AS SOON AS I offered myself to fight my brother in the arena, I tasted the dusty amphitheater air in my mouth. I could still smell it: the crowded bodies, sweating; the chemical odor of the disinfected prison beneath; the tang from the force field that hummed above. I had tried to push it away as I spoke to the renegades, playacting at self-assuredness, but it was there, lingering.
The blood splatter. The screaming.
Akos’s mother watched my armored arm, covered now by a blanket from one of the renegades. She was probably wondering how many scars there were beneath it.
What a match for her son I was. Him, aching with each life he had taken. Me, forgetting the number of marks on my arm.
When most of the burnstones in the stove had turned chalky, I slipped away, past the shadow of Sifa’s floater, up the stairwell to the broken place where I had washed the blood from my skin. Below, I could hear Jorek and Jyo singing in harmony—sometimes not well—and the others breaking into a chorus of laughter. In the dimly lit bathroom, I approached the mirror, first finding just a dark silhouette in the glass, and then . . .
This is not a crisis, I told myself. You are alive.
I probed the silverskin on my head and throat. It tingled where it had begun to grow into my nerves. My hair was piled on one side of my head, the silverskin flat against the other side, the skin around it red and swollen as it adjusted to the new material. A woman on one side and a machine on the other.
I braced myself against the sink, and sobbed. My ribs ached, but there was no stopping the tears now. They came, heedless of pain, and I stopped resisting them.
Ryzek had mutilated me. My own brother.
“Cyra,” Akos said, and it was the only time I had ever wished he wasn’t there. He touched my shoulders, lightly, sending the shadows away. He had cold hands. A light touch.
“I’m fine,” I said, running my fingers over my silver throat.
“You don’t have to be fine right now.”
The silverskin reflected the muted light that had crept into this half-destroyed place.
In a small, quiet voice, I asked the question that was buried deep inside me. “Am I ugly now?”
“What do you think?” he asked, and not like it was a rhetorical question. More like he knew I didn’t want him to placate me, so he was asking me to think about it. I lifted my eyes to the mirror again.
My head did look strange with only half my hair, but some people in Shotet wore their hair this way, shaved on one side and long on the other. And the silverskin looked like a piece from the armor that my mother had collected in her seasons of sojourning. Like the armor on my wrist, I would always wear it, and it would make me feel strong.
I found my own eyes in the glass.
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
I didn’t quite mean it yet, but I thought maybe, over time, I might start to.
“I agree,” he said. “In case that wasn’t clear from all the kissing we’ve been doing.”
I smiled, and turned, perching on the edge of the sink. There was worry tugging at the corners of Akos’s eyes, though he was smiling. He had looked that way since the discussion with the renegades about our plan.
“What’s going on, Akos?” I said. “Are you really that concerned that I can’t beat Ryzek?”
“No, it’s not that.” Akos looked as uneasy as I felt. “It’s just . . . you’re really going to kill him?”
That wasn’t quite what I expected him to ask.
“Yes. I’m going to kill him,” I said. The words tasted rusty, like blood. “I thought that was clear.”
He nodded. He looked over his shoulder at the renegades, gathered on the first floor still. I followed his gaze to his mother, who was having a close conversation with Teka, a mug of tea clutched in both hands. Cisi wasn’t far away from them, staring blankly at the furnace. She hadn’t spoken or stirred since the planning session. Many of the others were next to the transport vessel, tucking themselves under blankets, using the bags they had carried here as pillows. We would be up with the sun.
“I need to ask you for something,” he said, returning his focus to me again. He took my face in his hands, gently. “It’s not fair to ask this of you. But I want to ask you to spare Ryzek’s life.”
I paused, certain for a moment that he was joking. I even laughed. But it didn’t look like he was joking.
“Why would you ask me that?”
“You know why,” Akos said, letting his hands fall.
“Eijeh,” I said.
Always Eijeh.
He said, “If you kill Ryzek tomorrow, you’ll be sealing Eijeh forever with Ryzek’s worst memories. His condition will be permanent.”