Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(124)

My mouth was dry. I couldn’t swallow. No, it was too late for Orieve Benesit. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t save her without sacrificing us all. Including the true chancellor of Thuvhe.

Ryzek swayed, and I stepped forward, weapon outstretched, to meet him as he fell. I thrust the knife, and his weight dragged us both to the ground.

High above us, Eijeh Kereseth—curly haired, wide-eyed, and gaunt—drove the currentblade into Orieve Benesit’s gut.

And twisted it.





CHAPTER 38: AKOS


AS ORI COLLAPSED, AKOS heard a bloodcurdling scream. Ryzek fell on his side, his arms crossed in front of his body and his head limp against the dirt. Cyra got to her feet, knife in hand. She had done it. She had killed her brother, and the last hope for Eijeh’s restoration.

Isae was shoving her way through the crowd as everything turned to chaos. She was clawing, her teeth gritted, fighting her way to the platform. Akos hoisted his body over the arena barrier and sprinted across the dirt, past Cyra and Ryzek, over the other barrier and into the crowd again. People elbowed and kicked and pressed, and his fingernails came away red with somebody else’s blood, and he didn’t care.

Up on the platform, Ori grabbed Eijeh’s arms to hold herself up. Blood sputtered from her lips as she tried to breathe. Eijeh hunched over her, holding her elbows, and together they dropped to the ground. Ori’s brow wrinkled, and Akos watched, not wanting to interrupt.

“Bye, Eij,” she said, her voice caught by the hovering amplifier.

Akos bent low and barreled into the last of the crowd. Children screamed someplace far away. A woman moaned as someone trod on her—she couldn’t get up, so people were just running over her.

When Isae got to Eijeh and Ori, she threw Akos’s brother back with a roar. In half a tick she was on top of him, her hands around Eijeh’s throat. And he didn’t seem to be moving, even though she was choking him to death.

Akos didn’t move right away, he just watched her do it. Eijeh had killed Ori. Maybe he deserved to die.

“Isae,” Akos said with a croak. “Stop.”

Ori was reaching for her sister, fingers straining at the empty space. It was only when Isae saw it that she let go of Eijeh and crouched next to her sister instead. Ori held Isae’s hand tight to her chest, and their eyes met.

A small smile. Then gone.

Akos pushed his way onto the platform, where Isae was bent over Ori’s body. Ori’s dark clothes were wet with blood. Isae didn’t cry, or scream, or shake. Behind her, Eijeh was—for some reason—lying still, eyes closed.

A shadow passed over them. The renegade ship, glowing orange, yellow, and red, coming to their rescue, piloted by Jyo and Sifa.

Teka was already crouched over the control panel on the right side of the platform. She was trying to pry the screen away from the rest of the mechanism, but her hand was trembling around the screwdriver, so she kept losing the screws. Finally Akos drew his knife and forced it between screen and mechanism, pressing them apart. Teka nodded her approval, and jammed her fingers inside to disable the force field.

There was a flicker of bright white as the force field winked out. The transport ship sank into the amphitheater, and hovered as low as it could go without crushing the seats. The floor hatch opened over them, and the steps came down.

“Isae!” Akos shouted. “We have to go!”

Isae gave him a look that was like poison. She put her hands under Ori’s arms and tried to drag her toward the ship. Akos went to Ori’s legs, to help, but Isae snapped, “Hands off her!” so he stepped back. By that time, Cisi had made it to the platform, and Isae didn’t yell at her. Together they carried Ori’s body up the steps to the ship.

Akos turned to Eijeh, who hadn’t moved from where he was when Isae tackled him. When Akos shook his older brother’s shoulder, he still didn’t move, so Akos touched his fingers to Eijeh’s throat to make sure he was still alive. And he was. Strong pulse. Strong breaths.

“Akos!” Cyra shouted from the arena floor. She was still next to Ryzek’s body, knife in hand.

“Leave it!” he shouted back. Why not just leave his body to carrion birds and Noavek loyalists?

“No!” Cyra said, her eyes wide, urgent. “I can’t!”

She held up the knife. He hadn’t looked close before; all he had seen was Ryzek’s body, limp, and Cyra standing over it with blade drawn. But when she gestured toward the weapon, he saw that the blade was clean. She hadn’t stabbed Ryzek. She hadn’t stabbed him, so why had he collapsed?

Akos remembered Suzao’s face hitting his soup in the cafeteria, and the guard outside the amphitheater door, going limp, and it was obvious: Cyra had drugged Ryzek.

Even though he knew Cyra was more than Ryzek’s Scourge, or even Ryzek’s Executioner—even though he had seen the better parts of her, getting stronger in the worst environment possible, like the hushflower that bloomed in the Deadening time—somehow, he’d never considered this possibility:

Cyra had spared Ryzek. For him.





CHAPTER 39: CYRA


THE HATCH DOOR OF the renegade ship closed behind us. I checked Ryzek’s pulse before untying the rope from his chest. It was weak, but steady, just as it was supposed to be. Given the timing of his fall, and the strength of Akos’s sleep blends, it would be a while before he woke. I hadn’t stabbed him, though I had taken great pains to make it look as if I had, in case anyone was watching closely on the sights.