by Janice Hardy
He looked puzzled for half a heartbeat, then paled. “Shifter,” he whispered.
I pushed the pain into him.
He cried out and staggered to one knee, but was on his feet seconds later, his pain healed. “It’s the Shifter!” he yelled, and the other soldiers turned.
He charged me as the other soldiers ran closer. I stepped into the charge and slapped both hands against his chest plate.
Whoomp.
Pain flashed, the tingle of blown sand tickling across my skin. The huge Undying screamed and collapsed. The advancing soldiers staggered and fell. The crowd stood frozen a moment, then cheered.
“Run!” I cried. “Get away from here.”
They didn’t listen. Some darted forward and grabbed the fallen swords. They attacked the soldiers, cutting them down as ruthlessly as the soldiers had done to the marshfolk. They turned on the Undying, and the Undying vanished beneath a wave of anger and fear.
Tali!
I ran back to her. No one had come after her yet. Danello appeared beside me. “Nya, we have to go.”
“It’s Tali.”
“What?” He looked down, paled. “Oh no.”
“Get her to the boat.” I wasn’t done here. More shouts in the street, and the last of the Undying charged out of the traveler’s house, followed by Betaal and her soldiers.
“Nya, wait!”
I raced toward the Undying. Soldiers yelled, blades cut my skin, but I didn’t stop. They would all pay for what they’d done. Every last Undying.
The soldier from the guardhouse stabbed me in the shoulder. I pivoted and grabbed his wrist, pushing the pain into him. He cried out and fell back, just like all the others. Another Undying, another flash echoing in the night, another sting of blown sand. More pain sliced my skin, behind me this time. I dropped, rolling toward the person who cut me. A push and he was down.
I looked for more.
I’d lost my sister. They’d stolen her, ruined her. She was supposed to be a Healer, not a killer.
They’d stolen everything from me. Tali, Mama, Papa, Grannyma. The life I should have had, the family I should have kept. They’d made me do things I’d promised I’d never do.
I grabbed the last pynvium-armored man. He screamed next, but no one else. They were all lying on the street, in blood, in pain.
“Nya?”
I spun, hands out. Danello stepped back, hands up.
“It’s just me!”
“Danello?”
“We have to go.”
“But Tali—”
“Is waiting for you on the boat, just like I promised. You can’t help her if you get caught.” Someone groaned and he jumped. “We need to hurry.”
I nodded, suddenly too exhausted to speak. We ran along the dock. Few lamps were lit, barely enough for us to make our way. It was quiet, just the swish of waves curling around the pilings and the creak of wood from the boats. Quenji stood on the dock ahead next to the fancy skiff decorated in green and gold.
A League skiff.
I jumped in.
Aylin raised the sails as Quenji tossed off the bowline, and we drifted away from the dock. Canvas flapped and took hold, and we were moving, out across the dark water and into the night. Dangerous, sailing at night, but it was safer than staying in town.
I sat on the bench and cradled Tali’s head in my lap. Lanelle stared at her, her face twisted in fear and pity. Soek sat next to her.
“How did you get here?” I asked Soek.
“I ran when Betaal and the others went after you. Danello saw me and I helped him get Tali to the boat.”
I smiled. “Thank you for that.”
“We shouldn’t take her with us,” Lanelle said, still watching Tali like she was going to jump up and try to kill us.
“Tali stays with me.”
“Nya, I’ve seen what being an Undying does to people. When she wakes up she’ll—”
“Shut up, Lanelle,” Danello said. Not mean, not angry, just a quiet order.
She looked at him but stayed silent.
Danello took the rudder while Aylin worked the sail. The lights of the dock fell away until I couldn’t see Tali’s face anymore.
I moved to her side and started removing Tali’s armor. Moonlight caught the underside, which glittered silver, and not from the moonlight.
Every piece was lined with silvery metal. What had the Duke called it? Kragstun. The same metal he’d used to make the cuffs that had forced Takers to do what he told them to do. Made me do what he told me to do.
Was that how he made the Undying? Forced them to kill?
Tali gasped and jerked upright, arms swinging. She lunged off the bench right at Lanelle.
“Ahhh!”
“Tali, no!” I cried, diving for her.
Lanelle threw herself sideways, and the skiff rocked. Soek grabbed Tali, held her around the waist as she kicked and screamed. He staggered, Tali writhed, and they both fell to the deck.
“Grab her, get her!” Lanelle pointed, jumping around like we’d turned snakes loose.
Quenji and Soek grabbed Tali again and held her down.
“Tali, it’s me, it’s Nya.” I tried to get close but she was struggling so hard. “Tali!”
She ignored me, or didn’t hear me—maybe didn’t even know who or where she was. I kept trying, my throat hoarse by the time she wore herself out.
“Can you hear me?”
She stared at me, eyes shimmering. There was nothing in them but moonlight.
“She doesn’t know who I am.” I could barely get the words out. She was gone. Really gone. My heart felt just as hollow.
I wanted to hug her, tell her it would all be okay, but that was a lie. She wouldn’t let me hold her, clearly didn’t even want me to touch her, and it might not ever be okay again.
I’d failed my sister.
“You need to tie her up so she doesn’t hurt … herself,” Lanelle said softly. “If she goes overboard, she could drown.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking the tears. Tie up my sister? Hadn’t enough been done to her already? I took a deep breath and slid closer, one hand out. “Tali—”
She shrieked and swung at me. One hand smacked against Quenji, and he yelped but didn’t let go. I pulled away.
“Do we have any rope?” I hated myself for asking.
“I’m sure there is.” Aylin got up and went looking. After banging around some, she came back with strips of rope, the ends freshly cut.
I tied Tali’s hands and feet. She shrieked again, struggled again, but Soek and Quenji held her down. She lay on the deck whimpering like a trapped animal.
Aylin put a hand on my shoulder. “Nya, I’m so sorry. We’ll find a way to help her—we will.”
You can’t unbreak an egg.
No one said anything for a while. We drifted, the skiff bobbing, the sail creaking.
“What do we do now?” asked Quenji.
The pynvium armor glittered on the deck. I took a deep breath and picked up a piece. “Look at this.” I showed them the metal lining the inside. “I think this is what made her … act that way.”
Lanelle shuddered and pulled her knees up to her chin. “Vinnot had some of that where he was experimenting on us. He argued with the Duke over it a lot.”
“Argued about what?”
“Wasting it. He said they couldn’t get any more. The person who made it was dead.”
“Who?”
“Zerten or something.”
Zertanik.
The pain merchant, the enchanter. The one who’d offered me pynvium scraps in exchange for shifting pain for his rich clients. He’d had glyphed pynvium in his town house, the same kind used in the Duke’s weapon. He must have made the kragstun, found a way to mix it with pynvium and make it affect the mind.
I gazed across the water. Rows of lamps along Geveg’s docks lit the night, evenly spaced in what looked like berth width. Darker shapes bobbed in front of them, making the lamps flicker bright a
nd dark. Boats on the water around the docks. A blockade? We had to get past those boats. Past the soldiers, and the people fighting, and whatever else was going on in Geveg.
“We’re going to Zertanik’s town house,” I said. “If he made the kragstun, then there might be something there that can tell me how to fix Tali.”
Quenji looked confused. “Who’s Zertanik?”
“He was a pain merchant who tried to steal the League’s pynvium Slab,” I said. I didn’t mention what I’d done to him, though I couldn’t help but picture the red mist on the broken stone walls of the League. “We were hiding out in his town house for a while, until we had to leave Geveg.”
“He didn’t mind?”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh.” Quenji paused. “You stole a whole house?”
He sounded impressed with that. I sighed.
Danello nodded. “The town house it is. Do you think my da might be there?”
Danello’s father had stayed with us after the soldiers had come after him, looking for us. He’d left Geveg shortly before we had, trying to arrange a place for us to stay in the marsh farms. He’d probably been worried sick about Danello and the little ones.
“It’s possible.”
“How do we get past the blockade?”
I’d worked enough fishing boats to learn a few tricks. Not all of those boat captains wanted their Baseeri bosses to know how much they’d caught that day. I doubted those spots were being guarded, even if the docks were.
“Head for the warehouse district. I know a few places we can land without being seen.”
Canvas rippled as we changed course, the warm breeze tickling through my hair. We cut up the shoreline and headed around the docks.
“Keep the channel marker bells on our right,” I said. “There’s a landing beach on the north side, near the warehouse row.”
Danello frowned. “Where they sank the old docks? I thought there was too much wreckage to take boats in there anymore.”
“There’s a hidden channel through the underwater debris.”
Quenji smiled. “A smugglers’ bay. Nice.”
“We can go through a crumbled lakewall,” I said. “It’s steep, but you can get a boat in there and tie it off. We’ll need a sounding stone to get to it. There’s got to be some on board.”
“I’ll check.” Aylin got up and started searching the neatly tucked away compartments all boats seemed to have.
“You can lead us through?” Quenji asked.
“Yes, I’ve done it before,” I said.
Of course, I’d never done it at night, and I’d only tossed the stone, not guided the boat based on what it found. I’d also never tried it on a boat this big. The currents ran hard along the north shore of the isles, and we had a lot of hull to run aground if we timed the tide wrong.
We sailed through water dark as ink. My eyes had adjusted by the time Aylin found the stone, but I still strained to make out details in the silvery blackness. The skiff was a dark mass, the passengers moving blurs. I watched the shore, looking for landmarks to get my bearings.
Anything to keep from looking at Tali tied up in the corner, staring at nothing.
The Healers’ League dome glowed brightest, marking the city’s center. Spires from the Sanctuary on Beacon Walk shone directly behind it, so we still had a long way to sail. We needed to position the boat so we were in front of the Sanctuary. Then we’d line ourselves up with the dock lights glowing on Coffee Isle and make our way in.
My skin started itching. I plucked at the dried blood on my ruined clothes, sliced and ripped from my fight with the Undying and other soldiers.
“Where’s my backpack?”
“In the cabin,” Quenji said. “I tossed them all down there.”
I went inside and changed. I hadn’t brought much, and I was already down one set of clothes. Aylin brought me lake water to wash with, and my fingers brushed over the hard lumps of new scars.
“I’m so sorry, Tali,” I whispered, sinking to the floor. Tears came hard and I let them fall, sobbing quietly in the dark.
It felt like we’d been out on the water for hours by the time we reached the hidden channel. Aylin dropped the sail, and Quenji and Danello went below and grabbed the oars. Soek stood at the top of the stairs, ready to call out directions.
“Lanelle, grab the rudder.”
She did, and I hurried forward with Aylin, the sounding stone in her hand. I unspooled the twine and tossed the stone forward. It sank with a plop.
“How narrow is the channel?” she asked as I reeled the stone back in.
“Twenty feet maybe.”
She frowned. “No room for mistakes.”
“None at all.” The old dock pilings were still down there, and they’d rip a good-sized hole through our hull if we hit them.
“We’ll find the old breakwater first,” I said. “Then we’ll move around it, keep sounding until we get to the channel opening.”
I tossed the stone again. It sank deep without hitting anything below the water. I gave Soek the signal, and he called to ease the boat forward.
Bloop—splash.
We drifted closer. The water sounded quiet, no hard waves splashing against the lakewall. Good luck with the tide then.
Bloop—splash.
The wind gusted and a sour smell wrinkled my nose. The tannery. Smelled strong, so we were in the right place for sure. Not far from the bridge between the warehouse and the production districts.
Bloop—thunk.
The stone hit something hard.
“Hold it!” I waved at Soek, and the oars creaked, pulling the boat back.
“A little to the right,” I said, pretty sure that we were higher along the old breakwater than we needed to be.
I tossed the stone. It thunked again.
“Drift more right.” The boat sidled down the sunken breakwater wall.
The stone sank deep this time. Clear water. I threw the stone out a few more times, gauging the center of the narrow opening into the channel. Danello and Quenji maneuvered the boat inch by inch until we were lined up, then slid us through.
Seemed like even more hours before the break in the lakewall came into view, but it was probably minutes. I grabbed the bow railing and held tight as we ground across the sand and up onto the thin strip of beach.
I threw the anchor and it dug into the sand. Aylin jumped out, light on her feet and barely rocking the boat.
“Will anyone see us here?” she asked.
“Not unless someone cut down the hedges that run behind the boardinghouses.” They used to be warehouses, reached by the dock that was now underwater. I couldn’t remember what had happened to the docks, but no one had bothered to rebuild them, and the warehouses had all been converted to low-ceilinged rooms with few windows. I’d never lived in them, but I’d heard the rent wasn’t nearly cheap enough for what you got.
I leaped down and shoved the anchor deeper into the sand. It was damp above the edge of the water, higher than where the waves hit it. The tide was going out. I pictured the skiff on its side in the sand, the water ten feet beyond the stern.
“Someone needs to stay behind and keep moving the anchor back.”
“I’ll do it,” Lanelle said.
Aylin crossed her arms. “I have no problem with that.”
“I’m not surprised,” she shot back.
I sighed. “Stop it, both of you.”
“When you’re done searching this Zeranzik’s house, then come get me.”
Danello cleared his throat. “What about Tali?”
“She comes with us.”
“Nya, that’s a bad idea,” he said. “We can’t control her.”
“I’m not leaving her behind again.” Especially with Lanelle.
He looked into the dark. Even this late, you could hear people yelling and the occasional clang of metal on metal. Someone was fighting not too far from here. “One scream and she gives us away.”
“So gag her,�
� Lanelle said.
Aylin gasped. “It’s bad enough we had to tie her up—you want to gag her, too?”
“I don’t want to do it, but it’s the only way Nya can bring her and keep her quiet.”
“She’s not gagging her sister.”
Lanelle smirked and crossed her arms. “Then give her another option.”
Aylin didn’t. She clearly wanted to, was struggling to think of something, but there wasn’t a better idea.
“Aylin’s right,” I said. “I’m not gagging Tali. She’s been mostly quiet since she woke up.”
“You could leave her here where it’s safer,” Danello said again.
I glared. “I’m not leaving her behind again. If that means we get caught, then we’ll get caught together.”
I tied a rope to her wrists like a leash, looping it around my hand. I have a pet sister.
“We’ll be back by dawn,” I told Lanelle. “We can cast off and see what’s going on around the isles in the daylight. Maybe we’ll be able to tell who controls what isle.”
“See you at sunrise.”
I tugged Tali’s rope, and she plodded along beside me, staring at the ground, her hair dangling in her face.
Danello paused at the foot of the bank that led up and into Geveg. “Ready to go home?” he asked me.
“Let’s go.”
EIGHT
Gravel slid beneath my feet as I climbed up the bank. I tried to steady Tali, but she whined and jerked away from me when I touched her. Danello followed close behind, making sure she didn’t fall.
The hedges at the top of the bank were still there, neatly trimmed into flat rectangles. The windowless rear wall of the boardinghouse rose up two stories, casting a darker-on-dark shadow on the ground.
The street was black, except for a few lights glowing like eyes in the distance. I hesitated, but the lights didn’t seem to be moving. So not a patrol. Maybe a guard post? We had no idea which side this isle belonged to, so anyone could be friend or foe.
We stayed to the side of the street, masking our silhouettes against the buildings. A smoky smell mixed with the stench from the tannery, but not quite strong enough to have been a recent fire. I scanned the rooftops anyway. No orange embers smoldered, no signs of fires new or old.
Trash was piled outside the doors, debris caught in the corners. Just as many broken windows as boarded-up ones. Worse than when we’d left Geveg after the last riots.