The Fates Divide

  Instead of drugging himself to oblivion, though, he just took a dried hushflower petal from his pocket and stuck it between his cheek and his teeth. It wouldn't knock him out, but it would dull him some. Better than nothing.

  Akos was coasting on hushflower an hour later when Cisi came back.

  "It's done," she said. "She's out."

  "All right," he said. "Then let's get her into the escape pod."

  "I'm going with her," Cisi said. "If Mom's right, and we're headed into war--"

  "Mom's right."

  "Yeah," Cisi said. "Well, in that case, whoever's against Isae is against Thuvhe. So I'm going to stick with my chancellor."

  Akos nodded.

  "I take it you won't be," Cisi said.

  "Fated traitor, remember?" he said.

  "Akos." She crouched in front of him. At some point he had sat down on the bench, which was hard and cold and smelled like disinfectant. Cisi rested an arm on his knee. She had tied her hair back, messy, and a chunk of curls had come loose, falling around her face. She was pretty, his sister, her face a shade of cool brown that reminded him of Trellan pottery. A lot like Cyra's, and Eijeh's, and Jorek's. Familiar.

  "You don't have to do anything you don't want to, just because Mom raised us fate-faithful and obedient to the oracles and all that," Cisi said. "You're a Thuvhesit. You should come with me. Leave everyone else to their war, and we'll go home and wait it out. No one needs us here."

  He'd thought about it. He was as torn now as he'd ever been, and not just because of his fate. When he came out of the daze of the hushflower, he would remember how nice it felt to laugh with Cyra earlier that day, and how warm she was, pressed up against him. And he would remember that as much as he wanted to just be in his house again, walk up the creaky stairs and stoke the burnstones in the courtyard and send flour up into the air as he kneaded the bread, he had to live in the real world. In the real world, Eijeh was broken, Akos spoke Shotet, and his fate was still his fate.

  "Suffer the fate," he said. "For all else is delusion."

  Cisi sighed. "Thought you might say that. Sometimes delusion's nice, though."

  "Stay safe, okay?" he said, taking her hand. "I hope you know I don't want to leave you again. It's pretty much the last thing I want."

  "I know." She squeezed his thumb. "I still have faith, you know. That one day you'll come home, and Eijeh will be better, and Mom will stop with the oracle bullshit, and we can cobble together something again."

  "Yeah." He tried to smile for her. He might have halfway accomplished it.

  She helped him get Isae settled in the escape pod, and Teka told her how to send out a distress signal so the pod would be picked up by Assembly "goons," as Teka called them. Then Cisi kissed their mom good-bye, and wrapped her arms tight around Akos's middle until her warmth was pushed all the way through him.

  "You're so damn tall," she said, softly, as she pulled away. "Who told you that you could be so much taller than me?"

  "I did it just to spite you," he replied with a grin.

  Then she got in the pod, and closed the doors. And he didn't know when he would ever see her again.

  Teka tripped up to the captain's chair on the nav deck and pried the cover of the control panel off with a wedge tool she kept on her belt. She did it while whistling.

  "What are you doing?" Cyra asked. "Now's not really the time to take apart our ship."

  "First, this is my ship, not 'ours,'" Teka said with a roll of her blue eye. "I designed most of the features that have kept us alive so far. Second, do you really still want to go to Assembly Headquarters?"

  "No." Cyra sat in the first officer's chair, to Teka's right. "The last time I went there, I overheard the representative from Trella call my mother a piece of filth. She didn't think I could understand her, even though she was speaking Othyrian."

  "Figures." Teka made a scoffing sound in the back of her throat as she pulled out a handful of wires from the control panel, then ran her fingers down them like she was petting an animal. She reached under the wires, to a part of the control panel Akos couldn't see, so far her entire arm disappeared. A projection of coordinates flashed up ahead, glowing right across the currentstream in their sights. The ship's nose--Akos was sure there was a technical name for it, but he didn't know it, so he called it a "nose"--drifted so they were moving toward the currentstream instead of away.

  "You going to tell us where we're headed?" Akos said, stepping up to the nav deck. The control panel was lit up in all different colors, with levers and buttons and switches everywhere. If Teka had spread her arms wide, she still wouldn't have been able to reach all of them from where she sat.

  "I guess I can, since we're all stuck in this together now," Teka said. She gathered her bright hair on top of her head, and tied it with a thick band she wore around her wrist. Swimming in a technician's coveralls, with her legs folded up beneath her on the captain's chair, she looked like a kid playing pretend. "We're going to the exile colony. Which is on Ogra."

  Ogra. The "shadow planet," people called it. It was rare to meet an Ogran, let alone fly a ship in sight of Ogra. It was as far from Thuvhe as any planet could be without leaving the safe band of currentstream that encircled the solar system. No amount of surveillance could poke through its dense, dark atmosphere, and it was a wonder they could get any signal from the news feed. They never fed any stories into it, either, so almost no one had ever seen the planet's surface, even in images.

  Cyra's eyes, of course, lit up at the information. "Ogra? But how do you communicate with them?"

  "The easiest way to transmit messages without the government listening in is through people," Teka said. "That's why my mom was on board the sojourn ship--to represent the exiles' interests among the renegades. We were trying to work together. Anyway, the exile colony is a good place for us to regroup, figure out what's going on back in Voa."

  "I have a guess," Akos said, crossing his arms. "Chaos."

  "And then more chaos," Teka said with a sage nod. "With a short break in between. For chaos, of course."

  He couldn't imagine what Voa looked like now that--the Shotet believed--Ryzek Noavek had been assassinated by his younger sister right in front of them. That was how it had looked, anyway, when Cyra appeared to cut her brother in the arena, waiting for the sleeping elixir she had arranged for him to drink that morning to kick in and knock him flat. The standing army might have taken over, under the leadership of Vakrez Noavek, Ryzek's older cousin, or those who lived on the outer edges of the city might have taken to the streets to fill the power vacuum. Either way, Akos imagined streets full of broken glass and blood spatter and ripped paper floating in the wind.

  Cyra tipped her forehead into her hands. "And Lazmet," she said.

  Teka's eyebrows popped up. "What?"

  "Before Ryzek died . . ." Cyra gestured vaguely toward the other end of the ship, where Ryzek had met his end. "He told me my father is still alive."

  Cyra didn't talk about Lazmet much, so all Akos knew was from history class, as a kid, and rumor, not that Thuvhesit rumors about the Shotet had proved to be all that accurate. The Noaveks hadn't been in power in Shotet before the oracles spoke the fates of the family Noavek for the first time, just two generations ago. When Lazmet's mother came of age, she had taken the throne by force, using her fate as justification for the coup. And later, when she had been sitting on the throne for at least ten seasons, she had killed off all her siblings so her own children would be guaranteed power. That was the kind of family Lazmet had come from, and he had been, by all accounts, every izit as brutal as his mother.

  "Oh, honestly." Teka groaned. "Is it some kind of rule of the universe that at least one Noavek asshole has to be alive at any given time, or what?"

  Cyra swiveled to face her. "What am I, then? Not alive?"

  "Not an asshole," Teka replied. "Bicker with me much more and I'll change my mind."

  Cyra looked faintly pleased. She wasn't used to people not conside
ring her just another Noavek, Akos assumed.

  "Whatever the rules of the universe pertaining to Noaveks," she said, "I don't know how Lazmet is still alive, just that Ryzek didn't appear to be lying when he told me. He wasn't trying to get anything in return, he was just . . . warning me, maybe."

  Teka snorted. "Because, what, Ryzek loves doing favors?"

  "Because he was scared of your dad," Akos said. When Cyra did talk about Ryzek, she always talked about how afraid he was. What could scare a man like Ryzek more than the man who had made him the way he was? "Right? He's more terrified than anyone. Or he was, anyway."

  Cyra nodded.

  "If Lazmet is alive . . ." Her eyes fluttered closed. "That needs to be corrected. As soon as possible."

  That needs to be corrected. Like a math problem or a technical error. Akos didn't know how you could talk about your own dad that way. It rattled him more than it would have if Cyra had seemed scared. She couldn't even talk about him like he was a person. What had she seen him do, to make her talk about him that way?

  "One problem at a time," Teka said, a little more gently than usual.

  Akos cleared his throat. "Yeah, first let's survive getting through Ogra's atmosphere. Then we can assassinate the most powerful man in Shotet history."

  Cyra opened her eyes, and laughed.

  "Settle in for a long ride," Teka says. "We're bound for Ogra."

  CHAPTER 5: CISI

  THE ESCAPE POD IS only just big enough for the two of us pressed together. As it is, my shoulder is still jammed up against the glass wall. I fumble on the little control panel for the switch that activates the distress signal. It's lit up pink, and it's one of only three switches in front of me, so it's not hard to find. I flip it up and hear a high-pitched whistling, which means the signal is transmitting, Teka said. Now all that's left to do is wait for Isae to wake up, and try not to panic.

  Being on a little transport vessel like the one we just left is nerve-wracking enough for a Hessa girl who's only left the planet a couple times, but the escape pod is another thing. It's more window than floor, the clear glass curving up over my head and all the way down to my toes. I don't feel like I'm looking out at space so much as getting swallowed by it. I can't think about it or I'll panic.

  I hope Isae wakes up soon.

  She's limp on the bench seat next to me, and her body is framed by a blackness so complete, she really does look like the only thing in the entire universe. I've known her only a couple years, since Ori disappeared to take care of her after her face got cut with a Shotet knife. She grew up far away from Thuvhe, on a transporter ship that took goods from one end of the galaxy to the other, whatever they could haul.

  It was a good thing Ori had been around to force us to talk to each other, in the beginning. I might never have talked to her otherwise. She was intimidating even without the title, tall and slim and beautiful, scars or no scars, and radiating capability like a machine.

  I don't know how long it takes for her eyes to open. She drifts for a while, staring all bleary at what's in front of us, which is flat nothing in between the far-off wink of stars. Then she blinks at me.

  "Cee?" she says. "Where are we?"

  "We're in an escape pod, waiting for the Assembly to come get us," I say.

  "An escape pod?" She frowns. "What did we need to escape from?"

  "I think it's more that they wanted to escape from us," I say.

  "Did you drug me?" She rubs her eyes with a fist, first the left one and then the right. "You gave me that tea."

  "I didn't know there was anything in it." I'm a good liar, and I don't think twice. She wouldn't accept the truth--that I wanted to get her away from the rest of my family just as much as Akos did. Mom said Isae was going to try to kill Eijeh the same way she did Ryzek, and I wasn't willing to risk it. I don't want to lose Eijeh again, no matter how warped he is now. "Mom warned them you might try to hurt Eijeh, too."

  Isae curses. "Oracles! It's a wonder we even let them have citizenship, with all the loyalty your mother shows her own chancellor."

  I have nothing to say to that. She's frustrating, but she's my mother.

  I continue, "They put you in the pod, and I told them I was going with you."

  The scars that cross her face stay stiff while her brow furrows. She rubs them, sometimes, when she thinks no one is looking. She says it helps the scar tissue to stretch out, so one day she'll be able to move those parts of her face again. That's what the doctor said, anyway. I once asked her why she just let the scars form instead of getting reconstructive surgery on Othyr. It's not like she didn't have the resources. She told me she didn't want to get rid of them, that she liked them.

  "Why?" she finally says after a long pause. "They're your family. Eijeh's your brother. Why would you come with me?"

  Giving an honest answer isn't as easy as people say. There are so many answers to her question, all of them true. She's my chancellor, and I'm not going to oppose Thuvhe, like my brother is. I care about her, as a friend, as . . . whatever else we are to each other. I'm worried about the wild grief I saw in her right before she killed Ryzek Noavek, and she needs help to do what's right from now on rather than what satisfies her thirst for revenge. The list goes on, and the answer I choose is as much about what I want her to hear as it is about the truth.

  "You asked me if you could trust me," I finally say. "Well, you can. I'm with you, no matter what. Okay?"

  "I thought, after what you saw me do . . ." I think of the knife she used to kill Ryzek dropping to the floor, and push the memory away. "I thought you wouldn't want to be anywhere near me."

  What she did to Ryzek didn't disgust me, it worried me. I don't care that he's dead, but I do care that she was able to kill him. I don't try to explain that to her, though.

  "He killed Ori," I say.

  "So did your brother," she whispers. "It was both of them, Cisi. There's something wrong with Eijeh. I saw it in Ryzek's head, right before--"

  She chokes before she can finish her sentence.

  "I know." I grab her hand and hold on tight. "I know."

  She starts to cry. At first it's dignified, but then the beast of grief takes over, and she claws at my arms to get away from it, sobbing. But I know, I know as well as anybody that there's no escape. Grief is absolute.

  "I got you," I say, rubbing circles on her back. "I got you."

  She stops scratching after a while, stops sobbing. Just leans her face into my shoulder.

  "What did you do?" she asks, voice muffled by my shirt. "After your dad died, after your brothers . . ."

  "I . . . I just did things, for a long time. I ate, showered, worked, studied. But I wasn't really there, or at least, I didn't feel like I was. But . . . it was like when feeling comes back to a limb that's gone numb. It comes back in little prickles, little pieces at a time."

  She lifts her head to look at me.

  "I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I was about to do. I'm sorry I asked you to come see . . . that," she says. "I needed a witness, just in case it went wrong, and you were the only one I trusted."

  I sigh, and push her hair behind her ears. "I know."

  "Would you have stopped me, if you knew?"

  I purse my lips. The real answer is that I don't know, but that's not the one I want to give her, not the one that will make her trust me. And she has to trust me, if I'm going to do any good in the war that's coming.

  "No," I say. "I know you only do what you have to."

  It was true. But it didn't mean I wasn't worried about how simple it had been to her, and the distant look in her eyes as she led me to that storage room, and the perfect hesitation she had shown Ryzek as she waited for just the right moment to stab him.

  "They're not going to take our planet," she says to me, in a dark whisper. "I won't let them."

  "Good," I say.

  She takes my hand. We've held hands before, but that doesn't mean it doesn't still send a thrill through me when her skin slides over mi
ne. She is still so capable. Smooth and strong. I want to kiss her, but this isn't the time, not when there's still Ryzek's blood drying under her fingernails.

  So I just let the touch of her hand be enough, and we stare out together at nothingness.

  CHAPTER 6: AKOS

  AKOS FUMBLED WITH THE chain around his neck. The ring of Jorek and Ara's family was a now-familiar weight right in the hollow of his throat. When he wore armor it made an imprint in his skin, like a brand. As if the mark on his arm wasn't enough to remind him of what he had done to Suzao Kuzar, Jorek's father and Ara's violent husband.

  He wasn't sure why he thought of killing Suzao in the arena now, standing outside his brother's cell. It was time to decide if Eijeh ought to stay drugged--for how long? Until they got to Ogra? After that?--or if, now that Ryzek was dead, it was safe to risk Eijeh wandering around the ship clearheaded. Cyra and Teka had left the decision up to him and his mom.

  His mom was right next to him, her head reaching just a few izits higher than his shoulder. Hair loose and messy around her shoulders, curled into knots. Sifa hadn't been much of anywhere since Ryzek died, holing up in the belly of the ship to whisper the future to herself, barefoot, pacing. Cyra and Teka had been alarmed, but he told them that's just how oracles were. Or at least, that was how his mother the oracle was. Sometimes sharp as a knife, sometimes half outside her own body, her own time.

  "Eijeh's not how you remember him," he said to her. It was a useless warning. She knew it already, for one thing, and for another, she had probably seen him just the way he was now, and a hundred other ways besides.

  Still, "I know" was all she said.

  Akos tapped the door with his knuckles, then unlocked it with the key Teka had given him and walked in.

  Eijeh sat cross-legged on the thin mattress they had thrown into the corner of the cell, an empty tray next to him with the dregs of soup left in a bowl on top of it. When he saw them he scrambled to his feet, hands held out like he might put them in fists and start pummeling. He was wan and red-eyed and shaky.

  "What happened?" he said, eyes skirting Akos's. "W--I felt something. What happened?"