“As in . . . hypothetical weapons?” Isae said.
“Possibly, but that’s not top priority.” Jyo plucked a few wrong strings, swore, and got himself on the right ones again. “Top priority would be food and medicine. Lots of runs to Othyr and back. Gotta feed people before they can fight for you, right? And the farther out of the center of Voa you get, the more diseased and starved people are.”
Isae’s face tightened, but she nodded.
Akos didn’t think about it much, what was going on outside the tangle of Noaveks he’d gotten himself into. But he thought about what Cyra had said about Ryzek keeping supplies to himself, doling them out to his people or hoarding them for later, and he felt a little bit sick.
Teka and Jorek spun around each other, and swayed, Jorek surprisingly graceful, given his gangliness. Cisi and Isae sat shoulder to shoulder, leaned back against the wall. Every so often Isae gave a tired smile. It didn’t quite look right on her face—it wasn’t one of Ori’s smiles, and she wore Ori’s face, scarred though it was. But Akos figured he would have to get used to her.
Sovy sang a few bars of Jyo’s song, and they ate until they were warm and full and tired.
CHAPTER 29: CYRA
IT WAS DIFFICULT TO sleep after someone had peeled one’s skin off with a knife, but I gave it my best effort.
My pillowcase was soaked with blood that morning when I awoke, though I had of course lain on the side Vas had not flayed from throat to skull. The only reason I hadn’t bled to death yet was that the gaping wound was covered with stitching cloth, a medical innovation from Othyr that kept wounds closed and dissolved as they healed. It was not meant for wounds as severe as mine.
I stripped the case from the pillow and tossed it in the corner. The shadows danced over my arm, pricking me. For most of my life, they had run alongside my veins, visible through my skin. When I woke up after the interrogation—a soldier had told me my heart stopped, then started again of its own accord—the shadows were traveling over the surface of my body instead. They still caused me pain, but it was more bearable. I didn’t understand why.
But then Ryzek had declared nemhalzak, and had Vas cut my skin away from my body like the rind from a fruit, and forced me to fight in the arena, so I was in just as much pain as usual.
He had asked me where I wanted it, the scar. If it could even be called that—scars were dark lines on a person’s skin, not . . . patches. But nemhalzak had to be paid for with flesh, and it had to be on display, readily visible. With my mind addled by rage, I had told him to scar me the same way he had scarred Akos, when the Kereseth brothers first arrived. Ear to jaw.
And when Vas had accomplished that much, Ryzek told him to keep going.
Get some of her hair, too.
I breathed through my nose. I didn’t want to throw up. I couldn’t afford to throw up, in fact—I needed all the strength I had left.
As he had every day since I self-revived, Eijeh Kereseth came to watch me eat breakfast. He set a tray of food at my feet and leaned against the wall across from me, hunched, his posture bad as ever. Today his jaw bore the bruise I had given him the day before, when I tried to escape on the way to the arena and managed to get a few hits in before the guards in the hallway dragged me away from him.
“I didn’t think you would be back, after yesterday,” I said to him.
“I’m not afraid of you. You won’t kill me,” Eijeh replied. He had drawn his weapon, and he was spinning the blade on his palm, catching it when it made a full rotation. He did it without looking at it.
I snorted. “I’ll kill just about anyone, haven’t you heard the rumors?”
“You won’t kill me,” Eijeh repeated. “Because you love my delusional brother far too much for your own good.”
I had to laugh at that. I hadn’t realized that silky-voiced Eijeh Kereseth read me so well.
“I feel like I know you,” Eijeh said suddenly. “I suppose I do know you, don’t I? I do now.”
“I’m not really in the mood for a philosophical discussion about what makes a person who they are,” I said. “But even if you are more Ryzek than Eijeh at this point, you still don’t know me. You—whoever you are—never bothered to.”
Eijeh rolled his eyes a little. “Poor misunderstood daughter of privilege.”
“Says the walking garbage can for all the things Ryzek wants to forget,” I snapped. “Why doesn’t he just kill me, anyway? All this drama beforehand is very elaborate, even for him.”
Eijeh didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself. Ryzek hadn’t killed me yet because he needed to do it this way, in public. Maybe word had spread that I had helped with an assassination attempt, and now he needed to destroy my reputation before he let me die. Or maybe he just wanted to watch me suffer.
Somehow I didn’t believe that.
“Is giving me useless cutlery really necessary?” I said, stabbing my toast with the knife instead of slicing it.
“The sovereign is concerned that you will try to end your life before the appropriate time,” Eijeh said.
The appropriate time. I wondered if Eijeh had chosen my manner of death, then. The oracle, plucking the ideal future from an array of options.
“End my life with this thing? My fingernails are sharper.” I brought the knife down, point first, on the mattress. I slammed it so hard the bed frame shuddered, and let go. The knife fell over, not even sharp enough to penetrate fabric. I winced, not even sure what part of my body hurt.