The Fates Divide (Carve the Mark #2)(80)

Still, he ate it, this time pacing himself so he could savor every bite.

“You have no control over your currentgift?”

“No,” Akos said. “I never really thought about it as something that could be controlled.”

“It’s possible,” Yma said. “I was with Ryzek when he ordered your currentgift starved away. He wasn’t sure that it would work, but it’s always worth a try, if you want to disable someone’s gift.”

“It worked,” Akos said. “That was the first time I felt Cyra’s currentgift.”

The thought brought a sharp, hot sensation to his throat. He swallowed it down.

“Well,” Yma said. “That it was possible to turn yours off then suggests that you may be able to have more mastery over your gift now.”

“Oh?” He rolled his head to the side. “And how’s that?”

“I told you that my family was low status. Well, what the Noaveks seem to understand that others in the galaxy do not is that low-status people have just as much value. We have long histories, recorded lineages, recipes . . . and secrets.” She rearranged her skirt as she crossed her legs the other way. The fire crackled.

“We have passed along some exercises that help a person learn to control their currentgift,” she said. “For some, those exercises obviously don’t work, but I can teach them to you, if you promise to practice. That way you can turn off your currentgift to let Vakrez read your heart, and turn it back on to resist Lazmet’s control, when the time comes.”

“What exactly does Lazmet want?” Akos said. “What did he tell you to do to me?”

“He calls me the Heart Bender,” she said. “What I do is too abstract for words. But I can shift a person’s loyalties, over time. I take the raw feeling that’s there—your love for your family, or your friends, or your lover—and change it so it leads you to a different destination, so to speak.”

“That,” Akos said, closing his eyes, “is horrifying.”

“He wants me to bend your heart toward him,” she said. “Get up. You’re wasting my time, and there isn’t much of it to spare.”

“Can’t,” Akos said. “Head hurts.”

“I don’t care if your head hurts!”

“You try half starving for days!” he snapped.

“I have,” she bit out. “Not everyone grew up wealthy, Mr. Kereseth. Some of us are familiar with the weakness and aches that come from hunger. Now get. Up.”

Akos couldn’t say much to that. He sat up, darkness washing over his vision, and turned toward her.

“Better,” she said. “We have to talk about your game of pretend. The next time you stand before him, he will expect to see some kind of shift. You must behave as if that’s the case.”

“How do I do that?”

“Pretend your resolve is weakening,” she said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult. Let him get something out of you. Some kind of information he wants, that doesn’t compromise your mission. Tell me your mission.”

“Why?” Akos furrowed his brow. “You know my goddamn mission.”

“You should be telling yourself your mission every single moment of every day, so you don’t cost us everything! Tell me your mission!”

“Kill him,” Akos said. “My mission is to kill him.”

“Is your mission to be loyal to your family, your friends, your nation?”

Akos glared at her. “No. It isn’t.”

“Good! Now, the exercise.”

She directed Akos to a chair and told him to close his eyes. “Come up with an image for your currentgift,” she said. “Yours separates you from the current, so you could think of it as a wall, or a plate of armor, something like that.”

Akos had never much thought about the power that lived in his skin, mostly because it seemed less like the presence of power than the absence of it. But he tried to think of it as armor, the way she said. He remembered the first time he had dropped armor over his head—the weaker, synthetic kind, when he was first sent to train at the soldier camp. The weight had surprised him, but it had been comforting, in a way.

“Think of the details in what it looks like. What is it made of? Is your armor made of different plates stitched together, or is it one solid piece? What color is it?”

He felt stupid, picturing imaginary armor, picking colors like he was decorating a house instead of trying to pull off an assassination plot. But he did what she said, calling the armor dark blue because that was the color of his earned Shotet armor, and plated for the same reason. He thought of his real armor’s scrapes and dings, the signs that he’d put it to good use. And Cyra’s nimble fingers as she pulled the straps taut for the first time.

“What does it feel like? Is it smooth, or rough? Is it hard, or flexible? Is it cold, or warm?”

Akos wrinkled his nose at Yma, but didn’t open his eyes. Smooth, hard, warm as the kutyah fur he had once worn to protect himself from the cold. The thought of that old coat, with his name written on the tag so he wouldn’t mix it up with Cisi’s, made him feel achy.

“Hold the most vivid imagining of your currentgift that you can. I’m going to put a hand on you in three . . . two . . . one.”