A FEW SEASONS AGO, he’d been dragged into the city of Voa by soldiers of Ryzek Noavek, badly beaten, with his scared brother at his heels. The warm, dusty air had choked him. He hadn’t been used to crowds, or the loud laughs of people gathered around food stalls, or all the weapons, tapped casually in the middle of conversation, like they didn’t matter.
Now he walked with his palm balanced on the knife sheathed at his waist, without thinking much of it. He had tied a cloth around his nose and mouth, and cropped his hair close to his head, to keep from being recognized by the wrong people. But it didn’t seem likely he would be. Most of the people he passed were too focused on getting where they were going to give him more than a quick glance.
There weren’t crowds in the streets anymore. Those who were walking did it with heads down, their bags tucked close to their sides. Soldiers dressed in armor stamped with the Noavek seal walked the streets, even the poorer ones at the edge of the city where Akos had gotten off the small transport vessel that had carried him here. Half the little shops were boarded up, or had their doors chained shut. There had obviously been some looting and vandalism in the wake of Ryzek’s death—not surprising—but things seemed under control now. Too much control, with Lazmet sitting on the throne.
Akos was getting to know his way around Voa, at least the part of Voa that Ara—Jorek’s mother—and Jorek lived in. If the city was arranged in concentric circles around Noavek manor, Ara and Jorek lived with Ara’s brother in one of the middle rings, the perfect place to disappear. The apartments were crowded together, each one a different style, with a door in a different place, forming a maze. Akos had stumbled into two courtyards that morning when he left, and had to backtrack to where he started each time.
Ara had sent him to the market to search out flour for her baking, and he’d come up empty. The market had a news feed in one of the stalls, so he’d gone to see if there was any word about Ogra.
He’d left Ogra without saying anything to Cyra, knowing it would make her hate him—that was the point. If she hated him, she wouldn’t look for him. She would assume he had gone back to Thuvhe, and leave him be.
Akos had to keep forcing his attention back to the path he was walking instead of what was around him. He passed by a line of people so long he couldn’t see what they were waiting for until two blocks later, when he saw a run-down office with the Shotet character for “medicine” above it. A health clinic. Down an adjacent alley, two kids fought over a bottle of something Akos didn’t recognize.
A lot of people had been hurt in the attack, and basic supplies like antiseptic or silverskin were limited. Loved ones were always waiting at health clinics, lately, in the hope they might inch closer to what they needed. Still others bought black market “cures” that either didn’t do anything or made things worse. Ara and her family had, fortunately, been untouched by the blast.
Akos spotted the wall of graffiti he used as a landmark. The colors were bright, most of the symbols still unintelligible to him, though he recognized the one for Noavek, standing out in the center. He tapped on the wooden door just past it, looking left and right to make sure he was alone. He could still hear the scuffling of the kids in the alley behind him.
Ara’s brother’s house was packed with junk, like a lot of Shotet houses were, all the furniture pieced together from other things. The drawer handles in the kitchen were made of floater parts, and the knobs on the oven were claw grips from the toy robots Shotet children battled with.
Sitting at the low table on the other side of the room were Ara Kuzar, a bright blue shawl around her shoulders, and Jorek. He had let a full beard grow in on his face, patchy in places, and he wore armor with the seal of Noavek under his shoulder. He looked worn, but he still gave Akos a smile when he walked in.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kuzar—no flour,” Akos said to Ara. “No news from Ogra, either. I think the Noavek propaganda machine is going strong.”
“This affectation of calling me ‘Mrs. Kuzar’ was cute at first,” Ara said wryly. “But it’s getting downright alarming. Sit. You need to eat something.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, sitting across from Jorek. He pulled the scarf down around his neck, and ran a hand over his shorn hair, still surprised at how short it was. It was prickly in the back. “How’s the manor?”
“Boring,” Jorek said. “I saw the side of Lazmet’s head today. Most of the upper-level guards are stationed near Ryzek’s secure rooms—you know, the ones Cyra’s blood couldn’t get us into. But he walked through the back door today.”
Akos logged that information away, along with everything else he’d heard about Lazmet since getting to Voa, which wasn’t much. He was a myth in people’s minds more than a man, so what they knew sounded like legends and folk tales instead of facts.
“At least I don’t have to fight in Thuvhe or anything,” Jorek said. “Not that I would. That attack was . . .” He shook his head. “Sorry. Don’t mean to bring it up.”
Akos tucked a hand into his pocket and took out a strip of dried hushflower petal. He was chewing them more than he should these days. He would run out soon. But the tension in his jaw and shoulders was giving him headaches, and he needed to be able to think, if he wanted to face what was next.
He was here, in Voa, to kill Lazmet Noavek. And it wouldn’t be easy.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Akos said.
“I was wondering when you’d get to the point,” Jorek said.
Ara set a plate down in front of Akos. There wasn’t much on it—a roll, probably a little stale by now, some dried meat, some pickled saltfruit. She brushed the crumbs off her fingers and sat down next to her son.
“What Jorek means is, we like having you here, but we know you don’t do things without a good reason,” Ara said, flicking the side of her son’s nose to chastise him. “And crossing the galaxy is no small thing.”
Jorek rubbed his nose.
“Not everyone can wait things out on Ogra. Some of us have to get our hands dirty,” Akos said.
“But those who can stay safe, should,” Ara said.
Akos shook his head. “I had to get my hands dirty, too. Call it . . . fate.”
“I call it a choice,” Jorek said. “And a dumb one.”
“Like leaving your girlfriend—and your mother and brother—without a word of explanation,” Ara said, and she clicked her tongue.
“My mother and brother don’t need me to leave word to know where I am. And this is how things are between Cyra and me,” Akos said, defensive. “She plotted for weeks to send me away without telling me about it. How is this different?”
“It is not particularly different,” Ara said. “But that doesn’t make it right, either time.”
“Don’t scold him, Mom,” Jorek said. “He was basically born scolding himself.”
“Scold me all you like,” Akos said. “Especially because I’m about to ask for something you won’t like.”
Jorek’s arm snaked across the table, and he stole some meat from Akos’s plate.
“I want you to let me into the back gate of Noavek manor,” Akos said.
Jorek choked on the meat he was now chewing, prompting Ara to thump him on the back with her fist.
“What are you going to do once you’re inside?” Ara said, narrowing her eyes.
“It’s better if you don’t know,” Akos said.
“Akos. Trust me. Even you, pupil of Cyra Noavek, are out of your depth with Lazmet,” Jorek said, after he had swallowed his bite. “There isn’t a single shred of decency in him. I don’t think he even has the capacity for it. If he finds you, he’ll turn you into a goddamn stew.”
“He won’t kill me,” Akos said.
“Why, because of your stunning good looks?” Jorek snorted.
“Because I’m his son,” Akos said.
Ara and Jorek stared at him in silence.
Akos pushed his plate across the table, toward Jorek.
“Want my roll?” he said.