Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(65)

Akos stuffed his feet into his boots and followed Vas out, Eijeh falling into step behind him. The potion he had made would keep until he got back, stable now that it was cooling. Ornery while heating, though, his mom had liked to say.

People gave Vas a wide berth in the more crowded hallways, not even daring to look his way. They looked at Akos, though. It was almost like being Thuvhesit marked him. It was in his casual chewing of hushflower petals, stowed in his pockets; his careful heel-toe gait, used to slipping on ice; the way he wore his shirts buttoned up to his throat instead of open across his collarbone.

Eijeh’s gait was now as heavy as any Shotet’s, his shirt unbuttoned under his Adam’s apple.

Akos hadn’t been to this part of the ship before. The floors turned from hard metal grates to polished wood. He felt like he was back in Noavek manor, swallowed up by dark paneling and shifty fenzu light. Footsteps echoing down the corridor, Vas led them to a tall door, and soldiers parted to let them by.

The room beyond was as dim as the Weapons Hall where he had lost Eijeh to Ryzek’s gift. The floors shone, and the far wall was all windows, showing a faint curl of the currentstream as the ship turned away from it. Ryzek stood looking out at it, his hands clasped behind his back. Behind him was a woman bound to a chair. Cyra was nearby, too, and she didn’t look at Akos when he went in, which was itself a warning. The door slammed behind him, and he stayed right next to it.

“Clarify for me, Cyra, how it is that you came across this traitor,” Ryzek was saying to Cyra.

“When the attack occurred, I recognized the voice that came on over the intercom. I still don’t know from where,” Cyra said, arms crossed. “Maybe the loading bay. But I knew I could find her by her voice. So I listened. And I found her.”

“And you said nothing about this endeavor?” Ryzek frowned, not at his sister, but at the renegade woman, who stared back. “Why?”

“I thought you would laugh at me,” Cyra said. “That you would think I was deluding myself.”

“Well,” Ryzek said, “I probably would have. Yet here we are.”

His tone was not what Akos expected from someone who had just gotten what he wanted. He was downright terse.

“Eijeh.” Akos shuddered to hear his brother’s name in his enemy’s mouth. “Does this change the future we discussed?”

Eijeh closed his eyes. His nostrils flared like their mom’s sometimes did when she was focusing on a prophecy. Copying her, probably, unless oracles needed to breathe really hard through their noses for some reason. Akos had no idea, but without meaning to, he was pressing toward his brother, right up against Vas’s arm, which stayed girder-firm.

“Eijeh,” Akos said. After all, he had to try, didn’t he? “Eijeh, don’t.”

But Eijeh was already answering: “The future holds firm.”

“Thank you,” Ryzek said. He bent over next to the renegade. “Where, Zosita Surukta, have you been all these seasons, exactly?”

“Adrift,” Zosita said. “I never found the exiles, if that’s what you’re really asking.”

Still bent, Ryzek looked Cyra over, looked at the inky streaks on her arms. She was hunched, a hand clutching at her head.

“Cyra.” Ryzek pointed at Zosita. “Let’s figure out if this woman tells the truth.”

“No,” Cyra said, breathless. “We’ve talked about this. I won’t—I can’t—”

“You can’t?” Ryzek leaned in closer to her face, stopping just short of touching her. “She defames this family, she weakens our position, she rallies our enemies, and you say you can’t? I am your brother and the sovereign of Shotet. You can—and you will—do what I say, do you understand?”

Darkness crowded the gold-brown of her skin. The shadows were like a new system of nerves or veins in her body. She made a choking sound. Akos felt choked, too, but he didn’t move, couldn’t possibly help her with Vas standing in his path.

“No!” The scream tore from her, and she reached for Ryzek, fingers bent into claws. Ryzek tried to shove her away, but she was too fast, too strong; the currentshadows rushed to her hand like a surge of blood to a wound, and Ryzek screamed. Writhed. Collapsed to his knees.

Vas ran at her, wrenched her away, and threw her to the side. From the ground, she glared at her brother and spat, “Take my eye, take my fingers, take whatever you want. I won’t.”

For a while, as Cyra cringed at the pain burned into her body by the current, Ryzek just stood there looking at her. Then he flicked his first two fingers at Akos in a gesture that meant “come.” And there wasn’t much point in defying him, Akos knew. He’d get what he wanted one way or another. Akos was starting to understand why Cyra had spent so many seasons just following his orders. At a certain point, defying him just seemed like a waste of time.

“I thought you might say that,” Ryzek said. “Vas, hold on to my sister, please.”

Vas grabbed Cyra by the arms and set her on her feet. Her eyes found Akos’s, wide with terror.

“I may have left you to your own devices for a time,” Ryzek said. “But I did not stop paying attention, Cyra.”

Ryzek went to the side of the room, brushing a wall panel with his fingers. It slid back to reveal a wall of weapons, like the one in Noavek manor, but smaller. Probably just his favorites, Akos thought, feeling detached from his own body as Ryzek chose a long, thin rod. At his touch, the current wrapped around the metal, dark streams so like the ones that plagued Cyra.