“Give me a straight answer, just this once,” he said to her. “Do I save Eijeh or not?”
“I have seen futures where you do, and futures where you don’t,” she said. And, smiling, she added, “But you always, always try.”
The renegades sat at attention, their plates stacked at one end of the big wooden table, and their mugs mostly empty. Teka was wrapped up in a blanket Sovy had embroidered for her, Akos heard her say, and Jyo had put away his instrument. Even Jorek hid his fidgeting fingers under the table while the oracle described her visions. Akos had been watching people get respectful around his mom since he was young, but it felt different here. Like another reason not to belong, as if he needed more.
“Three visions,” Sifa began. “In the first, we depart this place before daybreak, so no one sees us through that hole in the roof.”
“But . . . you made that hole,” Teka interrupted. It figured she would reach the limits of her reverence so quickly, Akos thought. Teka didn’t seem to like nonsense. “If you knew we would have to leave because of it, you could have avoided making it in the first place.”
“So glad you’re keeping up,” Sifa said, serene.
Akos swallowed a laugh. A few seats down, Cisi seemed to be doing the same.
“In the second vision, Ryzek Noavek stands before an immense crowd while the sun is high.” She pointed straight up. A noon sun, in Voa, which was closer to the planet’s equator. “In an amphitheater. There are sights and amplifiers everywhere. Very public—a ceremony, maybe.”
“They’re honoring a platoon of soldiers tomorrow,” Jorek said. “Could be that—otherwise there are no upcoming ceremonies until the next Sojourn Festival.”
“Possibly,” Sifa said. “In the third vision, I see Orieve Benesit struggling against Vas Kuzar’s grip. She is in a cell. Large, made of glass. There are no windows. The smell is . . .” She sniffed, like it was still in the air. “Musty. Underground, I think.”
“Struggling,” Isae repeated. “Is she hurt? Is she—okay?”
“There is quite a bit of life in her,” Sifa said. “Or appears to be.”
“The cell made of glass—that’s a cell beneath the amphitheater,” Cyra said dully. “That’s where I was held, before—” She stopped herself, fingers fluttering over her neck. “The second and third visions happen in the same place. Do they happen at the same time?”
“It is my sense,” Sifa said, “that they are layered over each other. But my sense of placement in time is not always accurate.”
Her hands fell to her lap, slipped into her pocket. Akos watched her take something out, a small object. It shone, catching his eye—it was a button from a jacket. It was tinted yellow at the edges where the finish had worn away from frequent buttoning. He could almost see his dad’s fingers fumbling with it as he groaned about having to go to one of his sister’s military dinners in Shissa, representing Hessa’s iceflower flats. Like this jacket is going to fool anyone, he had said to their mother once, as they both got ready in the hall bathroom. They’ll take one look at the ice scrapes on my boots and know I’m an iceflower farm kid. Their mom had only laughed.
Maybe in another future, Aoseh Kereseth would have been sitting next to Sifa at this strange circle of people, giving Akos a steadiness his mom never could foster, twitchy prophet that she was. Maybe she had brought that button to remind him that his dad wasn’t where he should be, because of Vas. As he thought of it, he knew he was right, knew that was exactly why she had taken out that button.
“You’re manipulating me with that,” he snapped, interrupting something Teka was saying. He didn’t care. Sifa was only looking at him. “Put it away. I remember him well enough on my own.”
After all, he thought, I’m the one who watched him die, not you.
Something fierce flickered in his mom’s eyes, almost like she was listening to his thoughts. But she put the button back into her pocket.
The button was a good reminder, not of his father, but of how manipulative his mother could be. If she was sharing visions, it wasn’t because they were absolute, fixed in time like a fate was. It was because she had chosen a version of the future she wanted, and she was trying to push them all toward it. As a kid, he might have trusted her judgment, trusted that whatever future she had picked was the best one. Now, on the other side of his kidnapping and everything else that he’d lived through, he wasn’t so sure.
“As Teka was saying,” Jorek said, into the strange silence. “Forgive me, I know she’s the sister of your chancellor, but the fate of Orieve Benesit isn’t particularly relevant to our interests. We are interested only in unseating Ryzek Noavek.”
“By killing him,” Teka added. “In case that wasn’t clear.”
“You have no interest in rescuing the sister of a chancellor?” Isae said, flinty.
“She’s not our chancellor,” Teka said. “And we’re not a band of heroes, or something. We’re not about to risk our lives and safety for Thuvhesit strangers.”
Isae’s mouth puckered.
“It’s relevant to your interests because it’s an opportunity,” Cyra said, lifting her head. “Since when does Ryzek Noavek call official ceremonies for platoons of sojourning soldiers? He’s just doing it so he has a captive audience when he murders Orieve Benesit, to prove he can defy his fate. He will ensure that all of Shotet is watching. If you want to move against him, do it then. Do it when everyone is watching, and take away his moment of triumph.”