Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(103)

“It seemed like a good fit for my gift,” Cisi said. Ease was her gift—always had been, even before her currentgift came around—but it wasn’t her only one, he could see that. She had steady hands and an even temper and a sharp mind. More than just a sweet person with a good disposition, as if anyone was just that.

When the whole wound was clear of the useless stitching cloth, she poured antiseptic all over it, dabbing at the edges to get rid of dried blood.

“I think it’s time to apply the silverskin,” Cisi said, straightening. “It acts like a living creature; you just have to place it properly and it adheres permanently to the flesh. You’ll be fine as long as you can keep your hands steady. Okay? I’ll cut the strips now.”

Silverskin was another innovation from Othyr, a sterile, synthetic substance that, as Cisi said, almost seemed to be alive. It was used to replace skin that had been damaged beyond repair, mostly burns. It got its name because of its color and texture—it was smooth and had a silver sheen to it. Once put in place, it was permanent.

Cisi cut the strips with care, one for the section of skin just above Cyra’s ear, one for behind it, and one for her throat. After a beat or two of thought, she went back to make the edges of silverskin curved. Like wind through snow, like iceflower petals.

Akos put on gloves, so the silverskin wouldn’t stick to his hands instead of her, and Cisi handed the first strip to him. It was heavy, and cold to the touch, not as slippery as he’d imagined it to be. She helped him position his hands over Cyra’s head.

“Lower it straight down,” she said, and he did. He didn’t have to press it in place; the silverskin rippled like water and buried itself in Cyra’s scalp the moment it found flesh.

With Cisi’s clear voice coaching him, Akos placed the rest of the silverskin. Each piece grew together right away, no seams to speak of between the different strips.

He acted as Cisi’s hands for the rest of Cyra’s wounds, too, the gashes on her arm and side covered with stitching cloth, the bruises treated with a healing salve. It didn’t take long. Mostly they would heal on their own, and the real trick for her would be forgetting how she got them. There was no stitching cloth for the mind’s wounds, real though they were.

“That’s it,” Cisi said, stripping the gloves from her small hands. “Now you just wait for her to wake up. She’ll need to rest, but she should be fine now that she’s not losing any more blood.”

“Thank you,” Akos said.

“Never thought I would be trying to heal Cyra Noavek,” Cisi said. “On a transport vessel full of Shotet, no less.” She glanced at him. “I can see why you like her, you know.”

“I feel like . . .” Akos sighed, and sat down at the table next to Cyra’s head. “Like I just walked right into my fate without meaning to.”

“Well,” Cisi said, “if you are destined to serve the Noavek family, I think you could do worse than the woman who was willing to endure all this just to get you home.”

“So you don’t think I’m a traitor?”

“That sort of depends on what she stands for, doesn’t it?” Cisi said. She touched his shoulder. “I’m going to find Isae, okay?”

“Sure.”

“What’s that look for?”

He was suppressing a smile. “Nothing.”

Akos’s memories of the interrogation were hazy, and the edges of them, creeping into his mind, were bad enough on their own, without any of the details to make them more real. Still, he let the memory of Cyra in.

She had looked like a corpse, with the currentshadows making her face look pitted and rotted away. And she had been screaming so loud, every izit of her resisting; she didn’t want to hurt him. If he hadn’t told Ryzek what he knew about Isae and Ori, maybe she had, just to keep from killing Akos. Not like he would have blamed her.

She woke up on the galley table with a twitch and a moan. Then reached for him, touching his jaw with her fingertips.

“Am I sealed in your memory now?” she said, sluggish. “As someone who hurt you?” The words caught in her throat like she was gagging on them. “The sounds you made, I can’t forget—”

She was crying. Half-drunk, too, from the painkiller, but still, crying.

He didn’t remember the sounds he’d made when she touched him—when Vas forced her to touch him, that was, torturing them both. But he knew she had felt everything he had felt. That was how her gift worked, sending pain both ways.

“No, no,” Akos said. “What he did, he did to both of us.”

Her hand came to rest against his sternum, like she was going to push him away, and then she didn’t. She brushed her fingers over his collarbone, and even through his shirt he felt how warm she was.

“But now you know what I’ve done,” she said, staring at her hand, at his chest, anywhere but his face. “Before, you had only seen me do it to other people, but now you know the kind of pain I have caused people, so many people, just because I was too much of a coward to stand up to him.” She scowled, and lifted her hand. “Getting you out was the one good thing I’ve ever done, and now it’s not even worth anything, because here you are again, you . . . you idiot!”

She clutched at her side, wincing. She was crying again.