He could have pried open the locking mechanism himself and shoved his fingers inside, disrupting the current, but the risk of getting caught was too high. The guard changed too often. So instead he stood by the back door and waited for Jorek to open it.
It had taken a lot of arguing to get Jorek to agree to this. Not just with Jorek, but with Ara. They suspected, of course, what Akos was here to do, and they didn't want him to take the risk. They thought it was bravado, or stupidity, or downright instability.
Eventually, it was the reminder of what Akos had done for Jorek that got him to agree. The ring that hung around his neck, and the precise mark on his arm. Jorek had owed him a favor. A big one.
The heavy door opened a crack, showing a sliver of a man--boots, armor, patchy facial hair, and a bright, dark eye.
Jorek jerked his head to the side, beckoning, and Akos opened the door just wide enough to slip through. Once it closed behind him with a click, he knew he couldn't go back. So, even though he halfway thought he'd lost his mind, he kept going forward.
As agreed, Jorek got him to the kitchen. Akos found the edge of the wall panel that would let him into the manor's hidden passageways, and pulled it back. The familiar musty smell washed over him, sending him into memory. Terrified and desperately hopeful, with the toe of Eijeh's shoe catching on his heel. And then, that little pool of heat in his gut as he followed a painted Cyra to the Sojourn Festival, the one that told him he liked her, no matter how hard he pretended otherwise.
Liked her, then loved her. Then left her.
Jorek pulled him into a hug, quick and firm, before leaving Akos alone in the dark passageway.
He stopped at the corners where the walls split, feeling for the symbols he had learned from Cyra. An X for a dead end. A circle with an up arrow for stairs going up, and a circle with a down arrow for stairs going down. A number for which floor he was on.
He had gone this way when he went to free Eijeh. All he had to do was get to that part of the house again, and then he'd be near the gene-locked rooms that had confounded the renegades when they came here to kill Ryzek. Cyra's blood hadn't opened the locks, but Akos's would, if Vara wasn't screwing with them both.
Akos got to the exit he'd taken when he got Eijeh out. He knew he was tripping the same sensors that had made his escape attempt fail on that fateful day, but it didn't really matter; he wasn't trying to go unnoticed here. He left the panel open behind him and walked past the door that had once been Eijeh's with a little shiver.
Even in the dark, this part of the house was grand. Dark wood, almost black, on the floor and the walls. Light fixtures packed with fenzu, sedate now as they slept through the night. Decorative vases and sculptures, made of warm metal or polished stone with veins of color running through it, or etched glass. He couldn't imagine running through these halls as a kid, skimming the wood paneling with his fingers. He probably wouldn't have been allowed to run, or touch walls, or fall on his brother laughing, or any of the things that had made his young years rich and warm.
He got to the secure door that he was pretty sure led to Ryzek's old bedroom, and held up his hand over the locking mechanism. His fingers were trembling.
He stuck his hand in the lock, wincing as it pierced his finger, drawing blood.
A click, and then the door opened.
If there had been any doubt in his mind that he was a Noavek, it was gone now.
CHAPTER 35: CYRA
IT WAS, PERHAPS, NOT the best idea for Teka to approach me during breakfast, before my brain had booted up.
I was hunkered down over my bowl of grains and fruit, watching Eijeh. He sat two tables away, facing me, with his own plate of food in front of him. But there was something odd about him. He was poking at the grains with his spoon, picking out the darker ones and putting them in a line along the edge of his tray. When I first saw Eijeh a few seasons ago, snuffling in the Weapons Hall before my brother, he had been filled out and tall; he had looked sturdy, though not overweight. But this Eijeh was pecking at breakfast, and there were still hollows in his cheeks.
"Uh," Teka said. "Why are you staring so hard at Kereseth?"
She stood in front of me, partially blocking my view of the new oracle. I didn't look away, though, still watching Eijeh jab at his bowl.
"My mother told me, once, that she used to scold Ryzek for being a picky eater," I said. "He ate fruit, but little else. And no matter what she put in front of him, he found something to pick at. She hoped he would grow out of it, but . . ." I shrugged. "I don't think he ever really did."
"Okay," Teka said. "Did an Ogran give you some xofra venom? I've heard it addles the mind."
"No. It's nothing, never mind," I said. I looked up at her. "You know, when you stand like that, you look even shorter."
"Shut up," Teka said. "I found you some volunteers. Come on over."
I sighed, and picked up my bowl. My boots were still untied, so the laces flapped with each footstep. Teka led me to a table in the corner, where two other people sat: Yssa, and the man I had fought weeks ago, with the knot of hair on top of his head. Ettrek.
"Hey there, Scourge," he said to me. He had the kind of face that didn't give away his age, skin smooth but not layered with the pudge of youth, dark eyes glittering with mischief.
I didn't like him.
"No," I said to Teka. "I'm not working with this idiot."
"My name is pronounced 'Ettrek,'" he said, grinning.
"Listen, it's not like you have a deep pool of applicants, here," Teka said to me. "Ettrek knows people in Voa who can get us whatever supplies we need, as well as give us a place to land."
"And you?" I said to Yssa. "You're Ogran. Why do you want to get mixed up in all this?"
"I am a good pilot," Yssa said. "As to why I want to be involved, well. I have lived among people affected by Lazmet Noavek for several seasons now, and if there is something I can do to help defeat him at last, I will do it."
I looked them over. Teka, her blond hair made frizzy by the Ogran humidity. Yssa had glowing bracelets up to one elbow, and she had lined her eyes in luminous pencil, so they glowed oddly. Ettrek waggled his dark eyebrows at me. Was this the crew I would march back into Voa with, triumphant?
Well. It was the best I was going to get.
"Fine," I said. "When do we leave?"
"I'll check the launch schedule, but it had better be sometime this week," Teka said. "It'll take a few days to get to Urek. Once we're through the atmosphere, I can send a message to Jorek in Voa, and get a better sense of the situation. And Ettrek can reach out to his contacts. But we can't do any of that from here."
"All right," I said.
"Hold on," Ettrek said. "What qualifies you to be in charge of this mission, anyway?"
"I'm better than you," I said. "At everything."
Teka rolled her eyes. "She knows the target, Trek. You want to charge into Voa to kill a man you don't understand or know at all?"
Ettrek shrugged. "Guess not."
"Everybody take this week to do what you need to get done," Teka said. "I'll start getting the ship ready now. I might need a new gravity compressor, and I know we need food."
"And," I said, thinking of what Isae had used to kill my brother, "maybe some new kitchen knives."
Teka wrinkled her nose, likely remembering the same thing. "Definitely."
"Anyway, we might not be coming back, so . . ." I shrugged. "Say your good-byes."
"You're just bursting with optimism, aren't you," Ettrek said.
"Did you expect the person leading your assassination mission to be cheerful?" I said. "If so, I think you're in the wrong field." I set my half-finished bowl of breakfast down, and drew the knife at my hip instead. I leaned across the table and pointed the blade at him. "And by the way, if you call me 'Scourge' again, I will cut that stupid knot right off the top of your head."
Ettrek licked his lips, considering my knife.
"Okay," he finally said. "Cyra."
CHAPTER 36: CISI
I WATCH OUR DESCENT through Othyr's puffy clouds like I'm even farther away than I am, drifting through space and looking down at the entire planet at once. I've felt like this since Akos and I parted ways, halfway between Ogra and Thuvhe. He didn't want to come with me back to Assembly Headquarters, and I didn't much blame him, so I'd hitched myself to the next Assembly freighter at some moon outpost and let him take the autonav back home. Truth be told, I am jealous of him, puttering around our warm kitchen, stoking the burnstones in our courtyard stove.
Ast comes to stand next to me, arms folded.
We're on a big Assembly craft, the nice, sleek kind they save for chancellors and regents and sovereigns. You can't see any of the ship's guts--they're all hidden behind panels made of a pale metal that looks almost white. I tripped earlier and when I smacked my hand against a wall to steady myself, I left a handprint. Whose job is it to polish all the walls? I wonder.
Ast and I are both dressed up, or as "up" as Isae could get us to go. I wear a dress with long sleeves--so I look Thuvhesit, I figure, because Othyrians aren't as determined to button everything up to the throat as we are--in a soft gray. Ast is in trousers and a shirt with a collar. The guide bot whizzes around his head, clicking so he can hear its location.
"Isae's doing it again," he says. "Go fix her."
"I can't stop her all the time," I say. "It's wearing me out."
Since the attack on Shissa, Isae's been going over every single person who died in the attack on her screen. She keeps spitting facts at me, too. Shep Uldoth, thirty-four. He was a father of two, Cisi. His wife died, too, so now the kids are orphans. As much as I told her she couldn't dwell on the lives lost forever, she didn't pull herself away. She said she liked the anger going through the names gave her. It reminded her of what she had to do.
I'm pretty sure she's just tired of grieving for Ori, and needs something else to focus on, but I don't say so.
"I don't really care if you're worn out," Ast says coolly. "You don't think this is wearing her out? It's more important that she be rested than you, you know."
I want to curse him out, but my currentgift stops me. So I just ignore him until he storms off.
The ship passes through the cloud layer, and I can't keep myself from stepping closer to the glass. I've never been to Othyr before.
Most of the planet's surface is covered with cities. There are a couple of big parks that cultivate the planet's wildlife--feeble, most of it, which was why Othyrians hadn't much bothered with it--but the rest is glass and metal and stone. Glass walkways stretch this way and that, connecting the buildings, and sleek little floaters, much nicer than the ones we flew in Thuvhe, dart in and out of metal tubes that control traffic.
So it's hard to explain to myself, given all that synthetic chaos, why Othyr is pretty. Maybe it comes down to the big blue sky, the sunlight gleaming on the buildings in gold, green, blue, and orange. Maybe it's the neat little parks that show all different colored flowers and trees, the best-looking plants from every other planet but this one. But there is something nice in how busy it is, a kind of cheerful productivity.
I clasp my hands in front of me as I walk down the hall, so I don't brush any of the walls. Isae is sitting in a waiting room, perched on the edge of a gray sofa. A view of Othyr shows through the floor-to-ceiling window, but she's not even glancing at it. Her eyes are fixed on the portable screen in her hands.
"Arthe Semenes. Fifty years old. She was visiting her kid in the hospital after surgery. Both of them are dead now." She shakes her head. "A hospital, Cisi. Why did they have to target a hospital?"
"Because Lazmet Noavek is evil," I say. "We knew that before, and we know it now, and we'll never forget it."
I am filling the room with calming water. Letting it lap up against her ankles, tap against her toes.
"He's not the only one who made it happen," she says. "Every Shotet who went along with him and didn't stop it is to blame."
"We're landing," I say. She's not wrong, but the heat she says it with makes me nervous. I imagine wading up to my waist, dragging my fingers through the soft weight of water.
"When's the meeting?"
"It's over dinner," I say. "They don't like strict business meetings here, apparently."
"Wouldn't want to let a person focus on the issues at hand," she says. "Gotta dazzle them into doing whatever you say instead."
"Exactly," I say. She sounds more like herself already. She gets up, sets the screen down, and crosses the little room to stand in front of me.
"Did Ast yell at you again?" she says, brushing her fingers over my face. "He seemed upset when he left. I don't know why he takes it out on you."
I shrug. It's the best I can manage.
"I'll talk to him again," she promises. "I trust you, and so should he, even if he doesn't like your currentgift. It's not like I don't know when you're using it."
I smile. She doesn't, of course, always know when I'm using it. But it's good that she thinks so.
CHAPTER 37: AKOS
THE ROOM BEYOND THE gene lock smelled like fruit. Akos let the door close behind him, breathing the acid sweetness. This wasn't Ryzek's bedroom--it was an office. And the desk had some kind of peel on it, green and puckered, the source of the smell. Beside it was a dormant screen on top of a stack of paper. Books were stacked here and there, with titles he mostly couldn't read, unless they were in Othyrian. Those were all about history.
The rug under his feet was thick and dense. Comfortable to stand on. There were footprints pressed into it, back and forth, like somebody had been pacing not too long ago. Growing in a pot in the corner was a little tree, its trunk the same dark color as the floorboards. A tree native to the band of forests north of Voa, its leaves robust and healthy.
Akos felt a squeeze in his head, like he was getting a headache, and ignored it. He moved instead toward the map that hung on the wall behind the desk, a map of the solar system. Their planet was marked "Urek" instead of "Thuvhe," so he knew it was a Shotet-drawn map. The lines were careful, precise, and faded to light sketch marks at the edges, marking the boundaries of where the Shotet had gone. They were wider than Akos expected. Somehow it had never really struck him that before the Shotet became scavengers and warriors, they had been explorers.
He felt the squeeze in his head again, and paused. He had heard something. A shift, maybe, someone walking in another room, on another floor.
No, not a shift--a breath. An exhale.
Akos drew his blade and whipped around, arm extended. Leaning against the wall behind him was a tall, thin, weathered man.
Lazmet Noavek.
"My currentgift doesn't work on you," Lazmet said.
Akos's mouth went dry.
"No currentgifts work on me," he forced himself to say. The first words he'd ever said to his father.
Lazmet pulled away from the wall. He was holding a currentblade of his own. As Akos watched, he balanced it on his palm and spun it, catching it by the handle. So Ryzek had learned that little habit from his father, then.
"Is that how you got in here?" Lazmet said.
Akos shook his head. Lazmet stepped closer, and Akos shifted to the side, keeping distance between them. He felt like he was in the arena again, fighting another man to the death. Only he was much less prepared for this fight than he'd been for the one with Vas, or Suzao.
He never should have come here. He knew that now. Just looking at Lazmet in person, empty behind the eyes, calm and faintly amused . . . there was something not right about him. Something Akos didn't understand.
"Then I admit to some confusion, because I'm the only person who can access these rooms," Lazmet said. "So I know that while someone might have let you into the manor, they could not have let you in here."
"My blood got me in," Akos said.
Lazmet's eyes narrowed. He came closer. Akos had run out of space behind him, so he shifted again, knife still outstretched. Lazmet eyed the blade curiously--h
e probably wasn't used to seeing a currentblade without the black tails binding it to a person's hand.
"I began to suspect, when my youngest child grew older, that she was not actually mine," Lazmet said quietly. "I thought maybe her mother had been unfaithful to me, but I see now that isn't the case. She was just the wrong child entirely."
Akos didn't understand how he wasn't more shocked. More startled, at least.
"What is your name?" Lazmet asked him, spinning his currentblade.
"Akos," Akos said.
"That is a fine Shotet name," Lazmet said. "I assume my wife chose it for you."
"I wouldn't know," Akos said. "I never knew her."
Lazmet came closer still, and then lunged. Akos was ready for it, had expected it since he saw the man against the wall. But he wasn't ready for how fast Lazmet was, grabbing him and twisting so hard Akos had no choice but to release the blade. Akos's training kicked in, and he feinted, pretending at weakness while swinging a fist at Lazmet's side. Lazmet grunted, his grip still hard around Akos's wrist, and Akos kicked him hard in the knee.
Lazmet let go of him then, stumbling a little. But not enough. He surged up and forward, slamming Akos into the wall with the currentblade at his throat. Akos froze. He was pretty sure Lazmet wouldn't kill him, at least not until he heard an explanation, but that was no guarantee that he wouldn't carve Akos up in the meantime.
"It's a shame you didn't know her. She was quite a woman," Lazmet said casually. He lifted his free hand and ran his fingertip down the side of Akos's nose, onto his cheekbone.
"You look like me," Lazmet said. "Tall, but not broad enough, with these accursed freckles. What color are your eyes?"
"Gray," Akos said, and he felt compelled to add "sir" to the end, though he wasn't sure why. Maybe it had to do with the knife at his throat and the substantial strength of the man pressing him to the wall. It seemed to hum in Lazmet's bones like a piece of the current itself.
"That would be my mother's side of the family," Lazmet said. "My uncle wrote love poems about my aunt's stormy eyes. My mother killed them both. But I'm sure you've heard that story already. I understand it's a popular one in Shotet."