His fingers painted a flat street, a rough figure of a person running down it, chased by a rolling cloud. At the end of the street, the running person was subsumed by the cloud.
“When our sojourners came home to find their children missing, they waged war for their return. But they were not trained for battle, only for scavenging and for wandering, and they were killed in large numbers. And so we believed those children lost forever,” he said. “But a generation later, on a sojourn, one of our number ventured alone on the planet Othyr, and there—among those who did not know our tongue—a child spoke to him in Shotet. She was a child of a Thuvhesit captive, collecting something for her masters, and she didn’t even realize that she had traded one language for another. The child was Reclaimed, brought back to us.”
He tilted his head.
“And then,” he said, “we rose, and became soldiers, so we would never be overcome again.”
As he whispered, as the smoke of his illusions disappeared, drums from the city’s center pounded louder and louder, and drums all throughout the poor sector joined in. They thudded and rumbled, and I looked to the Storyteller, mouth drifting open.
“It is the storm,” he said. “Which is all the better, because my story is done.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry to—”
“Go, Little Noavek,” the Storyteller said with a crooked smile. “Don’t miss it.”
I grabbed Akos’s arm and pulled him to his feet. He was scowling at the Storyteller. He had not touched the cup of sweet purple tea that I had poured for him. I tugged hard to get him to follow me up the steps of the Storyteller’s house and into the alley. Even from here, I could see the ship drifting toward Voa from far off. I knew its shape the way I had known my mother’s silhouette, even from a distance. How it bowed out at the belly and tapered at the nose. I knew which scavenges had yielded its uneven plates by how worn they were, or by their tints, orange and blue and black. Our patchwork craft, large enough to cast all of Voa in shadow.
All around us, all throughout the city, I heard cheers.
Out of habit, I raised my free hand up to the sky. A loud, sharp sound like the crack of a whip came from somewhere near the loading bay door of the ship, and veins of dark blue color spread from it in every direction, wrapping around the clouds themselves, or forming new ones. It was like ink dropped into water, separate at first and then mixing, blending together until the city was covered in a blanket of dark blue mist. The ship’s gift to us.
Then—as it had every season of my life—it started to rain blue.
Keeping one hand firmly in Akos’s, I turned my other palm to catch some of the blue. It was dark, and wherever it rolled across my skin, it left a faint stain. The people at the end of the alley were laughing and smiling and singing and swaying. Akos’s chin was tipped back. He gazed at the ship’s belly, and then at his hand, at the blue rolling over his knuckles. His eyes met mine. I was laughing.
“Blue is our favorite color,” I said. “The color of the currentstream when we scavenge.”
“When I was a child,” he replied wonderingly, “it was my favorite color, too, though all of Thuvhe hates it.”
I took the palmful of blue water I had collected, and smeared it into his cheek, staining it darker. Akos spluttered, spitting some of it on the ground. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for his reaction. He stuck out his hand, catching a stream of water rolling off a building’s roof, and lunged at me.
I sprinted down the alley, not fast enough to avoid the cold water rolling down my back, with a childlike shriek. I caught his arm by the elbow, and we ran together, through the singing crowd, past swaying elders, men and women dancing too close, irritable off-planet visitors trying to cover up their wares in the market. We splashed through bright blue puddles, soaking our clothes. And we were both, for once, laughing.
CHAPTER 12: CYRA
THAT NIGHT I SCRUBBED the blue stain from my skin and hair, then joined Akos at the apothecary counter to make the painkiller so I could sleep. I didn’t ask him what he thought of the Storyteller’s account of Shotet history, which blamed Thuvhe, not Shotet, for the hostility between our people. He didn’t offer his reaction. When the painkiller was done, I carried it back to my room and sat on the edge of my bed to drink it. And that was the last thing I remembered.
When I woke, I was slumped sideways on the bed, on top of the blankets. Beside me, the half-empty mug of painkiller had turned on its side, and the sheets were stained purple where it had spilled. Sunrise was just beginning, judging by the pale light coming through the curtains.
My body aching, I pushed myself up. “Akos?”
The tea had knocked me unconscious. I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. But I had helped him make it; had I made it too strong? I stumbled down the hallway and knocked on his door. No, I couldn’t have made it too strong; I had only prepared the sendes stalks for it. He had done the rest.
He had drugged me.
There was no answer at his door. I pushed it open. Akos’s room was empty, drawers open, clothes missing, dagger gone.
I had been suspicious of his kindness as he coaxed me into leaving the house. And I had been right to be.
I yanked my hair back and tied it away from my face. I went back to my room, shoving my feet into my boots. I didn’t bother with the laces.
He had drugged me.
I wheeled around and searched the far wall for the panel we had pushed through yesterday to slip out of the house. There was a small gap between it and the rest of the wall. I gritted my teeth against pain. He had wanted me to leave the house with him so I would show him how to get out. And I had armed him with that Zoldan knife, I had trusted him with my potion, and now . . . now I would suffer for it.