The Fates Divide (Carve the Mark #2)(53)

“And then something happened that had not happened in quite some time—a new possibility presented itself. If she crossed your paths—if she switched your places—new possibilities opened up, and a few—very few, mind you, but a few—did not lead to doom. So she reached out to Ylira Noavek, a woman she had never met before and would never again meet, to present the solution to her. It was very fortunate, for her, that Lazmet had not yet been to see his child. It was likewise fortunate that the bloodlines in both your families are so richly varied that virtually any combination of features and skin shades wouldn’t raise eyebrows.

“They met just past the Divide, the feathergrass that separates Shotet from Thuvhe, and they traded their children, so that both might have a chance to avoid their darkest paths,” Vara said, with a tone of finality. Her fingers were dusted with brown flour, her nails bitten down to stubs. “Lazmet was told that he had been misinformed about the sex of his child. The messenger who had delivered the news was executed, but Lazmet accepted you as his, Cyra, and all proceeded as Sifa had hoped.”

I was caught in my imagining of the moment, my swaddled, infant form passed into Ylira Noavek’s hands, with feathergrass swaying in the background. I drew myself out of the fiction, suddenly furious.

“So you’re telling me,” I said, slumping forward over the table to point a finger at her. “You’re telling me that my mother handed me over to be raised by a bunch of monsters, and I’m, what? Supposed to be grateful, because it was for my own good?”

“It’s not up to me to tell you how to feel,” Vara said, her dark eyes soft. “Only to tell you what happened.”

I felt like a pot boiling over, all anger and hysteria bubbling up inside me, irrepressible. I wanted to shake the soft look from her eyes, or laugh in her face; I wanted to move, above all else, to escape the pain that now raced through every izit of my skin, covering me in dark patches.

When I finally dared to glance at Akos, I saw him stone-faced and completely still. It was unnerving.

“I’m sure I don’t have to point out to you that there is one bright spot in all this,” Vara said. “Your fates.”

“Our fates,” I repeated, feeling stupid. “What about them?”

“There is a reason the fates don’t name names,” Vara said. “The second child of the family Noavek will cross the Divide. The third child of the family Kereseth will die in service to the family Noavek. My dear girl, you are the third child of the family Kereseth. And I suspect your fate has already been fulfilled.”

I made a big show of putting two fingers against the side of my throat to check for a pulse. “Silly me, thinking I hadn’t died in service—”

I cut myself off.

But that wasn’t true, was it?

My brother had tried to make me torture Akos, there in the underground prison where he had captured us and forced us to our knees. I had drawn all my currentgift into myself, trusting in my strength to keep me alive. But that strength had faltered—just for a moment, just enough to be considered a death. My heart had stopped, and then started again. I had come back.

I had died for the family Noavek—I had died for Akos.

I stared at him, wonderingly. The fate he had dreaded, the fate he had allowed to define him since he first heard it spoken by my brother’s lips . . . it was mine.

And it was done.





CHAPTER 28: AKOS


ALL THE THINGS THAT he was—

Fated traitor, Kereseth, Thuvhesit—

Had been stripped away.

He hadn’t said a word since the oracle invited them to share a cup of tea with her, and Cyra declined. The truth was, he’d lost all his words. He didn’t even know which language he ought to speak in. The categories he’d used to define them—Thuvhesit, the language of his home and his people; Othyr, the language of off-worlders; Shotet, the language of his enemies—didn’t apply anymore.

Cyra seemed to know that he couldn’t speak. Maybe she didn’t understand it, and how could she? She had lit up like a piece of kindling when Vara told them the truth; she was emotionally elastic, could throw herself out of rage just as fast as she threw herself into it. But even though she didn’t understand him, she didn’t pester him, either.

All she had done was touch him, tentative, on the shoulder, as she said, “I know. I didn’t want to share blood with them, either.”

And that was it, wasn’t it. She shared a history with the Noaveks, and he shared blood. He was hard-pressed to figure out which one was worse.

He didn’t sleep. Just walked the paths around the temple, not even bothering to avoid the dangerous plants that were growing everywhere, or the beetles that could kill him with a bite. He didn’t recognize most of the growing things, but some of them he did, and he looked for them just to give himself something else to think about, for just a little while.

The beetles came and went, except for one—a small one that perched on his hand, twitching its light-up wings and wiggling its antennae. He sat on a rock in one of the gardens to stare down at it.

It reminded him, for some reason, of the Armored One he had killed for its skin. He had been out there in the fields outside of Voa, where the Armored Ones wandered, keeping to themselves for the most part. It had taken him a while to realize they weren’t going to attack him. It was the current that enraged them, not him; he was a relief to them, just like he was to Cyra.