I WOKE TO BUZZING. A fenzu glowing blue, turning lazy circles above my head. Its iridescent wings made me think, suddenly, of Uzul Zetsyvis, who had thought so fondly of them, his cash crop and his passion.
Around me was white—white floors, white sheets, white walls, white curtains. I was not in a hospital, but a quiet house. Growing from a pot in the corner was a black flower with layer after layer of plush petals, unfolding from a dark yellow center.
I recognized the place. It was the Zetsyvis home, standing on a cliff overlooking Voa.
Something felt wrong. Off, somehow. I lifted an arm and found it to be heavy, my muscles shaking with the slight effort. I let the limb drop to the mattress, and contented myself by watching the fenzu fly, tracing paths of light in the air.
I knew what was off: I wasn’t in pain. And from what I could see of my own bare arms, the currentshadows were gone.
Fear and relief intermingled within me. No pain. No currentshadows. Was it permanent? Had I expended so much energy in the anticurrent blast that my currentgift had left me forever? I closed my eyes. I couldn’t allow myself to imagine that, a life without pain. I couldn’t let myself hope for it.
A while later—I had no sense of how long—I heard a knock at the door. Sifa carried a mug of tea toward me.
“I suspected you might be awake,” she said.
“Tell me about Voa,” I said. I planted my hands, trying to push myself up. My arms felt like jelly. Sifa moved to help me, and I stopped her with a glare, struggling on my own instead.
Instead, she sat in a chair near my bed, her hands folded in her lap.
“Your currentshadows countered the anticurrent blast. The Shotet exiles arrived within days to seize control of Voa, in the power vacuum that resulted from Lazmet’s death,” she said. “But what you did seems to have depleted you. No, I’m not sure if the disappearance of your currentshadows is permanent,” she added, answering the question I hadn’t yet asked. “But you saved a lot of people, Cyra.”
She sounded . . . proud. As a mother would have been.
“Don’t,” I said. “I’m not yours.”
“I know.” She sighed. “But I was hoping we might work our way toward something other than outright hostility.”
I considered that.
“Maybe,” I said.
She smirked a little.
“Well, in that spirit . . . look at this.”
She rose to draw the curtain back from the window beside my bed. I was in the part of the house positioned on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the city of Voa. At first, all I saw was the sparkle of distant lights, the buildings of Voa. But then:
“It’s noon,” Sifa said.
Voa was covered—shielded by what looked like dark clouds. They were only a shade or two lighter than the Ogran sky. My currentshadows had found a home over Voa, sending it into endless night.
I felt better—physically—in the next few days than I had since I was a child. Izit by izit, my strength returned, as I ate food prepared by Sifa, Yma, and Teka in the Zetsyvis kitchen. Yma burned the bottom of almost everything she made, and presented it without apology. Sifa cooked odd-tasting Thuvhesit dishes that were packed with too many spices. Teka made uncommonly good breakfasts. I helped where I could, sitting at the counter with a knife to chop things until my arm got too tired. The weakness was infuriating to me, but the lack of pain more than made up for it.
I would have traded a dozen currentgifts for no more pain.
Sifa had assured me that Akos was alive, but in what condition, I didn’t know. I searched the news out of Thuvhe for any signs of him, and found nothing. Reports of my father’s death didn’t mention him. It was Cisi who finally sent us news, directly from Hessa: She had found Akos at the hospital there, recovering from hypothermia. She was taking him home.
The clouds showed no sign of clearing over Voa. It was likely the entire city would be dark forever. Up here on the cliff, if you looked toward Voa, it appeared to be night. But if you turned away, toward the Divide that separated us from Thuvhe, the sun shone again. It was odd, to be living on the edge of such a thing. And to know that you yourself had created it.
And then, in the middle of the night, almost a week after the attack on Voa, I woke to pain.
At first I didn’t know why I was awake. I checked the clock to be sure it wasn’t time to get up and start on breakfast, since I was finally well enough to take my own turn in the kitchen. Then I felt the dull pounding in my head, with a spark of alarm.
Maybe it’s just a headache, I told myself. No need to panic, no need to—
My fingers stung, like they had fallen asleep and blood was now returning to them. I scrambled to turn on the lamp next to my bed, and I saw it: a line of shadow traveling from wrist to fingertip.
Shaking, I threw the blankets back and looked at my bare legs. Faint shadows wrapped around my ankles, like shackles. My head and heart pounded in the same rhythm. I didn’t realize I was making a noise—a horrible, heaving noise, like a dying animal—until Teka opened the door, her bright hair piled on top of her head.
She spotted the currentshadows immediately, and came to my bedside, pulling the sleeves of her sleep clothes over her hands. She sat on the bed and pulled me against her, pressing my face to her bony shoulder.
I sobbed into her shirt, and she held me in place, in silence.
“I didn’t—I didn’t want them back,” I choked out.
“I know.”
“I don’t care if they’re powerful, I don’t—”
“I know that, too.”
She rocked us back and forth, slowly, for a long time.
“People call them a gift,” she said after a while. “What bullshit.”
A few days later, I stood listening to the patter of rain on the guest-room windows, a bag on the bed in front of me. I had stuffed most of my possessions inside it, and now struggled to think past the pain in my back and legs. My currentgift’s return had not been easy to adjust to.
“Aza asked me to speak with you about her request,” Yma said to me. She was leaning against the doorframe, dressed all in white. “For you to accept a position of power in the new Shotet government.”
“Why would she ask you? You know as well as I do that what’s best for our people is no Noaveks in power, ever again.”
“I know no such thing,” Yma said, pinching the hem of her blouse between her trimmed, clean fingernails. “There are quite a few Noavek loyalists still among us. They might actually cooperate with us if we establish the Noavek bloodline in a high position. And unity is what we need right now.”
“One problem, though,” I said. “I’m not actually part of the Noavek bloodline.”
Yma flapped her hand at me. “No one needs to know that.”
The system of governance Aza had proposed was a blend of elected officials and monarchy, with the monarch—me, if she got her way—appointing a representative who would hold all the actual power, supported by a council. It wouldn’t require me to be a ruler in the sense that my father and Ryzek had been, but I was still wary of it. Bad things happened when my family was in power.
“What about Vakrez?” I said. “He’s a Noavek. A real one, in fact. And he’s an adult.”
“Are you going to make me say it?” Yma said, sighing.
“Say what?”
Yma rolled her eyes. “That I think you are a better option than Vakrez. He allowed himself to be controlled by both Lazmet and Ryzek. He lacks the . . . fortitude.”
I raised both eyebrows.
“Did you just compliment me?” I said.
“Don’t take it too much to heart,” Yma replied.
I smiled a little.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“What? Just because I complimented you?”
“No.” I looked out the window, at the water-streaked glass, at the dark currentshadow cloud that covered Voa. “Because I trust your judgment.”
She looked, for a moment, taken aback.
Then she nodded, turned, and left without a word.
She still didn’t like me, but it was possible she didn’t hate me, either. I would take what I could get, for now.