Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(129)

“I’ll keep trying,” Cisi said.

“That is the distinct feature of all my children,” their mom said, climbing the grate steps to the nav deck. “They are persistent. To the point of delusion, some might say.”

She said it with a smile. She had an odd way of complimenting people, their mother. He wondered if she had been counting on his delusional persistence when she arranged for them to get to the prison too late. Or maybe she really hadn’t counted on Eijeh interrupting her plans with some oracle maneuvering of his own. He would never know.

“Is Eijeh awake?” he asked her.

“Awake, yes.” Sifa sighed. “But just staring blankly, for now. He doesn’t appear to hear me. I don’t know what Ori did to him, before . . . well.”

Akos thought of the two of them, Eijeh and Ori, on the platform, clutched together. The way she had said good-bye like he was the one leaving instead of her. And then he had, slipping away just because she touched him. What could Ori’s touch do? He’d never asked her.

Sifa said, “We’ll have to give it time, and see if we can use Ryzek to restore him. I think Cyra had a few ideas for that.”

“I bet she does,” Cisi said, a little darkly.

Akos sipped Cisi’s tea, and let himself feel something like relief. Eijeh was out of Shotet, Cisi and Sifa were alive. There was some peace in knowing that all the men who had invaded their house and killed their father were gone now. They were marks on his arm. Or they would be, when he got around to carving Vas there.

Their little ship rotated, showing less of Thuvhe and more of the space beyond it, all dark but for the speckle of stars and the glow of a distant planet. Zold, if he remembered his maps right, which was not a guarantee. He’d never been much of a scholar.

It was Isae who broke the quiet, marching out of the galley at last. She looked better than she had a couple of hours before: She had pulled her hair back tight, and found a shirt to replace her bloody sweater. Her hands were clean, even under the fingernails. She crossed her arms, and took a wide stance at the edge of the nav deck platform.

“Sifa,” she said. “Pull us out of orbit and set the autonav for Assembly Headquarters.”

Sifa sat in the captain’s chair and said—shooting for casual, and winding up at nervous—“Why are we going there?”

“Because they need to see, firsthand, that I am alive.” Isae gave her a cold, appraising stare. “And because they will have a cell that can hold both Ryzek and Eijeh until I decide what to do with them both.”

“Isae . . .” Akos started. But there was nothing to say that he hadn’t already said.

“Don’t test my patience; you’ll find it has limits.” Isae had gone full chancellor. The woman who had touched his head and told him he was Thuvhesit was gone now. “Eijeh is a Thuvhesit citizen. He will be treated like one, just like the rest of you. Unless, Akos, you would like to declare your Shotet citizenship and be treated the same as Miss Noavek.”

He was no Shotet citizen, but he knew better than to bicker with her. She was grieving.

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Very well. Is the autonav set?”

Sifa had pulled up the nav screen, which floated in little green letters in front of her, and was typing in coordinates. She sat back in her chair.

“Yes. We’ll arrive in several hours.”

“Until then, you will make sure that Ryzek Noavek and Eijeh are kept under control,” Isae said to Akos. “I have no interest in hearing from either of them, understand?”

He nodded.

“Good. I will be in the galley. Let me know when we begin our approach, Sifa.”

Without waiting for an answer, she marched away again. He felt her footsteps vibrating through the floor grate.

“I have seen war in every future,” his mom said out of nowhere. “The current guides us there. The players change, but the result is the same.”

Cisi took their mom’s hand, and then Akos’s. “But we’re together now.”

Sifa’s troubled look gave way to a smile. “Yes, we are together now.”

Now. For just a breath, he was sure, but it was something. Cisi rested her head on Akos’s shoulder, and their mom smiled at him. He could almost hear the feathergrass scratching at their house’s windows in the wind. But he still couldn’t quite smile back.

The renegade ship arced away from Thuvhe. Up ahead he saw the cloudy pulse of the current making a path through the galaxy. It bound all the planets together, and though it didn’t seem to move, every person could feel it singing in their blood. The Shotet even thought it gave them their language, like a tune only they knew, and they had a point. He was proof of that.

But he still felt—heard—only silence, otherwise.

He put his arm across Cisi’s shoulders, and caught sight of his marks, turned out toward the light. Maybe they were marks of loss, like Cyra said, but standing there with his family, he realized something else. You could get things back.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU:

Nelson, husband, friend, for brainstorming with me, reading my early drafts, and sharing this weird, wonderful life with me.

Katherine Tegen, my editor, for your transformative notes, your insistence on getting this book right, your solid instincts, and your kind heart.