"The sovereign is concerned that you will try to end your life before the appropriate time," Eijeh said.

The appropriate time. I wondered if Eijeh had chosen my manner of death, then. The oracle, plucking the ideal future from an array of options.

"End my life with this thing? My fingernails are sharper." I brought the knife down, point first, on the mattress. I slammed it so hard the bed frame shuddered, and let go. The knife fell over, not even sharp enough to penetrate fabric. I winced, not even sure what part of my body hurt.

"I suppose he thinks you're creative enough to find a way," Eijeh said softly.

I stuffed the last bite of toast into my mouth and sat back against the wall, my arms folded. We were in one of the polished, glossy cells in the belly of the amphitheater, beneath the stadium seats that were already filling with people hungry to watch me die. I had won the last challenge, but I was running out of strength. This morning walking to the toilet had been a feat.

"How sweet," I said, spreading my arms wide to display my bruises. "See how my brother loves me?"

"You're making jokes," Ryzek said from just outside the cell. I could hear him, muffled, through the glass wall that separated us. "You must be getting desperate."

"No, desperate is playing this stupid game before you kill me, just to make me look bad," I said. "Are you that afraid that the people of Shotet will rally behind me? How pathetic."

"Try to get to your feet, and we'll all see 'pathetic,'" Ryzek said. "Come on. Time to go."

"Are you at least going to tell me who I'm facing today?" I said. I placed my hands on the bed frame, gritted my teeth, and pushed myself up.

It took all my strength to swallow the cry of pain that swelled in my throat. But I did it.

"You'll see," Ryzek said. "I am eager-and I'm sure you agree-to end this at last. So I have arranged for a special contest this morning."

He was dressed in synthetic armor today-it was matte black, and more flexible than the traditional Shotet variety-and polished black boots that made him appear even taller than he was. His shirt, collared and white, was buttoned up to his throat, showing over the vest of armor. It was almost the same outfit he had worn to our mother's funeral. Fitting, since he intended for me to die today.

"It's a shame your beloved couldn't be here to watch," Ryzek said. "I'm sure he would have enjoyed it."

I replayed it all the time now, what Zosita, Teka's mother, had told me before she walked to her execution. I had asked her if it was worth it to lose her life challenging Ryzek, and she had told me yes. I wished I could tell her that I understood now.

I tipped my chin up. "You know, I'm having trouble figuring out how much of you is actually my brother these days." When I walked past Ryzek on my way out of the cell, I leaned closer and said, "But you would be in a much better mood if your little plan to steal Eijeh's currentgift had worked."

For a moment I was sure I could see Ryzek's focus falter. His eyes touched Eijeh's.

"I see," I said. "Whatever you tried to do didn't work. You still didn't get his gift."

"Take her away," Ryzek said to Eijeh. "She has some dying to do."

Eijeh prodded me forward. He was wearing thick gloves, like he was training a bird of prey.

If I focused, I could walk in a straight line, but it was difficult, with all the throbbing in my head and throat. A trickle of blood-well, I hoped it was blood, anyway-ran over my collarbone.

Eijeh pushed me through the door to the arena floor, and I stumbled out. The light outside was blinding, the sky cloudless and pale around the sun. The amphitheater was packed with observers, all of them shouting and cheering, but I couldn't make out what any of them were saying.

Across from me waited Vas Kuzar. He smiled at me, then bit his chapped lips. He would make himself bleed if he kept that up.

"Vas Kuzar!" Ryzek announced, his voice amplified by the tiny devices that hovered over the arena. Just above the lip of the amphitheater wall, I could see the buildings of Voa, stone patched over with metal and glass, winking in the sun. One, outfitted with a blue glass spire, almost blended into the sky. Covering the arena was a force field that protected the place from harsh weather-and escape. The Shotet didn't like our war games to be interrupted by storms and cold and runaway prisoners.

"You have challenged the traitor Cyra Noavek to fight with currentblades to the death!" As if on cue, everyone roared at the words traitor Cyra Noavek, and I rolled my eyes, though my heart was beating fast. "This is in reaction to her betrayal of the people of Shotet. Are you ready to proceed?"

"I am," Vas said in his usual monotone.

"Your weapon, Cyra," Ryzek said. He drew a currentblade from the sheath at his back, and flipped it in his hand so I could take the handle. His sleeve was rolled up.

I approached him, willing the currentshadows to build within me, beckoning the pain that came along with them. My skin was dusted with dark lines. I moved like I was going to take the knife's handle, but instead, I clamped my hand around Ryzek's arm.

I wanted to show these people who he really was. And pain always did that, took the insides out.

Ryzek screamed into his teeth, and thrashed, trying to throw me off. With all the others, I had simply let my currentgift go where it wanted to, and it always wanted to be shared. With Akos, I had pulled it back, almost ending my own life in the process. But with Ryzek, I pressed it toward him with all the force I could muster.

It was a shame, really, that Eijeh was there so soon, grabbing me and dragging me away.

Still, the damage was done. Everyone in this arena had heard my brother scream at my touch. They were quiet, watching.

Eijeh held me back as Ryzek gathered himself, straightening and sheathing the knife. He set a hand on Vas's shoulder, and said, only loud enough so Eijeh, Vas, and I could hear: "Kill her."

"What a shame, Cyra," Eijeh said softly in my ear. "I didn't want it to come to this."

I twisted free as Eijeh walked out, and backed away, breathing hard. I had no weapon. But it was better to go out this way. By not giving me a currentblade, Ryzek had just shown everyone in this arena that he wasn't giving me a fair chance. In his anger, he had shown fear, and that was enough for me.

Vas started toward me, his movements confident, predatory. He had always disgusted me, since I was a child, and I wasn't sure why. He was as tall and well built as any other man I had ever found appealing. A good fighter, too, and his eyes, at least, were a rare, beautiful color. But he was also covered with accidental bruises and scratches. His hands were so dry the thin flesh between his fingers was cracking. And I had never met a person so . . . empty. Unfortunately, that was also what made him so frightening in the arena.

Strategy, now, I thought. I remembered the footage from Tepes I had watched in the training room. I had learned the lurching, unsteady movements of their combat when my mind was sharp. The key to maintaining control of my body was to keep my center strong. When Vas stepped to lunge, I turned and tripped to the side, my limbs swinging. One of my flailing arms hit him in the ear, hard. The impact shuddered through me, sending a wave of pain through my rib cage and back.

I winced, and in the time it took me to recover, Vas had swiped. His sharpened blade carved a line in my arm. Blood spilled on the arena floor, and the crowd cheered.

I tried to ignore the blood, the stinging, the aching. My body pulsed with pain and fear and rage. I held my arm against my chest. I had to grab Vas. He couldn't feel pain, but if I channeled enough of my currentgift, I could kill him.

A cloud passed over the sun, and Vas lunged again. This time I ducked, and reached out with one hand, skimming the inside of his wrist with my fingers. The shadows danced over to him, not potent enough to affect him. He swung his knife again, and the point of the blade dug into my side.

I moaned, and fell against the wall of the arena.

Then I heard someone shout, "Cyra!"

A dark figure hoisted itself over the arena wall from the first row of seats, and dropped to the ground, knees bent. Darkness crowded the edges of my vision, but I knew who he was, just by watching him run.

A long, dark rope had dropped into the center of the arena. I looked up to see, not a cloud covering the sun, but an old transport vessel, made of an array of metals, honeyed and rusty and as bright as the sun, hovering right above the force field. Vas grabbed Akos with both hands and slammed him up, into the arena wall. Akos gritted his teeth and covered Vas's hands with his own.

Then something strange happened: Vas flinched, and dropped him.

Akos sprinted to my side, bent over me, and wrapped an arm around my waist. Together we ran toward the rope. He grabbed it with one hand, and it jerked up, fast. Too fast for Vas to grab.

Everyone around us was roaring. He shouted into my ear, "I'm going to need you to hold on by yourself!"

I cursed at him. I tried not to look down at the crowded seats below us, the frenzy we had left behind, the distant ground, but it was hard not to. I focused instead on Akos's armor. I wrapped my arms around his chest and clamped my hands around the collar of it. When he released me, I gritted my teeth-I was too weak to hold on like this, too weak to support my own weight.

Akos reached up with the hand he had been using to hold me, and his fingers approached the force field that blanketed the amphitheater. It lit up brighter when his fingers touched it, then flickered, and went out. The rope jerked up, hard, making me whimper as I almost lost my grip, but then we were inside the transport vessel.

We were inside, and it was deadly quiet.

"You made Vas feel pain," I said, breathless. I touched his face, ran a fingertip down his nose, over his upper lip.

He wasn't as bruised as he had been the last time I saw him, cowering on the floor at my touch.

"I did," he replied.

"Eijeh was in the amphitheater, he was right there. You could have grabbed him. Why didn't you-"

His mouth-still under my fingers-twitched into a smile. "Because I came for you, you idiot."

I laughed and fell against him, not strong enough to stand anymore.

CHAPTER 30: AKOS.

FOR A TICK THERE was only her weight, her warmth, and relief.

And then everything came back: the crush of people in the transport vessel, their silence as they stared, Isae and Cisi strapped in near the nav deck. Cisi gave Akos a smile as he caught Cyra around the waist and picked her up. Cyra was tall, and far from dainty, but he could still carry her. For a while, anyway.

"Where are your medical supplies?" Akos asked Teka and Jyo, who were coming toward them.

"Jyo has medical training; he can take care of her," Teka said.

But Akos didn't like how Jyo was looking at her, like she was something valuable he could buy or trade. These renegades hadn't rescued her out of the goodness of their hearts; they wanted something in return, and he wasn't about to just hand her over.

Cyra's fingers curled around the armor strap on his rib cage, and he shivered a little.

"She doesn't go anywhere without me," he said.

Teka's eyebrow lifted above the eye patch. Before she could snap at him-which he got the sense she was about to-Cisi unbuckled herself and made her way over.

"I can do it. I have the training," she said. "And Akos will help me."

Teka eyed her for a beat, then gestured to the galley. "By all means, Miss Kereseth."

Akos carried Cyra into the galley. She wasn't completely out of it-her eyes were still open-but she didn't seem there, either, and he didn't like it.

"Come on, Noavek, get it together," he said to her as he turned sideways to get her in the door. It wasn't quite steady on the vessel; he stumbled. "My Cyra would have made at least two snide remarks by now."

"Hmm." She smiled a little. "Your Cyra."

The galley was narrow and dirty, used plates and cups piled around the sink, jostling each other whenever the ship turned, lit by strips of white light that kept fluttering like they were about to go out; everything made of the same dull metal, dotted with bolts. He waited as Cisi scrubbed the little table between the two countertops, and dried it with a clean rag. His arms ached by the time he put Cyra down.

"Akos, I can't read Shotet characters."

"Um . . . neither can I, really." The supply cabinet was organized, all the individually packaged items in neat rows. Alphabetical. He knew a few of them by sight, but not enough.

"You'd think after all that time in Shotet you'd have learned something," Cyra said from her place on the table, slurring the words a little. Her arm flopped to the side, and she pointed. "Silverskin is there. Antiseptic on the left. Make me a painkiller."

"Hey, I learned a few things," he said to her, squeezing her hand before he got to work. "The most challenging lesson was how to deal with you."

He had a vial of painkiller in his bag, so he went out to the main deck again and hunted for it under the jump seats, glaring at Jyo when he didn't move his legs right away. He found his roll of leather-made of treated Armored One skin, so it was still hard, not exactly a "roll"-where he kept his spare vials, and found the purplish one that would help Cyra's pain. When he went back to the galley, Cisi was wearing gloves and ripping packages open.

"How steady are your hands, Akos?" Cisi asked.

"Steady enough. Why?"

"I know how to do the procedures, of course, but I can't really touch her, because of the pain, remember? At least, not as steadily as she needs me to; this is delicate work," she said. "So I'm just going to tell you what to do."

Dark streaks still traveled up and down Cyra's arms and around her head, though they were different from the last time Akos had seen them, dancing on top of her in jagged lines.

Cyra croaked from the table, "Akos, is this . . . ?"

"My sister?" Akos said. "Yeah, it is. Cyra, meet Cisi."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Cyra said, searching Cisi's face. For resemblance, if Akos knew anything. She wouldn't find it-he and Cisi had never looked much alike.

"You too," Cisi said, smiling at Cyra. If she was scared of the woman beneath her-the woman she had heard so many rumors about, all her life-she didn't show it.

Akos carried the painkiller to Cyra and touched the vial to her lips. It was hard to look at her. The stitching cloth that covered the left side of her throat and head was deep red and crusted over. She was bruise-stained and worn through.

"Remind me," Cyra said as the painkiller kicked in, "to yell at you for coming back."

"Whatever you say," Akos said.

But he was relieved, because there was his Cyra, jagged as a serrated blade, strong as Deadened ice.

"She fell asleep. Well, that's good," Cisi said. "Step back, please."

He gave her some room. She was dextrous, to be sure; she pinched the stitching cloth with all the delicacy of someone threading a needle, careful not to brush Cyra's skin, and pulled it back. It came away from the wound easily, wet as it was with blood and pus. She dropped it, one soaked strip at a time, on a tray near Cyra's head.

"So you've been training to be a doctor," Akos said as he watched her.

"It seemed like a good fit for my gift," Cisi said. Ease was her gift-always had been, even before her currentgift came around-but it wasn't her only one, he could see that. She had steady hands and an even temper and a sharp mind. More than just a sweet person with a good disposition, as if anyone was just that.

When the whole wound was clear of the useless stitching cloth, she poured antiseptic all over it, dabbing at the edges to get rid of dried blood.

"I think it's time to apply the silverskin," Cisi said, straightening. "It acts like a living creature; you just have to place it properly and it adheres permanently to the flesh. You'll be fine as long as you can keep your hands steady. Okay? I'll cut the strips now."

Silverskin was another innovation from Othyr, a sterile, synthetic substance that, as Cisi said, almost seemed to be alive. It was used to replace skin that had been damaged beyond repair, mostly burns. It got its name because of its color and texture-it was smooth and had a silver sheen to it. Once put in place, it was permanent.

Cisi cut the strips with care, one for the section of skin just above Cyra's ear, one for behind it, and one for her throat. After a beat or two of thought, she went back to make the edges of silverskin curved. Like wind through snow, like iceflower petals.