Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(55)

“Yeah, well, we’re all afraid.” I sighed. “The angry more than most, I think.”

The currentstream made the slow transition from green to blue, and still we didn’t descend on Pitha, still Ryzek delayed the sojourn. We coasted along the edge of the galaxy, out of the Assembly’s reach. Impatience was like a humid cloud that had settled over the ship; I breathed it in whenever I left my isolated quarters. And these days, I rarely left my quarters.

Ryzek couldn’t delay our descent forever—he couldn’t forgo the sojourn altogether, or he would be the first sovereign to ignore our traditions in over one hundred seasons.

I had promised him that I would keep up appearances, which was why I found myself at a gathering of his closest associates again, on the observation deck several days after the attack. The first thing I saw upon entering was the darkness of space through the windows, open to us like we were soaring into a huge creature’s mouth. Then I saw Vas, clutching a mug of tea with bleeding knuckles. When he noticed the blood, he dabbed at it with a handkerchief and stuffed it back into his pocket.

“I know you can’t feel pain, Vas, but there is some value in taking care of your own body,” I said to him.

He raised his eyebrows at me, then set his mug down. The others were gathered on the opposite end of the room, holding glasses, standing in small groups. Most had collected around Ryzek like debris around a drain hole. Yma Zetsyvis—white hair almost glowing against the dark backdrop of space—was among them, her body stiff with obvious tension.

Otherwise the room was empty, the black floors polished, the walls just curved windows. I half expected us all to float away.

“You know so little about my gift, for all the time we’ve known each other,” Vas said. “Do you know I have to set alarms to eat and drink? And check myself constantly for broken bones and bruises?”

I had never thought about what else Vas had lost when he lost the ability to feel pain.

“That’s why I let the little wounds slide,” Vas said. “It’s exhausting, paying this much attention to your own body.”

“Hmm,” I said. “I think I might know something about that.”

Not for the first time, I marveled at how opposite we were—and how similar that made us, both our lives revolving around pain, in one way or another, both spending an exorbitant amount of energy on the physical. It made me curious if we had anything else in common.

“When did you develop it?” I said. “What was happening at the time?”

“I was ten.” He leaned against the wall and ran his hand over his head. His hair was shaved close to his scalp. Near his ear, there were a few cuts from the razor—he probably hadn’t noticed them. “Before I was accepted into your brother’s service, I attended a regular school. I was scrawny then, an easy target. Some of the bigger children were attacking me.” He smiled. “Once I realized I couldn’t feel pain, I beat one of them half to death. They didn’t come after me again.”

He had been in danger, and his body had responded. His mind had responded. His story was the same as mine.

“You think of me the way I think of Kereseth,” Vas said. “You think I’m Ryzek’s little pet, just like Akos is yours.”

“I think we all serve my brother,” I said. “You. Me. Kereseth. We’re all the same.” I glanced at the crowd gathered around Ryzek. “Why is Yma here?”

“You mean, after she was disgraced by both husband and child?” Vas said. “She’s rumored to have gotten on hands and knees, begging for forgiveness for their transgressions. That may be a slight exaggeration, of course.”

I slipped past him, edging closer to the others. Yma’s hand was on Ryzek’s arm, sliding down to his elbow. I expected him to pull away; he nearly always did when people tried to touch him. But he permitted the caress, even leaned into it, maybe.

How could she stand to look at him, after he ordered the deaths of her daughter and husband, let alone touch him? I watched her laugh at something Ryzek had said. Her eyebrows drew in like she was in pain. Or desperate, I thought. The expressions were often the same.

“Cyra!” Yma said, drawing everyone’s attention to me. I tried to make myself look her in the eye, but it was difficult, given what I had done to Lety. I dreamt of Yma when I dreamt of her daughter, sometimes, imagined her hunched over Lety’s corpse, screaming at the top of her lungs. “It’s been a while. What have you been up to?”

I met Ryzek’s eyes, just for a moment.

“Cyra has been on a special assignment from me,” Ryzek said easily. “To stay close to Kereseth.”

He was taunting me.

“Is the younger Kereseth so valuable?” Yma asked me. She wore that peculiar smile.

“That remains to be seen,” I said. “But he is Thuvhesit-born, after all. He knows things about our enemies that we do not.”

“Ah,” Yma said lightly. “I just thought you might have made yourself useful during these interrogations, Cyra, in the way you have made yourself useful before.”

I felt like I might be sick.

“Unfortunately, the interrogations require a clever tongue and a mind skilled at the detection of subtleties,” Ryzek said. “Two things my sister has always lacked.”

Stung, I couldn’t think of a response. Maybe he was right about my tongue not being clever.