Cyra Noavek, her hair in a long tail behind her, is throwing her body at a giant of a man. She is graceful and strong, like a knife thrown by a skilled hand. The large man—and he must be large, to make a woman of her stature look so dainty—catches her, wrestles her over his shoulder, and hurls her away.
I gasp as she topples to the floor, which is covered with mats, but still looks hard enough to hurt. But she’s already rolling over like her body is made of rubber, grinning, a ferocity in her eyes I recognize. It’s the way she looked at Ryzek Noavek before he peeled the skin from her skull. And it’s the way Isae looked right before she committed murder.
With a yell, she throws herself at him again, and the crowd roars.
It goes on this way for a while, with Cyra building speed and determination before my eyes. It’s the speed that seems to unsettle her opponent—he doesn’t know where to look, or how to block what she throws his way, though it doesn’t do much damage. She tries to tackle him, and he catches her, trapping her, only for her to twist her body around him like a necklace. She locks her legs around his neck, and he chokes.
He taps one of her legs with one hand, and she releases him, sliding to the ground. The crowd roars, and she moves to the side to chug water from a spout near the windowsill.
“They do this all the time now,” Yssa says. “I am not sure what the goal is. Do they intend to fight the Thuvhesits one-on-one?”
Cyra spots me across the room. The spark in her eyes dies.
She comes toward me, and when she’s closer I see bruises and scratches up and down her bare arms, probably from other fights. Yssa edges closer to me, putting a shoulder in front of me.
“I was asked to ensure Miss Kereseth’s safety among you,” Yssa says to her. “Please don’t make that task difficult for me.”
Cyra stops right around spitting distance, and for a tick, I think that’s what she’s going to do: spit at me. Instead she demands, “What are you doing here?” She holds up a hand. “Don’t pull that currentgift shit on me; I’ve got no use for ease right now.”
It’s so automatic I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I pull back as much as I can. Her currentshadows have buried themselves under her skin again, and they cover her in dark webs. She grits her teeth.
“I’m here to—” I pause. I don’t want to give myself away. “I’m here to see my family, all right?”
“You’re not welcome,” she says. “Or did the declaration of war escape your attention?”
I wish—not for the first time—that I could turn my own gift on myself, set myself at ease, just for a little while. But I can’t soothe away the lump in my throat or ease off the weight of guilt. I helped Isae pick her target. Before I got here I felt confident that I did something good, considering the options I had—I talked her down from hitting Voa head-on, didn’t I? I had saved quite a few lives with nothing but a clever tongue and my currentgift.
But right now I’m standing among people who lost something. Friends, family. A place that was special to them, maybe even sacred. So how can I feel like I did something good? How can I think that these people are any different from my own, any more worthy of violence or loss?
I can’t. I don’t.
But I’ll do what I have to, just like anybody.
“Just tell me where to find Akos,” I say.
“Akos.” She snorts. “You mean my faithful servant, determined to die for me?” Her eyes close for a tick. “Yeah, I know where to find him. It’s just down the road.”
CHAPTER 22: CYRA
EVERYTHING HURT, BUT I no longer cared.
Well, I did, because no one wanted to be in pain. It was a survival instinct. But insofar as my rational mind was capable of overcoming my physical state, I embraced the pain, I let it throw me into frantic motion. I was sweat-soaked and exhausted and ready for more. Anything to make it easier to be this burning, writhing thing I had become.
I didn’t want to take Cisi Kereseth to the quiet place Akos had claimed as his own in the wake of the attack, the old woman’s shop off an alley in Galo. There was too much of him there, in the bubbling pots and tap of the knife against the cutting board.
As Cisi, Yssa, and I exited the cafeteria, a young woman, with densely curled hair cut short, spat on the ground near my feet.
Oruzo, she called me.
The literal translation was “a mirror image,” but the real sense of the word was that one person had become another, or was so similar to them as to be indistinguishable. So, after the attack on Voa, many of the exiles had taken to calling me “Oruzo”—successor to Ryzek, to Lazmet, to the Noavek family. It was a way to blame me for all the lives lost in the failed evacuation, because of my foolishness. If I hadn’t sent that message to them, telling them to flee—
But time could not run backward.
I walked too fast for Yssa and Cisi to keep up, so that I wouldn’t have to speak to them. Cisi had gone to be with that woman, the one who had destroyed my home, and I would not forget.
Akos was hunched over a pot when I reached the shop, dipping a finger in whatever he was brewing—likely a painkiller, as his perceived duty to me was his only motivator these days. He sucked the fingertip, tasting what he had made, and swore, loudly, in Thuvhesit.
“Wrong again?” the old woman asked him. She was sitting on a stool, peeling whatever-it-was into a bowl at her feet.
“The only thing I’m good for and I can’t even get it right,” he snapped.
He looked up at me, and flushed bright red.
“Oh,” he said. “Hi.”
“I’m here to—” I paused. “Your sister is here.”
I stepped aside to reveal her. They stood at that distance from each other for a few long, quiet moments. He turned off the burner, and crossed the room, folding her into a hug. She squeezed him back.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her softly.
“I’m here to open peace talks with the exiles,” she said.
I snorted. Not only was her mission ridiculous—how could we have peace talks with a nation that had destroyed the sojourn ship?—but she had also lied to me about it.
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” she added over her shoulder to me. “I thought you were going to hit me, so I reached for the most convenient excuse to be here.”
“Cyra would never hit you,” Akos said.
The way he said it, without hesitation or doubt, made my chest ache. He was the only one who had ever thought so well of me.
“If you are all going to stand around chatting, do it somewhere else,” the old woman said, getting to her feet. “My shop is too small and my fuse too short for such nonsense.”
“I’m sorry for the waste of your ingredients, Zenka,” Akos said to her.
“I learn a great deal from your failed attempts, as well as your successful ones,” Zenka said to him, not unkindly. “Now go.”
Her lined face turned to me, and she gave me a look of appraisal.
“Miss Noavek,” she said as I retreated into the alley, by way of greeting.
I nodded back, and slipped away.
There was no room to walk side by side in the alley, so we filed down it one by one, with Yssa in the lead and Akos bringing up the rear. Over Yssa’s shoulder, I saw Sifa and Eijeh waiting for us in the hard-packed street beyond the alley. Sifa pretended to be interested in the little glowing fish at the stall nearest to her, kept in tall cylinders full of water, but I wasn’t fooled. She was waiting for us.
Eijeh looked nervously over his shoulder. His hair was curling behind his ears now, grown out enough to show its natural texture. There was a slim ribbon sewed into the shoulders of his shirt, and it glowed a faint blue. Most people here adopted some elements of Ogran dress, so they would be visible in the dark. Not me, though.
I knew I had no place here, at this impromptu Kereseth reunion—which was probably orchestrated by the oracles, if Sifa and Eijeh’s presence meant what I thought it did. I moved to leave, meaning to disappear into the constant night, but Akos knew me too well. I felt the shock of his hand, pressing against the small of my back. It was brief, but it sent a shiver through me.
Do that again, I thought.
Never do that again, I also thought.