Heroes Adrift (19 page)

“How long before she was born?”

Atara raised an eyebrow. “Her father was a Northern man. I would not recommend traveling while pregnant.”

I was stunned that she answered the questions so easily. And she didn't even hint that I had no business to be asking those questions. These people were so strange.

I guessed that meant Kahlia wasn't one of the line after all. Which was too bad. It would have been so handy to have our problem so easily solved.

We went back to our tent. I flipped aside the entrance flap and stepped inside, ready to shut out the rest of the world.

Only the thief was sitting in there, waiting for us.

She was just sitting there on the mat, cross-legged, her hands resting limply on her knees. A small, leather bag lay on the mat beside her. Her relaxed air suggested she hadn't been caught in the act of stealing. Indeed, I wouldn't have even suspected her of it, from her posture, if I didn't know what she was.

Aye, she didn't look startled, or guilty. But a thief obviously didn't feel guilty about stealing, and if she had any experience at it, she'd know how to prevent reaction to surprises.

She looked like she'd been waiting for us. Certainly, she made no move to run.

“Empty your bag,” I ordered.

She rolled her dark eyes and sighed hugely, but she didn't utter a word of protest. She jerked on the laces of the bag and upended the contents on the floor. A shirt, a skirt, a bracelet, a needle and some thread. That was all the bag held, and none of it looked familiar.

“Stand up.”

“Why?”

“Because I told you to.”

I heard a faint sound from my side. Like Taro was trying to hold back a snort. I didn't look at him. Neither did the girl.

She did indulge in another eye roll, though. She stood, shaking her long dark hair off her shoulder.

She didn't smell too wonderful, and she had horrible posture. She'd better hope her spine didn't grow into that shape once she was an adult. She'd be gorgeous if she were clean. She had the wide eyes, the lovely cheekbones, and her mouth would probably be pretty if it weren't being held in a scowl.

She was as scantily clad as any other islander I'd seen, the fabric of her clothes faded and in some places worn almost indecently thin. I couldn't see anywhere that she could be hiding anything, and I wasn't about to search her with anything other than my eyes. “What do you want?”

“You're a cool one,” she muttered.

No. I was just in a bad mood. “Speak.”

“What are you?” she asked.

“Northerner.”

“Not that!” she snapped with impatience. “I know that. But you're not like regular Northerners.”

Not like regular…Surely she didn't mean that. Why would she even think to ask about that? “I'm a Shield.”

“What's a Shield?”

Zaire. Where to start? I looked at Taro, and he just shrugged back. Revenge for my refusal to help him with defining a Source earlier with Atara. “I work with a Source.” I nodded at Taro. “When there's an earthquake, a Source can”—here was the hard part—“use his mind to redirect it.” I looked at Taro again. He shrugged again. I supposed that meant my definition was good enough. “I protect him while he does it.”

She sneered at Taro. “You need protecting?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “All Sources need Shielding when they channel, little one.”

The “little one” could have been an expression of affection. He used it because he knew it would tick her off.

And it did. She thrust out her flat chest, eyes flaring. “I don't need no Shielding when I link,” she declared.

I stared at her. “You channel?” I asked.

“'F's that's what you call it.”

“And you don't work with a Shield?”

“Don't work with no one.”

It was supposed to be impossible for a Source to channel without a Shield and live. That was the reason Shields existed, after all. The reason we spent years in academies, the reason why we were Chosen by Sources and bonded to them for the rest of our lives. I'd known a Source who almost committed suicide by channeling without a Shield, surviving only because he changed his mind at the last moment. According to everything everyone knew and learned, Sources needed Shields to operate. And that was that.

But Taro could heal without a Shield. He'd done it before he met me, though not since we had been bonded. He claimed he couldn't. I thought he was just afraid to. Or was trying to spare my feelings. I'd often wondered if he could channel without me and survive, if he would just dare to try.

Someone had been channeling. Taro had felt it.

“Who trained you?” I asked.

She snickered. “Nobody.”

“Perhaps that's why you're so bad at it,” Taro said coolly.

“I'm not bad at it!”

“You're very weak. You can't channel much. You'd never handle the events up north.”

“You can go stick yourself!” she retorted.

For shame, Taro. Tormenting an eleven-year-old. Or whatever she was.

I crossed my arms. “What do you want?”

For the first time, the little creature looked uncertain. “Take me with you.”

One shock after another. “Your pardon?”

“You heard me.”

“You want to join the troupe?”

“No. North.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to. Been on this island all my life. Wanna get off.”

“We're not going home for at least a couple of years.”

She bit her lower lip, glancing about as she thought. Then she said, “I can wait.”

“Why?”

“I'm your kind, right? Or”—she looked at Taro without much enthusiasm—“his kind.”

What an odd sentiment. “There's more to it than that.”

She raised her chin proudly. “I can make you coin.”

“I could not be less interested in the proceeds of theft.”

“Huh?” she said, looking confused. Then she worked it out. “I can do other things. I don't have ta steal.”

I didn't really want to know what other means of gaining funds she used.

Really, Lee. Do you have to always assume the worst? Kids worked for money all the time, had all sorts of ways. Just because I didn't know what they were didn't mean they didn't exist.

Money had nothing to do with anything.

“What about your father?” I asked her.

“Got no father.”

“The medicine man…”

“Is not my father.”

“He's your guardian, though?”

She shrugged. “Not really.”

“What does that mean?”

“I lived with him.”

“He takes care of you?”

She snickered.

“Does he have the right to tell you what to do?”

“He's no kin of mine.”

Damn it. She knew what I was asking, even if I didn't know the proper words for asking. “Does he feed you?”

“When he feels like it.”

“How long have you lived with him?”

“Forever.”

Good enough. “So he's going to come after you when he finds you gone.”

“Don't see why. Always snarking about me being more trouble than I'm worth. Says I eat more than I bring in.”

And she hadn't been eating much.

So this was the situation. This child, a thief, wanted us to take her from her guardian. Or whatever he was. We would have this child, a thief, with us for the next however long we were on the island, feeding her, housing her, and making sure she didn't rip off the entire troupe and anyone else we met. Then, we were taking her to the Northern continent and…what…dropping her off? Fare thee well. Nice to know you.

In theory, members of the Triple S were to take to the academies any Sources or Shields they discovered among the general population, but that wasn't why we were on Flatwell. And I had no doubt that the Empress's explicit orders trumped vague ongoing duties imposed by the Triple S.

She was staring at me, an unnatural intensity in her eyes. She was too young to have such weight in her gaze. And she had the uncomfortable ability, it appeared, to know what I was thinking. “I'll do whatever you want,” she said. “You gotta take me. I'm your kind.”

And how had she known that? How had she known what we were?

Had she felt Taro? The way he had felt her?

That didn't explain me, though. She'd come to me, asked me what I was first. If she didn't know what a Shield was, she wouldn't have thought to go to anyone other than Taro himself.

She could be lying about the whole thing. Someone she knew could be the Source, working with a Shield as all Sources did. Maybe they had mentioned to her that they had felt Taro working, and she had spotted some kind of opportunity. But what?

To get away from the medicine man? Could that be all?

Zaire. Why was this sort of thing always happening to us?

“I don't need much space,” she said, desperation tingeing her words. “I can curl up anywhere. Always do. Can scrape up my own food. Really. Just need…”

What did she need? Really? If she didn't need space, if she could do for herself, what did she need us for?

For someone to be with. Because she was a child, and small as this island was, it was still a big place to be alone.

Hell.

“Lee?” Taro said, touching my arm. “A word?”

Aye, that was a good idea. I looked at the girl—Aryne. That was the name the medicine man had screamed out, wasn't it? “You move so much as a hair's breadth, I'll know you've stolen something.”

“Lee!” Karish chided.

Lee, what? “She's a thief.”

“Am not!” she objected hotly.

“I caught you trying to steal my purse! What do you think that makes you?”

“Really bad at it,” she muttered.

“Don't move,” I ordered, and I followed Karish out of the tent.

Finding a place to talk was a bit of a challenge. Not only did we have to be far enough away from our tent not to be overheard, we had to be far enough away from everyone else as well. Not that I could really hope no one had noticed the little creature sneaking into our tent.

“What are we going to do?” Taro asked.

“That was my question.”

“We can't leave her here.”

“Why not?”

“Lee!”

“Really. We don't have the means for rescuing people.”

“She's a Source. Or something. She should be going to one of the academies. She is prepared to run away. She's latched on to us, and if we don't take her, she'll latch on to someone else. At least if we take her, we'll know she's not being taken advantage of.”

“It'll be a nightmare. You know that, don't you? For all we know, she's just looking for a means to rob this whole troupe blind.” And after my recent scare about being exiled from the troupe, I really didn't want to take any chances. “She claims to be a Source who doesn't need a Shield. How can we know she's telling the truth? There aren't even supposed to be any Sources—or Shields—on the Southern Islands.”

“We can check that part of her story, at least.”

“How?”

Taro raised an eyebrow at me.

I raised mine back as I clued in. “You can't be serious. You're going to cause an event just to test her?”

“Aye.”

Aye?
Aye?
“Where's the man who found the very idea of creating an event an unnatural and perverse use of his talent?”

“It does no harm.”

“We don't know that.”

“It'll be just the slightest tremor. To see how she reacts.”

“So what if she is a Source? Or what if she's not?”

“Let's just find out, shall we?”

What was he saying? If she were a Source, we'd take her, but if she weren't, we'd leave her behind? If we were going to take her, shouldn't we take her regardless?

If we took her, and she wasn't a Source, we would be stuck with her until she chose to leave. It could be years. And I had no intention of inheriting children who were half-grown with no fear of me trained into them.

If she was a Source, we really had a duty to get her to an academy. She could do all sorts of damage to herself if she was left to run wild. Regardless of how well, sort of, she had survived to date.

Oh, I didn't know what to do.

“I still don't think this is an appropriate use of your skills.”

“Token protest is noted. Ready?”

“Of course.”

His shields went down. A moment later, I felt the lightest of forces flow through him. I didn't feel anything physically, though, no shift in temperature or in earth. If I weren't Shielding him, I wouldn't have known anything was going on.

“She's not catching it,” he said. “I'm going to step it up a little.”

The flow of forces became a little heavier. I could feel the barest tremor through the soles of my feet. But again, if I hadn't been Shielding, I probably wouldn't have noticed.

“Still nothing,” he said.