The End and Other Beginnings Read online

The next day I didn’t go to Noavek manor. I stayed home to pack my things for the sojourn, our rite of traveling the galaxy and descending on a planet to scavenge. The most sacred of Shotet rituals. As a mechanic, I was needed aboard the sojourn ship earlier than most people, to make sure everything was running smoothly. I had told Otega as much, and she had made excuses for me with the manor staff, saying her sister had gotten ill, and her young niece Keza had to go home to care for her.

  Jorek Kuzar showed up that night, and there was a bruise at the corner of his eye. I didn’t ask about it, because I knew where it had likely come from. Jorek’s father, Suzao, was not a patient man. Or a good one.

  Jorek was from a family of Noavek loyalists. His cousin was Vas Kuzar, Ryzek’s closest companion. He had turned against the Kuzars and joined the renegades at a young age, and he often turned up at my doorstep, hungry and saying nothing of where he’d just been.

  “Need something to eat?” I asked. “I have . . . crackers.”

  He was already opening one of the kitchen cabinets. I lived with a cousin and his wife, and they worked at night, so we were rarely home at the same time. We were related through my father, who had died when I was a baby. He, like me, had had a talent for machines, though his was unrelated to his currentgift. His arm had gotten caught in the gears of one, and he had lost so much blood while he waited for a doctor to show up that he had died stuck there.

  It had been his right arm. The same side as my eye.

  “Your cousins here?” Jorek said, his mouth full of cracker.

  “First of all, don’t get crumbs on the floor, we already have a pest problem,” I said. Everyone did, in this part of the city—the outer rim, where poor people lived packed together in these little apartments. Our kitchen had a single burner, two cabinets, and a table just long enough for two of us to sit at once. My room was actually a hall closet with a bed crammed into it.

  “Second, no, they’re gone.”

  “And nothing is . . .” He tapped his ear, and pointed up at the ceiling. Asking if there was any reason not to talk about renegade business.

  I shook my head. I would know if there were any devices in the walls. It was always worth checking—my mother was in exile, after all. The Noavek regime would have its eye on me for as long as I was alive.

  “Okay. How’s mission prep going?” he said. “Heard a Dormant was helping you.”

  Dormant was the term for a renegade who didn’t regularly attend meetings, usually because they were on some kind of long-term, sensitive mission. Otega was one. My aunt Yma was another. I hadn’t spoken to her in seasons, and that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon. Most renegades didn’t know what a Dormant’s mission was, and we weren’t allowed to ask, or risk contacting them in any way.

  “Yeah,” I said. I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. I had been feeling strange since yesterday. Strange about Otega.

  “I know I’m not supposed to tell you who it is,” I said, “but I could really use some insight.”

  Jorek pulled out one of the rickety chairs at the kitchen table and sat sideways in it, one arm slung across the back.

  “You can trust me,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I know,” I said. “Okay, well—in all your fancy Kuzar time lying on silk and eating rare delicacies, did you ever meet a woman named Otega?”

  “Only fabric woven by the hands of servants for the fanciest of Shotet,” Jorek said. “Don’t be silly.”

  “Forgive me, I am but a lowly commoner.” I grinned.

  “Yeah, I know Otega. She was Cyra’s tutor, and she works in the manor.” His eyebrows popped up in surprise. “She’s a renegade?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” I pulled out the chair next to him and sat. Our knees bumped together under the table, and I angled myself away so we could both sit without being on top of each other. “Why is that so surprising?”

  Jorek shrugged. “She’s been working for the Noaveks for a long time. She practically raised Cyra. And now she’s helping you learn how to kill her? I don’t know, it’s just . . . surprising.”

  “Okay, that’s the thing.” I planted one elbow on the table and leaned toward him. “I’m not entirely convinced she’s helping me learn how to kill her. I think she’s trying to get me to screw it up.”

  Jorek frowned. “But your mom wouldn’t set you up with someone she wasn’t sure of, would she?”

  “My mom thinks she knows everything, but what can she really know about a woman from a forest in Ogra?” I rolled my eyes. “She hasn’t even lived here in five seasons. The places she knew, the people she knew—they’ve changed.”

  “Have you tried asking her?”

  “My mom?”

  “No. Otega.” He scratched at the patchy beard he was growing on his chin. I had teased him about it for weeks when it first started coming in, poking a finger into all the bald patches. “Confront her. Even if she lies about it, you might be able to tell just by her reaction.”

  “That,” I said, “is an idea worth half a box of crackers.”

  “I like to earn my keep,” Jorek said, popping another one in his mouth.

  I ran a finger along my hairline, checking that the scarf was in place. It was. I had bundled my hair into a tight knot and wound the scarf around it to disguise it, and the only hint of my Surukta blond came from my eyebrows, so pale they disappeared.

  I went through the back gate, nodding to the guard the same as I had the last week. He asked my name and checked it against the picture he had on file, then deactivated the lock and let me in. I felt the faint whir of machines in the air, saying hello to me through my currentgift. Not now, I thought, though I wanted to say hello back.

  Otega wasn’t in the kitchen when I walked in, but I told the cook I would wait, and helped him put away the spices he had gotten out for lunch.

  “I thought you had already gone home, Keza,” Otega said to me when she returned to the kitchen.

  “I’m leaving today,” I said. “But I need to talk to you first. Somewhere private.”

  “Okay.” Otega glanced at the cook. “Let’s go to the storeroom.”

  I followed her down a short flight of steps to the storeroom, where all the produce was kept. The room was insulated and cold, like a refrigerator. I touched one of the walls, searching with my currentgift for the familiar titters and buzzes of recording devices and sights. I found sights watching us—not a surprise, because the Noaveks were bound to guard against theft—but nothing listening. Good.

  The room had once been a basement, so it was half underground, with slim windows near the ceiling to let in some light. Still, it was dim enough that shadows found the creases in Otega’s skin, hints of a hard life. Tables littered with produce filled the room, and we stood between two of them, facing each other. I folded my arms.

  “What kind of game are you playing?” I said to her.

  “I have no idea what you mean,” Otega said.

  “You’re supposed to be helping me prepare for my mission. Which, in case you had forgotten, involves killing Cyra Noavek.” I kept the last few words quiet, looking over Otega’s shoulder to make sure no one stood at the door. “So why don’t you tell me how, exactly, you’ve been doing that?”

  Otega’s mouth was a firm line. Her posture mirrored mine, arms folded, feet planted. And she wasn’t answering.

  “I’m waiting,” I said.

  “My intention was to diminish your anger by revealing to you that your enemies are people, not monsters,” Otega said. “It has made you more level-headed, which will help you with your mission.”

  I thought about that for a moment. And then I shook my head.

  “Try again,” I said. “I don’t believe you.”

  “It doesn’t really matter what you believe, because it’s the truth.”

  “No. The truth is, you’ve known Cyra Noavek since she was a child. You know she’s in constant pain. You know that Ryzek Noavek is cruel to her. You know that she is c
apable of tenderness. You know her, and you love her.” I scowled at her. “You don’t want me to kill her, but you had to pretend to help me, because of whatever my mother is holding over your head. So why don’t you tell me what that is, and we can have a real conversation about this instead of this goddamn nonsense?”

  “No,” Otega said, her voice wobbling. She swallowed hard.

  “No matter what you do, or what you say, I am going to kill her,” I said, leaning in close. “You succeeded in making me more level-headed, but I am not doing this because I want to commit murder, I’m doing it because it needs to be done. The Noaveks are a blight on Shotet. When they’re gone, we’ll be able to build something new. Surely you must realize that.”

  “Nothing good can be built on the bodies of innocents,” Otega snapped.

  “She’s not an innocent. She is responsible for what she does, the same as anyone else,” I said. “Just like you are, for whatever you did that my mom is using as blackmail. You think if you do this, your debt will be repaid? That’s not how it works. That’s why we tattoo our losses on our skin. Because some things can’t be erased.”

  Otega blinked, and just like that, her eyes were full of tears.

  “Someone told Ryzek Noavek how to find you and your brother, after your mother fled,” Otega said.

  I knew, then, what she would say. I knew, and it pierced me. Ran me right through.

  “That person was me,” she finished.

  I closed my eye.

  It had taken two men to hold me down, their hands rough on my shoulders, and a third to steady my head, one hand on my forehead, the other under my chin. Keep your eyes open, the fourth said. Or we’ll take your eyelid as well as your eye.

  And I had.

  Stared into the point of the blade as it came down.

  I knew, then, that I could do what needed to be done. Because I had already proved that I could. I had been steady in the face of horror. I had borne the death of my brother and the loss of my mother. I always did what I had to, when it was really important. I could count on myself.

  I opened my eye and looked at her.

  “Do you know what this tells me?” I said. “That you value the life of Cyra Noavek, born into privilege—a person, yes, but still a person who chooses to torture and kill—over my life. Which is exactly the Shotet problem. Noavek lives are more important than anyone else’s, and it’s time for that to end.”

  I pulled down the lower eyelid of my right eye, and felt along the bottom of the prosthetic until I could wedge my finger beneath it. I popped out the disc, and with my free hand, grabbed Otega’s wrist so I could deposit the false eye in her palm. She recoiled, but I held her fast.

  “No more Noaveks,” I said.

  I left her standing there.

  A week later, I stood in the audience of the arena on the sojourn ship, and watched as Cyra Noavek killed my cousin, Lety Zetsyvis.

  I didn’t flinch.

  I was ready.

  2

  AKOS

  “As I have told you a dozen times now,” Vakrez Noavek said to him, “I am not going to waste anyone’s time with this.” Akos had walked into the room determined to stay calm. To prove to the commander that he wasn’t some thin-skinned Thuvhesit boy. But instead, what burst out of his mouth was a petulant “It won’t be a waste of time!”

  He was there to request the Shotet Rite of Armor, in which a candidate went head to head with an Armored One—the most dangerous creature on their planet—and either killed it or died in the attempt. The rite required three observers and the sponsorship of an authority figure. In this case, that authority would have to be Commander Vakrez Noavek of the Shotet army. Akos had asked for it for months, and he had been denied every time.

  Vakrez’s husband, Malan, was sitting in the corner of the room with a book in his lap. At Akos’s outburst, he shook his head, his lips twitching into a smile.

  Vakrez looked up from the letter he was writing. “Control yourself, Kereseth.”

  Akos spoke the word of calm into his mind—the Shotet word kyendat, which he had spent hours training into his subconscious, along with relaxed muscles and a sharp focus on his surroundings. At the sound of it, he felt his frustration ebb away. Someday he wouldn’t need the word, his body would just listen to him better—or so his Shotet lieutenant said. But for now, it helped.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Akos said, steady. “But I know the rules. Any soldier who asks for this rite is supposed to get it.”

  “You are not a soldier,” Vakrez said. “You are a prisoner of the sovereign of Shotet. Or have you forgotten?”

  The anger he felt for Ryzek Noavek was no momentary flare of frustration, nothing that could be controlled with kyendat. It simmered deeper than anything he’d ever felt, a pool of acid in the pit of his stomach that never drained.

  “I have not,” Akos said. “Sir.”

  Malan snapped his book shut and set it on the low table beside him. “Oh, come now, Vakrez.” He stood. As ever, he was a stark contrast to his husband: short and thin, his shirt hanging loose instead of tucked, his beard coming in after a few days neglect. “It’s a simple request.”

  “He’ll fail,” Vakrez said stiffly, his dark eyes fixed on Akos.

  Akos stood a little straighter under his scrutiny. He was a bit scrawny, still, thanks to never quite getting enough food at meals, but his soft middle had given way to wiry muscle since he started training with the army. At first, he had been too haunted by his father’s death to learn much of anything, but the haze of grief had burned away in time, and only determination had been left. He had to prove himself. He had to become someone the Shotet respected. And then he would be able to find a way to save his brother.

  He had no hope of saving himself. His life was already forfeited, thanks to his fate: The third child of the family Kereseth will die in service to the family Noavek. His destiny was servitude and death. But his brother Eijeh’s wasn’t set yet, and Akos was determined that Eijeh wouldn’t live out the rest of his life in Shotet.

  “And if he fails, so what?” Malan nodded to Akos. “You prove a Thuvhesit isn’t fit to wear our armor. And if he succeeds, it reflects well on your training. Either way, the gain is yours, Commander.”

  Vakrez’s head tilted as he considered this. Akos stood still, careful not to fidget. Vakrez didn’t like it when he fidgeted. Focus, Kereseth! Stand up straight, Kereseth! Control yourself, Kereseth! Akos’s life had become a series of demands he couldn’t seem to meet.

  “Fine,” Vakrez said. “I’ll arrange for it. Better hope you don’t die, Kereseth. It would be an ugly end.”

  Malan winked at Akos. Akos wasn’t sure why Malan had helped him, except that he seemed to have a soft spot for anyone who wasn’t at ease in the soldier camp. After all, he was one of the only people there who wasn’t a soldier himself.

  “I don’t need to hope, sir,” Akos said.

  Vakrez let out a short laugh.

  “Heard we should get the funeral pyre ready for you, Kereseth.”

  A pair of boots with the name Dony written across the toe came to rest in front of Akos. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground near the long, low buildings of the soldier camp, cleaning the practice weapons. The golden grass beneath him scratched at his legs even through his pants, and a beetle buzzed past his ear as he rubbed the cloth along the blade.

  He got stuck with a lot of menial tasks the other soldiers didn’t have to do, thanks to his status as a prisoner. Taking out laundry and cleaning weapons and repairing practice dummies—it made it impossible for the others to see him as a peer, which was probably the goal.

  But it was good for his hands to be busy. It kept him from thinking too much about Eijeh, and what was happening to him in Ryzek’s house.

  Akos saw two more sets of boots behind Dony, and tensed. It was never good when groups of soldiers came up to him while he was working. Usually it meant he was about to get smacked around.

  “You worried abou
t me, Dony?” Akos said, keeping his eyes on his work. “How sweet of you.”

  “Worried?” Dony scoffed. “I’m excited. We’ll probably get to have a party. Funeral rites being what they are.”

  “I already claimed your bed,” one of the others said. “Closer to the window, and all.”

  “We’re probably the same shoe size, right, Kereseth?” the third asked, sticking out his boot in a show of examining it. “Mind if I yank those boots off your body before they burn it?”

  Akos was considering his options. He didn’t stand a chance against all three of them. Numbers aside, they were all stronger and faster than he was.

  As Akos was resigning himself to getting beat up, Dony looked across the lawn and stiffened.

  “Shit,” he said. “Commander’s headed right toward us.”

  Akos had never been so relieved to see Vakrez Noavek. He set the practice sword down and tucked the cloth into his pocket. Sweat trailed down the back of his neck. He tried to stand at attention, like the others were, but Vakrez always made him feel like he was slouching.

  The commander was broad and muscular, and his posture often forced the buttons on his shirt to strain a little. He wore his own earned armor, distinct because of its perfect, dark plates, unmarred by blades. Nothing was hard enough to damage Shotet armor.

  “Your witnesses will be here tomorrow, Kereseth, so ready yourself,” Vakrez said.

  “Tomorrow, sir?” Akos said.

  “I saw no reason to delay. I assumed, based on your eagerness, that you were ready.” There was a challenge in Vakrez’s eyes. Akos tried to meet it.

  “I am, sir,” Akos said.

  “Then you know participants are permitted to bring one weapon to the rite,” Vakrez said. “I’ve decided to let you borrow one, to make things fair. What would you like?”

  “I have what I need already, Commander,” Akos replied.

  Vakrez’s expression was curious. But all he said was, “I expect you to be ready at dawn, then. Dony, I’m making you personally responsible for Kereseth’s well-being until then. He’d better show up to his rite in fighting shape and on time.”