The Fates Divide

by Veronica Roth

  I opened my eyes as the sky darkened.

  It could have been something as ordinary as a cloud passing over the sun, but it had already been cloudy when I closed my eyes, an even pale gray in every direction. Instead, when I lifted my head, I saw a vast ship, far larger than any transport vessel or floater or military craft that Shotet possessed. It was as large as the sojourn ship, but perfectly round, more like the Thuvhesit passenger floater that Sifa had guided into the renegade safe house.

  The underside of the ship was smooth and polished, like it had never been flown before, never been battered by space debris and asteroids and rough atmospheres. Dotting its belly were little white lights. They marked doors and hatches, important attachment points and docking stations, and the ship's massive outline. It was an Othyrian craft. I was sure of it. No one else would have the will and the vanity to make something so functional so beautiful.

  "Cyra." Teka's voice again, fearful this time.

  I locked eyes with Sifa, standing in the center of the arena. Eijeh had decided the time of his vision based on the color of the light, he said. Well, with this ship shielding Voa from the sun, it looked very much like dusk.

  The attack was happening now.

  "I wouldn't bother with the control room," I said, surprised by how remote my own voice sounded to me.

  The soldiers who had shown Sifa into the arena fled, as if they could outrun a ship that large before the anticurrent blast hit. And perhaps there was no shame in that, in dying with hope.

  I hoisted myself over the barrier that separated me from the arena, and dropped neatly to the packed earth below. I didn't know why, except that I didn't want to be standing above the arena when the anticurrent blast hit. I wanted to be where I belonged: here, with grit in the soles of my boots, where people who loved to fight stood.

  And I loved to fight.

  But I also loved to live.

  I wouldn't say I had never thought of dying as some kind of relief, when the pain was at its worst, when I lost my true mother to the darkness I didn't yet understand. And I wouldn't say that living was always, or even often, a pleasant experience for me. But the discovery and rediscovery of other worlds, the burn and ache of muscles building strength, the feeling of Akos's warm, strong body against mine, the glint of my mother's decorative armor at night in the sojourn ship--I loved them all.

  I stopped in the middle of the arena, within grasp of Sifa and Yma, but not touching them. I heard Teka's light footfalls behind me.

  "Well," Teka said. "I suppose it could be worse."

  I would have laughed, if it had been any further from the truth. But for Teka and Yma and me, who had come so close to other, far more horrible ways of dying, I supposed dissolving into an anticurrent blast was not so bad.

  "Anticurrent," I murmured, because the word seemed so strange to me.

  I looked at Sifa--at my mother, in whatever way she still was that--and for the first time, she looked genuinely surprised.

  "I don't understand. Anticurrent blasts are light," I said. "The sojourn ship . . . it was so bright when it was destroyed. How can anticurrent be bright?"

  "The current is both visible and invisible," Sifa said. "It doesn't always appear to us in a way that we understand."

  I frowned down at my spread palms, where the currentshadows had collected, winding again and again around my fingers like stacks of rings.

  The doctor I had seen as a child had suggested that my currentgift came about because I thought I deserved pain, and that everyone else deserved it, too. My mother, Ylira Noavek, had chafed at the mere suggestion. This is not her fault, she had said, before dragging me out of the office.

  And Akos--when he had seen the way I kept track of what I had done on my arm, now covered, as always, by armor, he had simply asked me, How old were you?

  He had not thought this gift was what I deserved, and neither had my mother. And maybe they were both right--maybe the doctor was the one who had been wrong, the man whose words had been echoing in my mind all my life. Maybe pain was not my currentgift, not at all. Maybe pain was just a by-product of something else.

  If the anticurrent was light--

  And I was plagued by dark--

  Maybe current was my gift.

  She is herself a small Ogra, the Ogran dancers had said to me, when they saw my currentgift displayed.

  "Does anyone know what the word 'Ogra' actually means, in Ogran?" I said.

  "It means 'the living dark,'" Sifa replied.

  I laughed, a little, and as a narrow hatch opened on the underside of the ship above us, I raised my shadow-stained hands to the sky.

  I pushed my currentshadows up, up, up.

  Over the sizzle of the amphitheater's force field, which Akos had disabled at a touch as he lifted us to safety. His arm had been strong across my back, tightly coiled as a rope.

  Over the center of Voa, where I had lived all my life, contained in spotless wood paneling and the glow of fenzu. I felt Ryzek's hands, a little sweaty as they pressed over my ears, to shield me from the screams of whoever my father was tormenting.

  And higher over Voa, over even the fringes of the city where the Storyteller and his sweet purple tea lived, where the renegades had cobbled together a dinner table made of half a dozen other dinner tables.

  I didn't suffer from a lack of fuel. The currentshadows had been so strong all my life, strong enough to render me incapable of attending a simple dinner party, strong enough to bow my back and force tears from my eyes, strong enough to keep me awake and pacing all through the night. Strong enough to kill, but now I understood why they killed. It wasn't because they drained the life from a person, but because they overwhelmed it. It was like gravity--we needed it to stay grounded, alive, but if it was too strong, it formed a black hole, from which even light could not escape.

  Yes, the force of the current was too fierce for one body to contain--

  Unless that body was mine.

  My body, battered again and again by soldiers and brothers and enemies, but still working its way upright--

  My body, a channel for the pure force of current, the hum-buzz of life that brought others to their knees--

  Life is full of pain, I had told Akos, trying to draw him back from depression. Your capacity for bearing it is greater than you believe. And I had been right.

  I had had every reason to become closed off, wrapped up tight, pushing everything that resembled life and growth and power as far away from myself as possible. It would have been easier that way, to refuse to let anything in. But I had let Akos in, trusting him when I had forgotten how to trust, and I had let Teka in, too, and maybe one day, Sifa--

  I would let anyone in who dared draw near. I was like the planet Ogra, which welcomed anyone and anything that could survive life close to it.

  Not because I deserved pain, and not because I was too strong to feel it, but because I was resilient enough to accept it as an inevitability.

  My currentshadows shot up, up, up.

  They spread, building from the tendrils around my fingers to a column in the sky that wrapped my entire body in shadow-dark. I couldn't see Teka or Sifa or Yma now, but I saw the great pillar of current that passed over and through me, toward that hatch that had opened in the Othyrian ship above.

  I didn't see the anticurrent weapon, whatever its container looked like, but I did see the blast. The light spreading out from one fixed point, just as the shadow stretched upward from me.

  And where they collided: agony.

  I screamed, helplessly, as I had not screamed since I was too young to remember. The pain was so intense it shattered my pride, my reason, my sense of self. I heard the screaming and felt the scraping feeling of my own voice in my throat and the inferno inside me and around me, and saw the shadow and the light and the space where they met with a sharp clap.

  My knees buckled, and arms wrapped around my waist, thin, bony ones. A head pressed between my shoulder blades, and I heard Teka's voice saying,
"Hold on, hold on, hold on . . ."

  I had killed her uncle, her cousin, and in some ways, her mother, and still she stood behind me, keeping me upright.

  Hands wrapped around my arms, warm and soft, and the smell of sendes leaf floated over to me, the scent of Sifa's shampoo.

  The dark eyes of the one who had abandoned me, and now returned for me--

  And last, the strict, pale fingers of Yma Zetsyvis on my wrist.

  The current moved through all of us at once, my friend, my enemy, my mother, and me, all wrapped together in the darkness that was life itself.

  CHAPTER 53: CISI

  BREAKING NEWS, THE SCREEN says. Lazmet Noavek confirmed dead in Shotet assault on Hessa, major city of Thuvhe.

  I look the nurse steadily in the eye. I want to tell her that I don't care if my intestines are spilling out on the floor, she will get me a wheelchair, and she will clear me to fly with Isae Benesit to Thuvhe. But of course I can't say that. Other people's currentgifts falter when their bodies weaken, but not mine, apparently.

  Instead, I search for what might persuade her. The usual Othyrian things--fine fabrics--don't seem like the right choice. She's too hard-nosed for that. She's not someone who has let herself long for things. She would take comfort in something she can access--like a hot bath, or a comfortable chair. Water is easy for me, so I send it toward her, not the rolling waves that would work on Isae, but the still warmth of someone soaking. Buoyant and motionless.

  I don't bother with subtlety. I fill the room with it. My cheeks heat and my stomach aches from the stitches that still hold my guts in.

  "I'm from Hessa," I say, and it feels muffled, even though I can hear myself clearly. One of the oddities of my gift. "I need to go. Clear me."

  She's nodding, blinking dully at me.

  I haven't spoken to Isae since Ast's arrest. She came to assure me that it was done, that he was gone. Since he wasn't a citizen of the Assembly, he was shipped off to his home moon to await trial, and they would deal with him in whatever manner they chose. But he wouldn't be allowed to set foot on an Assembly planet again.

  One day, that might mean fewer planets. There are rumors of secession over Othyr's proposed oracle oversight law. It is too soon to know about the other nation-planets, but Thuvhe has thrown itself in with Othyr, so our path through that issue, at least, is clear.

  We aren't sure what happened in Shotet yet. News is slow to come out of there. What we do know is the anticurrent weapon didn't work. Something ink-dark met it in the air, right in the middle of Voa, protecting the city from its blast. No one can explain it, but I'm taking it as a sign of better things to come.

  The nurse wheels me to the hospital landing pad in a small, portable bed that can be secured to the wall of an Othyrian ship. Every jostle of the bed makes shooting pains go through my abdomen, but I am just happy to be going home, so I try not to let the pain show. The first child of the family Noavek will succumb to the blade. Well, maybe I had succumbed, but I hadn't died. That was something.

  As the nurse activates the wall magnet that will hold my bed steady during takeoff, Isae steps down from the nav deck, where she was speaking with the captain. She's dressed in comfortable clothes: a sweater with sleeves long enough to cover her hands, tight black pants, and her old boots with their red laces. She looks uncharacteristically nervous.

  She offers me a handheld screen with a keyboard. "Just in case you want to say something you can't say aloud," she says.

  I hold it in my lap. I'm angry with her--for not listening to me instead of Ast, for not believing me--but this reminds me why I care about her. She thinks about what I need. She wants me to be able to speak my mind.

  "I'm surprised you didn't object to me coming," I say to her as unkindly as my currentgift will allow.

  "I'm trying to trust your judgment from now on," she says, looking down at her fingers, twisted together. "You want to go to Hessa, so you'll go to Hessa. You wanted me to show mercy, so I'll try to do that, too, from now on."

  I nod.

  "I'm sorry, Cee," she almost whispers.

  I feel a pang of guilt. I didn't tell her that I tried to reach out to Shotet when she decided to unleash the anticurrent weapon on the Shotet. And I haven't told her how I've been using my currentgift to soften her and persuade her since all this started. And I don't plan to confess. I would lose everything I've gained, that way. But I don't feel good about the deception.

  The least I can do now is forgive her. I turn over one hand, and hold it out to her, inviting her closer. She rests her palm on mine.

  "I love you," she says.

  "I love you, too," I say, and it's one of the easiest things I've ever said. Sometimes I might lie to her, but this, at least, is true.

  She bends to kiss me, and I touch her cheek, holding her in place for a few long moments before she pulls away. She smells like sendes leaf and soap. Like home.

  I will never be heralded as the one who made Chancellor Benesit turn away from further aggressive action and invite the Shotet to peace talks in the wake of the attempted attack on Voa. It might have been one of the more destructive wars in Assembly history, if I hadn't been there. No one will call me skilled in diplomacy, or poised, or a remarkable adviser.

  But that's as it should be. When all goes according to plan, I fade into the background. But I will be there, standing behind a chancellor as she maneuvers through this uneasy peace. I will be the one she looks to for guidance, for comfort when her grief and anger surge within her again and again. I will be the arm that guides the hand. No one will know.

  Except me. I'll know.

  CHAPTER 54: CYRA

  I WOKE TO BUZZING. A fenzu glowing blue, turning lazy circles above my head. Its iridescent wings made me think, suddenly, of Uzul Zetsyvis, who had thought so fondly of them, his cash crop and his passion.

  Around me was white--white floors, white sheets, white walls, white curtains. I was not in a hospital, but a quiet house. Growing from a pot in the corner was a black flower with layer after layer of plush petals, unfolding from a dark yellow center.

  I recognized the place. It was the Zetsyvis home, standing on a cliff overlooking Voa.

  Something felt wrong. Off, somehow. I lifted an arm and found it to be heavy, my muscles shaking with the slight effort. I let the limb drop to the mattress, and contented myself by watching the fenzu fly, tracing paths of light in the air.

  I knew what was off: I wasn't in pain. And from what I could see of my own bare arms, the currentshadows were gone.

  Fear and relief intermingled within me. No pain. No currentshadows. Was it permanent? Had I expended so much energy in the anticurrent blast that my currentgift had left me forever? I closed my eyes. I couldn't allow myself to imagine that, a life without pain. I couldn't let myself hope for it.

  A while later--I had no sense of how long--I heard a knock at the door. Sifa carried a mug of tea toward me.

  "I suspected you might be awake," she said.

  "Tell me about Voa," I said. I planted my hands, trying to push myself up. My arms felt like jelly. Sifa moved to help me, and I stopped her with a glare, struggling on my own instead.

  Instead, she sat in a chair near my bed, her hands folded in her lap.

  "Your currentshadows countered the anticurrent blast. The Shotet exiles arrived within days to seize control of Voa, in the power vacuum that resulted from Lazmet's death," she said. "But what you did seems to have depleted you. No, I'm not sure if the disappearance of your currentshadows is permanent," she added, answering the question I hadn't yet asked. "But you saved a lot of people, Cyra."

  She sounded . . . proud. As a mother would have been.

  "Don't," I said. "I'm not yours."

  "I know." She sighed. "But I was hoping we might work our way toward something other than outright hostility."

  I considered that.

  "Maybe," I said.

  She smirked a little.

  "Well, in that spirit . . . look at this
."

  She rose to draw the curtain back from the window beside my bed. I was in the part of the house positioned on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the city of Voa. At first, all I saw was the sparkle of distant lights, the buildings of Voa. But then:

  "It's noon," Sifa said.

  Voa was covered--shielded by what looked like dark clouds. They were only a shade or two lighter than the Ogran sky. My currentshadows had found a home over Voa, sending it into endless night.

  I felt better--physically--in the next few days than I had since I was a child. Izit by izit, my strength returned, as I ate food prepared by Sifa, Yma, and Teka in the Zetsyvis kitchen. Yma burned the bottom of almost everything she made, and presented it without apology. Sifa cooked odd-tasting Thuvhesit dishes that were packed with too many spices. Teka made uncommonly good breakfasts. I helped where I could, sitting at the counter with a knife to chop things until my arm got too tired. The weakness was infuriating to me, but the lack of pain more than made up for it.

  I would have traded a dozen currentgifts for no more pain.

  Sifa had assured me that Akos was alive, but in what condition, I didn't know. I searched the news out of Thuvhe for any signs of him, and found nothing. Reports of my father's death didn't mention him. It was Cisi who finally sent us news, directly from Hessa: She had found Akos at the hospital there, recovering from hypothermia. She was taking him home.

  The clouds showed no sign of clearing over Voa. It was likely the entire city would be dark forever. Up here on the cliff, if you looked toward Voa, it appeared to be night. But if you turned away, toward the Divide that separated us from Thuvhe, the sun shone again. It was odd, to be living on the edge of such a thing. And to know that you yourself had created it.

  And then, in the middle of the night, almost a week after the attack on Voa, I woke to pain.

  At first I didn't know why I was awake. I checked the clock to be sure it wasn't time to get up and start on breakfast, since I was finally well enough to take my own turn in the kitchen. Then I felt the dull pounding in my head, with a spark of alarm.

  Maybe it's just a headache, I told myself. No need to panic, no need to--

  My fingers stung, like they had fallen asleep and blood was now returning to them. I scrambled to turn on the lamp next to my bed, and I saw it: a line of shadow traveling from wrist to fingertip.