Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(66)

“You see, I’ve noticed something peculiar, and I’d like to see if my hypothesis is correct,” Ryzek said. “If it is, it will solve a problem before it really even becomes a problem.”

He twisted the notches in the rod’s handle, and the current got denser. Darker. Not a lethal weapon, Akos noted, but one designed for causing pain.

Cyra’s currentshadows flickered and fluttered, like flames caught in a draft. Ryzek laughed.

“It’s almost indecent,” he said, putting a heavy hand on Akos’s shoulder. Akos resisted the urge to shake him off. It would only make things worse. And it was just now dawning on him that the rod was for him. Maybe it was the whole reason he had been brought here—to make Cyra cooperate again. To become Ryzek’s new tool of control.

“You may want to just give up now,” Ryzek said to him in a low voice. “And get on the ground.”

“Eat shit,” Akos replied in Thuvhesit.

But of course, Ryzek had an answer to that. He slammed the rod into Akos’s back. Pain screeched through him. Acid. Fire. Akos screamed into his teeth.

Stay on your feet, he thought. Stay—

Ryzek hit him again, this time over his right side, and he cried out again. Beside him, Cyra sobbed, but Akos was watching Eijeh, passive as he looked out the window. Almost like he didn’t know what was going on. Ryzek hit him a third time, and his knees gave out, but he was quiet now. Sweat rolled down the back of his neck, and all around him, everything swayed.

Eijeh had flinched that time.

Another blow, and Akos fell forward onto his hands. He and Cyra moaned at the same time.

“I want to know what she knows about the exiles,” Ryzek said to Cyra, breathless. “Before tomorrow’s execution.”

Cyra wriggled out of Vas’s grasp, and went to Zosita, who was still bound to the chair by her wrists. Zosita nodded at Cyra like she was giving permission.

Cyra brought her hands to Zosita’s head. Akos saw, through half-focused eyes, the dark webs on the backs of Cyra’s hands, and Zosita’s contorted face, and Ryzek’s satisfied smile. Darkness crowded the corners of his vision, and he tried to breathe through the pain.

Zosita screaming. Cyra screaming. Their voices ran together.

Then he blacked out.

He woke with Cyra at his side.

“Come on.” Her arm was across his shoulders. She hoisted him to his feet. “Come on, let’s go. Let’s go.”

He blinked slowly. Zosita was breathing in fits and starts, hair covering her face. Vas was standing nearby, looking bored. Eijeh was crouched in the corner, his head buried in his arms. Nobody stopped them from stumbling out of the room. Ryzek had gotten what he wanted.

They made it to Cyra’s room. She dropped Akos at the edge of her bed, then stormed around the room, gathering towels, ice, painkiller. Frantically, tears running down her face. The room still smelled malty from the potion he’d brewed earlier.

“Cyra. Did she tell him anything?”

“No. She’s a good liar,” she replied as she fought to uncork the vial of painkiller with trembling hands. “You’ll never be safe again. You know that? Neither of us will.”

She got the stopper out, and touched it to his mouth, though he could easily have grabbed it himself. He didn’t point that out, just parted his lips to swallow it.

“I was never safe. You were never safe.” He didn’t understand why she was so rattled. It wasn’t like Ryzek doing something terrible was a new thing. “I don’t understand why he made a point to use me—”

Her legs brushed his as she came to stand between his knees. They were almost the same height this way, with him perched on her high bed. And she was close, like she sometimes was when they fought, laughing in his face because she’d knocked him down, but that was different. Completely different.

She wasn’t laughing. She smelled familiar, like the herbs she burned to clear the room of food smells, like the spray she used in her hair to smooth its tangles. She brought a hand to his shoulder, then trailed trembling fingers along his collarbone, down his sternum. Pressed a gentle hand to his chest. Didn’t look at his face.

“You,” she whispered, “are the only person he could possibly hold over me now.”

She touched his chin to steady it as she kissed him. Her mouth was warm, and wet with tears. Her teeth scored his bottom lip as she pulled away.

Akos didn’t breathe. He wasn’t sure he could remember how.

“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “I won’t do that again.”

She backed away, and shut herself in the bathroom.





CHAPTER 20: CYRA


I ATTENDED ZOSITA SURUKTA’S execution the next day, as I was supposed to. It was a crowded, loud event, the first celebration that had been allowed since the Sojourn Festival. I stood off to the side, with Vas, Eijeh, and Akos, as Ryzek gave a long speech about loyalty and the strength of Shotet unity, the envy of the galaxy, the tyranny of the Assembly. Yma stood at his side, her hands on the railing, her fingertips tapping out a lilting rhythm.

When Ryzek dragged the knife across Zosita’s throat, I felt like crying, but I suppressed my tears. Everyone in the crowd roared as Zosita’s body fell, and I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, Yma’s hands were trembling on the railing. Ryzek wore a streak of Zosita’s blood. And far off, in the crowd that watched, Teka held a hand over her mouth.