Carve the Mark

  Finally he got to the room where Eijeh was kept--triggering some sensor without meaning to, as Ryzek told him later. But at the time he hadn't known. He had just stuck his fingers in the lock that held Eijeh's door shut. Most doors these days were locked by the current, and his touch could unlock them. Wrist cuffs, too. That was how he had gotten free to kill Kalmev Radix in the feathergrass.

  Eijeh had stood by a barred window, high over the manor's back gate. There was feathergrass there, too, tufts swaying in the wind. Akos wondered what Eijeh saw there--their dad? He didn't know how feathergrass worked for other people, since it didn't do anything to him anymore.

  Eijeh had turned to him, taking him in bit by bit. It had only been two seasons since they had seen each other, but they had both changed--Akos was taller, thicker, and Eijeh had gone ashen and thin, curly hair matted in places. He wobbled a little, and Akos caught him by the elbows.

  "Akos," Eijeh had whispered. "I don't know what to do, I don't--"

  "It's okay," Akos said. "It's okay, I'll get us out of here, you don't need to do anything."

  "You . . . you killed that man, that man who was in our house--"

  "Yeah." Akos knew the man's name: Kalmev Radix, now just a scar on his arm.

  "Why did this happen?" Eijeh's voice broke. Akos's heart broke. "Why didn't Mom see it coming?"

  Akos didn't remind him that she probably had. No point to it, really.

  "Don't know," he had said. "But I'm getting you out if it kills me."

  Akos put his arm around his brother, holding him mostly upright as they walked out of the room together. His hand found the top of Eijeh's head as they ducked into the passage, to keep him from hitting it. Eijeh had heavy footsteps, and Akos had been sure that someone would hear them through the walls.

  "It's s'posed to be me saving you," Eijeh whispered at one point. Or the closest to a whisper as he could get; he'd always been terrible at sneaking.

  "Who says? Some kind of manual on brotherly conduct?"

  Eijeh had laughed. "You didn't read yours? Typical."

  Also laughing, Akos had pushed open the door at the end of the passage. Waiting for them in the kitchens, cracking his knuckles, was Vas Kuzar.

  A week after the sojourn ship launched and sailed for the currentstream, Akos went to the public training room to practice. He could have used the empty room above Cyra's quarters, but lately she'd taken to watching footage up there. Mostly it was of people from other planets fighting, but a week ago he caught her imitating an Othyrian dancer, all pointed toes and fingers fluttering. She'd gotten so grouchy with him after that, he didn't want to risk it again.

  He didn't even need to check the crumpled map Cyra had drawn for him on their second night. The training room was dim and near empty, just a few others lifting weights at the far end. Good, he thought. People knew him in Shotet as the kidnapped Thuvhesit, the one who Ryzek's Scourge couldn't hurt. Nobody gave him any grief--probably because they were afraid of Cyra--but he didn't enjoy the staring.

  It made his face red.

  He was trying to touch his toes--emphasis on trying--when he figured out someone was watching him. He couldn't say how, just that when he looked up, Jorek Kuzar was standing there.

  Jorek Kuzar, son of Suzao Kuzar.

  They had met only once, when Vas brought Jorek to Cyra's part of Noavek manor. His skinny brown arms were bare. Akos had taken to checking for marks whenever he met somebody, and Jorek had none. When he caught Akos staring, he rubbed at the side of his neck, leaving red streaks from his fingernails behind.

  "Need something?" Akos said, like there would be trouble if Jorek did.

  "Someone to spar with?" Jorek held up two practice knives just like the ones Cyra had, hard and synthetic.

  Akos looked him over. Did he really expect Akos to just . . . train with him? Him, the son of the man who had once pushed a boot sole into Akos's face?

  "I was just leaving," Akos said.

  Jorek cocked an eyebrow. "I know all of this"--he waved a hand over his slim torso--"is downright terrifying, but it's just for practice, Kereseth."

  Akos didn't buy that all Jorek really wanted was "someone to spar with," but he might as well figure out what the truth was. Besides, a person didn't choose their own blood.

  "Fine," Akos said.

  They walked to one of the practice arenas. A circle of paint defined the space, reflective, peeling off in places. The air was warm, thanks to the hot water moving through the pipes above, so Akos was already sweating. He took the knife Jorek held out to him.

  "I've never seen a person so wary of a fake fight," Jorek said, but Akos wasn't sparing any time for banter. He swiped, testing his opponent's speed, and Jorek jumped back, startled.

  Akos slipped under Jorek's first jab, and elbowed him in the back. Jorek stumbled forward, catching himself with his fingertips, and turned to strike again. This time Akos caught him by the elbow and dragged him sideways, heaving him to the ground, though not for long.

  Jorek bent low, catching Akos's stomach with the tip of the practice knife.

  "Not a good place to aim, Kuzar," Akos said. "In a real fight, I'd be wearing armor."

  "I go by 'Jorek,' not 'Kuzar.' You've earned armor?"

  "Yeah." Akos used his distraction against him, smacking the front of Jorek's throat with the flat of the weapon. Jorek choked, clapping his hands over his neck.

  "All right, all right," he gasped, showing a palm. "That answers that question."

  Akos backed up to the edge of the arena to put some space between them. "What question? About my armor?"

  "No. Damn, that sucked." He massaged his throat. "I came here wondering how good you'd gotten, training with Cyra. My father said you didn't know hand from foot when he first met you."

  Akos's anger was slow to come, like water turning to ice, but it had some heft to it, when it did. Like right then.

  "Your father--" he started, but Jorek interrupted.

  "Is the worst kind of man, yes. That's what I want to talk to you about."

  Akos flipped the practice knife in his hand, again and again, waiting for the right response to come, or for Jorek to keep going. Whatever he had to say, though, it didn't seem to come easy. Akos watched the ones lifting weights on the other end of the room. They weren't looking, didn't seem to be listening.

  "I know what my father did to you, and your family," Jorek said. "I also know what you did to one of the other men who was there." He nodded to Akos's marked arm. "And I want to ask you for something."

  As far as Akos knew, Jorek was a big disappointment to his family. Born to an elite Shotet name and working in maintenance. He was grease-streaked even then.

  "What, exactly?" Akos said. Another flip of the knife.

  "I want you to kill my father," Jorek said plainly.

  The knife clattered to the ground.

  The memory of Jorek's father was as close to him as two threads in a tapestry. Suzao Kuzar had been there when his dad's blood seeped into the living room floor. He had slapped the cuffs on Akos's wrists.

  "I'm not a fool, no matter what you people think of the Thuvhesit," Akos snapped, his cheeks going ruddy as he picked up the practice blade. "You think I'm going to just let you set me up for a fall?"

  "I'm as much at risk as you are," Jorek replied. "For all I know you could go whisper in Cyra Noavek's ear about what I just asked you, and it could get back to Ryzek, or my father. But I'm choosing to trust in your hatred. As you should trust in mine."

  "Trust in your hatred. For your own father," Akos said. "Why--why would you want this?"

  Jorek was a head shorter than Akos, and not even as wide. Smaller than his age. But his eyes were steady.

  "My mother is in danger," Jorek said. "Probably my sister, too. And as you've seen, I'm not skilled enough to fight him off myself."

  "So you, what? Leap straight to killing him? What is it with you Shotet?" Akos said in a low voice. "If your family really is in danger, can't you just find
a way to get your mom and sister out of here? You work in maintenance, and there are hundreds of floaters in the loading bay."

  "They wouldn't go. Besides, as long as he's alive, he's a danger to them. I don't want them to have to live that way, on the run, always scared," Jorek said, firm. "I'm not taking any unnecessary risks."

  "And there's no one else who can help you."

  "No one can force Suzao Kuzar to do anything he doesn't want to do." Jorek laughed. "Except Ryzek, and I'll give you one guess what the sovereign of Shotet would say to that request."

  Akos rubbed at the marks by his elbow, and thought of the savagery of them. He doesn't look like much, Osno's mother had said about him. He's nice enough, Osno had replied. Well, neither of them had known what he could do with a knife, had they?

  "You want me to kill a man," Akos said, if only to test it out in his own mind.

  "A man who aided in your kidnapping. Yes."

  "What, out of the goodness of my heart?" Akos shook his head and held out the practice knife handle-first for Jorek to take. "No."

  "In return," Jorek said, "I can offer you your freedom. As you said, there are hundreds of floaters in the loading bay. It would be a simple thing, to help you take one. To open the doors for you. To make sure someone on the nav deck was looking the other way."

  Freedom. He offered it like someone who didn't know what it meant, someone who had never had it taken away. Only, it didn't exist for Akos anymore, and hadn't since the day he found out his fate. Maybe even since he promised his dad he would get Eijeh home.

  So Akos shook his head again. "No deal."

  "You don't want to go home?"

  "I have unfinished business here. And I really should get back to it, so . . ."

  Jorek still wasn't taking the practice knife, so Akos let it fall between them and started toward the door. He felt for Jorek's mother, maybe even for Jorek himself, but he had enough family trouble of his own, and these marks weren't getting any easier to bear.

  "Then what about that brother of yours?" Jorek said. "The one who inhales when Ryzek exhales?"

  Akos stopped, grinding his teeth. It's your own fault, he told himself. You're the one who hinted at "unfinished business." Somehow knowing that didn't make it any easier.

  "I can get him out," Jorek said. "Get him home, where they can fix whatever's addled his brain."

  He thought of the almost-escape again, of Eijeh's broken voice asking him, "Why did this happen?" His sunken cheeks, his sallow skin. He was disappearing, day by day, season by season. Soon there wouldn't be much left to rescue.

  "Okay." It came out like a whisper, not how he meant it.

  "Okay?" Jorek sounded a little breathless. "You mean you'll do it?"

  Akos forced out the word. "Yes."

  For Eijeh, the answer was always yes.

  They didn't grip hands, like two Thuvhesits might have, to settle a deal. Here, just saying the words in the language the Shotet held sacred was enough.

  That there was a guard stationed at the end of Cyra's hallway didn't make much sense to Akos. No one got the better of Cyra in a fight. Even the guard seemed to agree--he didn't so much as check Akos for weapons when he walked past.

  Cyra was hunched in front of the stove, a pot at her feet and water pooled on the floor. There were curved dents in her palms--fingernail marks, from too-tight fists--and dark currentstreaks everywhere Akos could see. He ran to her, slipping a little on the wet floor.

  Akos took up her wrists, and the streaks disappeared, like a river flowing backward to its source. He felt nothing, as always. He often heard people talking about the hum of the current, the places and times it waned, but that was just a memory for him. Not even a clear one.

  Her skin felt hot in his hands. Her eyes lifted to his. Akos had figured out early that she didn't look "upset" the way other people did--she either looked angry or she didn't. But now that he knew her better, he could see the sadness showing through the cracks in the armor.

  "Thinking about Lety?" he said, shifting his grip a little so he held her hands instead, first two fingers fitting into the cleft of her thumb.

  "I just dropped it." She nodded to the pot. "That's all."

  That's never "all," he thought, but he didn't press. On an impulse he ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it down. It was thick, and curled, sometimes tempting him to twist it around his fingers for no particular reason.

  The light touch brought a stab of guilt along with it. He wasn't supposed to do things like that--wasn't supposed to march toward his own fate instead of being dragged. Back in Thuvhe, all who met eyes with him now would see a traitor. He couldn't let them be right.

  Sometimes, though, he felt Cyra's pain like it was his own, and he couldn't help but dull it for the both of them.

  Cyra turned her hand in his, so her fingertips rested on his palm. Her touch was soft, curious. Then she pressed him back. Away.

  "You're early," she said, and she grabbed a cloth to dry the floor. The water was starting to seep through the soles of Akos's shoes. She was shadowy again, and flinching from the pain of it, but if she didn't want his help, he wasn't going to force it on her.

  "Yeah," he said. "I ran into Jorek Kuzar."

  "What did he want?" She stepped on the cloth to soak up more water.

  "Cyra?"

  She tossed the wet cloth into the sink. "Yes?"

  "How would I go about killing Suzao Kuzar?"

  Cyra puckered her lips, the way she always did when she was thinking something over. It was unsettling, for him to ask that question like it was normal. For her to react like it was.

  He was very, very far from home.

  "It would have to be in the arena to be legal, as you know," she said. "And you would want it to be legal, or you would end up dead. Arena challenges are banned from when the ship leaves the atmosphere until after the scavenge, which means you have to wait until after. Another part of our religious legacy." She quirked her eyebrows. "But you don't have the status to challenge Suzao even then, so you have to provoke him to challenge you, instead."

  It was almost like she'd thought about it before, only he knew she hadn't. It was times like this that he understood why everybody was scared of her. Or why they ought to be, even without her currentgift.

  "Could I beat him once we were in the arena?"

  "He's a good fighter, but not excellent," she said. "You could probably master him with skill alone, but your true advantage is that he still thinks of you as the child you once were."

  Akos nodded. "So. I should let him think I'm still that way."

  "Yes."

  She put the now-empty pot under the faucet to fill it again. Akos was wary of Cyra's cooking; she almost always burned food when she tried, filling the little room with smoke.

  "Make sure this is really what you want to do," she said. "I don't want to see you become like me."

  She didn't say it like she wanted him to comfort her, or debate her. She said it with absolute conviction, like her belief in her own monstrousness was a religion, and maybe it was the closest thing to religion she had.

  "You think I go sour that easy?" Akos said, trying out the low-class Shotet diction he'd heard in the soldiers' camp. It didn't sound half bad.

  She pulled her hair back and tied it with the string she wore around her bare wrist. Her eyes found his again. "I think everyone goes 'sour that easy.'"

  Akos almost laughed at how awkward it sounded when she said it.

  "You know," he said, "the condition of sourness--or monstrousness, as you might call it--doesn't have to be permanent."

  She looked like she was chewing on the idea. Had it ever even occurred to her before?

  "Let me cook, okay?" He took the pot from her. The water sloshed, spilling on his shoes. "I guarantee I won't set anything on fire."

  "That happened one time," she said. "I'm not a walking, talking hazard."

  Like so much of what she said about herself, it was both a joke and not a joke.
/>
  "I know you're not," he said seriously. Then he added, "That's why you're going to chop the saltfruit for me."

  She looked thoughtful still--a weird expression for a face that frowned so easily--as she took the saltfruit from the coldbox in the corner and settled herself at the counter to cut it up.

  CHAPTER 16: CYRA

  MY QUARTERS WERE FAR away from everything except the engine rooms, by design, so it was a long walk from Ryzek's office. He had called me in to give me my sojourn itinerary: I would join him and some of the other elites of Shotet in a pre-scavenge social gathering, to help him politick with the leaders of Pitha. I agreed to the plan because it required only my ability to pretend, not my currentgift.

  As the cynical Examiner had predicted when Akos and I visited the room of planets, Ryzek had set our sojourn destination as Pitha, the water planet, known for its innovative technologies in weather resistance. If the rumors about Pitha's secret store of advanced weaponry were true, Eijeh Kereseth had surely confirmed them, now that he was warped by Ryzek's memories. And if Eijeh helped Ryzek find some of the Assembly's most powerful weapons, it would be simple for my brother to wage war against Thuvhe, to conquer our planet, as he had always intended.

  I was still only halfway to my rooms when all the lights went out. Everything was dark. The distant hum from the ship's power control center was gone.

  I heard a tapping sound, in a pattern. One, three, one. One, three, one.

  I turned, my back to the wall.

  One, three, one.

  The currentshadows raced up my arms and over my shoulders. As the strips of emergency light at my feet began to glow, I saw a body hurtling toward me, and I bent, driving my elbow at whatever flesh it could find. I swore as my elbow hit armor, and turned on light feet, the dances I had practiced for enjoyment shifting into instinct. I drew my currentblade, then slammed into my attacker, pressing her to the wall with my blade to her throat. Her own knife clattered to the floor between her feet.

  She wore a mask with one eye stitched closed. It covered her face from forehead to chin. A hood, made of a heavy material, shrouded her head. She was a head shorter than I was, and her armor was earned, made from the skin of an Armored One.

  She was whimpering at my touch.

  "Who are you?" I said.

  The backup announcer on the ship crackled to life as soon as I finished the question. It was old, a relic from our early sojourns, and it made voices sound tinny and warped.