Nada's Escape: Fighters' lies

11.3 Shapeshifter

I toss and turn in a whirl of white sheets. My body stretches and shrinks in ways beyond the scope of physical mass. I am in incredible pain, shifting in and out of consciousness. On that brink of pain and dreams I think I hear his voice, scratchy and hoarse. He tells me about the potion I'd taken. Experimental. Could allow the user to shapeshift. It wasn't strong enough to maintain the magic for long though. I wake up periodically and moan to the dark. I feel my bones splitting and my organs calcifying into bundles of frayed nerves.

Your body is halfway between the two forms, he tells me. Your bones are trying to be child-sized and adult-sized all at once. The sparks of lingering magic from the drugs are confusing your mind and every cell in your body that you're somebody else. Days pass and people touch the little boy's body- my body- for fever. They force pills down my throat. The next time they come I have my own legs and face. More pills. It goes on forever, my own body appearing and disappearing in the whirl of the sheets.

I moan at my nurse, "Will it never end?" I can't hear her answer but I hear his. It will be over soon. Just sleep out the last side effects and you'll be better than before. Tomorrow, he thinks. I think that tomorrow is a long way away.

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I creep through a dim jungle made of bookshelves. It feels familiar, but not, tickling against a forgotten memory.

An arm thwacks against my chest as two Huntsmen materialise out of the trees. "We've been looking for you."

They're bracketing me in, cutting off my chance of escape. They're not my father's men, wardens I know and could convince. No. These two are leftovers, Emery's loyalists.

They're taller, broader, heavier than me and with one hand on my shoulder and one on my chest, in these close quarters... Well maybe I'd give them a bruise. But I wouldn't make it out of the tree-shelves.

"Where is she?" They demand.

I shake my head, pretending not to understand, "Who?" I feel the council oath responding to my deflection, like a cage of leather straps stretching under my skin.

And that's the real problem.

The wardens haul me downstairs to the academy and the hall is clogged with whispering men and women. I cringe at their attention. There's nowhere to run.

They drag me onto the porch and from there we step straight into the meadow. It's just the big three standing there: Josef, Percival and Rivers.

My father nods and one of the wardens holding me slams his fist into my stomach. I keel forward, grunting around the impact. He didn't have to do that.

"Tell me where she is." Josef commands, his voice rippling through my skin. He doesn't have to use auctoritas either, but it's his habit.

I recycle the old deflection. "Who?"

The straps of the oath wriggle under my skin, responding to the auctoritas. For most, difficult to refuse. But for me? Very uncomfortable. My stomach receives another blow, breath making a fast exodus even as muscle absorbs some of the impact.

"I don't want to have to do this." Josef's words rumble like thunder.

"You don't have to do any of this." I mumble. I'm not sure he hears me.

They kick my knees out from under me.

"I invoke your oath to council then," Josef commands, auctoritas ringing through my skull, the oath bond vibrating under my skin.

"Where is Nada Reynolds?" He demands.

The bonds tighten but I get in first, clenching my teeth shut. It's as though I've slipped a finger between the leash and my skin there, keeping the nasty tugging just far enough away. A little trick I've picked up since my Talent manifested but it won't last long.

Sweat beads on my forehead as I try to work my jaw around the blockage, struggling to find the loophole.

"Is she a threat?" I gasp out. The pressure of the oath eases fractionally, doubt granting me precious seconds to plead the alternative.

Josef slaps me across the face. "So you're going to waste our time."

Whatever it takes, I think, tasting blood on my teeth.

Josef staggers back, hands pulling at the air as if he can wring the answers from it.

"I've got a warden in a rescue helicopter the very same morning that wretched Seven girl slips the net. And you're asking if she's a bloody threat?!"

He switches back to face me and I blink at the connection. A medical rescue helicopter?

"Search his pockets." he orders.

The wardens send the white pearl necklace flying towards Josef.

"You've even got the necklace," Josef shakes the precious stones in his fist. "You fucking helped her! And for what? Tell me where she is!"

He launches himself towards me with each word and I scramble back, feeling the oath snapping back into place. There's no wheedling around it this time, no loopholes left. There was an injury, a link, a threat and auctoritas injects a bucket-load of pain to the mix. It sears my skin as my jaw is forced open, vocal cords grating against an invisible leash.

"Under... the Potter house... the trapdoor."

Josef's boot connects with my belly, a half-hearted, breath-taking, power trip.

"Lend him your boots, and then find me that girl!"

The oath holds me still, punishing me for my reluctance. I can't look up or defend myself. A boot whooshes into my soft parts and I fall forwards, pain lancing up between the oath-bonds. A skin tight cage of ringing pain. Again, again and again blows fall on my chest, my back, my thighs. A stinging, blinding, head-ringing cacophony of pain.

In a blink I'm kneeling beside Finley. He's slumped on the grass. Thick welts of bruised-red skin the width of a hand cross his body. His clothes are wrinkled and next to the wounds his skin is grey-pale. Even his cheek is grey. His eyes stay closed. I can't even be sure he is alive.

I crawl forward and push his shoulder wordlessly. His body lolls like a lifeless doll. I place my hand carefully on his chest beside a bruise. I feel it then. A fall of his chest, a sigh that I echo.

His eyes snap open and they're green, not hazel. Suddenly I'm leaning over Darcell and his wounds... They're burns, not bruises; giant red welts made by blue fire truncheons. I stagger back, appalled anew, backpedalling into a hedge.

"Trust me," Darcell croaks, the wound on his cheek weeping red. "You have to trust me..."

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I wake gasping, sweating, dying. I'm in an alien room, dim and bright at the same time. Darcell sits slumped over a book with a flashlight. I roll to see the wall behind me, shin bones splintering. A tiny window glows gold way above me. The glow is flickering, moving about; one of the Huntsmen's fireflies? Yes, I realise as the tiny glowing thing enters the room. My neck aches, watching it flutter down to me. I hold out my hand, forearm full of molten pain, and the butterfly lands.

I blink. Yes. Not a firefly but a butterfly, big and perfect as an orchid after rain, wrought of the finest metallic thread. The wings drift down; one gold, one silver, balancing. Drops of colour cling between threads, glimmering mysteriously in the soft glow of its wings. Giant gems the blue of an iceberg bulge from the strange, insect face. I catch my breath in wonder, almost forgetting the pain in my limbs.

"Nada, you're awake!" I see Darcell in my periphery rise and dart towards the butterfly.

I pull my arm away from him protectively, despite the pain lashing down my back. I pull the butterfly close, gazing at its tiny legs feeling their way around my palm. Then it flutters back into the air. I watch it make its way back out the window. I wish it didn't have to leave. I succumb to my body's pain-filled entreaties, falling back onto the covers.