always be."

  "That you are speaking to me in Shotet right now suggests otherwise."

  "That I'm speaking Shotet right now is a quirk of genetics," he snapped. "Nothing more."

  I didn't bother to argue with him. I felt certain he would change his mind, in time.

  Akos reached into the jar of hushflower and took one of the blossoms out with his bare fingers. He broke a piece off one of the petals and put it in his mouth. I was too stunned to move. That amount of iceflower at that level of potency should have knocked him out instantly. He swallowed, closed his eyes for a moment, then turned back to the cutting board.

  "You're immune to them, too," I said. "Like my currentgift."

  "No," he said. "But their effect is not as strong, for me."

  I wondered how he had discovered that.

  He turned the hushflower blossom over and pressed the flat of the blade to the place where all the petals joined. The flower broke apart, separating petal by petal. He ran the tip of the knife down the center of each petal, and they uncurled, one by one, flattening. It was like magic.

  I watched him as the potion bubbled, first red with hushflower, then orange when he added the honeyed saltfruit, and brown when the sendes stalks went in, stalks only, no leaves. A dusting of jealousy powder and the whole concoction turned red again, which was nonsense, impossible. He moved the mixture to the next burner to cool, and turned toward me.

  "It's a complex art," he said, waving a hand to encompass the vials, beakers, iceflowers, pots, everything. "Particularly the painkiller, because it uses hushflower. Prepare one element incorrectly and you could poison yourself. I hope you know how to be precise as well as brutal."

  He felt the side of the pot with the tip of his finger, just a light touch. I could not help but admire his quick movement, jerking his hand back right when the heat became too much, muscles coiling. I could already tell what school of combat he had trained in: zivatahak, school of the heart.

  "You assume I'm brutal because that's what you've heard," I said. "Well, what about what I've heard about you? Are you thin-skinned, a coward, a fool?"

  "You're a Noavek," he said stubbornly, folding his arms. "Brutality is in your blood."

  "I didn't choose the blood that runs in my veins," I replied. "Any more than you chose your fate. You and I, we've become what we were made to become."

  I knocked the back of my wrist against the door frame, so armor hit wood, as I left.

  The next morning I woke when the painkiller wore off, just after sunrise, when the light was pale. I got out of bed the way I usually did, in fits and starts, pausing to take deep breaths like an old woman. I dressed in my training clothes, which were made of synthetic fabric from Tepes, light but loose. No one knew how to keep the body cool like the Tepessar people, whose planet was so hot no person had ever walked its surface bare-skinned.

  I leaned my forehead against a wall as I braided my hair, eyes shut, fingers feeling for every strand. I didn't brush my thick dark hair anymore, at least not the way I had as a child, so meticulous, hoping each stroke of the bristles would coax it into perfect curls. Pain had stripped me of such indulgences.

  When I finished, I took a small currentblade--turned off, so the dark tendrils of current wouldn't wrap around the sharpened metal--into the apothecary chamber down the hall where Akos had moved his bed, stood over him, and pressed the blade to his throat.

  His eyes opened, then widened. He thrashed, but when I pushed harder into his skin, he went still. I smirked at him.

  "Are you insane?" he said, his voice husky from sleep.

  "Come now, you must have heard the rumors!" I said cheerfully. "More importantly, though: Are you insane? Here you are, sleeping heavily without even bothering to bar your door, a hallway away from one of your enemies? That is either insanity or stupidity. Pick one."

  He brought his knee up sharply, aiming at my side. I bent my arm to block the strike with my elbow, pointing the blade instead at his stomach.

  "You lost before you woke," I said. "First lesson: The best way to win a fight is to avoid having one. If your enemy is a heavy sleeper, cut his throat before he wakes. If he's softhearted, appeal to his compassion. If he's thirsty, poison his drink. Get it?"

  "So, throw honor out the window."

  "Honor," I said with a snort. "Honor has no place in survival."

  The phrase, quoted from an Ogran book I had once read--translated into Shotet, of course; who could read Ogran?--appeared to scatter the sleep from his eyes in a way that even my attack had not been able to manage.

  "Now get up," I said. I straightened, sheathed the knife at the small of my back, and left the room so he could change.

  By the time we finished breakfast, the sun had risen and I could hear the servants in the walls, carrying clean sheets and towels to the bedrooms, through the passages that ran parallel to every east-west corridor. The house had been built to exclude the ones who ran it, just like Voa itself, with Noavek manor at the center, surrounded by the wealthy and powerful, and the rest around the edge, fighting to get in.

  The gym, down the hall from my bedroom, was bright and spacious, a wall of windows on one side, a wall of mirrors on the other. A gilded chandelier dangled from the ceiling, its delicate beauty contrasting with the black synthetic floor and the stacks of pads and practice weapons along the far wall. It was the only room in the house my mother had allowed to be modernized while she lived; she had otherwise insisted on preserving the house's "historical integrity," down to the pipes that sometimes smelled like rot, and the tarnished doorknobs.

  I liked to practice--not because it made me a stronger fighter, though that was a welcome side benefit--but because I liked how it felt. The heat building, the pounding heart, the productive ache of tired muscles. The pain I chose, instead of the pain that had chosen me. I once tried to spar against the training soldiers, like Ryzek had as he was learning, but the current's ink, coursing through every part of my body, caused them too much pain, so af
ter that I was left to my own devices.

  For the past year I had been reading Shotet texts about our long-forgotten form of combat, the school of the mind, elmetahak. Like so many things in our culture, it was scavenged, taking some of Ogran ferocity and Othyrian logic and our own resourcefulness and melding them until they were inextricable. When Akos and I went to the training room, I crouched over the book I had left near the wall the day before, Principles of Elmetahak: Underlying Philosophy and Practical Exercises. I was on the chapter "Opponent-Centered Strategy."

  "So in the army, you trained in zivatahak," I said, to begin.

  When he gave me a blank look, I continued.

  "Altetahak--school of the arm. Zivatahak--school of the heart. Elmetahak--school of the mind," I said. "The ones who trained you didn't tell you in what school you were trained?"

  "They didn't care about teaching me the names for things," Akos replied. "As I already told you."

  "Well, you trained in zivatahak, I can tell by the way you move."

  This seemed to surprise him. "The way I move," he repeated. "How do I move?"

  "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a Thuvhesit hardly knows himself," I said.

  "Knowing how you fight isn't knowing yourself," he retorted. "Fighting isn't important if the people you live with aren't violent."

  "Oh? And what mythical people are those? Or are they imaginary?" I shook my head. "All people are violent. Some resist the impulse, and some don't. Better to acknowledge it, to use it as a point of access to the rest of your being, than to lie to yourself about it."

  "I'm not lying to mysel--" He paused, and sighed. "Whatever. Point of access, you were saying?"

  "You, for example." I could tell he didn't agree with me, but at least he was willing to listen. Progress. "You're quick, and not particularly strong. You're reactive, anticipating attacks from anyone, everyone. That means zivatahak, school of the heart--speed." I tapped my chest. "Speed requires endurance. Heart endurance. We took that one from the warrior-ascetics of Zold. The school of the arm, altetahak, means 'strength.' Adapted from the style of fringe mercenaries. The last, elmetahak, means 'strategy.' Most Shotet don't know it anymore. It's a patchwork of styles, of places."

  "And which one did you study in?"

  "I'm a student of all," I said. "Of anything." I straightened, moving away from the book. "Let's begin."

  I opened a drawer in the far wall. It squeaked as old wood scraped against old wood, and the tarnished handle was loose, but inside the drawer were practice blades made of a new, synthetic material, hard but also flexible. They would bruise a person, if used effectively, but they wouldn't break skin. I tossed one to Akos, and took one for myself, holding it out from my side.

  He mirrored me. I could see him adjusting, putting a bend in his knees and shifting his weight so he looked more like me. It was strange to be observed by someone so thirsty to learn, someone who knew that his survival depended on how much he took in. It made me feel useful.

  This time I made the first move, swiping at his head. I pulled back before I actually made contact, and snapped, "Is there something fascinating about your hands?"

  "What? No."

  "Then stop staring at them and look at your opponent."

  He raised his hand, fist to cheek, then swung at me from the side with the practice blade. I stepped away and turned, fast, smacking him in the ear with the flat of the knife handle. Wincing, he twisted around, trying to stab me when he was off balance. I caught his fist and held on tight, stalling him.

  "I already know how to beat you," I said. "Because you know that I'm better than you are, but you're still standing right here." I waved my hand, gesturing to the area right in front of my body. "This area is the part of me that has the most potential to hurt you, the part where all my strikes will have the greatest impact and focus. You need to keep me moving so you can attack outside of this area. Step outside of my right elbow so it's hard for me to block you. Don't just stand there, letting me cut you open."

  Instead of making a snide comment back to me, he nodded, and put his hands up again. This time, when I moved to "cut" him, he shuffled out of the way, dodging me. And I smiled a little.

  We moved that way for a while, turning circles around each other. And when I noticed that he was breathless, I called him off.

  "So tell me about your marks," I said. My book was still open to the chapter on "Opponent-Centered Strategy," after all. There was no opponent quite like one you had marked on your arm.

  "Why?" He clasped his left wrist. The bandage was gone today, displaying an old kill mark near his elbow--the same one I had seen seasons ago in the Weapons Hall, but it was finished now, stained the color of the marking ritual, a blue so dark it was almost black. There was another mark beside it, still healing. Two slashes on a Thuvhesit boy's arm. A unique sight.

  "Because knowing your enemies is the beginning of strategy," I said. "And apparently you have already faced some of your enemies, twice-marked as you are."

  He turned his arm away from his body so he could frown at the dashes, and said, like it was a recitation, "The first was one of the men who invaded my home. I killed him while they were dragging my brother and me through the feathergrass."

  "Kalmev," I said. Kalmev Radix had been one of my brother's chosen elite, a sojourn captain and a news feed translator--he had spoken four languages, including Thuvhesit.

  "You knew him?" Akos said, face contorting a little.

  "Yes," I said. "He was a friend of my parents. I met him when I was a child, and watched his wife cry at the memorial dinner after you killed him." I cocked my head at the memory. Kalmev had been a hard man, but he kept candies in his pockets. I had watched him sneak them into his mouth during fancy dinners. But I hadn't mourned his death--he was not, after all, mine to mourn. "What about the second mark?"

  "The second . . ."

  He swallowed hard. I had rattled him. Good.

  ". . . was the Armored One whose skin I stole for my own status."

  I had earned my own armor three seasons ago. I had crouched in the low grasses near the army camp until the daylight waned, then hunted one of the creatures in the night. I had crawled beneath it as it slept, and arched up to stab the soft place where its leg joined its body. It had taken hours to bleed to death, and its horrible moans had given me nightmares. But I had never thought to carve the death of the Armored One into my skin, the way he had.

  "The kill marks are for people," I said.

  "The Armored One may as well have been a person," he said in a low voice. "I was looking into its eyes. It knew what I was. I fed it poison, and it fell asleep at my touch. I grieved for it more than I grieved the loss of a man who robbed my sister of two brothers and a father."

  He had a sister. I had almost forgotten, though I had heard her fate from Ryzek: The first child of the family Kereseth will succumb to the blade. It was almost as grim a fate as my brother's. Or Akos's.

  "You should put a hash through your second mark," I said. "Diagonal, through the top. That's what people do for losses that aren't kills. Miscarried babies, spouses taken by sickness. Runaways who never return. Any . . . significant grief."

  He just looked at me, curious, and still with that ferocity.

  "So my father . . ."

  "Your father is recorded on Vas's arm," I said. "A loss can't be marked twice."

  "It's a kill that's marked." His brow furrowed. "A murder."

  "No, it isn't," I said. "'Kill mark' is a misnomer. They are always records of loss. Not triumph."

  Without meaning to, I brought my right hand across my body to grip my forearm guard, hooking my fingers in its straps. "Regardless of what some foolish Shotet will tell you."

  The hushflower petals on the board in front of me were curled tightly into themselves. I dragged the knife down the center of the first petal, fumbling a little with the gloves on--gloves weren't necessary for him, but we weren't all hushflower-resistant.

  The petal d
idn't flatten.

  "You have to hit the vein right in the center," he said. "Look for the darker red streak."

  "It all just looks red to me. Are you sure you're not seeing things?"

  "Try again."

  That was how he responded every time I lost my patience--he just quietly said, "Try again." It made me want to punch him.

  Every evening for the past few weeks, we had stood at this apothecary counter, and he taught me about iceflowers. It was warm and quiet in Akos's room, the only sound the bubbling of water set to boil and the chop chop chop of his knife. His bed was always made, the dingy sheets pulled taut across the mattress, and he often slept without a pillow, tossing it instead in the corner, where it gathered dust.

  Each iceflower had to be cut with the right technique: the hushflowers needed to be coaxed into lying flat, the jealousy flowers had to be sliced in just such a way that they didn't burst into clouds of powder, and the hard, indigestible vein of the harva leaf had to be first loosened and then tugged by its base--Not too hard. But harder than that, Akos had said as I glared.

  I was handy with the knife, but had no patience for subtlety with it, and my nose was nearly useless as a tool. In our combat training, the situation was reversed. Akos grew frustrated if we dwelled too long on theory or philosophy, which I considered to be the fundamentals. He was quick, and effective when he managed to make contact, but careless, with little aptitude for reading his opponent. But it was easier for me to deal with the pain of my gift when I was teaching him, or when he was teaching me.

  I touched the point of a knife to another one of the hushflower petals, and dragged it in a straight line. This time, the petal unfurled at my touch, flattening on the board. I grinned. Our shoulders brushed, and I twitched away--touch was not something I was used to. I doubted I would ever be used to it again.

  "Good," Akos said, and he swept a pile of dried harva leaves into the water. "Now do that about a hundred more times and it will start to feel easy."

  "Only one hundred? Here I thought this was going to be time-consuming," I said with a sideways glance at him. Instead of rolling his eyes at me, or snapping, he smiled a little.

  "I'll trade you a hundred hushflower slices for a hundred of the push-ups you're making me do," he said.

  I pointed the hushflower-stained knife at him. "One day you'll thank me."