“Justice is done,” he repeated. “That’s one way of looking at it, I guess.”
“It’s my way,” she said. “Judging by your expression, I assume you’ve chosen the path of guilt and self-loathing instead.”
“I wanted to kill him,” he said. “I hate that I wanted to do something like that.”
He shuddered again, and stared at his hands. All cracked from hitting things, the same way Vas’s had been.
Cyra waited awhile before responding.
“It’s hard to know what’s right in this life,” she said. “We do what we can, but what we really need is mercy. Do you know who taught me that?” A grin. “You.”
He wasn’t sure how he’d taught her about mercy, but he knew the cost of it, for her. Mercy for Eijeh—and sparing Ryzek’s life, for the time being—meant she had to hold on to the worst of her pain for even longer. It meant trading triumph at last for Isae’s anger and the renegades’ disgust. But she seemed at ease with it, still. No one knew how to bear other people’s hate like Cyra Noavek. Sometimes she even encouraged it, but that didn’t bother him so much. He understood it. She really just thought people were better off staying away from her.
“What?” she said.
“I like you, you know,” he said.
“I know.”
“No, I mean I like you the way you are, I don’t need you to change.” He smiled. “I’ve never thought of you as a monster or a weapon or—what did you call yourself? A rusty—”
She caught the word nail in her mouth. Her fingertips were cool, careful as they ran over the scars and bruises he wore, like she was taking them back. She tasted like sendes leaf and hushflower, like saltfruit and like home.
He put his hands on her, sighing into her skin. They got bolder, fingers laced with fingers, knotted in hair, taking in fistfuls of shirt. Finding soft places nobody else had ever touched, like the bend in her waist, like the underside of his jaw. Their bodies pressed together, hip bone against stomach, knee against thigh . . .
“Hey!” Teka yelled from across the ship. “Not a private place, you two!”
Cyra rocked back on her heels, and glared at Teka.
He knew how she felt. He wanted more. He wanted everything.
CHAPTER 41: CYRA
I DESCENDED THE STAIRS that led beneath the renegade ship to the hold, where my brother was locked in one of the storage rooms. The doors were solid metal, but each one had a vent near the low ceiling so air could circulate through the ship. I approached his room slowly, running one finger along the smooth wall. The lights flickered above my head as the ship shuddered.
The vent was at eye level, so I could see inside. I expected Ryzek’s body to be limp on the floor next to bottles of solvent or cans of oxygen, but it wasn’t. At first I didn’t see him at all, and I gulped air, frantic, about to scream for help. But then he stepped into my line of sight, his body cut into stripes by the blades of the vent.
Still, I could see his eyes, unfocused but full of contempt.
“You’re more of a coward than I thought you were,” he said in a low growl.
“It’s interesting being on this side of the wall this time,” I said. “Be careful, or I will be as unkind to you as you were to me.”
I held up my hand, letting smoky current unfurl around it. Tendrils of ink-darkness wrapped around my fingers like hair. I ran my nails along the vent, lightly, marveling at how easy it would be to hurt him here, with no one to stop me. Just the opening of a door.
“Who did it?” Ryzek said. “Who poisoned me?”
“I already told you,” I said. “I did.”
Ryzek shook his head. “No, I’ve been keeping my iceflower blends under lock and key since the first assassination attempt that you participated in.” He was almost, but not quite, smiling. “And by ‘lock and key,’ I mean a gene lock, accessible by Noavek blood alone.” He waited a beat. “Locks that we both know you were, and are, unable to open.”
My mouth dry, I stared up at him through the narrow space. He had security footage of the first assassination attempt, of course, so he had likely seen me trying to open the lock on his door with no success. But it didn’t seem to surprise him.
“What do you mean?” I said, quiet.
“You do not share my blood,” he said, pronouncing each word deliberately. “You are not a Noavek. Why do you think I started using those locks? Because I knew only one person would be able to get through them: me.”
And I had never tried to get past them before the assassination, because I had always kept my distance from him. Even if I had, I was sure he would have kept a convincing lie ready for the occasion. He was always prepared to lie.
“If I’m not a Noavek, then what am I?” I said sharply.
“How should I know?” He laughed. “I’m glad I was able to see your face when I told you. Emotional, volatile Cyra. When will you learn to control your reactions?”
“I could ask the same of you. Your smiles are getting less and less convincing, Ryz.”
“Ryz.” He laughed again. “You think you’ve won, but you haven’t. There are things I haven’t told you, your true parentage aside.”
Within me everything was turbulent. But I stood as still as I could, watching his lips part in that smile, his eyes crinkle at the corners. I searched his face for a sign of shared blood, and found none. We didn’t look alike, but that in itself was not strange—sometimes siblings took after different parents, after distant relatives, bringing long-forgotten genes back to life. He was either telling me the truth or he was playing with my mind, but either way, I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me react any further.