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.
I think you’re lying to yourself about what I am, he had said.
Honor has no place in survival, I had taught him.
I charged into the hallway. There was already a guard walking toward me. I braced myself against the door. What was he coming to say? I didn’t know what to hope for, Akos’s escape or his capture.
The guard stopped just shy of my door, and bent his head to me. He was one of the shorter, younger ones—baby-faced and carrying a blade. One of the ones who still stared wide-eyed at my arms when the dark lines spread over them.
“What?” I demanded, gritting my teeth. The pain was back, almost as bad as it had been after I tortured Uzul Zetsyvis. “What is it?”
“The sovereign’s steward, Vas Kuzar, sends word that your servant was discovered trying to flee the grounds with his brother last night,” the guard said. “He is currently confined, awaiting the sovereign’s assigned punishment. Vas requests your presence at the private hearing, in two hours, in the Weapons Hall.”
With his brother. That meant Akos had found a way to get Eijeh out, too. I remembered Eijeh’s screams after he first arrived here, and shuddered.
I went to the “private hearing” fully armed, dressed as a soldier. Ryzek had left the curtains down in the Weapons Hall, so it was as dark as night, lit by the wavering light of the fenzu above. He stood on the platform, hands behind his back, staring at the wall of weapons above him. No one else was in the room. Yet.
“This was our mother’s favorite,” he said as the door closed behind me. He touched the currentstick, suspended on a diagonal from the wall. It was a long, narrow pole with blades at either end. Each of the blades contained a channeling rod, so if the weapon touched skin, dark shadows of current wrapped around the whole thing, from end to end. It was nearly as long as I was tall.
“An elegant choice,” he said, still without turning around. “More for show than anything; did you know our mother was not particularly proficient in combat? Father told me. But she was clever, strategic. She found ways to avoid physical altercations, acknowledging her weakness.”
He turned. He wore a smug smile.
“You should be more like her, sister,” he said. “You are an excellent fighter. But up here . . .” He tapped the side of his head. “Well, it’s not your strength.”
The shadows traveled faster beneath my skin, spurred on by my anger. But I kept my mouth closed.
“You gave Kereseth a weapon? You took him through the tunnels?” Ryzek shook his head. “You slept through his escape?”
“He drugged me,” I said tersely.
“Oh? And how did he do that?” Ryzek said lightly, still smirking. “Pinned you down and poured the potion into your mouth? I don’t think so. I think you drank it, trustingly. Drank a powerful drug prepared by your enemy.”
“Ryzek—” I started.
“You almost cost us our oracle,” Ryzek snapped. “And why? Because you’re foolish enough to let your heart flutter for the first painkiller who comes around?”
I didn’t argue. He had spent a long time searching the galaxy for an oracle, with my father and without. In one night, that oracle had almost escaped. My doing. And maybe he was right. Maybe whatever small trust I had felt for Akos, whatever appeal he had held, had come because he offered me relief. Because I was so grateful for the reprieve from pain—and from isolation—that my heart had softened. I had been stupid.
“You can’t blame him for wanting to rescue his brother, or for wanting to get out of here,” I said, my voice quaking with fear.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” Ryzek said, laughing a little. “People will always want things that will destroy us, Cyra. That doesn’t mean we just let them act on what they want.”
Ryzek pointed to the side of the room.
“Stand over there and don’t say a word,” he said. “I brought you here to watch what happens when you don’t keep your servants under control.”
I was shivering, burning, and I looked like I was standing under a canopy of vines, marked by their shadows. I stumbled to the side of the room, my arms clutched tightly around me. I heard Ryzek’s order to enter.
The huge doors at the other end of the room opened. Vas walked in first, armored, his shoulders back. Behind him, flanked by soldiers, was the sagging, stumbling form of Akos Kereseth. Half his face was covered in blood, coming from a gash in his eyebrow. His face was swollen, his lip split. Beaten already, but then, he had gotten good at taking a beating.
Behind him walked Eijeh—also bleeding and beaten, but more than that . . . vacant. His face was rough with a patchy beard, and he was gaunt, a shred of the young man I had seen from my hidden vantage point two seasons ago.
I could hear Akos breathing from where I stood, sputtering. But he straightened at the sight of my brother.
“My, my, aren’t you a sight,” Ryzek said, descending the steps slowly. “How far did he get, Vas? Past the fence?”
“Not even,” Vas said. “Got him in the kitchens, coming out of the tunnels.”
“Well, let me clarify your miscalculation, for future reference, Kereseth,” Ryzek said. “Just because my late mother enjoyed the old-fashioned appearance of this house doesn’t mean that I didn’t outfit my home with the most advanced security measures possible after her passing. Including motion sensors around secure rooms, such as your brother’s.”
“Why are you keeping him here?” Akos said through gritted teeth. “Does he even have a currentgift? Or have you starved it out of him?”
Vas—casually, lazily—backhanded Akos. Akos crumpled, clutching his cheek.
“Akos,” Eijeh said. His voice was like a light touch. “Don’t.”
“Why don’t you tell him, Eijeh?” Ryzek said. “Have you developed a currentgift?”
Akos peered past his fingers at his brother. Eijeh closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, nodded.
“Rising oracle,” Akos murmured in Shotet. At first I didn’t know what he meant—it was not a phrase we used. But Thuvhesit had different words for all three oracles—one falling, close to retiring; one sitting, prophesying from the temple; and one rising, coming into the fullness of his or her power.
“You would be correct in assuming that I have not been able to make him use his gift for my benefit,” Ryzek said. “So instead, I intend to take it.”
“Take it?” Akos said, echoing my own thoughts.
Ryzek stepped closer to Akos and crouched in front of him, his elbows balanced on his knees.
“Do you know what my currentgift is?” he said lightly.
Akos didn’t answer.
“Tell him about it, Cyra dear,” Ryzek said, jerking his head toward me. “You are intimately acquainted with it.”
Akos, bracing himself with one hand, lifted his eyes to mine. There were tears mixed with the blood on his face.
“My brother can trade memories,” I said. I sounded empty. Felt like it, too. “He gives you one of his, and takes one of yours in return.”
Akos went still.
“A person’s gift proceeds from who they are,” Ryzek said. “And who they are is what their pasts have made them. Take a person’s memories, and you take the things that formed them. You take their gift. And at last . . .” Ryzek ran his finger down the side of Akos’s face, collecting blood. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, examining it. “At last, I will not have to rely on another to tell me the future.”
Akos threw himself at Ryzek, moving fast to give the soldiers the slip, his hands outstretched. He pressed his thumb hard into the side of Ryzek’s throat, pinning his right arm with the other, teeth bared. Animal.
Vas was on top of him in seconds, yanking him by the back of his shirt and punching him hard in the ribs. When Akos was flat on his back, Vas pressed a shoe to his throat, and raised his eyebrows.
“One of my soldiers did this to you once,” Vas said. “Before I killed your father. It seemed to be effective then. Stay still or I will crush your trachea.”
Akos twitched, but stopped thrashing. Ryzek picked himself up, massaging his throat and brushing dust from his pants and checking the straps of his armor. Then he approached Eijeh. The soldiers who had walked in with Akos were now flanking Eijeh, each one with a firm grip on one of his arms. As if it was necessary. Eijeh looked so dazed I was surprised he was still awake.
Ryzek lifted both hands, and touched them to Eijeh’s head, his eyes focused and hungry. Hungry for escape.
It was not much to watch. Just Ryzek and Eijeh, joined by Ryzek’s hands, stares locked, for a long time.
When I first watched Ryzek do this, I was too much of a child to understand what was going on, but I did remember that it had taken only a moment for him to trade one memory. Memories happened in flashes, not as drawn-out as reality, and it seemed strange that something so important, so essential to a person, could disappear so quickly.
Breathless, all I could do now was watch.
When Ryzek released Eijeh, it was with a strange, bewildered look. He stepped back, and looked around like he wasn’t sure where he was. Felt his body like he wasn’t sure who he was. I wondered if he had thought about what trading his memories away would cost him, or if he had just assumed that he was so potent a personality there was more than enough of him to go around.
Eijeh, meanwhile, looked at the Weapons Hall like he had only just recognized it. Was I just imagining the familiarity in his eyes as they followed the steps up to the platform?
Ryzek nodded to Vas to take his foot from Akos’s throat. Vas did. Akos lay still, staring at Ryzek, who crouched beside him again.
“Do you still blush so easily?” Ryzek said softly. “Or was that something you grew out of, eventually?”
Akos’s face contorted.
“You will never disrespect me with silly escape plans again,” Ryzek said. “And your punishment for this first and only attempt is that I will keep your brother around, taking piece after piece from him until he is no longer someone you wish to rescue.”
Akos pressed his forehead to the ground, and closed his eyes.
And no wonder. Eijeh Kereseth was as good as gone.