Our gifts are buried within us.
But if anything was buried in Nova, she had found no hint of it, and was on the verge of panic. Was it possible she had no gift at all? She had never heard of that. Weak gifts abounded, but no gift? Never.
“It’s all right,” Solvay, the lone woman on the crew, had assured her early on, when Ren’s initial probing had failed to turn up any bright spot of difference, as it had with the burgeoning in Kora’s chest. “Some gifts take more time to reveal themselves than others. It’s an art more than a science, but we’re trained at it. We’ll find it.”
She’d been so kind, but that was several hours ago, and even she looked dubious now. They had performed every test they had, including the simplest of all: A smith’s gift was never coy. You had only to touch the metal to know. A smith would leave fingerprints, even as a baby. Nova had not. And though she thought she’d immured herself to the hope of it, still it was a blow. They had tried out water, fire, earth, to test for elemental magic. They had even administered little shocks intended to stimulate different nerve paths. It hadn’t hurt very much, but Nova was exhausted now. The Servants were speaking amongst themselves, and she and Kora could hear every word. “It’s unusual but not unheard of,” Antal of the white hair was saying. “I’ve heard of gifts that took weeks to manifest.”
“We don’t have weeks,” Ren reminded him. “Unless you’d like to stay here and enjoy the fascinating smells.”
“We could always bring her,” suggested Solvay, “and let them test her at the training house in Aqa.”
“And if she’s useless, what then? Are you going to bring her back here?”
Solvay glanced at Nova. “I imagine …” she said hesitantly, “she’d prefer not to return. She could find work in Aqa if it came to it. Why not? We’ve space aboard, and too few prospects to fill it.”
Antal gave a deep sigh. “It is not our job to transport girls away from their dreary lives, Solvay.”
“It is our job to find the strong, of whom there are fewer all the time. And with a mother and a sister like hers, what are the chances that she’s weak?”
They all paused, glancing to Skathis, who had yet to express an opinion. Through everything, he had simply watched, his gaze crawling over Nova—like the flies on the beach, she thought, inwardly cringing. They seemed to be waiting for him to weigh in. They also seemed…on edge.
“Skathis?” Ren prompted, and Nova couldn’t breathe, so afraid he’d say just to leave her, that she wasn’t worth the trouble. She was holding Kora’s hand with her own ungloved one, and she clenched it hard.
The smith straightened up from his slouch against the wall. “There’s another option you haven’t mentioned.”
“No,” said Solvay at once.
Skathis raised his eyebrows. “Pardon me?”
She looked conflicted to be arguing with her superior officer. “It’s against protocol.”
“This is my ship. I set the protocol.”
“You do not set imperial protocol,” persisted Solvay, breathless and flushed. “You are subject to it like everyone else.”
“I am not like everyone else,” said Skathis in a voice like the smoldering of embers.
A brief silence fell before Antal, clearing his throat, suggested, “Why don’t we try again in the morning before we consider…other options.”
“I think the girl would like to find her gift now.” Skathis turned to Nova. “Wouldn’t you.”
It wasn’t a question, and Nova didn’t know how to respond. She was desperate to find her gift, but why did the others look so troubled? “I don’t…” she began. “What…?”
“Good,” said Skathis, “it’s settled,” though she had agreed to nothing. “Wait.” Kora stepped in front of her sister. “What are you going to do to her?”
“To her?” asked Skathis with a smile. “Nothing at all.”
And the first hint Nova had of what he intended was when her sister’s hands flew to the godsmetal collar around her neck.
Kora gave a gasp. She felt it constricting and tried to fit her fingers under it to stop it—as if she could, as if the godsmetal were not impervious to everything but the smith’s will. It was beginning to bite in. Her gasp shallowed, turning into a choke as her windpipe flattened under the collar’s pressure. She didn’t even have time to draw a last breath before it closed her throat and cut off all air. A tortured sound dragged out of her. Her eyes went wide with panic.
“No!” Nova cried, lunging to her sister, to claw at the necklace, too. It was futile. She already knew she wasn’t a smith. She spun toward Skathis. He was watching them with unnerving unconcern. “Let her go!” Nova cried. “You’ll kill her!”
“I hope not,” said Skathis. “Astrals really are very rare. It’ll be a shame if she dies. It’s up to you to save her life. Do you have power, or don’t you? Show me.”
Nova rushed at him. She wasn’t thinking. To try to strike a Servant of the empire—a smith, no less! It was grounds for immediate execution. She didn’t reach him anyway. He took a neat step back, and the floor beneath her feet warped and turned liquid, drawing her down all the way to her knees before turning solid again and trapping her. She struggled, looking wildly between Kora’s face— gasping mouth and panicked eyes—and Skathis’s placid one. The other three Mesarthim stood rigid, such expressions on their faces that it was clear in an instant that they feared their captain, and were powerless to stop him.
Only he could end this, and Nova saw plainly—from all their faces—that he would not, that he would take it to its bitter end, even if it cost Kora’s life.
It was up to Nova, then. If there was a gift in her, she had to find it. She had given up looking. Now, frantic, she tried again to…to feel, as Ren had instructed, but all she could feel was her pounding heart. Kora was on the floor now, her struggles growing feebler. Nova saw that she was dying. She stopped plundering through herself, pawing for a gift as she might paw at beach sand in hopes of finding a shell. This wasn’t about hope anymore. It was about desperation—
—which was just what Skathis was after. In a matter of life or death, the body and mind will flood with chemicals and trigger even the most stubborn gifts. This was his method, cruel, violent, effective. It was like blowing up a door when you couldn’t find the key. It worked, in its way.
Rage pulsed up from Nova’s core like the shock wave of a blast, ripping through her fear, her worry, even through her conscious thought, so that she stopped feeling for her gift, stopped wondering what it was, and just… became it.
A lot of things happened at once.
Kora took a drag of breath.
Nova climbed out of the floor that had trapped her, as easily as though it were water.
Shock registered in Skathis’s eyes in the split second before the godsmetal under his feet lurched like a yanked rug and sent him flying. His head hit with a crack. The other Mesarthim stared, agog, at Skathis on the floor, Kora breathing, Nova free.
“She’s a smith after all,” breathed Solvay.
But Ren went where the others couldn’t, into Nova’s mind, and when he felt what was there, he said, horrorstruck, “No, she isn’t.”
And then he wasn’t in her mind anymore. He was thrust out of it and she was in his, flensing it like an uul hide with her inarticulate roar of rage. His hands flew to his temples, his face contorting at the assault of her voice, her wrath, her power. It invaded his mind, which felt, suddenly, fragile as glass that would shatter if the onslaught did not cease. He dropped to his knees, still holding his temples. His face was a rictus of pain.
Nova’s hands were fists at her sides. Her stance was wide, head dropped, chin almost to her chest, and she was peering up through slitted eyes, her breath hissing out through bared teeth. Words hissed out, too.
“Leave. My sister. ALONE!”