"It's not up to me to tell you how to feel," Vara said, her dark eyes soft. "Only to tell you what happened."
I felt like a pot boiling over, all anger and hysteria bubbling up inside me, irrepressible. I wanted to shake the soft look from her eyes, or laugh in her face; I wanted to move, above all else, to escape the pain that now raced through every izit of my skin, covering me in dark patches.
When I finally dared to glance at Akos, I saw him stone-faced and completely still. It was unnerving.
"I'm sure I don't have to point out to you that there is one bright spot in all this," Vara said. "Your fates."
"Our fates," I repeated, feeling stupid. "What about them?"
"There is a reason the fates don't name names," Vara said. "The second child of the family Noavek will cross the Divide. The third child of the family Kereseth will die in service to the family Noavek. My dear girl, you are the third child of the family Kereseth. And I suspect your fate has already been fulfilled."
I made a big show of putting two fingers against the side of my throat to check for a pulse. "Silly me, thinking I hadn't died in service--"
I cut myself off.
But that wasn't true, was it?
My brother had tried to make me torture Akos, there in the underground prison where he had captured us and forced us to our knees. I had drawn all my currentgift into myself, trusting in my strength to keep me alive. But that strength had faltered--just for a moment, just enough to be considered a death. My heart had stopped, and then started again. I had come back.
I had died for the family Noavek--I had died for Akos.
I stared at him, wonderingly. The fate he had dreaded, the fate he had allowed to define him since he first heard it spoken by my brother's lips . . . it was mine.
And it was done.
CHAPTER 28: AKOS
ALL THE THINGS THAT he was--
Fated traitor, Kereseth, Thuvhesit--
Had been stripped away.
He hadn't said a word since the oracle invited them to share a cup of tea with her, and Cyra declined. The truth was, he'd lost all his words. He didn't even know which language he ought to speak in. The categories he'd used to define them--Thuvhesit, the language of his home and his people; Othyr, the language of off-worlders; Shotet, the language of his enemies--didn't apply anymore.
Cyra seemed to know that he couldn't speak. Maybe she didn't understand it, and how could she? She had lit up like a piece of kindling when Vara told them the truth; she was emotionally elastic, could throw herself out of rage just as fast as she threw herself into it. But even though she didn't understand him, she didn't pester him, either.
All she had done was touch him, tentative, on the shoulder, as she said, "I know. I didn't want to share blood with them, either."
And that was it, wasn't it. She shared a history with the Noaveks, and he shared blood. He was hard-pressed to figure out which one was worse.
He didn't sleep. Just walked the paths around the temple, not even bothering to avoid the dangerous plants that were growing everywhere, or the beetles that could kill him with a bite. He didn't recognize most of the growing things, but some of them he did, and he looked for them just to give himself something else to think about, for just a little while.
The beetles came and went, except for one--a small one that perched on his hand, twitching its light-up wings and wiggling its antennae. He sat on a rock in one of the gardens to stare down at it.
It reminded him, for some reason, of the Armored One he had killed for its skin. He had been out there in the fields outside of Voa, where the Armored Ones wandered, keeping to themselves for the most part. It had taken him a while to realize they weren't going to attack him. It was the current that enraged them, not him; he was a relief to them, just like he was to Cyra.
Maybe this beetle was the same, avoiding those who channeled the current because the energy was too harsh for it to stand. The pattern on its back was like spilled ink, taking no particular shape. It lit up blue-green, when it did light up, a soothing color.
After some time the prickle of the little clinging legs didn't bother him, and neither did the threat of its substantial pincers. It was a little monster, just like him. It couldn't help how it was born.
The oracle's revelation was like a crumpled piece of paper that just kept unfolding more and more. First it showed him the things he wasn't anymore. And then it showed him the things he was: a Shotet. A Noavek.
The man who had taken everything from him--father, family, safety, and home--had been his brother.
And the man who had made Ryzek--Lazmet. He was Akos's father. Still alive, still so alarming to Cyra--unshakable, unfaltering Cyra--that she had panicked at the sight of his face alone.
"What do I do now?" he asked the beetle on his hand.
"Surely that thing won't respond to you," Pary's voice said from behind him. "I don't claim to understand other people's currentgifts, though."
Akos whipped around fast. The beetle on his hand still didn't stir, thankfully.
"Don't come much closer," he said. "Killer beetles, and all."
"They seem to like you," Pary said. "Whatever you are is a very strange thing."
Akos nodded. That wasn't up for debate.
Pary stood in front of him--at a safe distance--with his hands in his pockets. "She must have told you something difficult."
Akos wasn't sure difficult was the right word for it. The beetle crawled from his thumb to his sleeve, pincers clicking audibly. Hopefully that wasn't what it did before it attacked. Akos didn't think it was going to attack him, though.
"There are a lot of people across the solar system who think oracles are elitist, you know," Pary said. "Only giving fates--and therefore importance--to certain families. It seems like an unnecessary display of favoritism to people who don't understand how fates work, how they do not allow an oracle to choose anything at all. But those who have fates know better."
Pary's eyes glinted with the glow of a flower in the garden, reflecting orange.
"A fate is a cage," he said. "Freed from that cage, you can choose, do, go . . . whatever, wherever you'd like. You can, in some ways, finally know who you are."
Akos had been too busy thinking about who he was related to to think about fates, though he knew that was where Cyra's mind had gone. Maybe he ought to be happy that he wasn't fated to die anymore, but he'd been hanging on to that so hard that it was hard to adjust. It was like he'd been carrying a weight around for so long he forgot what it was like to be without it, and now he felt too light, like he might float away.
And his true fate? The second child of the family Noavek will cross the Divide.
Well, he'd already done that, crossed the stretch of feathergrass that separated Thuvhe from Shotet. He'd done it more than once. So his fate had been fulfilled, and now, Pary was right. He could choose whatever. Do whatever.
Go.
Wherever he wanted, wherever he needed to go.
A decision was just coming together in his mind when he heard the scream, high and grating. A wail joined it, and then a low shout. Three voices raised in acknowledgment of pain. Three oracles.
By now, he knew what it meant: there had been another attack.
The beetle fled from his wrist as he ran up the hill to the room where his brother slept. He ripped the sheer curtains aside to see Eijeh sitting up in bed, his fingers knotted in his curly hair as he moaned. It had been a long time since Akos had seen Eijeh so rumpled, his shirt twisted around his torso and half his face marked by the crease of a pillowcase.
Akos hesitated at the edge of the room. Why had he come here, instead of going to his mom's room? He'd lost the parts of Eijeh he'd been so determined to save, and now he knew that what was left of Eijeh wasn't even related to him anyway, so what kept drawing him back?
Eijeh lifted his head, eyes locking on Akos's face.
"Our father," Eijeh said. "He's attacking them."
"Eijeh," Akos said. "You
're confused--our father is--"
"Lazmet," Eijeh said, rocking back and forth, still clutching his head. "Shissa. He attacked Shissa."
"How many dead?" Akos touched Eijeh's shoulder, and his brother--his brother?--pulled away.
"No, don't, I need to see--"
"How many?" Akos demanded, even though deep down he knew it didn't matter whether it was a handful or dozens or--
"Hundreds," Eijeh said. "It's raining glass."
Then Eijeh burst into tears, and Akos sat on the edge of the bed.
No, it didn't matter that it was hundreds. His path forward remained the same.
CHAPTER 29: EIJEH
"YOU HAVE TO FIND ways to ground yourself," Sifa said to us. "Or the visions will take over. You'll get stuck in all the possibilities and you won't be able to live a life."
We answered, "Would it be so bad? To live a thousand different lives instead of your own?"
She narrowed her eyes at us, this woman who was our mother, an oracle, and a stranger all at once. We had ordered the death of her husband; we had suffered the loss of that man ourselves. How odd it was, to be responsible for so much pain, and to have suffered as a direct result of that responsibility, all at once. As our identities melded more and more, we felt more profoundly the contradictions inherent in our being. But there was nothing to be done about it; the contradictions existed, and had to be embraced.
"Whatever made you, made you for a purpose," she said. "And it wasn't to become a vessel for other people's experiences; it was to have your own."
We shrugged, and that's when the images came.
We are in the body of a man--short, stocky, and standing before a cart full of books. The smell of dust and pages is in the air, and shelves tower above him. He places a heavy volume on a tray that sticks out from the shelf, and keys in a code on a device he carries. The tray zooms off to the shelf where the book is supposed to go--a story above his head, and to the left.
He sighs, and walks to the end of the aisle to look out the window. The city--which we recognize as Shissa, in Thuvhe--is full of buildings that hover so far above the ground that the iceflower fields beneath it look like mere patches of color amid the snow. The buildings appear to be hanging from the clouds themselves. Across the way is a tiered diamond-shaped structure of glass that glows green at night, lit from within. To its left, a curved mammoth lit up soft white, like the land beneath it.
It is a beautiful place. We know it.
We are not a man anymore. We are a woman, short and shivering in a stiff vest of Shotet armor.
"Why does anyone live in this damn country?" she says to the man next to her. His teeth are chattering audibly.
"Iceflowers," the man said with a shrug.
She flexes her hands in an attempt to bring feeling back to her fingers.
"Shh," he says.
Up ahead, a Shotet soldier has her ear pressed to a door. She closes her eyes for a moment, then pulls back, and motions the others forward. They slam a metal cylinder into the door, several times, to force it open. The lock pops off and clatters to the cement floor. Beyond the door is a control room of sorts, like the nav deck of a transport vessel.
A scream pierces the air. We rush forward.
We are standing at a window, one hand pressed to cold glass, the other pulling a curtain back. Above us is the city of Shissa, a cluster of giants that drape over us always. It has been our colorful comfort in the night ever since we were a child. The sky without buildings in it seems bare and empty, so we do not like to travel.
Since we have been staring at them, the buildings do not move, not even in the strongest wind. That is thanks to the Pithar technology that holds them upright, controlled by small towers on the ground, near the iceflower fields. We don't understand how it works. We are a field worker. The boots--with hooks on the bottom, to catch on ice sheets--are still on our feet from the day's labor, our shoulders still sore from hauling equipment.
As we watch, the hospital--a bright red cube right above us--shifts.
Shudders.
And drops.
It falls, pulling a gasp from our lungs. Like something dropped into a bucket of water, it seems to move slowly, though that can't be true. It sends snowflakes up in a faint white streak as it drops. And then it collides with the ground.
We are a child in a hospital bed. Our body is short and slim. Our hair sticks to the back of our neck--it is hot in here. The rails are up on the side of the bed, like we're some kind of kid, and can't be trusted not to roll off in our sleep.
The bed jerks beneath us, and we startle, grabbing the rails. Only it's not the bed that's moving--it's the floor. It's falling out from beneath us. The city slides away, just outside the windows, and we cling to the rails, teeth gritted--
And then we're screaming--
The Shotet woman--we--tugs at the straps of her armor as we run. We fastened them too tight, and they're digging into our sides, keeping us from moving as fast as we'd like.
The sound as the building falls is nothing like we have ever heard. The crunching, smashing--the screaming, wailing, gasping--the rush of air around it--it is deafening. We clap our hands over our ears and keep running, toward the transport vessel, toward safety.
We see a dark shape flinging itself off the hospital roof.
Our knees are buried in the snow. The man from before is next to us, shouting something we can't hear. Our cheeks are hot. Startled, we realize that the Shotet woman's face is wet with tears.
This is the retribution Lazmet Noavek ordered. But it feels more like horror.
"Come on!" the other soldier is saying. "We have to go!"
But how can we go, when all those people need help?
How can we go on, when so many are lost?
How can we go on?
CHAPTER 30: CYRA
THAT EVENING, AKOS LEFT to walk the gardens, and I found myself alone. The humid Ogran air had made my cheeks damp, and I wanted to wash my face. I stumbled to the bathroom, stinging and aching, and leaned my forehead against the tile wall as I turned on the faucet. My fingers always hurt worse than the rest of my body, the currentshadows coalescing in my extremities, like they were itching to escape.
I splashed my face with water, and dried it with the front of my shirt. Cyra Kereseth, I thought, trying out the name. It felt false, like I was trying to put on someone else's clothing. But being in this place, where the blankets were still thrown back from where Akos and I had lain tangled together, felt just as wrong. I had been someone else when we rested here, with my ear against his chest.
Suddenly I needed to get out, to move. I walked to Pary's ship, on the far side of the hill, away from the gardens, so I wouldn't run into Akos. The ship's hatch opened at the touch of a button, the interior lights on, guiding me to a seat near all the restrained plants of Ogra.
I was sitting there, in front of the plant that looked like a giant mouth, my head in my hands, when the hatch opened again. I lifted my head, sure it would be Akos, that we could finally talk about what we had heard. But it wasn't.
It was Sifa.
She didn't close the hatch, so I could still hear the buzz of insects and the whisper of wind while she stood, staring at me. I stared back. The pain that surged through me at the sight of her, at the thought of what she had surrendered me to as a child, was startling. I stayed still to keep it contained. No flinching, no shaking, no moaning. Nothing that invited comfort. I didn't want her to see that she could hurt me.
"You spoke to Vara," she said to me at last.
I sat up, and pushed my braid over one shoulder.
"Yeah, thanks for that, by the way," I said, twitching a little at a currentshadow racing across my face. "Nothing like the news of your own abandonment coming from a stranger."
"You have to know--" she began, and then I was on my feet, boots planted on the grate floor, a line of guiding light between my feet.
"Yes, please, tell me what I have to know," I snapped. "Is it how you fe
lt dumping your own daughter into a family of monsters? Or lying to your son for his entire life? Is it how you did it for the good of Thuvhe, or Shotet, or the goddamn current? Because yes, that's really all I want to know--how hard this was for you."
I felt huge, suddenly, like a wall of muscle. She wasn't frail--she had a certain wiry strength to her--but she was not built like me, solid through the hips and shoulders. I could have knocked her down with a punch, and part of me wanted to try. Maybe it was the part of me that was Noavek, the part that wouldn't have existed if she had kept me safe instead of trading me away.
Sifa stayed by the hatch, silhouetted by the lights on the little runway behind her. Her hair was piled on one side of her head, scraggly, like she hadn't combed through it in days. She looked so tired. I didn't care.
"What did you see?" I said. "What did you see in our futures that made you trade us? What could possibly have been so bad that it was better to hand me over to the Noaveks than to let me suffer it?"
She closed her eyes, face tightening, and I felt cold creeping down my spine.
"I am not going to tell you that," she said, opening her eyes. "I would rather you hate me than know what I saw become of you, of Akos. I chose the best path for you, the one that had the greatest potential."
"You don't have the right," I said in a low voice, "to decide my path for me."
"I would do it again," she said.
I was thinking about that punch again.
"Get away from me," I said.
"Cyra--"
"No," I said. "Maybe you could determine what happened between us when I was an infant, but you have lost that power."
I stood. As I moved toward the hatch, to pass her, her posture changed. She slumped oddly against the doorway, head angled down, hair spilling around her face.
And then raised her voice in a harrowing scream.
Another vision, then. Something horrible.
At first I stood before her, simply listening, her voice scraping at the insides of my head. And then I crouched before her as she slid down the wall to the ground, unwilling to offer comfort, but unwilling to leave without knowing what she saw.
It took some time for her to go quiet. The scream stopped with a sound like a gag. I had learned that asking Sifa direct questions rarely resulted in anything productive, so I didn't speak. My currentshadows burning across my belly, I waited, hunched there in the dark. Behind me, the mouth-plant snapped its brittle jaws.