The Healing Wars: Book II: Blue Fire (19 page)

And the Duke called
me
an abomination? That thing shouldn’t exist. I didn’t even know what it was, but I knew
that
. It was wrong, same as the glyphed pynvium in Zertanik’s office.

I sucked in a slow breath. My stomach quivered, same as it had there, even worse than when Onderaan showed me his healing device. I didn’t see the glyphs, but they
had
to be there under all that horribly fused metal.

“How soon will it be operational?” the Duke asked Vinnot.

“Depends on the Shifter, really. We found no others like her to test, so I suspect it’ll take a while to reach pliability with her. Strong talents always take longer.”

I jerked my gaze away. Pliability sure as spit didn’t sound like something I wanted a part of.

“What is that thing?” I asked.

“A life’s work,” Vinnot said, sighing.

Not a life worth having.

“Insert them now,” said the Duke.

Vinnot actually smiled and rubbed his hands together eagerly. “This should be interesting.”

Soldiers brought out four Takers from a back room, young like Enzie and the others, the oldest not more than twelve or thirteen.
Too young to fight.
My throat tightened, fearing I’d see Tali, hoping I’d see her. Wishing she was as far from this place as possible, because I had a sudden feeling capturing the Duke wouldn’t be enough anymore.

“Let me go!” the first Taker said, struggling. A dark-haired boy with darker circles under his eyes. He wore a long, sleeveless tunic and baggy pants.

Maybe not too young to fight, just too young for the Undying. He fought now, kicking, biting, writhing around like a grabbed cat. It took two soldiers and one aide to shove his arms into the channels and snap the cuffs on his wrists.

“Submit,” the aide said.

The boy cried out and slumped, his eyes open and glassy. Then he started moaning softly. Rhythmically.

I had the urge to start struggling too. And screaming. What was the pynvium glyphed to do? Did they know? Did they have any idea what was under all that smashed-together metal?

“Impressive,” Erken said. “It really does subdue them.”

“I told you it did,” the Duke said, more than a touch of pride in his tone. “It’s the most remarkable blend. Haven’t found a use for the kragstun on its own, but combined with the right pynvium mixture, it makes the mind extremely open to suggestions.”

“It affects the mind?”

“The entire nervous system. A few words and they’ll do whatever I say.”

This was horrific. Hurting people was bad enough, but twisting their minds? Jeatar’s words echoed in my ears.
They twist minds and bend wills and create the weapons the Duke wants. How long do you think Tali can last in there?
Was that how he got the Undying to follow him? Would he use something like this on Tali to make her fight?

They inserted the next Taker, and the next. The last one came out of the room, older than the others. Someone I knew, but not Tali.

Lanelle.

A satisfied thrill ran trough me, followed by guilt. Even after what she’d done to Tali and the others—helping Vinnot with his experiments, recording their symptoms, betraying us to the Luminary—no one deserved this.

She slipped into the channels without a sound. They all moaned, one right after the other in a line, their fingers twitching against the disk, as though they were pushing pain into it. Like Jovan had said, the weird slab pushed pain into them.

Saints, was it…? The room wobbled a little. Was it
cycling
pain through them? Was it to test them for abilities? Had Vinnot found a way to keep them alive and still keep them filled with pain? Did the glyphed pynvium draw those abilities out if you
did
have them?

It made no sense. If so, then why insert me? I already had abilities.

I shivered. The Duke
knew
I did. Worse, he knew what kinds.

He didn’t want me for my shifting at all. If he had something here that shifted pain into people, he probably
never
cared about that. He wanted me for my immunity, just as he’d shown Erken when he’d flashed me.

He wanted me to
flash
that thing.

If he put me into those channels, forced me to submit like the others, I probably would, too. How much pain was in there? If it could shift pain into people, would it flash with
real
pain? Not just surface pain that knocked you out, like pynvium weapons
did now, but pain that would kill?

I thought about Geveg, Verlatta, all the other towns and cities along the river. About Sorille, which had already been destroyed by the Duke’s hand. About all the Takers who were hiding, praying a tracker wouldn’t find them. Remembered how hard Grannyma had fought, how many she’d healed so they could fight some more. Of all those who had died trying to keep the Duke out of our home, away from our people.

Like Mama and Papa. And Grandpapa.

The weapon was full of pain, probably more than even the League’s Slab had been. Once I was cuffed to it, I’d likely flash it however and wherever the Duke told me to. I’d be a walking pynvium trigger. But if I flashed it now, before he locked me in there…

Siekte was right. Killing the Duke was the only way to free us all.

I lunged for the pynvium.

T
he soldier holding me lost his grip and staggered forward. The other man hesitated, reacting too late to grab my arm, but he did grab my long braid. It yanked painfully on my head, but tore free.

“Stop her!” the Duke ordered, real fear in his voice. He knew what I’d done to the Luminary. What I’d do to him when I reached that weapon.

The unexpected yank threw off my balance, but I ran as fast as I could. I made it halfway to the disk before the soldiers seized my arms and hauled me back, dangling me off the floor.

The Duke stomped over to me and grabbed my jaw, forcing my face toward him. My jaw tingled under his fingertips.

Saints! He was a Taker!

The Duke squeezed tighter. “Stop it. I won’t have—”

I pulled my legs up and kicked him in the chest. The soldiers’ grip on me slipped and I fell, landing on the floor right after the Duke did. I scrambled toward the disk but arms grabbed me again.

“Be ready if she shifts,” he told the soldiers as Vinnot helped him to his feet. The moment he was stable, he slapped his hand away.

Shifting a bruised butt was hardly going to get me out of this.

“I spent a lot of money to find you, Shifter,” he said, glaring at me. “So be a good little girl and do what I say.”

“I never do what anyone says.” I tried to sound tough, but inside I churned. A Taker. And he was doing these terrible things to other Takers. Not that that should surprise me—I’d seen what he’d done to his own people.

His lip curled. Not quite a grin, but it clearly wanted to be. “Yes, you will.” He turned to Vinnot. “Insert her
now
.”

“Yes, sir.”

“People are tired of listening to you,” I yelled at the Duke as his soldiers dragged me toward the
weapon. “We’re tired of suffering so you can steal everything we own.”

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—

P
ain 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. Trigger.”

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?