"Why are you doing this?" he said.
"You are the only person I have ever met that he can't control with his currentgift," she said. "Which means you are the only person who can kill him."
Her eyes were wide. She seized his arm before he could lift the first mouthful to his lips.
"I need your word that you will be committed to this. No half measures," she said. "You will do as I say, exactly as I say, even if what I tell you to do horrifies you."
Akos was too desperate for food to really think it through, and besides, he didn't have many options.
"Yes," he said.
"Your word," she said, still not releasing him.
"I give you my word," he said. "I'll do whatever I have to do, to kill him."
She took her hand away.
"Good," she said, and she returned to staring at the fire while he stuffed his face.
CHAPTER 42: CYRA
THOSE WHO SOLD THEIR goods on carts along the main thoroughfare of Galo were packing up for the day. I stopped to watch the woman who sold sculptures of blown glass--small enough to sit on a palm--wrap them in fabric and set them in a box, lovingly. The storms would come soon, but I would not see another storm on Ogra.
I moved along, toward the ship park where Teka had left her transport vessel for safekeeping and repair. I passed a man waving smoked meat in my face, and sema selling seedlings that snapped and bit at whatever came near them. I would miss the bustle of this place, so like the streets of Voa, but without the feeling of dread I got there.
I had passed the last of the carts--piled with baskets of roasted nuts of all varieties, including some from other planets--when I saw a man crouched in the middle of the street, clutching at his own head. His shirt pulled taut across his shoulders, showing the bones of his spine. I didn't recognize him as Eijeh until I had already drawn closer. I recoiled at the recognition, bringing my hand back from his shoulder before I touched it.
"Hey," I said, instead. "Kereseth. What is it?"
He twitched at his name, but didn't answer, so I took hold of his shoulder, and jostled it a little.
"Eijeh," I said.
The name was still difficult for me to say, the only vowel-consonant pattern in Thuvhesit that I still struggled with. Though part of me knew Eijeh Kereseth was indeed my brother, I was equally certain that we could never be siblings to each other, because I couldn't even say his name.
He lifted his head, his eyes swimming with tears. That, at least, was a familiar sight. Eijeh had always been prone to tears, unlike his brother.
"What is it?" I asked him. "Are you ill?"
"No," he forced out. "No, we got lost. In the future. I knew I would--I knew it was the worst outcome, but I had to see, I had to know--"
"Come on," I said. "I'll take you to your mother. I'm sure she can help."
I couldn't touch him--not on Ogra, where my currentgift was stronger--but I grabbed a fistful of his shirt, using it to yank him up. He lurched to his feet, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
"You know," I said, "my mother used to tell me that those who go looking for pain--"
"Find it every time, I know," he said.
I frowned.
That was something only Ryzek would know.
Surely it had been in one of the memories Ryzek gave Eijeh.
As he wiped his eyes, I saw that his fingernails were bitten down to the beds, and his cuticles were chewed beyond repair. Also a habit of my brother's. Could he have learned a habit from memories?
I pinched his sleeve, and tugged him toward the temporary lodging I knew the Ograns had given him and Sifa. It was nicer than the one I shared with Teka, because it housed oracles, and it was right in the middle of town. I knew it by the flag--stitched with a red flower--that hung in the window, over the street.
There was a narrow, creaky door between two shops that led up to the place. It had been painted so many times that in the places where the paint peeled, it showed different colors--orange, red, green. The top layer was dark blue. I pushed through it and pulled Eijeh up the narrow steps to the apartment above.
I would have knocked, but the door was already open a crack. Sifa sat inside the living room--decorated with hanging fabrics, some thick and comfortable, others thin and gauzy. Her legs were crossed, her feet bare, her eyes closed. The very picture of a mystic.
My mother.
I hadn't spoken to her since the morning after I met with Vara. I had avoided her, in fact, pretending that knowing my origins had no impact whatsoever on who I was now. My mother was still Ylira Noavek, my father still Lazmet Noavek, my brother still Ryzek Noavek. Acknowledging the truth of my origins meant admitting they had power over me. And I could not admit that.
I wouldn't.
I rapped on the door, pushing it open. Sifa turned.
"What happened?" she said, coming to her feet. She was looking at Eijeh's tear-streaked face.
"I didn't--I didn't do what you told me," he said, wiping his eyes again. "I didn't ground myself. It was--"
Before they could get lost in their oracle oddities, as they always seemed to when they were together, I interrupted him.
"Are you Ryzek?" I said to Eijeh.
Eijeh and Sifa both stared at me, blank.
"When you first woke, you said 'we.' 'We' got lost in the future," I said.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
"Oh?" I stepped toward him. "So that wasn't my delusional, egocentric brother referring to himself in the royal 'we'?"
Eijeh started to shake his head.
"It's not my brother who's biting your nails, picking at your food, spinning your blade, remembering our mother?" I said.
I knew my voice was loud, maybe loud enough to hear through the walls, but I didn't care. I had seen my brother's body. I had shoved it into space. I had scrubbed his blood from the floor. I had buried my anger, my grief, my pity.
My currentshadows were now flowing down my arms, winding around my fingers, and slipping between the seams of my shirt.
"Ryzek?" I said.
"Not exactly," he replied.
"What, then?"
"We are a we," he said. "Some of us is Eijeh, and some of us is Ryzek."
"You've been . . ." I struggled to find the way to phrase it. ". . . partly Ryzek this entire time, and you said nothing?"
"After getting murdered?" he retorted. "Keep your currentgift away from me." The shadows were beneath my skin and on top of it, both, stretching toward him, itching to be shared. "And you wonder why people don't like you?"
"I have never once wondered that," I said. "And you--" I turned to Sifa. "You don't look surprised, as usual. You've known this whole time that a spy might be among us--"
"He has no interest in spying," Sifa said. "He just wants to be left alone."
"Not a cycle ago, he murdered Orieve Benesit to keep Ryzek in power," I said in a low voice. "And now you tell me he wants to be left alone?"
"As long as Ryzek's body existed, we were trapped where we were," Eijeh--Ryzek--whatever--replied, leaning close. "Without it we are free. Or we would be, if not for these damn visions."
"Those damn visions." I laughed. "You--Ryzek--tortured Eijeh by trading memories with him in order to get those visions, if I recall correctly. And now you hate them?" I laughed again. "That seems fitting."
"The visions are a curse," he said, looking uncomfortable. "They keep throwing us into other people's lives, other people's pain--"
My mind felt like an overstuffed toy, all the contents bursting the seams. It had never occurred to me that Ryzek--in whatever form he now found himself--might not want the power he held. But when I thought of the Ryzek I had known, the one who covered my ears in dark hallways, and carried me on his back through Shotet crowds on the way to the sojourn ship, it didn't seem so strange.
But that wasn't right. Neither Ryzek Noavek nor Eijeh Kereseth deserved to be free from the consequences of what they had done.
"We
ll, now it's not just the visions throwing you into other people's pain," I said. "Because you're coming with me to Urek."
"No, we're not."
I leaned in close, so close we were sharing breath, and lifted both hands, holding them over Eijeh's face. My currentshadows were so dense now that I had no trouble displaying my power in all its horror, the dark tendrils weaving over my skin and under it, staining me and enfolding me. Pain shrieked through every izit of me, but having a goal had always helped me to think through pain.
"Come with me," I said in a harsh whisper. "Or I will kill you, right now, with my bare hands. You may have some of Ryzek's learned skill, but you are still in the body of Eijeh Kereseth, and he is no match for me in a footrace or a fight or even a goddamn contest of wills."
"Threats," he gritted out. "I would say they are beneath you, but they never have been, have they?"
"I prefer to think of them as promises," I said, smiling, all teeth.
"Why do you even want us to go?"
"I am doing something that requires expertise in the habits of Lazmet Noavek," I said, "and your mind is a treasure trove."
He opened his mouth to object, and Sifa spoke over him.
"He will go," she said. "And so will I. Our time here is done."
I wanted to argue, but my logical side couldn't quite manage it. It wouldn't hurt to have not one, but two oracles on board to help with our assassination plan. Even if one contained my evil brother and the other was the biological mother who abandoned me.
It was ridiculous.
But so was much of the galaxy.
CHAPTER 43: AKOS
"THE MOST IMMINENT OF our problems is Vakrez," Yma said.
Akos lay on the floor by the fireplace, his guts grumbling. He had gotten faint earlier while walking back from the bathroom and, rather than getting up when Yma came in, had just flopped onto his back. She shoved another satchel of food into his hand, and he took it, not half as eager as he'd been the last time she came. He'd discovered that half a meal was almost worse than no meal at all.
Still, he ate it, this time pacing himself so he could savor every bite.
"You have no control over your currentgift?"
"No," Akos said. "I never really thought about it as something that could be controlled."
"It's possible," Yma said. "I was with Ryzek when he ordered your currentgift starved away. He wasn't sure that it would work, but it's always worth a try, if you want to disable someone's gift."
"It worked," Akos said. "That was the first time I felt Cyra's currentgift."
The thought brought a sharp, hot sensation to his throat. He swallowed it down.
"Well," Yma said. "That it was possible to turn yours off then suggests that you may be able to have more mastery over your gift now."
"Oh?" He rolled his head to the side. "And how's that?"
"I told you that my family was low status. Well, what the Noaveks seem to understand that others in the galaxy do not is that low-status people have just as much value. We have long histories, recorded lineages, recipes . . . and secrets." She rearranged her skirt as she crossed her legs the other way. The fire crackled.
"We have passed along some exercises that help a person learn to control their currentgift," she said. "For some, those exercises obviously don't work, but I can teach them to you, if you promise to practice. That way you can turn off your currentgift to let Vakrez read your heart, and turn it back on to resist Lazmet's control, when the time comes."
"What exactly does Lazmet want?" Akos said. "What did he tell you to do to me?"
"He calls me the Heart Bender," she said. "What I do is too abstract for words. But I can shift a person's loyalties, over time. I take the raw feeling that's there--your love for your family, or your friends, or your lover--and change it so it leads you to a different destination, so to speak."
"That," Akos said, closing his eyes, "is horrifying."
"He wants me to bend your heart toward him," she said. "Get up. You're wasting my time, and there isn't much of it to spare."
"Can't," Akos said. "Head hurts."
"I don't care if your head hurts!"
"You try half starving for days!" he snapped.
"I have," she bit out. "Not everyone grew up wealthy, Mr. Kereseth. Some of us are familiar with the weakness and aches that come from hunger. Now get. Up."
Akos couldn't say much to that. He sat up, darkness washing over his vision, and turned toward her.
"Better," she said. "We have to talk about your game of pretend. The next time you stand before him, he will expect to see some kind of shift. You must behave as if that's the case."
"How do I do that?"
"Pretend your resolve is weakening," she said. "It shouldn't be too difficult. Let him get something out of you. Some kind of information he wants, that doesn't compromise your mission. Tell me your mission."
"Why?" Akos furrowed his brow. "You know my goddamn mission."
"You should be telling yourself your mission every single moment of every day, so you don't cost us everything! Tell me your mission!"
"Kill him," Akos said. "My mission is to kill him."
"Is your mission to be loyal to your family, your friends, your nation?"
Akos glared at her. "No. It isn't."
"Good! Now, the exercise."
She directed Akos to a chair and told him to close his eyes. "Come up with an image for your currentgift," she said. "Yours separates you from the current, so you could think of it as a wall, or a plate of armor, something like that."
Akos had never much thought about the power that lived in his skin, mostly because it seemed less like the presence of power than the absence of it. But he tried to think of it as armor, the way she said. He remembered the first time he had dropped armor over his head--the weaker, synthetic kind, when he was first sent to train at the soldier camp. The weight had surprised him, but it had been comforting, in a way.
"Think of the details in what it looks like. What is it made of? Is your armor made of different plates stitched together, or is it one solid piece? What color is it?"
He felt stupid, picturing imaginary armor, picking colors like he was decorating a house instead of trying to pull off an assassination plot. But he did what she said, calling the armor dark blue because that was the color of his earned Shotet armor, and plated for the same reason. He thought of his real armor's scrapes and dings, the signs that he'd put it to good use. And Cyra's nimble fingers as she pulled the straps taut for the first time.
"What does it feel like? Is it smooth, or rough? Is it hard, or flexible? Is it cold, or warm?"
Akos wrinkled his nose at Yma, but didn't open his eyes. Smooth, hard, warm as the kutyah fur he had once worn to protect himself from the cold. The thought of that old coat, with his name written on the tag so he wouldn't mix it up with Cisi's, made him feel achy.
"Hold the most vivid imagining of your currentgift that you can. I'm going to put a hand on you in three . . . two . . . one."
Her cool fingers pressed to his wrist. He tried to think of his Shotet armor again, but it was hard, with his memories all jumbled, Cisi trying to stuff her long arms into a child's coat, Cyra holding his shoulder steady as she yanked at the armor straps.
"You're not focused," Yma said. "We don't have time to work on this, so you'll have to practice on your own. Try different images, and try a modicum of self-discipline."
"I'm disciplined," he snapped, opening his eyes.
"It's easy to be disciplined when you're well fed and healthy," she retorted. "Now you need to learn it when your brain is barely functioning. Try it again."
He did, this time imagining his coat of kutyah fur, in Thuvhe, which was another kind of armor against the cold. He felt its tickle against the back of his neck where the coat ended and his hat began. He tried this image twice more before Yma checked the delicate watch she wore around her wrist, and announced that she had to go.
"Practice," she told him. "Vakr
ez will come to you later, and you need to be able to pretend."
"I need to master this by later today?" he demanded.
"Why do you have this expectation that life will make concessions for you?" She scowled. "We are not promised ease, comfort, or fairness. Only pain and death."
With that, she left.
Her speeches are almost as encouraging as yours, he said, to the Cyra in his mind.
He tried to practice what Yma had taught him. He did. It was just that he couldn't get his mind to focus on one thing for more than a couple minutes at a time. So it wasn't long before he wavered.
He walked the periphery of the room, pausing to peer out the slats in the window coverings, which were the same dark wood as the floor. They were elegant bars for a prisoner, he thought.
He hadn't done much thinking about his dad, not since his death. Every time thoughts of him did come up, they were an intrusion, and he shifted his focus back to the greater mission of rescuing Eijeh as he had promised. But in this place, hungry and confused, he couldn't do much to keep them out. The way Aoseh had gestured--big and unwieldy, knocking things off the table or smacking Eijeh in the head by mistake. Or how he had smelled like burnt leaves and oil from the machinery in the iceflower fields. The one time he had shouted at Akos for a bad score on a test, then broke down into tears when he realized he had made his youngest son cry.
Aoseh had been big and messy with his emotions, and Akos had always known his dad loved him. He had wondered more than once, though, why he and Aoseh didn't seem to be anything alike. Akos held everything close, even things that didn't need to be secret. That instinct toward restraint, he realized, made him more like the Noaveks.
And Cyra--bursting at the seams with energy, opinions, even anger--was more like his dad.
Maybe that was why it had been so hard not to love her.
Vakrez came in, and Akos wasn't sure how long the commander had been there before he cleared his throat. Akos stood blinking at him for a few ticks, then sat heavily on the edge of the bed. He had meant to brainstorm a better image for his currentgift. He hadn't done it. Now Vakrez would find out that Akos was getting his strength back, and he would be suspicious.
Shit, Akos thought. Yma had suggested armor, a wall--a protective barrier between Akos and the world. None of those things had felt right, when she said them, but what else was there?