“I go by ‘Jorek,’ not ‘Kuzar.’ You’ve earned armor?”
“Yeah.” Akos used his distraction against him, smacking the front of Jorek’s throat with the flat of the weapon. Jorek choked, clapping his hands over his neck.
“All right, all right,” he gasped, showing a palm. “That answers that question.”
Akos backed up to the edge of the arena to put some space between them. “What question? About my armor?”
“No. Damn, that sucked.” He massaged his throat. “I came here wondering how good you’d gotten, training with Cyra. My father said you didn’t know hand from foot when he first met you.”
Akos’s anger was slow to come, like water turning to ice, but it had some heft to it, when it did. Like right then.
“Your father—” he started, but Jorek interrupted.
“Is the worst kind of man, yes. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
Akos flipped the practice knife in his hand, again and again, waiting for the right response to come, or for Jorek to keep going. Whatever he had to say, though, it didn’t seem to come easy. Akos watched the ones lifting weights on the other end of the room. They weren’t looking, didn’t seem to be listening.
“I know what my father did to you, and your family,” Jorek said. “I also know what you did to one of the other men who was there.” He nodded to Akos’s marked arm. “And I want to ask you for something.”
As far as Akos knew, Jorek was a big disappointment to his family. Born to an elite Shotet name and working in maintenance. He was grease-streaked even then.
“What, exactly?” Akos said. Another flip of the knife.
“I want you to kill my father,” Jorek said plainly.
The knife clattered to the ground.
The memory of Jorek’s father was as close to him as two threads in a tapestry. Suzao Kuzar had been there when his dad’s blood seeped into the living room floor. He had slapped the cuffs on Akos’s wrists.
“I’m not a fool, no matter what you people think of the Thuvhesit,” Akos snapped, his cheeks going ruddy as he picked up the practice blade. “You think I’m going to just let you set me up for a fall?”
“I’m as much at risk as you are,” Jorek replied. “For all I know you could go whisper in Cyra Noavek’s ear about what I just asked you, and it could get back to Ryzek, or my father. But I’m choosing to trust in your hatred. As you should trust in mine.”
“Trust in your hatred. For your own father,” Akos said. “Why—why would you want this?”
Jorek was a head shorter than Akos, and not even as wide. Smaller than his age. But his eyes were steady.
“My mother is in danger,” Jorek said. “Probably my sister, too. And as you’ve seen, I’m not skilled enough to fight him off myself.”
“So you, what? Leap straight to killing him? What is it with you Shotet?” Akos said in a low voice. “If your family really is in danger, can’t you just find a way to get your mom and sister out of here? You work in maintenance, and there are hundreds of floaters in the loading bay.”
“They wouldn’t go. Besides, as long as he’s alive, he’s a danger to them. I don’t want them to have to live that way, on the run, always scared,” Jorek said, firm. “I’m not taking any unnecessary risks.”
“And there’s no one else who can help you.”
“No one can force Suzao Kuzar to do anything he doesn’t want to do.” Jorek laughed. “Except Ryzek, and I’ll give you one guess what the sovereign of Shotet would say to that request.”
Akos rubbed at the marks by his elbow, and thought of the savagery of them. He doesn’t look like much, Osno’s mother had said about him. He’s nice enough, Osno had replied. Well, neither of them had known what he could do with a knife, had they?
“You want me to kill a man,” Akos said, if only to test it out in his own mind.
“A man who aided in your kidnapping. Yes.”
“What, out of the goodness of my heart?” Akos shook his head and held out the practice knife handle-first for Jorek to take. “No.”
“In return,” Jorek said, “I can offer you your freedom. As you said, there are hundreds of floaters in the loading bay. It would be a simple thing, to help you take one. To open the doors for you. To make sure someone on the nav deck was looking the other way.”
Freedom. He offered it like someone who didn’t know what it meant, someone who had never had it taken away. Only, it didn’t exist for Akos anymore, and hadn’t since the day he found out his fate. Maybe even since he promised his dad he would get Eijeh home.
So Akos shook his head again. “No deal.”
“You don’t want to go home?”
“I have unfinished business here. And I really should get back to it, so . . .”
Jorek still wasn’t taking the practice knife, so Akos let it fall between them and started toward the door. He felt for Jorek’s mother, maybe even for Jorek himself, but he had enough family trouble of his own, and these marks weren’t getting any easier to bear.
“Then what about that brother of yours?” Jorek said. “The one who inhales when Ryzek exhales?”
Akos stopped, grinding his teeth. It’s your own fault, he told himself. You’re the one who hinted at “unfinished business.” Somehow knowing that didn’t make it any easier.