Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(52)

“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.