Everyone—Isae, Cisi, Akos—turned to Teka, their tense moment broken. Isae looked from Ryzek’s body to me. I stiffened. There was something threatening about the way she was moving, speaking, like she was a coiled creature ready to strike.
“The last hope for Eijeh’s restoration lies in Ryzek,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I spared him for the time being. After he returns Eijeh’s memories I will happily cut out his heart myself.”
“Eijeh.” Isae laughed. And laughed again, madly, looking at the ceiling. “The drug you gave Ryzek put him to sleep . . . yet you chose not to share this with him when my sister’s life was threatened?”
She stepped toward me, crushing Ryzek’s fingers under her shoe.
“You chose the dim hope of a traitor’s restoration,” she said, low and quiet, “over the life of a chancellor’s sister.”
“If I had told Ryzek about the drug, we would have been trapped in that amphitheater with no leverage and no hope of escape, and he would have killed your sister anyway,” I said. “I chose the path that guaranteed our survival.”
“Bullshit.” Isae leaned close to my face. “You chose Akos. Don’t pretend it’s any different than it is.”
“Fine,” I said, just as quiet. “It was Akos or you. I chose him. And I don’t regret it.”
It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was certainly true. If simple hatred was what she craved, I would make it easier for her. I was used to being hated, especially by the Thuvhesit.
Isae nodded.
“Isae . . . ,” Cisi began, but Isae was already walking away. She disappeared into the galley, closing the door behind her.
Cisi wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“I can’t believe this. Vas is dead, and Ryzek is alive,” Teka said.
Vas was dead? I looked at Akos, but he was avoiding my eyes.
“Give me a reason not to kill Ryzek right now, Noavek,” Teka said, turning to me. “And if that reason is something about Kereseth, I will hit you.”
“If you kill him, you won’t have my cooperation in whatever plan the renegades concoct next,” I said dully, without looking at her. “If you help me keep him alive, I’ll help you conquer Shotet.”
“Yeah? And what kind of help would you be, exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Teka,” I snapped, finally breaking my spell to glare at her. “Yesterday the renegades were just squatting in a safe house in Voa, clueless, and now, because of me, you’re standing over the unconscious body of Ryzek Noavek with Voa in utter chaos behind you. I think that suggests my capacity to help the renegade cause is considerable, don’t you?”
She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a few seconds, then said, “There’s a storage area below deck with a heavy door. I’ll toss him in there so he doesn’t wake up on us.” But she shook her head. “You know, wars have been started over less. You didn’t just make her angry, you enraged an entire nation.”
My throat tightened.
“You know there was nothing I could have done for Ori, even if I had killed Ryzek,” I said. “We were all trapped.”
“I know that.” Teka sighed. “But I’m pretty sure Isae Benesit doesn’t believe it.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Cisi said. “I’ll help her see it. Right now she just wants people to blame.”
She shed the jacket she wore, leaving her arms bare and covered with goose bumps, and draped it over Ori. Akos helped her tuck the edges under Ori’s shoulders and hips, so her wound was hidden. Cisi brushed Ori’s hair into place with her fingers.
They both left, then, Cisi to the galley and Akos to the hold, with heavy footsteps and trembling hands.
I turned to Teka.
“Let’s lock my brother up.”
Teka and I dragged Ryzek and Eijeh to separate storage rooms, one by one. I rooted out more sleeping elixir to drug Eijeh. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with him—he was still unconscious and unresponsive—but if he woke up as the same warped man who had murdered Ori Benesit, I didn’t want to deal with it yet.
Then I went to the nav deck, where Sifa Kereseth sat in the captain’s chair, her hands on the controls. Jyo was nearby, using his screen to contact Jorek, who had returned home after Ryzek fell, to get his mother. I sat in the empty chair beside Akos’s mother. We were high in the atmosphere, almost past the barrier of blue that separated us from space.
“Where are we going?” I said.
“Into orbit until we make a plan,” Sifa said. “We can’t go back to Shotet, obviously, and it’s not safe to go back to Thuvhe yet.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with Eijeh?” I said. “He’s still catatonic.”
“No,” Sifa said. “Not yet.”