LITMIR.BIZ

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lights. The three women clasped hands and bowed for us, smiling with closed lips.

      I wanted to speak to them—though I didn’t know what I could possibly say—but they were already filing out. As the third dancer made her way to the door, though, she pinched the fabric of my skirt between her thumb and forefinger. Her “sisters” stopped with her. The force of all their eyes on me at once was overwhelming—their irises were pitch-black, and took up more space than usual, I was certain. I wanted to shrivel before them.

      “She is herself a small Ogra,” the third dancer said, and the bones in her fingers flickered with light, just as shadows wound around my arms like bracelets. “All clothed in darkness.”

      “It is a gift,” the light-handler said.

      “It is a gift,” the chest-drummer echoed.

      I did not agree.

      The fire in the dining room was just embers. My plate was full of half-eaten food—the shreds of roasted deadbird, pickled saltfruit, and some kind of leafy concoction dusted with spices—and my head was throbbing. I nibbled the corner of a piece of bread and listened to Uzul Zetsyvis brag about his investments.

      The Zetsyvis family had been charged with the breeding and harvesting of fenzu from the forests north of Voa for almost one hundred seasons. In Shotet we used the bioluminescent insects for light more often than current-channeling devices, unlike the rest of the galaxy. It was a relic of our religious history, now waning—only the truly religious didn’t use the current casually.

      Maybe because of the Zetsyvis family industry, Uzul, Yma, and Lety were highly religious, refusing to take hushflower even in medicine, which meant eschewing most medicine. They said any substance that altered a person’s “natural state,” even anesthesia, defied the current. They also wouldn’t travel by current-powered engines. They considered them to be a too-frivolous use of the current’s energy—except for the sojourn ship, of course, which they defined as a religious rite. Their glasses were all full of water instead of fermented feathergrass.

      “Of course, it’s been a difficult season,” Uzul said. “At this point in our planet’s rotation, the air doesn’t get warm enough to foster fenzu growth properly, so we have to introduce roving heat systems—”

      Meanwhile, on my right, Suzao and Vakrez were having some kind of tense discussion about weaponry.

      “All I’m saying is—regardless of what our ancestors believed—currentblades aren’t sufficient for all forms of combat. Long-range or in-space combat, for example—”

      “Any idiot can fire a currentblast,” Suzao snapped. “You want us to put our currentblades down and turn soft and doughy year by year, like the Assembly nation-planets?”

      “They’re not so doughy,” Vakrez said. “Malan translates Othyrian for the Shotet news feed; he’s showed me the reports.” Most of the people in this room, being Shotet elite, spoke more than one language. Outside of this room, that was prohibited. “Things are getting tense between the oracles and the Assembly, and there are whispers the planets are choosing sides. In some cases getting ready for a greater conflict than we’ve ever seen. And who knows what kind of weapons tech they’ll have by the time that conflict happens? Do you really want us to be left behind?”

      “Whispers,” Suzao scoffed. “You put too much stock in gossip, Vakrez, and always have.”

      “There is a reason Ryzek wants an alliance with the Pithar, and it isn’t because he likes the ocean views,” Vakrez said. “They’ve got something we can use.”

      “We’re doing just fine with Shotet mettle alone, is my point.”

      “Go ahead and tell Ryzek that. I’m sure he’ll listen to you.”

      Across from me, Lety’s eyes were focused on the webs of dark color that stained my skin, surging into new places every few seconds—the crook of my elbow, the rise of my collarbone, the corner of my jaw.

      “What do they feel like to you?” she asked me when she caught my eye.

      “I don’t know, what does any gift feel like?” I said irritably.

      “Well, I just remember things. Everything. Vividly,” she said. “So my gift feels like anyone else’s … Like ringing in my ears, like energy.”

      “Energy.” Or agony. “That sounds right.”

      I swallowed some of the fermented feathergrass in my glass. Her face was a steady pinhole with everything spinning around it; I fought to focus on her, spilling some of the drink on my chin.

      “I find your fasci—” I paused. Fascination was a difficult word to say with so much painkiller coursing through my veins. “Your curiosity about my gift a little strange.”

      “People are so afraid of you,” Lety said. “I simply want to know if I should be, too.”

      I was about to answer, when Ryzek stood at the end of the table, his long fingers framing his empty plate. His rise was a signal for everyone to leave, and they trickled out, Suzao first, then Zeg, then Vakrez and Malan.

      But when Uzul began to move toward the door, Ryzek stopped him with a hand.

      “I’d like to speak with you and your family, Uzul,” Ryzek said.

      I struggled to my feet, using the table to balance. Behind me, Vas pushed a bar across the door handles, locking us in. Locking me in.

      “Oh, Uzul,” Ryzek said with a faint smile. “I’m afraid tonight is going to be very difficult for you. You see, your wife told me something interesting.”

      Uzul looked to Yma. Her ever-present smile was finally gone, and now she looked equal parts accusatory and afraid. I was sure she wasn’t afraid of Uzul. Even his appearance was harmless—he had a round stomach, a sign of his wealth, and feet that turned out a little when he walked, giving his gait a slight hobble.

      “Yma?” Uzul said to his wife weakly.

      “I didn’t have a choice,” Yma said. “I was looking for a network address, and I saw your contact history. I saw coordinates there, and I remembered you talking about the exile colony—”

      The exile colony. When I was young, it was just a joke that people told, that a lot of Shotet who had met with my father’s displeasure had set up a home on another planet where they couldn’t be discovered. As I grew older, the joke became a rumor, and a serious one. Even now, the mention of it made Ryzek work his jaw like he was trying to tear off a bite of old meat. He considered the exiles, as enemies of my father and even my grandmother, to be one of the highest threats to his sovereignty that existed. Every Shotet had to be under his control, or he would never feel secure. If Uzul had contacted them, it was treason.

      Ryzek pulled a chair from the table, and gestured to it. “Sit.”

      Uzul did as he was told.

      “Cyra,” Ryzek said to me. “Come here.”

      At first I just stood by my place at the table, clutching the glass of fermented feathergrass. I clenched my jaw as my body filled with shadows, like black blood from broken vessels.

      “Cyra,” Ryzek said quietly.

      He didn’t need to threaten me. I would set my glass down and walk over to him and do whatever he told me. I would always do that, for as long as we both lived, or Ryzek would tell everyone what I had done to our mother. That knowledge was a stone in my stomach.

      I put my glass down. I walked over to him. And when Ryzek told me to put my hands on Uzul Zetsyvis until he gave whatever information Ryzek needed to know, I did.

      I felt the connection form between Uzul and me, and the temptation to force all the shadow into him, to stain him black as space and end my own agony. I could kill him if I wanted to, with just my touch. I had done it before. I wanted to do it again, to escape this, the horrible force that chewed through my nerves like acid.

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