by Janice Hardy
The Duke stared at me like I was something he’d found squished under his boot. “You’re the ones stealing from me. That was our land, our mines before my great-grandfather gave it all away. The Three Territories were Baseeri territories, and they will be again.”
“Never!”
A soldier cut the ropes on my hands. Two more soldiers had tight grips on my arms. One even had his boot pressed over my feet so I couldn’t kick anymore. The soldiers holding me forced my arms into the channels, just like the other Takers who were cuffed there. I struggled to pull away, getting one foot free, but it slid uselessly on the stone floor. My skin itched as the cuffs snapped around my wrists.
“Submit,” Vinnot said with a small sigh. “And now we wait.”
My whole body started tingling, like the feeling I had when I readied myself to heal. It wasn’t just in my hands but all over, surging like waves on the shore. The surges kept changing direction, sliding to my stomach, then flowing down each arm. My fingers throbbed with the need to push, though I had little pain to shed.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked. More questions lingered in my mind, but the urge to ask them was fading. I knew I needed to ask them, hard as the words were to form.
Pain prickled my skin like a flash. The disk, trying to shift into me. I fought it, pushed back, but I couldn’t sense the pynvium under my hands. I could feel the glyphs though, lurking there, trying to get out.
The Duke’s smug grin faded. “Why isn’t she submitting?”
“I told you it might take a while. She’s older and stronger than the others.” Vinnot picked up his pad. “Can you describe what you’re feeling?” he asked me.
“A lot of anger.” I spat at him, hitting him on the cheek. He wiped it off like it happened every day. It made me angrier, and some of the fog around my brain lifted. The pain grew hotter, clawing its way into me, but I fought it off. Every sting made me want to give in to Vinnot, do as he said. The pain was what made us pliable.
“Amazing,” Erken said. “How much pain does it hold?”
“We’ve no idea really,” Vinnot said, watching me carefully. “The records we found with it claimed it would keep absorbing pain as long as pynvium was added, as you can see from the various welds there. During the course of my research, I started looking for a way to empty it, or at least spill off some of the pain and weaponize it, but it kept eluding me. We had someone working on a control device, but then I heard about the Shifter’s flashing ability and her amazing immunity. The idea just came to me—focus those skills and turn the disk into a massive flashing device.”
“I knew I was good for something.” I struggled to hold on to my anger, my hatred, my sense of self. Keep the pain at bay and keep my mind and will mine.
Vinnot chuckled as if surprised I could speak at all. “Oh yes. You’re the trigger that makes the entire thing work. Without you we couldn’t flash it.” He laughed again. “At least not more than once.”
“I’ll…flash it.” Soon as I touched it. I pressed my fingers against the silvery blue metal and tried to picture dandelions, but my mind wouldn’t focus. I could do this. I had to do this. All I had to do was flash the pynvium. Just concentrate. Just—
—somuchpain—somuchpain—somuchpain—
TWENTY-SIX
Pain shifted to fire, fire shifted to ice, ice shifted back to pain. Under the pain and heat and cold I could feel something squirming, something screaming.
Eventually I figured out it was me.
I wailed in my mind, but the others were silent. I could feel them though. Despair, agony, fear. Submission. I cried with them as the pain rushed through us over and over and over, making us give up, give in.
A voice came through the pain.
“You are my trigger.”
A voice I hated. I shook my head but didn’t feel my body move. I screamed no, but no sound emerged.
“Sir, perhaps you should let the device work on her a while longer. We don’t want her flashing it until we’re sure we have control.”
“I have control. Just look at her.”
“At least stay behind the protective wall.”
Anger rose up higher than the pain, and as before, my thoughts cleared. I no longer had my body, but I did have my mind, even as it struggled against the order to submit, to do what the Duke wanted. I gathered myself in the small space between my heart and guts, where I always carried the pain I shifted. It wasn’t much, but it was all the me I had left.
I hoarded it.
The voice came back.
“You are my trigger.”
I said nothing, revealed nothing. Wanted to say yes and reveal all. The need to agree, to serve, tugged at me as if it could pull my acceptance through my fingertips as easily as it pulled the pain flowing through me.
I let the pain wash over me. I would not bend. They could not make me pliable. My mind was strong.
My mind was mine.
“You are my trigger.”
I ached to say yes, but the anger the voice woke within me kept me silent.
“Why is she still resisting?”
“Sir, I warned you this could take time.”
“Not this much time. The riots are getting worse. This is a perfect opportunity for a full test.”
“We really shouldn’t press her so hard until we know we have—”
“You are my trigger! You’re mine, do you hear me? Mine!”
I rode the pain and smiled.
The pain was constant, the tingle along my hands and feet always with me, but the low throbbing was new. It wasn’t like the lulls that came with firm jostling, moving me around like a doll, or the moments of quiet before the pain began again. The throbbing came and went, as did screams.
The disk, trying to swallow me. Banging against my mind and soul, demanding to be let in.
No.
I strained against the thudding pain, willed my fingers to let go and flash, to stop those who kept asking me to do things I didn’t want to do. For a moment, I felt myself move.
No, not move. Pressure on my shoulders. Back and forth. Shaking.
“You are my trigger! Say it! You are my trigger! You. Are. My. Trigger.”
Pain surged. I struggled, but it got inside, swelled around the me I had hidden away. The need to obey overwhelmed the anger that had kept me safe. It’ll take longer to reach pliability with her…. Not that much longer. My will was fading, stripped away with every surge of pain until—“I…am…your…trigger.”
“Finally!”
“We might want to let her simmer a bit longer, so to speak. Make sure she’s as pliable as possible.”
Vinnot. The Duke.
Images burst in my mind, faces and places. Tali sweaty and pale in a room in a tower. Aylin staring at me from between bars. Takers chained to metal. A frail Duke screaming at me to be something I didn’t want to be.
“Don’t be silly—we did it, we finally have full control. I want to test it now.”
…you’re a better prize than she…
I was no one’s prize.
I struggled to form the words but they wouldn’t rise above my thoughts. They slipped away as a fresh wave of pain rolled over me, through me, blasting away what little defense I had begun to rebuild. I held my breath. Over and over and over, bit by bit, pain within me even as it passed through me.
I ached to flash it. To destroy it. To destroy him.
“I—”
My throat caught.
A startled gasp. “Did she speak?”
“Impossible, Vinnot. She has no will to do anything but what I tell her.”
I had will, I just couldn’t reach it. It lay buried in muck at the bottom of the river of pain. I had to swim down and grab it…I held my breath and dived deep.
“Not—trigger.”
“She did speak!”
“It doesn’t matter. She’ll do what she’s told. They all do.”
I never do what I’m told.
“I’m. Not. T
rigger.”
Frantic whispers. Frightened words. They were scared of me and what I might find at the bottom of the river, lost in the muck.
“Perhaps we should get behind the wall.”
“Afraid, Erken?”
I sucked in a long breath, then another, and dived deep into the river again. Down to the cold darkness swirling beneath the fierce heat. I scraped my fingers through the sludge.
A bright spark, like sunlight on water.
I dug deeper, wrapped my fingers around it and brought it with me to the surface.
A purple lake violet.
Tali. Home.
I had to fight the Duke, like they were all fighting the Duke. Fighting like…I forced my gaze to Lanelle, across from me. She’d fought me—resisted me when I’d tried to shift into her at the League. Refused the pain I’d wanted to put into her. Could I resist it, too?
I closed my eyes and pictured the pain, cycling from Taker to Taker. I narrowed it, forcing it to thin and trickle as it passed through me. I gathered it between my heart and guts, and though it screamed and snarled to break free, it coiled there, trapped.
It was mine.
“Let’s test it. Bring him in.”
I opened my eyes. A man was dragged into the room, chains on his wrists and feet. The soldiers with him shoved him into a chair and locked his chains to the wall.
“You are my trigger,” the Duke said to me. “Count to ten, then flash that man.”
No.
My voice didn’t listen to my mind. “One, two, three…”
Footsteps hurried away and a heavy door slammed shut. The need to obey, to flash, swelled within me, riding the flow of pain like a leaf on the water.
“…eight, nine, ten.” The coil in my guts sprang forward and the pain rushed to fill the void.
Whoomp!
Needles stung my skin, burned my eyelids. The Takers around me cried out, a sharp note above the low moans. The man tied to the chair screamed and slumped, his skin red.
The need to flash rose again, cresting the wave of pain as it rolled into me again.
The door opened.
“Very impressive. Is he still alive?”
A pause. “Yes, sir.”
“Hmmm. Can she control the amount flashed?”
Control…
I pictured a pynvium circlet and dandelions drowned beneath a river of pain. It crashed over me, angry as a spring flood, bursting out around me.
WHOOMP!
The man on the chair screamed and vanished in a bright mist like a dandelion slammed against a rock. Other voices screamed, some near, some far, too many for me to count. Metal clattered to stone.
“Stop!” A raspy voice filled with pain. “Stop flashing!”
The pynvium under my hand burned. Pain slammed into me, over and over and over.
It’s all about control, Nya-Pie, Papa had said, molding the blue-hot pynvium with his tongs and hammer. You force it too hard, your trigger will flash before it’s ready. Too soft, it might never flash at all. You have to find the balance between force and begging. Just ask it to do what you want it to do. Enchanting’s about working with the pynvium rather than against it.
“No.”
“You are the trigger. Do as I say and stop flashing!”
The need to flash was so overwhelming, I feared it might tear me apart. So much worse than the need to obey. I reached into the disk and drew in the pain so there was nothing left to flash. The pynvium whined, like a scream in my mind. It wanted the pain that was mine. Wanted to control me.
Help me, you giant chunk of blue metal. Help me and we both win.
The need to obey couldn’t win. The need to flash I’d meet halfway, compromise so the disk and the pain would get what it wanted and leave me alone. I pictured tiny dandelions growing around silvery blue metal cuffs. Blew softly, so only a few seeds drifted away.
whoomp.
The Takers cried out. The pynvium’s whining grew louder, the vibrations under my feet stronger.
“Sir, hang on, we’ll get you out of here!”
Booted feet slapped against stone. Bodies dragged. Doors slammed.
I pressed my hands against the pynvium. The Takers were awake and aware now, their eyes wide and frightened. They pulled against the cuffs. The need to flash swelled again. I focused it on the metal locking us to the disk.
whoomp.
Takers screamed and jerked in their binds. Some fell to the ground as the cuffs broke away.
“Run,” I said through clenched teeth, fighting the need to flash again. It crushed the need to obey—the Duke, Vinnot, even myself. The Takers stumbled about, looking lost. Some headed toward the door, the others staggered and fell.
I pressed my palms into the pynvium, the disk glowing deep blue under the metal welded to it, like the glyphs in the forge. The air shimmered above it, the ground rumbled below it. The metal looked too hot to come near, but the pynvium was no hotter than a stone in summer. Warm, but it didn’t burn.
At least, it didn’t burn me.
Pain poured off the disk and swirled around me, trying to regain control, make me submit. I ached with the need to flash more than a tiny burst, but the Takers weren’t all out of the room yet. My skin prickled like needle stings across my whole body. The whine grew as if begging me to release it. The pain still cycled, but now it had nowhere to go but into me.
I had to let the pain out, needed to let it out, though my mind screamed at me to stop.
WHOOMP!
My torn and bloody clothes vanished. Screams echoed and fell silent.
WHOOMP!
The walls cracked. The stone under my knees turned to grit. The silvery blue metal crumbled and blew away. Pynvium sand poured off the weapon as the impure metal disintegrated. A sound in my head—rock against rock—then something within me…changed. No, not just me, the disk, too. A wave of…something…rolled between me and the disk, grinding, moving, turning.
I fell to my knees amid the pynvium sand raining down upon me. I crawled away, the broken floor biting into palms and knees. Crawled past dropped swords and red mist.
My stomach quivered, flipping and twisting worse than anything I’d ever felt before. I rolled over, forced myself to my knees. Looked back to what I knew I’d find.
Glyphed pynvium.
And nothing else. The silvery blue metal, the welded pynvium—all of it was gone, melted away, but this thing beneath remained. I could hear it, feel it. The glyphs glowed blue now, carved deep, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Like my heartbeat.
The glyphs pulsed. My skin split.
Pain. It was pulsing pain, but—
The glyphs pulsed again. Air left my lungs as if sucked away.
I gasped, felt weak.
The glyphs pulsed. My heart fluttered as if my life were being sucked away.
Saints’ mercy, what have I done?
TWENTY-SEVEN
I staggered toward the open door, dented and broken but still on its hinges. The disk continued to pulse, slower now, no longer matching my heart, but stronger, each wave rolling out a little farther. I collapsed in the other room between two bodies. Lanelle and a boy. Their skin was red, scoured as if rubbed with sand, but they were alive. The Duke and his men were gone.
I shook Lanelle. “Wake up—we have to get out of here.”
Lanelle stirred, the boy moaned. I shook them harder. The disk pulsed and pain sucked at my feet. I yanked them away from the door. The wall protected us, but it wouldn’t for much longer. Already cracks split the stone, and chunks rolled out and fell to the floor with each pulse.
“Come on!”
Lanelle’s eyes opened. She jerked and whimpered.
“Wake up!” I shook the boy as hard as I could. He woke up, eyes pained and scared.
“You!” Lanelle said, backing away from me.
I helped the boy to his feet and put an arm around him to keep him standing. I offered her my other hand. “Come with us or die here, I do
n’t care which, but choose now.”
She grabbed my hand and we clung to each other, stumbling out of the small waiting room and into the palace. A long hallway stretched in both directions. I picked the side where the blue rug was the most worn.
I found stairs leading down and followed them. A plaster wall shattered as we passed, and the life-stealing pain brushed against my back.
We staggered forward as one, almost tripping and rolling down the steps.
“Where is everyone?” Lanelle asked when we reached the next floor. A grand room, dark woods, rich paintings. No people.
“Running like us?” the boy said.
I nodded. “If they have any sense.”
I spotted double doors in the far corner and headed toward them. Plaster dust drifted down, turning the wood white and rugs a bluish gray. The room beyond looked like some kind of reception hall, so we kept moving, hunting for a door or a window that led to the outside.
“Did you get him?” Lanelle said as we paused at an intersection.
“Get who?”
“The Duke. Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so.” I didn’t see nearly enough red mist in the room to have killed him.
She huffed. “Too bad.”
I turned left, mostly because pain pulsed from the right. Glass cracked, racing along the panes like lightning across the night sky.
“Hurry.”
We found a door heavy enough to lead to the outside. The boy stopped.
“Hold on.” He pulled off his tunic and handed it to me, clearly trying hard not to look down. “You can’t go outside like that.”
I didn’t look down either. My clothes had disintegrated along with the silvery blue metal, the chained man, and who knew who else. My cheeks warmed and I pulled the tunic over my head. It didn’t fit well, but it covered everything it needed to.
“Thanks.”
“You saved my life. Least I could do.”
I pulled open the door and sunlight blinded me. The rain had stopped and the sun hovered high in the sky. We’d been connected to that thing for hours.