The Shifter

by Janice Hardy

  Her shock hurt, but she was right. After seeing what it had done to Danello, I had known, and I’d done it anyway. I guess this was different. It was so hard to tell anymore.

  “You wanted to die?” Tali said incredulously. “You were going to leave me all alone?”

  I shook my head. “No! I just—I don’t know—I didn’t see any other way to stop them.” I could have done as they asked and gotten rich from it. Part of me had wanted to say yes. Really wanted to, and live again as we once had. It hurt to admit that, but I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

  “It’s what Grannyma would have done,” I said.

  Tali pursed her lips, thinking it over the same way Mama always had, and nodded. “She would have.”

  “I think she’s a hero,” said Danello as if daring Aylin to disagree. He looked a lot like his little brother had while demanding I give him his da’s pain. “She was willing to sacrifice her life to save us all, just like our parents did.”

  “Danello,” said Aylin, “those people were innocent.”

  “They would have done it even if they’d known.”

  Aylin folder her arms and scoffed. “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes I do, because I would have done it. I had her give me pain before she shifted to save my da. I knew what I was diving into, and it wouldn’t have mattered if it would have killed me. I’d still have taken the risk to save my da.”

  Aylin didn’t answer, but her angry scowl softened and she looked away.

  Danello continued, softer as well. “And now you’re trying to save them, aren’t you, Nya?”

  “I am, honest. I always planned to, I just didn’t have enough time or pynvium to save everyone who needed saving.”

  “See?” he said to Aylin.

  “You had a choice—they didn’t,” she mumbled, but she looked even more unsure. “It’s not the same.”

  “It is,” Tali said before I could reply. “Those people made a choice to go to Nya. Grannyma always said, she who has a choice has trouble. Sometimes your choices aren’t good ones, but you have to choose something. None of us was there. We didn’t have to choose between our family’s lives and a bunch of Baseeri aristocrats. We didn’t have to face any of the choices Nya faced, and Danello’s the only one who faced what those folks she shifted to did. It’s not fair to judge her for choices we didn’t have to make.”

  “I’m not judging her,” Aylin said quickly.

  “Aren’t you?” Danello said.

  Aylin opened her mouth, then closed it. Her cheeks flushed and she sighed. “I’m sorry, Nya.” She took a deep breath and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “You’re right, I wasn’t there. And even when I saw you were really upset, I didn’t do too much to help. Maybe if I had pushed harder, you wouldn’t have had to shift into anyone.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered. Maybe things would be okay. Maybe I hadn’t dropped as far as I’d feared.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  Danello took my hand. “Didn’t you say we had lives to save?”

  We hurried to a small boardinghouse near the fishing docks. The hall was cramped with the four of us standing there, but no one wanted to wait outside alone. I knocked, and a boy about twelve answered, his eyes red and puffy. My throat caught, and I couldn’t speak. Danello leaned forward.

  “We’re here to heal your father.”

  The boy choked back a sob and shook his head. “You’re too late. He died this morning, right after the sun come up.”

  I sank to my knees and cried.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Danello carried me out. No matter how hard I tried, my legs wouldn’t listen. Nor would my eyes. They kept spilling tears, kept seeing the fisherman.

  “It’s okay, Nya.” Danello rubbed my back in small circles. “We tried. There’s nothing else we could have done.”

  Aylin was right. I should have said no. I should have refused to shift into him.

  Murmurs of sympathy washed over me, nothing more than empty phrases of encouragement. They all knew I’d killed him. He’d still be alive if I’d told Zertanik no.

  Tali knelt and held my face in her hands. No words yet from her. She probably hated me, never wanted to see me again for trading his life for hers.

  “Nya, sitting here bawling isn’t going to help anyone.”

  I blinked at her matter-of-fact tone, unable to answer.

  “There are other people we have to heal,” she continued. “People who gave those they loved a chance to survive. How many would have died if you hadn’t shifted to the fisherman?”

  I sniffled. “I dunno. Lots.”

  “Then get up off your butt and don’t make his sacrifice be for nothing. What’s done is done….” She let it trail away. It was up to me to finish it. Finish everything.

  “And I can’t change it none.”

  “Just like Grannyma said.”

  Danello helped me to my feet. “Don’t give up now, Nya.”

  I almost started crying again. “Let’s go. I don’t want to lose another one.”

  It was like that night in Zertanik’s, only in reverse. The Jonalis, with four uncles holding the pain of two broken legs. Kestra Novaik, holding her son’s crushed shoulder. An anonymous young lady who took pain from the brothers Fontuno. Her name was Silena, and we barely made it in time. Danello had to kick in the door, and we found her alone, her blood so thick, I was shocked it flowed through her veins at all.

  I watched Tali heal them. Pull their pain away and fill the pynvium. Do what I couldn’t do. I kept picturing the fisherman with his hat in his hands, begging me to help save his family. Zertanik tricking me into helping him. Jeatar warning me to keep quiet. After a while, it all tumbled together into one voice. Please, miss. The Duke doesn’t have a weapon like you in his arsenal.

  How long would it be before the Duke found out I existed? I wouldn’t shift or flash for him. I couldn’t hurt anyone like that again. Three had died, and my soul couldn’t bear any more. I’d run if I had to, leave Geveg and travel south beyond the Three Territories and out of the Duke’s control. Go across the mountains and see if I could find the mountain folk Grannyma always told us about.

  Leaving Geveg would hurt, but it was better than being the Duke’s secret weapon. Saea willing, it wouldn’t come to that. Lanelle might be talking, but she didn’t know my real name, and in all the confusion, the stories were bound to sound far-fetched. Someone who was immune to flashed pain? It was crazy. Maybe no one would even believe them.

  No. I was done with maybes. Someone would take it seriously, and eventually the Duke or the Consortium would come looking for me. I had to prepare for it. Cut my hair, dye it. Tali would have to disguise herself as well. She’d always wanted red hair like Aylin’s, so it wouldn’t be too hard to convince her.

  We’d be okay until everyone forgot about the shifter, and she turned back into a myth the wards and apprentices told one another after class. Then Tali and I could get our lives back. Better lives even. Well, better for me. Tali had had a future as a Healer, and probably a good one, but no more. I’d saved her life, but had I sacrificed that future? What would happen to the League now? To us? Had I sentenced her to a life of hiding?

  The last rays of sunset wrapped the city in dark gold as we walked to the final house. More soldiers were on the streets now, squashing the last of the trouble the Luminary’s lies had caused. People were still angry, still fighting, but many had gone home after the apprentices started talking. Though after everything that had happened over the last two days, it was impossible to quell the rumors. “No pynvium” was on everyone’s lips, followed by gossip about an attack on the League.

  I knocked on the door to a small farmhouse on a tiny farming isle. Neat fields of sweet potato vines spread out behind it.

  A woman answered, neat as her fields. “Yes?” Caution in her eyes, but she didn’t look scared or grieving.

  “We’re here to heal your daughters.”

  Her fingers went to her
mouth, covering a grateful cry. “Oh my, they’re this way, Saints praise you and keep you safe, thank you so much!” She turned and dashed inside, calling out names. She left the door wide open.

  “I guess we go in?” Aylin said, poking her head inside.

  “Hard to heal from out here.” Tali entered and followed the woman into the back. With a shrug, I went inside as well.

  A simple house welcomed us. Old furniture, though well cared for, polished to a deep shine. Full cushions, none faded except those under the windows. Clean curtains and rugs, both thin, but doing their jobs.

  “Nice house,” said Danello, a wistful look in his eyes. Aylin had it too.

  Seven hooks with matching dustcoats hung by the door. Seven chairs at the table. Only three bedrooms, so they must share. Family farmers, working their small patch of island and making enough to keep this inviting house. No, not house. Home.

  I remembered them well, the last two women I’d shifted into before I’d run from Zertanik’s. Three sons and their father had gone to help at the ferry accident and gotten hurt themselves, caught up in some wreckage and battered against the docks. Four men who couldn’t work to help keep the family farm with harvest a week away. Four men with sisters and daughters willing to take the pain to keep the family afloat.

  My shifting hadn’t saved their lives, since none of them had been in danger of dying. But it had saved their livelihood, their home. It let them stay together and be a family. Geveg had so few of those left, and we needed them to remind us and give us hope.

  Danello wandered around the room, smiling. “See what you saved?”

  A family. A Geveg family. I’d done harm, but I’d also done some good.

  I wasn’t just a weapon. I was just the one who had to make the tough choices. Like Mama. Like Grannyma.

  My chest grew tight, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. “I’ll be outside,” I mumbled, heading for the door. I plopped down on a vegetable crate.

  Danello came out and sat next to me. “You know,” he began, rubbing the back of his neck, “I feel like this is all my fault.”

  “How could any of this be your fault?”

  “If I hadn’t asked you to heal my da, you might not have been talked into healing the others. I feel like maybe I pushed you down that slope.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just stared at him for a while. The bruises he’d gotten in the riot were turning green now. They’d be purple by morning. He was still cute, even without the moonlight. “It’s not your fault,” I said at last. “Your da would have died. And Tali and the apprentices too. We only knew about them because of Tali. If I hadn’t done the shifts, everyone would have died and Zertanik and the Luminary would have made off with our Slab. We’d probably have the Duke’s soldiers on our borders right now, ready to burn us out.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right, but…” He sighed.

  I sighed too, tired to the bone. Guilt and fear really took a lot out of a girl. “It isn’t anyone’s fault. All you can do is pluck the chickens in front of you and worry about the geese later.”

  Danello laughed, and I gave him a small grin. “Grannyma?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I miss her.” Mama and Papa too, plus a whole lot of other things I’d never get back. But I could start new.

  “Well,” he said, “it feels like someone should be punished for all this.”

  I knew how he felt. Wanting to blame someone, but not knowing who. Though, honestly…the rioters were right, this was the Duke’s fault. He was the one who stole our pynvium, our livelihoods, our lives. The Luminary wouldn’t have stuffed people full of pain if the Duke hadn’t told Vinnot to hurt people to find unusual Takers.

  Saints! If he told Vinnot that, he sure as sugar told other Elders. How many Healers’ Leagues had someone like Vinnot testing apprentices on the Duke’s behalf?

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “Stop him,” I blurted. Like so many choices in my life, it was made before I had a chance to think it over.

  Danello paused, his mouth hanging open a few heartbeats before he snapped it shut. “Stop who?”

  “The Duke. He’s probably hurting apprentices all over the Territories, trying to force new Taker abilities to surface. But he isn’t using unusual Takers in his armies, or we would have heard the rumors. So what is he using them for?”

  “Nothing good, I bet.”

  “I have to find out. I have to stop him.” Even if that meant going to Baseer itself.

  “Nya, taking on the Duke isn’t like taking on the League. The Duke has entire armies with pynvium-enchanted weapons.”

  “They can flash me all they want. Won’t stop me.”

  “A rapier in the gut will.” He winced and rubbed his stomach. “So would six soldiers with subduing nets. They’d tie you up and carry you to Baseer.”

  “He’ll do that anyway if he finds me.”

  Aylin stepped outside before Danello could argue further. “What’s going on?”

  “Nya’s declaring war on the Duke,” he said.

  “I thought we already did that.”

  “She thinks she can find out what he’s doing with unusual Takers and stop him.” He looked smug, like he knew Aylin would agree and back him up.

  “Why can’t she?”

  Danello gaped again. If he kept this up, he’d start attracting flies. “One person can’t take on an entire army.”

  “She isn’t taking on his army, she’s taking on him.”

  “You’re insane. It can’t be done.”

  Aylin leaned against the house. “You underestimate Nya. Kione told her she was insane for taking on the League, and look what happened.”

  I winced. I was trying very hard not to look at the crumbling remains of what had happened.

  “That was different,” he said. “She wasn’t trying to fight him—she was only trying to rescue people from him.”

  “But the Luminary didn’t want them, so she was really rescuing them from the Duke all along.” Aylin harrumphed and squeezed herself onto the crate next to me, shoving me against Danello. “She just got to them first.”

  He argued with her, but their words flowed over me like excited bubbles. I had gotten there first, so why not keep doing it? Tali knew who the apprentices were. Aylin knew just about everyone else. We could find them, hide them until we knew what the Duke was up to and how to stop him.

  Grannyma always said the Saints hide your fate in their pockets. What if my fate wasn’t to heal, but to protect? To speak up when others were silent? To do what everyone said couldn’t be done?

  Like shift pain. Survive flashing. Empty pynvium.

  Take on the Duke.

  “That’s what I’m going to do,” I said, standing. “I’m going to find them first. I’m going to protect any Taker who wants protection.”

  Danello stared at me as if I’d just grown gills, but Aylin beamed.

  “You mean we,” she said, standing beside me.

  “What? No, I don’t want to risk anyone else.”

  “You can’t do it alone. You needed our help to stop the Luminary, and you’ll need our help to stop the Duke.”

  I wanted to say no, keep her safe, but she was right. I had needed them, and even though I didn’t ask, they’d come anyway. I hugged her.

  “Thank you.”

  Danello closed his eyes for a moment. “This is crazy.”

  I grinned at Aylin, and she grinned back. We both crossed our arms at the same time. “We know.”

  “Lanelle is bound to tell one of the Duke’s spies about you. He’ll come after you,” he said.

  “I know, but he’ll have a hard time finding me. And if he does, it would sure be handy to have someone around who knew how to use a rapier.”

  Danello sighed and stubbed his boot in the dirt. “I’m not agreeing to anything, but what would you do? You’re not going to storm Baseer or anything, right?”

  “Don’t be silly. We’ll look for Takers. T
ali and Soek can probably tell us who Lanelle was focusing on in the spire room, so we’ll start with them.”

  “The Governor-General will be looking for you too,” Danello said. “Plenty of League guards know you were there when—” He glanced away. “You know, the Luminary…” He waved a hand.

  I gulped and refused to look at the League. “I’ll hide, and disguise myself when I go outside.”

  Danello still looked dubious. “How are you going to eat? You won’t be able to work if you’re hiding from soldiers and searching for Takers.”

  Aylin pulled a small silk pouch out of a pocket and dangled it in front of me. “I think I have that covered.”

  “What’s that?”

  She dropped it into my hand. I looked inside, and my mouth fell open. “Aylin! Where did you get these?” I spilled two emerald rings, a ruby necklace, and three sapphire pins into my palm.

  “On the front table at Zertanik’s. I figured he owed you.”

  I grinned wide as the lake at sunset. “This will buy a lot of dinners.”

  Aylin nodded. “And you and Tali can stay with me for now, until we find a bigger room. The show house pays well, so between that and these, we should be okay for a while.”

  Selling them would be the hardest part, but I knew a boy who knew a girl who “found” things for Baseeri aristocrats—for a price. She could find us a buyer.

  “So,” I asked Danello, “will you help us?”

  He stared at the jewels, then gazed across the lake to a smoldering Geveg. He watched the smoke curl over the city so long, I was worried he was about to tell us no, we were on our own. I’d always been used to that, but now that I’d seen how much easier things were with help, I wanted his.

  “Even when they stop the riots, the anger won’t go away, will it?” he said unexpectedly. “People will stay mad, and they’ll start talking about independence again.”

  “May—” Aylin began.

  “Probably,” I finished. No more maybes.

  “So sooner or later, I’ll have to fight anyway,” he said. “We all will. Just like our parents did.”

  “Probably.”

  He sighed and thought it over some more, tossing a rock back and forth between his hands. “Okay, I’m in. The Duke can send only so many soldiers at once, right?”