Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(91)

He reached back for Cisi’s hand, and they all started to run, skidding around a corner toward the emergency exit. But at the end of the hallway were two dark figures dressed in Shotet armor.

His steps faltered. He wrenched his arm from Isae’s grasp, and stepped back into the shadows.

“Akos!” Cisi sounded horrified.

Around the corner, Isae drew the weapon at her hip. Currentblade, not sharp, but set to a deadly density. The soldiers were moving toward her, slow, like you moved when you didn’t want to startle an animal.

“Where do you think you are going?” one of them said. In Shotet, of course—he likely couldn’t speak any other languages.

He was shorter than Isae, and sturdy—to put it kindly. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips, which were swollen from the cold. Shotet soldiers had never been this far north before, as far as Akos could remember. They probably weren’t ready for the temperature drop.

“I am leaving this hospital,” Isae said in clumsy Shotet.

Both soldiers laughed. The second one was younger, his voice cracking.

“Nice accent,” the older one said. “Where did you learn our language, from brim planet scum?”

Isae lunged, and Akos couldn’t see much, but he heard her moan when she got hit. That was when he stood, best knife in hand, armor fastened tight.

“Stop,” he said, walking around the corner again.

“What do you want?” the older soldier said.

Akos moved into the light. “I want you to leave her to me. Now.”

When neither of the soldiers budged, he said, “I am a steward of the family Noavek—” It was technically true, and technically a lie. No one had ever given him a title, after all. “I was sent here by Ryzek Noavek to collect her. That will be much more challenging if I let you kill her.”

Everybody went still, even Akos. They would have a clear shot at the emergency stairs, and all they had to do was get past these two . . . obstacles. The older Shotet ran his tongue over his lips again. “And what if I kill you and complete your mission for you? How well will I be rewarded by the sovereign of Shotet?”

“Don’t.” The younger soldier was wide-eyed. “I recognize him, he—”

The older Shotet swiped with his blade, but he was big and slow, obviously low-ranking. Akos jumped back, hunching to get his gut out of harm’s way. When he swung his own knife, he struck only armor, sending sparks flying. But his other hand, his right hand, was already drawing another knife from the side of his boot. That one found flesh.

The soldier fell against him, spilling warm blood on his hands. Akos bore his weight, stunned, not by what he had done, but by the ease with which he had done it.

“You have a choice,” he said to the young soldier who was left. His voice was ragged and not quite his own. “Stay and die. Run and live.”

The young soldier with the squeaky laugh bolted down the hallway. He almost slipped as he turned the corner. Cisi was shaking, eyes shining from unshed tears. And Isae was pointing her knife at him.

He lowered the soldier to the ground. Don’t throw up, he told himself. Don’t, don’t throw up.

“Steward of the family Noavek?” Isae said.

“Not exactly,” he said.

“I still don’t trust you,” she said, but she put her knife down. “Let’s go.”

They hustled to the roof and ran into the wild, frozen air. By the time they made it to the floater—a black one, close to the edge of the landing pad—his teeth were chattering. The door opened at Cisi’s touch, and they climbed in.

The floater’s controls lit up when Cisi sat in the driver’s seat, the night-vision screen expanding in front of her in green and the nav system glowing with a welcome. She reached under the control board and switched off the floater’s outer lights, then typed in their home address and set the ship on autonav. High-speed.

It lifted from the landing pad and jerked forward, throwing Akos against the control panel. He’d forgotten to buckle himself in.

He twisted around to watch Shissa shrink behind them. Every building was lit up a different color: purple for the library, yellow for the hospital, green for the grocery. They hung—impossibly—like suspended raindrops. He watched them as the floater sped away, until the buildings were just a cluster of lights. When everything was near dark, he turned back to Cisi.

“You . . .” She gulped. Whatever it was she wanted to say, she couldn’t say it, currentgift be damned. He reached for her, setting a clean finger—the others were red and sticky—on her arm.

The words came spilling out. “You killed him.”

He cycled through a few different responses in his mind, ranging from And he wasn’t the first to I’m sorry. None of them seemed right. He didn’t want her to hate him, but he didn’t want her to think he had come away from Shotet innocent. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t want to lie.

“He saved us both,” Isae said sharply as she switched on the news scroll. A little holoscreen popped up above the autonav map, and Akos read the headlines as they spun in a circle.

Shotet invasion begins in Shissa, two hours after sunset.

Shotet invaders witnessed at Shissa hospital, eight Thuvhesit deaths reported.

“I sent Orieve away right after we left your room,” Isae said. “She should have made it out all right. I can’t send her a message now, it could be intercepted.”