LITMIR.BIZ

      I RAN TOWARD CISI Kereseth’s scream, Akos on my heels, not even bothering with the rungs of the ladder that took me below deck—I just jumped down. I went straight toward Ryzek’s cell, knowing, of course, that he was likely the source of anything that caused screaming on this ship. I saw Cisi braced against the corridor wall, the storage room door across from her open. Behind her, Teka dropped down from the other end of the ship, beckoned here by the same noise. Isae Benesit stood inside Ryzek’s cell, and below her, in a jumble of legs and arms, was my brother.

      There was a certain amount of poetry in it, I supposed, that just as Akos had watched his father spill his life on the floor, so I now watched my brother do the same.

      It took far longer for him to die than I anticipated. That was intentional, I assumed; Isae Benesit stood over his body the entire time, bloody knife in her fist, eyes blank but watchful. She had wanted to take her time with this moment, her moment of triumph over the one who killed her sister.

      Well, one of the ones who killed her sister, because Eijeh, who had held the actual blade, was still in the next room.

      Ryzek’s eyes found mine, and almost as if he’d touched me, I was buoyed into a memory. Not one that he was taking from me, but one I had almost hidden from myself.

       I was in the passage behind the Weapons Hall, with my eye pressed to the crack in the wall panel. I had gone there to spy on my father’s meeting with a prominent Shotet businessman-turned-slumlord, because I often spied on my father’s meetings when I was bored and curious about the happenings of this house. But this meeting had gone bad, which had never happened before when I peeked in. My father had stretched out a hand, two fingers held aloft, like a Zoldan ascetic about to give a blessing, and the businessman had drawn his own knife, his movements jerky, like he was fighting his own muscles.

       He brought the knife to the inside corner of his eye.

       “Cyra!” hissed a voice behind me, making me jerk to attention. A young, spotted ryzek slid to his knees beside me. He cradled my face in his hands. I had not realized, before that moment, that I was crying. As the screaming started in the next room, he pressed his palms flat to my ears, and brought my face to his chest.

       I struggled, at first, but he was too strong. All I could hear was the pounding of my own heart.

       At last he pulled me away, wiped the tears from my cheeks, and said, “What does Mother always say? Those who go looking for pain …”

       “Find it every time,” I replied, completing the phrase.

      Teka held me by the shoulders, and jostled me a little, saying my name. I looked at her, then, confused.

      “What is it?” I said.

      “Your currentshadows were …” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

      I knew what she meant. My currentgift had likely gone haywire, sending sprawling black lines all over me. The currentshadows had changed since Ryzek tried to use me to torture Akos in the cell block beneath the amphitheater. They drifted on top of my skin now, instead of burrowing beneath it like dark veins. But they were still painful, and I could tell this episode had been worse—my vision was blurry, and there were impressions of fingernails in my palms.

      Akos was kneeling in my brother’s blood, his fingers on the side of Ryzek’s throat. I watched as his hand fell away, and he slumped, bracing himself on his thighs.

      “It’s done,” Akos said, sounding thick, like his throat was coated in milk. “After everything Cyra did to help me—after everything—”

      “I won’t apologize,” Isae said, finally looking away from Ryzek. She scanned all our faces—Akos, surrounded by blood; Teka, wide-eyed at my shoulder; me, arms streaked black; Cisi, holding her stomach near the wall. The air was pungent with the smell of sick.

      “He murdered my sister,” Isae said. “He was a tyrant and a torturer and a killer. I won’t apologize.”

      “It’s not about him. You think I didn’t want him dead?” Akos lurched to his feet. Blood ran down the front of his pants, from knees to ankles. “Of course I did! He took more from me than he did from you!” He was so close to her I wondered if he would lash out, but he made a fitful motion with his hands, and that was all. “I wanted him to fix what he did first, I wanted him to set Eijeh right, I …”

      It seemed to hit him all at once. Ryzek was—had been—my brother, but the grief was his. He had persevered, carefully orchestrated every element of his brother’s rescue, only to find himself blocked, again and again, by people more powerful than he was. And now, he had succeeded in getting his brother out of Shotet, but he had not saved him, and all the planning, all the fighting, all the trying … was for nothing.

      Akos fell against the nearest wall to hold himself up, closed his eyes, and swallowed a moan.

      I found my way out of my trance.

      “Go upstairs,” I said to Isae. “Take Cisi with you.”

      She looked like she might object, for a moment, but it didn’t last. Instead, she dropped the murder weapon—a simple kitchen knife—right where she stood, and went to Cisi’s side.

      “Teka,” I said. “Would you get Akos upstairs, please?”

      “Are you—” Teka started, and stopped. “Okay.”

      Isae and Cisi, Teka and Akos, they left me there, alone, with my brother’s body. He had died next to a mop and a bottle of disinfectant. How convenient, I thought, and stifled a laugh. Or tried to. But it wouldn’t stay stifled. In moments my knees were weak with laughter, and I fumbled through my hair for the side of my head that was now silverskin, to remind myself how he had sliced and diced me for the entertainment of a crowd, how he had planted pieces of himself

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