THE ROOM BEYOND THE gene lock smelled like fruit. Akos let the door close behind him, breathing the acid sweetness. This wasn’t Ryzek’s bedroom—it was an office. And the desk had some kind of peel on it, green and puckered, the source of the smell. Beside it was a dormant screen on top of a stack of paper. Books were stacked here and there, with titles he mostly couldn’t read, unless they were in Othyrian. Those were all about history.
The rug under his feet was thick and dense. Comfortable to stand on. There were footprints pressed into it, back and forth, like somebody had been pacing not too long ago. Growing in a pot in the corner was a little tree, its trunk the same dark color as the floorboards. A tree native to the band of forests north of Voa, its leaves robust and healthy.
Akos felt a squeeze in his head, like he was getting a headache, and ignored it. He moved instead toward the map that hung on the wall behind the desk, a map of the solar system. Their planet was marked “Urek” instead of “Thuvhe,” so he knew it was a Shotet-drawn map. The lines were careful, precise, and faded to light sketch marks at the edges, marking the boundaries of where the Shotet had gone. They were wider than Akos expected. Somehow it had never really struck him that before the Shotet became scavengers and warriors, they had been explorers.
He felt the squeeze in his head again, and paused. He had heard something. A shift, maybe, someone walking in another room, on another floor.
No, not a shift—a breath. An exhale.
Akos drew his blade and whipped around, arm extended. Leaning against the wall behind him was a tall, thin, weathered man.
Lazmet Noavek.
“My currentgift doesn’t work on you,” Lazmet said.
Akos’s mouth went dry.
“No currentgifts work on me,” he forced himself to say. The first words he’d ever said to his father.
Lazmet pulled away from the wall. He was holding a currentblade of his own. As Akos watched, he balanced it on his palm and spun it, catching it by the handle. So Ryzek had learned that little habit from his father, then.
“Is that how you got in here?” Lazmet said.
Akos shook his head. Lazmet stepped closer, and Akos shifted to the side, keeping distance between them. He felt like he was in the arena again, fighting another man to the death. Only he was much less prepared for this fight than he’d been for the one with Vas, or Suzao.
He never should have come here. He knew that now. Just looking at Lazmet in person, empty behind the eyes, calm and faintly amused . . . there was something not right about him. Something Akos didn’t understand.
“Then I admit to some confusion, because I’m the only person who can access these rooms,” Lazmet said. “So I know that while someone might have let you into the manor, they could not have let you in here.”
“My blood got me in,” Akos said.
Lazmet’s eyes narrowed. He came closer. Akos had run out of space behind him, so he shifted again, knife still outstretched. Lazmet eyed the blade curiously—he probably wasn’t used to seeing a currentblade without the black tails binding it to a person’s hand.
“I began to suspect, when my youngest child grew older, that she was not actually mine,” Lazmet said quietly. “I thought maybe her mother had been unfaithful to me, but I see now that isn’t the case. She was just the wrong child entirely.”
Akos didn’t understand how he wasn’t more shocked. More startled, at least.
“What is your name?” Lazmet asked him, spinning his currentblade.
“Akos,” Akos said.
“That is a fine Shotet name,” Lazmet said. “I assume my wife chose it for you.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Akos said. “I never knew her.”
Lazmet came closer still, and then lunged. Akos was ready for it, had expected it since he saw the man against the wall. But he wasn’t ready for how fast Lazmet was, grabbing him and twisting so hard Akos had no choice but to release the blade. Akos’s training kicked in, and he feinted, pretending at weakness while swinging a fist at Lazmet’s side. Lazmet grunted, his grip still hard around Akos’s wrist, and Akos kicked him hard in the knee.
Lazmet let go of him then, stumbling a little. But not enough. He surged up and forward, slamming Akos into the wall with the currentblade at his throat. Akos froze. He was pretty sure Lazmet wouldn’t kill him, at least not until he heard an explanation, but that was no guarantee that he wouldn’t carve Akos up in the meantime.
“It’s a shame you didn’t know her. She was quite a woman,” Lazmet said casually. He lifted his free hand and ran his fingertip down the side of Akos’s nose, onto his cheekbone.
“You look like me,” Lazmet said. “Tall, but not broad enough, with these accursed freckles. What color are your eyes?”
“Gray,” Akos said, and he felt compelled to add “sir” to the end, though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it had to do with the knife at his throat and the substantial strength of the man pressing him to the wall. It seemed to hum in Lazmet’s bones like a piece of the current itself.
“That would be my mother’s side of the family,” Lazmet said. “My uncle wrote love poems about my aunt’s stormy eyes. My mother killed them both. But I’m sure you’ve heard that story already. I understand it’s a popular one in Shotet.”
“I’ve heard it mentioned.” Akos fought to keep his voice steady.
Lazmet released him, but didn’t go far, so Akos couldn’t make a dive for the weapon on the floor.
“Do you know if my son is dead?” Lazmet said. He quirked his eyebrows. “I suppose I mean my other son.”
“Yes, he’s dead,” Akos said. “His body is in space.”
“A decent enough burial, I suppose.” Lazmet spun his blade again. “And did you come to kill me? It would be in the grand tradition of our family, you see. My mother killed her siblings. My supposed daughter killed her brother. My firstborn son lacked the stomach for killing me, in the end—he was content to trap me in a cell for several seasons instead. But you wear some marks, so perhaps you are not so weak-willed.”
Akos clapped his hand around his wrist, to cover up the kill marks there. It was an instinct that seemed to confuse Lazmet, who tilted his head at the sight.
Akos wasn’t sure what the answer was anymore. He knew Lazmet needed to die, based on the way Cyra reacted to the sight of him alone, and everything he’d heard since then. But he hadn’t been sure, deep down, if he could do it or not. He still wasn’t sure. Regardless, he wasn’t about to admit that to Lazmet.
“No,” Akos said. “I didn’t come to kill you.”
“Then why did you come?” Lazmet said. “You took great risks to do so. I assume you have a reason.”
“You’re—you’re the last blood relative I have left,” Akos said.
“Is that a reason? It’s a stupid one, if it is,” Lazmet said. “What is blood, exactly? Just a substance, like water or stardust.”
“It’s more than that to me,” Akos said. “It’s—this language. It’s fate.”
“Ah!” Lazmet smiled. His smile had a wickedness to it. “So now you know that little Cyra’s painfully boring fate actually belongs to you. ‘The second child of the family Noavek will cross the Divide.’” His eyebrow arched. “And you, I assume, as a born Shotet, have never been across the stretch of feathergrass that separates us from our Thuvhesit enemies.”
Lazmet was analyzing him, making assumptions. They were incorrect, but Akos saw no need to correct him. Not yet, anyway. The less Lazmet knew about him, the better.
Lazmet went on: “You speak with the diction of someone who is low status. Perhaps you think I will send you to Thuvhe with my army, for some higher purpose. That I will elevate you beyond your grasp.”
Akos kept his expression neutral, though the idea of marching into Thuvhe and waging war just to attain a higher social status sickened him.
“Whether I help you with that or not depends, I suppose, on whether you are worth anything to me or not,” Lazmet said. “I know that you can kill, which is encouraging. You can’t imagine how difficult it was to train Ryzek to take lives. He threw up after the first time. Disgusting. And my wife forbade me from attempting the same with Cyra, though I hear she had a greater capacity for it, in the end.”
Akos blinked at him. What did you say to a man who was deciding whether your life was worth living right to your face?
“You seem to have some meager fighting skill. You’re bold, though unwise at best, and stupid at worst.” Lazmet tapped the tip of his blade against his chin. “Your currentgift intrigues me, but it is . . . troubling, in some respects. Tell me about your marks, boy.”
The part of Akos that had been stalled, like a bad motor, started rumbling again.
“You think you’ll know something useful about me based on who I’ve killed and how?” Akos said. “What about you—what if I judged your worth based on the fact that your weak-willed son managed to trap you somewhere for seasons?”
Lazmet’s eyes narrowed.
“My son was coached by his mother into winning the loyalty of some strategically placed soldiers,” Lazmet said. “The ability to win hearts is not one I have ever possessed, I will admit that now. They kept my imprisonment secret, and guarded me faithfully—from a distance, so I couldn’t use my gift against them. But the chaos in Voa following my son’s murder resulted in a loss of power in some sectors, and I took my opportunity to escape. All my former guards are now dead. I have their eyeballs in a jar to remind me of my own weakness. It was my own failure that resulted in my captivity, not my son’s success.” He stepped back. “Now tell me the names you wear on your arm, boy.”
“No,” Akos said.
“I am getting bored with you,” Lazmet said. “And trust me, you don’t want me to be bored. Even without my currentgift, it would be simple for me to kill you.”
“The last life I took was Vas Kuzar’s,” Akos said.
Lazmet nodded. “Impressive,” he said. “You know, of course, that I can look up his death in the arena records and find out the name you used?” He stepped closer again, and brought his knife up between them. “You must also have realized that waiting for you outside this door are many guards. You will not leave this house alive, if you try to leave it. And given how you entered this room, in the dead of night, with a knife, I am hardly going to allow you any freedom within these walls. Which means you will be imprisoned here, and I will have ample time to find out everything I need to know about you.”
“I realize all those things,” Akos said. “But I didn’t fight Vas in the arena. I fought him in the chaos while your son died. There’s no record of his death anywhere.”
Lazmet smiled. “And you have more than one mark on your arm. How encouraging, to realize that you are not a complete idiot. Congratulations, Akos Noavek. You are not boring.”
Lazmet lurched forward and opened the door before Akos could move an izit. Armored guards filled the small office.
“Take him to a secure room,” Lazmet said. “Don’t hurt him for sport. He’s my blood.”
Akos went quietly, Lazmet’s hollow expression following him all the way down the hall.