A silence fell at that. I had accepted the likelihood of death when I decided to kill my father, but now that I had my life, I wanted to keep it again. Even without Akos, even without family, even with most of Shotet hating me, what I had told Teka before was right. I had more now. I had friends. Hope for my own future, and for myself.
But I also had love for my people, broken though some of them may have been. Their stubborn will to survive. The way they looked at discarded objects, not as garbage, but as possibilities. They crash-landed through hostile atmospheres. They coasted alongside the currentstream. They were explorers, innovators, warriors, wanderers. And I belonged to them.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
“How?” Yssa asked. “Where do you activate the alarm?”
“One of two places: Noavek manor, and the amphitheater. The amphitheater is easier to access,” I said. “We don’t all need to go. So who goes, and who stays?”
“I’m leaving this planet,” Eijeh said.
“Yeah, I got that impression based on your repeated insistence that you’re not staying,” I snapped.
“I will take you off-planet, Eijeh,” Yssa said to him. “You are an oracle and as such, your life is valuable.”
“My life’s not valuable?” Ettrek said.
Yssa gave him a look.
“You two should go,” I said to Zyt. “You only signed on to smuggle, not to risk your lives.”
“Yeah, none of us here would ever do that,” Ettrek said, rolling his eyes. “You remember most of us came here to kill Lazmet Noavek, right?”
I glanced at Teka and Sifa, in turn.
“You’re an oracle, too,” I said to Sifa.
“I’m not afraid,” Sifa said quietly.
I was. Part of me wanted to steal a floater and flee Voa as quickly as I could, get myself out of the way of the blast. But the better part—the part that made the decisions now, it seemed—knew that I had to stay, had to fight for my people, or at least allow them a chance to fight for themselves.
And maybe Sifa was as undaunted as she appeared. Maybe knowing the future forced you to be at peace with it. But I didn’t think so.
She was afraid, just as I was, just as any person would be. It was that, perhaps, that made me accept that she was here. It was the most mercy I could offer her at the moment.
“Cyra should lead the way to the amphitheater,” Yma said, and I looked at her in surprise. It was rare she gave me credit for anything. Ever. She added, “I believe you’re familiar with the subterranean prison.”
“Not as familiar as I am with your dazzling wit,” I bit back with a smile.
“You take the bait every time, don’t you?” Teka said to me.
I considered that for a moment. “Yes,” I said. “It’s part of my charm.”
Ettrek snorted. And we started to plan.
Some time later, we stood on the rooftop and watched Eijeh and Yssa board a smuggler ship, courtesy of Zyt’s connections to Voa’s criminal underground.
Eijeh didn’t bid me farewell. But he did glance back before disappearing inside the ship. His eyes met mine, and he nodded, just once.
And then my brother was gone.
CHAPTER 51: AKOS
THE AWAKENING IN HESSA had never been Akos’s favorite—he liked the quiet dark of the Deadening, with its warm ovens and bright, Bloomed hushflowers—but it had certain charms. At the very start, in the weeks before the hushflowers lost their blooms, a swarm of deadbirds flew over Hessa every morning and evening in a big cloud, whistling in unison. Their song was bright and sweet, and the undersides of their wings were pink, like Akos’s blush.
They were called deadbirds because they hibernated all winter, and the first person to come across a flock during hibernation had thought they were all dead. They hardly even had heartbeats then. But when the Awakening came around, they flew all the time, dropping pink feathers everywhere. His dad collected them for his mom, and stuck them in a jar on the kitchen table for decoration.
When Lazmet Noavek’s ship landed just past the feathergrass north of Hessa, it sent up a cloud of pink feathers.
At least they aren’t going past the house, Akos thought. His family’s home was far from where they landed, though along the same strip of feathergrass. They would approach Hessa hill from behind, where there were no houses, and steps carved from rock would lead them to the temple’s back gate.
The Shotet groaned and shivered when the hatch of the ship opened. Even Lazmet seemed to brace himself. But Akos drank in the frozen air like it was the finest thing he’d ever tasted. The soldiers had laughed at him when he first came on board, stuffed into half a dozen sweaters and jackets, incapable of lowering his arms. But none of them were laughing now.
Akos pulled the strip he had torn from his blanket over his face, so only his eyes showed. He spotted the handle of a currentblade on a careless soldier’s hip, and wondered if he could grab it, stab Lazmet right now before anyone attacked Hessa. But the soldier turned away, the opportunity disappearing.
Lazmet beckoned, and Akos went to the front of the pack that had come together, the soldiers drawing closer in the cold. Vakrez and Lazmet, at least, had put on more than one layer.
Akos went to the front of the group, and looked up at Hessa hill. He had told Lazmet to fly in from as far north as he could stand to go, to glide low next to the feathergrass and land, going in on foot. Sure enough, he didn’t hear the sirens that would have sounded all throughout the town if somebody had seen Shotet soldiers. It was strange, how he hoped that he would succeed, and hoped that he would fail, all at once.
There were two paths to the bottom of the hill, one that went into a dip in the land and would protect them from rough wind, and another that wouldn’t. Akos chose the latter. He hoped half of the soldiers froze to death on their way in, or at least got such cold fingers they couldn’t handle their currentblades right.
Akos pointed his nose across the bare plains and started walking.
It wasn’t a long enough walk for any of the Shotet soldiers to freeze to death, unfortunately. But by the time they got to the bottom of the hill, the people behind him had come up with their own strategies for staying warm, some better than others. They were chewing on their fingertips—not the best idea—or wrapping their hands and faces in handkerchiefs and cloths. They were huddled in groups, rotating so one person took the brunt of the wind at a time. Akos’s eyelashes were frosted, and the skin around his eyes was numb, but he felt all right otherwise. The trick to walking in the cold was to just let the chill happen, trusting that your body would take care of itself. When the will to live failed, the body still fought.
The wind died down. They were shielded now by huge crags made by avalanches, and natural promontories, since this was the jagged side of Hessa hill. Still, finding the steps wasn’t easy—you had to know where they were, and Akos’s memory, dulled though it was by everything he’d done, held strong. He went around one of the bigger rock formations and there they were, faint indentations only as long as the ball of his foot.
“I thought you said there were steps,” Vakrez said to him.
“I thought you said the Shotet were adaptable,” Akos retorted, his voice muffled by fabric, and he started up the slope.
Lazmet insisted that Akos lead the way, which ruled out shoving him over the edge. Akos started the quick hop that made the steps easier to climb, only he couldn’t do it. He had been deprived of food for too long to do so much as a single bounce. He slumped against the side of the hill—more of a mountain to the Shotet, he realized—to keep him balanced as he went.
“You starve him for weeks and now you want him to lead us up a mountain?” Vakrez said to Lazmet.
“Get up there and help him, then, if you’re so concerned,” Lazmet said.