Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(120)

I can’t watch you destroy yourself for someone who doesn’t want to be saved, Cyra had said the night before. He had shown her just how deep his insanity ran, and she had refused to go along with it. It was hard to hold it against her. Except he did. Had to.

The door up ahead didn’t look right in its stone-and-wood frame. It was made of black glass, opaque, and the locking mechanism was on the side. A keypad. Cyra had given them a list of combination options—all of them, she said, related to her mother in some way. Birthday, death day, anniversary, lucky numbers. Akos still couldn’t see Ryzek as a person who cared about his mother enough to lock his doors with her birthday.

But instead of trying even one of the combinations, Teka just started unscrewing the plate that covered the keypad. Her screwdriver was as delicate as a needle, polished and clean. She moved it like it was a sixth finger. Popped the cover off the keypad and set it down, then pinched one of the wires under it, eyes shut.

“Um . . . Teka?” There were footsteps coming from behind them somewhere.

“Shut up,” she snapped, pinching a different wire. She smiled a little. “Ah,” she said, and it was clear she wasn’t talking to them. “I see. Okay then, come along—”

All the lights went out except the emergency light above, which shone down on them from the corner, so bright it left spots on Akos’s eyelids. The glass door sprang open, revealing the glass floor that Akos remembered from his very worst memory: his brother forcing him to his knees in front of Cyra Noavek. The pale emergency lights glowed in the floor in the prison hallway, dividing it into grids.

Isae sprinted through the doorway, and ran right down the middle of the hallway, looking left and right every time she reached a new cell. Akos went in after her, scanning the space, but feeling separate from it at the same time. Isae was running back now, and he knew what she was going to say before she said it.

Somehow he felt like he’d known it all along, since he watched his mother flip that button in her fingers, since he realized how easy it would be for Sifa to manipulate them into the future she wanted, no matter the cost.

“She’s not here,” Isae said. Since he’d known her, she’d always been in total control, hadn’t even broken down when she found out Ori was kidnapped. Had never faltered, not even once. And now she was almost shrieking. Frantic. “She’s not here, Ori’s not here!”

He blinked, slow, like all the air around his head had turned to syrup. All the cells were empty. Ori was gone.





CHAPTER 35: CYRA


AFTER THE DOUBLE DOORS to the amphitheater opened, I knew it was time for me to move. I looked at Akos one last time, noting the red stain on his fingertips from preparing hushflower blends the night before, and the white line along his jaw where he had been scarred, and the natural gathering between his eyebrows that gave him an expression of perpetual concern. Then I slipped between the two people standing in front of me and stepped into the pack of soldiers who were about to receive their honor from my brother.

By the time one of them noticed me walking among them, we were inside the yawning tunnel to the amphitheater floor. But I had drawn my currentblade, so I wasn’t concerned.

“Hey!” one of the soldiers snapped. “You’re not supposed to—”

I seized him by the elbow and drew him close, touching the point of my knife to the bottom edge of his armor, right above his hip. I pressed it just enough for him to feel the sting of the point.

“Let me walk in,” I told him, loud enough for the others to hear. “I’ll let him go as soon as we’re inside.”

“Is that . . . ?” one of the others asked, leaning close to see my face.

I didn’t answer. Keeping my hand on his armor, not his skin, I pressed my captive soldier toward the end of the tunnel. None of the others moved to help him, and I credited my reputation for that—my reputation, and the ropes of shadow currently wrapped around my throat and wrists.

I squinted into the bright light at the end of the passageway, and the roar of a huge crowd filled my ears. The big, heavy doors closed behind me and locked, leaving only my hostage and me on the arena floor. The other soldiers had stayed back. Above us, the force field buzzed. It smelled sour as saltfruit, and familiar as the dust that rose into the air with every footstep I took.

I had bled here. I had made others bleed here.

Ryzek was on a wide platform, halfway up the stadium’s side. An amplifier swooped over his head and hovered. His mouth was open, like he had been ready to speak, but now all he could do was stare at me.

I shoved my hostage soldier aside, sheathed my currentblade, and pushed away the hood that shaded my face.

It took Ryzek only a moment to put on a mocking smile. “Well. Look at this. Cyra Noavek, back so soon? Did you miss us? Or is this how disgraced Shotet commit suicide?”

A chorus of laughter came from the crowd. The stadium was full of his most loyal supporters, the healthiest and wealthiest and best-fed people in Shotet. They would laugh at anything that resembled a joke.

One of the amplifiers—controlled by remote by someone in the amphitheater—floated over my head to catch my response. I watched it bob up and down like a swallow. I didn’t have much time before he sent someone after me; I had to be direct.

I removed each of my gloves, in turn, and unbuttoned the heavy cloak that made me sweat. Beneath it I wore my armor. My arms were bare, and a layer of makeup—applied by Teka that morning—disguised the bruises on my face, making it look like I had healed overnight. The silverskin on my throat and head shone. It itched in earnest now as it knitted together with my scalp.