"I never . . ." He paused. "I've never thought about it before."

"Why would you?" I said. "It's not high on Thuvhe's list of concerns."

"I grew up wealthy in a poor place, too," he said. "That's something we have in common."

He seemed surprised that we would have anything in common at all.

"There's nothing you can do for these people?" he said, gesturing to the buildings around us. "You're Ryzek's sister, can't you-"

"He doesn't listen to me," I said, defensive.

"You've tried?"

"You say that like it's easy." My face felt warm. "Just have a meeting with my brother and tell him to rearrange his whole system and he'll do it."

"I didn't say it was easy-"

"High-status Shotet are my brother's insulation against an uprising," I said, even more heated now. "And in exchange for their loyalty, he gives them medicine, food, and the trappings of wealth that the others don't get. Without them as his insulation, he will die. And with my Noavek blood, I die with him. So no . . . no, I have not embarked on some grand mission to save the sick and the poor of Shotet!"

I sounded angry, but inside I was shriveling from the shame of it. I had almost thrown up the first time Otega brought me here, from the smell of a starved body in one of the alleys. She had covered my eyes as we walked past it, so I couldn't get a close look. That was me: Ryzek's Scourge, combat virtuoso, driven to vomit by the sight of death alone.

"I shouldn't have brought it up," he said, his hand gentle on my arm. "Let's go. Let's go visit this . . . storyteller."

I nodded, and we kept walking.

Buried deep in the maze of narrow alleys was a low doorway painted with intricate blue patterns. I knocked, and it creaked open, just enough to emit a tendril of white smoke that smelled like burnt sugar.

This place felt like an exhale; it felt sacred. In a sense, maybe it was. This was where Otega had first taken me to learn our history, many seasons ago, on the first day of the Sojourn Festival.

A tall, pale man opened the door, his hair shaved so close his scalp shone. He lifted his hands and smiled.

"Ah, Little Noavek," he said. "I didn't think I would see you again. And who have you brought me?"

"This is Akos," I said. "Akos, this is the Storyteller. At least, that's what he prefers to be called."

"Hello," Akos said. I could tell he was nervous by the way his posture changed, the soldier in him disappearing. The Storyteller's smile spread, and he beckoned us in.

We stepped down into the Storyteller's living room. Akos hunched to fit under the curved ceiling, which arched to a globe of bright fenzu at its apex. There was a rusted stove with an exhaust pipe stretching to the room's only window, to let out smoke. I knew the floors were made of hard-packed dirt because I had peeked under the bland, woven rugs as a child to see what was beneath them. The hard fibers had made my legs itch.

The Storyteller directed us to a pile of cushions, where we settled, a little awkwardly, our hands gripped between us. I let go of Akos to wipe my palm on my dress, and as the currentshadows flushed back into my body, the Storyteller smiled again.

"There they are," he said. "I almost didn't recognize you without them, Little Noavek."

He set a metal pot on the table before us-really two footstools bolted together, one metal and one wood-and a pair of mismatched, glazed mugs. I poured the tea for us. It was pale purple, almost pink, and accounted for the sweet smell in the air.

The Storyteller sat across from us. The white paint on the wall above his head was flaking, revealing yellow paint beneath it, from another time. Yet even here was the ever-present news screen, fixed crookedly on the wall next to the stove. This place was full to bursting with scavenged objects, the dark metal teapot clearly Tepessar, the stove grate made of Pithar flooring, and the Storyteller's clothing itself silky as any of Othyr's wealthy. In the corner there was a chair, its origin unfamiliar to me, that the Storyteller was in the middle of repairing.

"Your companion-Akos, was it?-smells of hushflower," the Storyteller said, for the first time furrowing his brow.

"He is Thuvhesit," I said. "He means no disrespect."

"Disrespect?" Akos said.

"Yes, I do not permit people who have recently ingested hushflower, or any other current-altering substance, into my home," the Storyteller said. "Though they are welcome to return once it has passed through their system. I am not in the habit of rejecting visitors outright, after all."

"The Storyteller is a Shotet religious leader," I said to Akos. "We call them clerics."

"He is a Thuvhesit, truly?" The Storyteller frowned, and closed his eyes. "Surely you are mistaken, sir. You speak our sacred language like a native."

"I think I know my own home," Akos replied testily. "My own identity."

"I meant no offense," the Storyteller said. "But your name is Akos, which is a Shotet name, so you can see why I am confused. Thuvhesit parents would not give their child a name with such a hard sound in it without purpose. What are your siblings' names, for example?"

"Eijeh," Akos said breathily. Obviously he hadn't thought about this before. "And Cisi."

His hand tightened around mine. I didn't think he was aware of it.

"Well, no matter," the Storyteller said. "Obviously you have come here with a purpose, and you don't have much time before the storm for it to be accomplished, so we will move on. Little Noavek, to what do I owe this visit?"

"I thought you could tell Akos the story you told me as a child," I said. "I'm not good at telling stories, myself."

"Yes, I can see that being the case." The Storyteller picked up his own mug from the floor by his feet, which were bare. The air had been crisp outside, but in here it was warm, almost stifling. "As to the story, it doesn't really have a beginning. We didn't realize our language was revelatory, carried in the blood, because we were always together, moving as one through the galaxy as wanderers. We had no home, no permanence. We followed the current around the galaxy, wherever it saw fit to lead us. This, we believed, was our obligation, our mission."

The Storyteller sipped his tea, set it down, and wiggled his fingers in the air. When I had first seen him do it, I had giggled, thinking he was acting strange. But now I knew what to expect: faint, hazy shapes appeared in front of him. They were smoky, not lit up like the hologram of the galaxy we had seen earlier, but the image was the same: planets arranged around a sun, a line of white current wrapping around them.

Akos's gray eyes-the same color as most of the smoke-widened.

"Then one of the oracles had a vision, that our ruling family would lead us to a permanent home. And they did-to an uninhabited, cold planet we called 'Urek,' because it means 'empty.'"

"Urek," Akos said. "That's the Shotet name for our planet?"

"Well, you didn't expect us to call the whole thing 'Thuvhe' the way your people do, did you?" I snorted. "Thuvhe" was the official, Assembly-recognized name for our planet, which contained Thuvhesit and Shotet people both. But that didn't mean we had to call it that.

The Storyteller's illusion changed, focusing on a single orb of dense smoke.

"The current was stronger there than anywhere we had ever been. But we didn't want to forget our history, our impermanence, our reclaiming of broken objects, so we began to go on the sojourn. Every season, all of us who were able would return to the ship that had carried us around the galaxy for so long, and follow the current again."

If I had not been holding Akos's hand, I would have been able to feel the current humming in my body. I didn't always think about it, because along with that hum came pain, but it was what I had in common with every person across the galaxy. Well, every person but the one beside me.

I wondered if he ever missed it, if he remembered what it felt like.

The Storyteller's voice became low, and dark, as he continued, "But during one of the sojourns, those who had settled north of Voa to harvest the iceflowers, who called themselves the Thuv-hesit, ventured too far south. They came into our city, and saw that we had left many of our children here, to await their parents' return from the sojourn. And they took our children from their beds, from their kitchen tables, from their streets. They stole our young ones, and brought them north as captives and servants."

His fingers painted a flat street, a rough figure of a person running down it, chased by a rolling cloud. At the end of the street, the running person was subsumed by the cloud.

"When our sojourners came home to find their children missing, they waged war for their return. But they were not trained for battle, only for scavenging and for wandering, and they were killed in large numbers. And so we believed those children lost forever," he said. "But a generation later, on a sojourn, one of our number ventured alone on the planet Othyr, and there-among those who did not know our tongue-a child spoke to him in Shotet. She was a child of a Thuvhesit captive, collecting something for her masters, and she didn't even realize that she had traded one language for another. The child was Reclaimed, brought back to us."

He tilted his head.

"And then," he said, "we rose, and became soldiers, so we would never be overcome again."

As he whispered, as the smoke of his illusions disappeared, drums from the city's center pounded louder and louder, and drums all throughout the poor sector joined in. They thudded and rumbled, and I looked to the Storyteller, mouth drifting open.

"It is the storm," he said. "Which is all the better, because my story is done."

"Thank you," I said. "I'm sorry to-"

"Go, Little Noavek," the Storyteller said with a crooked smile. "Don't miss it."

I grabbed Akos's arm and pulled him to his feet. He was scowling at the Storyteller. He had not touched the cup of sweet purple tea that I had poured for him. I tugged hard to get him to follow me up the steps of the Storyteller's house and into the alley. Even from here, I could see the ship drifting toward Voa from far off. I knew its shape the way I had known my mother's silhouette, even from a distance. How it bowed out at the belly and tapered at the nose. I knew which scavenges had yielded its uneven plates by how worn they were, or by their tints, orange and blue and black. Our patchwork craft, large enough to cast all of Voa in shadow.

All around us, all throughout the city, I heard cheers.

Out of habit, I raised my free hand up to the sky. A loud, sharp sound like the crack of a whip came from somewhere near the loading bay door of the ship, and veins of dark blue color spread from it in every direction, wrapping around the clouds themselves, or forming new ones. It was like ink dropped into water, separate at first and then mixing, blending together until the city was covered in a blanket of dark blue mist. The ship's gift to us.

Then-as it had every season of my life-it started to rain blue.

Keeping one hand firmly in Akos's, I turned my other palm to catch some of the blue. It was dark, and wherever it rolled across my skin, it left a faint stain. The people at the end of the alley were laughing and smiling and singing and swaying. Akos's chin was tipped back. He gazed at the ship's belly, and then at his hand, at the blue rolling over his knuckles. His eyes met mine. I was laughing.

"Blue is our favorite color," I said. "The color of the currentstream when we scavenge."

"When I was a child," he replied wonderingly, "it was my favorite color, too, though all of Thuvhe hates it."

I took the palmful of blue water I had collected, and smeared it into his cheek, staining it darker. Akos spluttered, spitting some of it on the ground. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for his reaction. He stuck out his hand, catching a stream of water rolling off a building's roof, and lunged at me.

I sprinted down the alley, not fast enough to avoid the cold water rolling down my back, with a childlike shriek. I caught his arm by the elbow, and we ran together, through the singing crowd, past swaying elders, men and women dancing too close, irritable off-planet visitors trying to cover up their wares in the market. We splashed through bright blue puddles, soaking our clothes. And we were both, for once, laughing.

CHAPTER 12: CYRA.

THAT NIGHT I SCRUBBED the blue stain from my skin and hair, then joined Akos at the apothecary counter to make the painkiller so I could sleep. I didn't ask him what he thought of the Storyteller's account of Shotet history, which blamed Thuvhe, not Shotet, for the hostility between our people. He didn't offer his reaction. When the painkiller was done, I carried it back to my room and sat on the edge of my bed to drink it. And that was the last thing I remembered.

When I woke, I was slumped sideways on the bed, on top of the blankets. Beside me, the half-empty mug of painkiller had turned on its side, and the sheets were stained purple where it had spilled. Sunrise was just beginning, judging by the pale light coming through the curtains.

My body aching, I pushed myself up. "Akos?"

The tea had knocked me unconscious. I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. But I had helped him make it; had I made it too strong? I stumbled down the hallway and knocked on his door. No, I couldn't have made it too strong; I had only prepared the sendes stalks for it. He had done the rest.

He had drugged me.

There was no answer at his door. I pushed it open. Akos's room was empty, drawers open, clothes missing, dagger gone.

I had been suspicious of his kindness as he coaxed me into leaving the house. And I had been right to be.

I yanked my hair back and tied it away from my face. I went back to my room, shoving my feet into my boots. I didn't bother with the laces.

He had drugged me.

I wheeled around and searched the far wall for the panel we had pushed through yesterday to slip out of the house. There was a small gap between it and the rest of the wall. I gritted my teeth against pain. He had wanted me to leave the house with him so I would show him how to get out. And I had armed him with that Zoldan knife, I had trusted him with my potion, and now . . . now I would suffer for it.

I think you're lying to yourself about what I am, he had said.

Honor has no place in survival, I had taught him.

I charged into the hallway. There was already a guard walking toward me. I braced myself against the door. What was he coming to say? I didn't know what to hope for, Akos's escape or his capture.

The guard stopped just shy of my door, and bent his head to me. He was one of the shorter, younger ones-baby-faced and carrying a blade. One of the ones who still stared wide-eyed at my arms when the dark lines spread over them.

"What?" I demanded, gritting my teeth. The pain was back, almost as bad as it had been after I tortured Uzul Zetsyvis. "What is it?"

"The sovereign's steward, Vas Kuzar, sends word that your servant was discovered trying to flee the grounds with his brother last night," the guard said. "He is currently confined, awaiting the sovereign's assigned punishment. Vas requests your presence at the private hearing, in two hours, in the Weapons Hall."

With his brother. That meant Akos had found a way to get Eijeh out, too. I remembered Eijeh's screams after he first arrived here, and shuddered.

I went to the "private hearing" fully armed, dressed as a soldier. Ryzek had left the curtains down in the Weapons Hall, so it was as dark as night, lit by the wavering light of the fenzu above. He stood on the platform, hands behind his back, staring at the wall of weapons above him. No one else was in the room. Yet.

"This was our mother's favorite," he said as the door closed behind me. He touched the currentstick, suspended on a diagonal from the wall. It was a long, narrow pole with blades at either end. Each of the blades contained a channeling rod, so if the weapon touched skin, dark shadows of current wrapped around the whole thing, from end to end. It was nearly as long as I was tall.

"An elegant choice," he said, still without turning around. "More for show than anything; did you know our mother was not particularly proficient in combat? Father told me. But she was clever, strategic. She found ways to avoid physical altercations, acknowledging her weakness."

He turned. He wore a smug smile.

"You should be more like her, sister," he said. "You are an excellent fighter. But up here . . ." He tapped the side of his head. "Well, it's not your strength."

The shadows traveled faster beneath my skin, spurred on by my anger. But I kept my mouth closed.

"You gave Kereseth a weapon? You took him through the tunnels?" Ryzek shook his head. "You slept through his escape?"

"He drugged me," I said tersely.

"Oh? And how did he do that?" Ryzek said lightly, still smirking. "Pinned you down and poured the potion into your mouth? I don't think so. I think you drank it, trustingly. Drank a powerful drug prepared by your enemy."

"Ryzek-" I started.

"You almost cost us our oracle," Ryzek snapped. "And why? Because you're foolish enough to let your heart flutter for the first painkiller who comes around?"

I didn't argue. He had spent a long time searching the galaxy for an oracle, with my father and without. In one night, that oracle had almost escaped. My doing. And maybe he was right. Maybe whatever small trust I had felt for Akos, whatever appeal he had held, had come because he offered me relief. Because I was so grateful for the reprieve from pain-and from isolation-that my heart had softened. I had been stupid.

"You can't blame him for wanting to rescue his brother, or for wanting to get out of here," I said, my voice quaking with fear.

"You really don't get it, do you?" Ryzek said, laughing a little. "People will always want things that will destroy us, Cyra. That doesn't mean we just let them act on what they want."