The Fates Divide (Carve the Mark #2)(104)

He understood, now, how Cyra had felt when she demanded that he choose her, even though he hadn’t known, at the time, that he really could. I don’t want to be something you “suffer,” she had told him. There was something powerful in that quality of hers, her refusal to accept what she didn’t choose, the force of her want.

I don’t want, she had said, and he felt it now.

He didn’t want this to be the end, the fate he suffered.

And in the muddle of all that pain, Akos thought.

He pulled his knee high, up against his chest, and kicked hard at the wound in Lazmet’s leg. Lazmet grunted, taken by surprise, and let up just a little on Akos’s shoulder. With a yell, Akos pushed against the ground with his free leg so his back scraped against the ground, half on the leaves and half on the stone path, and he stretched his uninjured arm up, his hand searching through the stems for Vakrez’s knife.

Lazmet had stepped back, grabbing his leg with one hand. Akos felt the metal of the knife handle, and grabbed. He felt his pulse in his throat, his head, his shoulder. And, trembling and throbbing and sagging under his own weight, he pushed himself to his feet.

It wasn’t fate that had brought him here. He had chosen this. He had wanted it.

And now he wanted Lazmet dead.

The Hessa siren wailed. He and Lazmet collided, armor against flesh. They went down, falling with a thump to the frozen ground and the waxy leaves. Akos felt another burst of pain in his shoulder, and dry heaved, his stomach too empty to throw anything up. Their arms were crossed between them, both of Lazmet’s hands around his wrist, trying to push the knife away.

Honor, Akos thought, has no place in survival.

He bent his head and bit Lazmet’s arm. He clenched his teeth as hard as he could, tasting blood, tearing flesh. Lazmet screamed, low. Akos pushed the knife against the pressure that held him away, and jerked his head, ripping skin and muscle from Lazmet’s arm.

The knife went right into Lazmet’s neck.

Everything stopped.

Aoseh Kereseth had broken things with his currentgift. Floater seats. Couch cushions. Tables. Mugs. Plates. One time he broke one of Akos’s toys by mistake, and sat his smallest child in his lap to show him how he could fix it, like magic, with the same gift that had broken it. The toy had never looked right again, but Aoseh had done his best.

He had chased their mother around the kitchen with flour-dusted hands to put fingerprints on her clothes. He was the only one who could make Sifa laugh, a full belly laugh. The one who had kept her present, and grounded—at least, as much as that was possible, for an oracle.

Aoseh Kereseth had been loud, and messy, and affectionate. He had been Akos’s father.

And this man—this armored, cold, cruel man lying an arm’s length away—wasn’t.

Akos lay beside Lazmet as he died, holding the arm his father had wounded to his chest, and finally wanting again.

It was a small thing—just a slight craving for survival—but it was better than nothing.





CHAPTER 52: CYRA


I RAN MY FINGERS over the silverskin on my head. It had begun to generate electrical impulses similar to those of real nerves, so I could feel a light tapping where my touch was. It was soothing, like standing under the warm rain of Pitha.

“Quit it, Plate Head,” Teka said. “You’re drawing attention.”

We stood in the square just outside the amphitheater. Under the reign of my brother, this place would have been packed with vendors, some from other planets—forbidden from instructing us in the use of their languages, of course—and some Shotet. The air would smell like smoke and charred meat and the burnt herbs from the tents of Essander, where everyone seemed particularly attuned to scents. I would tuck my hands into my sleeves to keep from touching anyone, fearing the crush of the crowd. My brother had been a tyrant as much as Lazmet was, but part of him had craved adoration, and it had inspired him to make concessions, on occasion. Lazmet had no such craving.

In light of that, the square was not packed with people shouting numbers at each other. Soldiers didn’t stroll between the stalls, hoping to catch someone speaking a word of another language so they could extort money or threaten punishment. There were a few tables set up with goods—food, mostly, marked up to high prices—and all of them were Shotet. I doubted many outsiders wanted to be in a country involved in war, profitable though it might have been.

“It’s less of a plate and more of a bowl,” I said to Teka, holding my hands in a curved shape, like that of my skull.

“What?”

“The silverskin,” I said, showing her my hands again. “If it’s any kind of serveware, it’s a bowl, not a plate.”

“I didn’t mean ‘plate’ as in ‘dinner plate,’” Teka said, scowling. “I meant it as in a metal plate, like on the side of a ship—you know what? This is ridiculous. You’re ridiculous.”

I grinned.

I thought we would suffer for the lack of a crowd to disguise us, but there were few soldiers that I could see. Guards by the usual entrances and exits, but they were easily dealt with. And not in my typical fashion, though that had been my initial suggestion.

Sifa had proposed a more peaceful path into the amphitheater. She and Yma would approach the guards at the entrance head-on, and convince them to let her tour the arena. Yma had worn the lavender dress for the occasion, so she would look wealthy, important, worth making allowances for. This would draw the guards’ attention away from us, while also giving Yma and Sifa a chance to get in themselves.