Page 9 of Cage of Starlight

“When I heal—” He cuts himself off. Was this her goal? Admitting to being unable to amplify healing energy is admitting to having and exercising an ability to heal.

“You can’t amplify energies,” she guesses, smug. “Don’t look so shocked. Firstly, it’s because you’re not a Healer.”

Tory’s aching bones and Kelly’s closed wounds beg to differ.

“It’s a shame. These meatheads would mine the core of this rotten planet to get more of them.

What you are is a Channeler, the synergistic Source.

Channelers can’t amplify energies like other Seeds, but for that sacrifice they gain something far greater.

They don’t just interact with one energy.

They’re supposed to be able to interact with every energy .

What you did when you stopped that carriage in its tracks was a compelling mimic of a Seed type that can redirect concussive force. Make sense?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Not my fault. You don’t make sense. The short version of all of this is that you can do more, work longer, spread your energies farther—but you lack the ability to amplify them.

I’d love to find out why, but alas, the Grand General is more interested in putting your skills to work than learning about them, to my eternal frustration.

In practice, it means you’re a terrible Healer.

Worse than terrible. You’re—” Helner’s eyes sharpen on the door as a petite, dark-haired girl strides by, fists clenched.

Helner calls, “Open the door, open the door!” to the mousy man with the clipboard, then yells, “You! Niela, right? You’re a Healer. Get in here.”

“Absolutely not. Someone in CFR just lost their eye .”

Sighing, Helner tugs something from her hair—a scalpel—and flings the cap off. She drags its blade over her palm, splitting the skin gruesomely. “Oh no! I’m wounded.”

The dark-haired girl growls and stomps in. Before Helner’s palm can fill all the way up with blood, she lays two fingers on it, and the wound seals.

Tory gapes.

It’s instant . One moment, the wound is stretched wide. The next, it’s gone. Helner flings the blood onto the ground, to the chest-clutching horror of the man with the clipboard, and shows Tory her hand. There’s no scar, not even a thin pink line to show where the cut used to be.

Even for an injury so small, it would’ve taken Tory a minute to get it closed.

“Tory, my dear foolish faker, meet a real Healer.”

The real Healer in question snorts and stomps away. “I have work to do.”

Helner sets the scalpel down (too far for him to grab it, and the grin on her face says she knows it) and considers the slick of blood on her palm before wiping it off on her coat.

Vantaras shudders. “That’s what I mean by amplification.

True Healers take even a trickle of life energy and amplify it into a flood.

You can only manipulate energies that already exist. But where was I?

The intrinsic Source is similar to the synergistic Source in that it’s theoretically quite powerful but also non-traditional.

Where you handle all energies but not enhance them, the intrinsic Source has a frankly unimaginable amount of intrinsic power, but the result of that power is unstable and destructive.

There’s supposed to be some sort of balance the two types can strike together or some sort of .

. . something, but it’s been eighty years since the Sources were born in the same generation, so no one knows how.

Kineticists, true Healers, Reachers—we’re specialists .

The Sources, meanwhile—” she gestures vaguely over at Tory “—are hot messes. But interesting messes. I think there’s more to you than we know. ”

Tory tears his eyes from the scalpel. “So, what does that mean for me?”

“Nothing good, I’m sure! It’s been generations since Westrice has had a Channeler, so our documentation on their abilities is pretty light.

There are so many things I’d like to try with you.

” Helner leans forward, messy bun unraveling where she pulled the scalpel from it.

Her grin curls up, sickle-sharp. “See, Healers are limited to amplifying the patient’s own healing energies, but you can use anyone’s.

I’ll bet you could heal a corpse! Vantaras, we got any stiffs here?

I’m sure we do. We should try! Tory, don’t you want to try that? ”

Over his dead body—or whoever’s dead body.

The wild grin fades. “Of course, there are downsides. You feel wrecked after healing someone, right?”

Understatement.

“Fever, nausea, cold sweat, the works? The worse the healing, the worse the symptoms? It’s because traces of their energies remain behind in you.”

That’s ridiculous. If he has their healing energies, he shouldn’t feel like shit.

“Honestly, they’ll probably forbid you from healing while you’re here.

You couldn’t be any worse at it.” Tory bristles, but Helner just sets her elbows on the table and drops her chin onto her steepled fingers.

“Your Seed treats foreign energies as invaders—thus the flu-like symptoms. It’s why you were so damn wriggly while I was installing your Core.

But that’s not all. Because you can’t amplify the energies, you’re gambling with your life every time, with a very narrow margin for error.

The increased heart rate, weakness, clamminess, and pallor during the initial act of healing, if you’re foolish enough to let it go that far, are your body going into shock.

Normally, shock is a response to physical trauma, but what you’re losing is life energy.

Shock is your body’s last warning. If you were to go farther, you’d fall into what we call an exertion coma.

In Hulven, you’d have died, and it would have been a damn shame.

Lucky for us, our grumpy lieutenant was called in because of the stellite resonance incident—I heard you made the whole mine light up!

—and he recognized your type as soon as he heard the report about the carriage. ”

So it’s Vantaras’ fault. “ You —”

Helner twists Tory’s chin back toward her. “Do pay attention. You’ll receive orientation tomorrow. Sena here will be your supervisor.”

Vantaras— Sena —steps up beside Tory, posture rigid. “With all due respect, supervising does not fall under my—”

“Colonel’s orders. He said supervising a new Seed will remind you of your place.”

Vantaras twitches. “Is the meeting concluded?”

Helner flaps a hand at the door. “I’m sure Kirlov is eager to hear your report. Hurry back. Your supervisee will be waiting.”

Vantaras stalks out before Helner has finished speaking. She laughs. “Ah, well. I’m out of here, too. Corpse-hunting! Maybe I can get permission from the general . . .” She trails off, already at the door. “Anyway, follow this guy. He’ll finish you up!”

And she’s gone. She’s gone—but the red-tipped scalpel she sliced her hand open with isn’t, blending into the innocuous silver of the table. That’s it. That could be his salvation.

The guy with the notepad, eyes half-mast, yawns and heads toward a gray door at the back of the room.

Adrenaline pumping through him, Tory swipes the scalpel from the table on his way past, clamping the cutting edge between two fingers of his left hand so the grip is concealed in the cup of his palm.

Another reason to hate the assholes who trapped him here: no pockets to store the thing, and he’s not stupid enough to stick it in his waistband.

Just as he’s situating it, the man turns, and Tory almost drops the thing. He jerks away from the table.

“Look, we’re almost finished. Hurry up.”

Heart pounding with some hybrid of terror and joy, Tory obeys.

Inside the adjoining room, the man pokes and prods Tory, weighs and measures him, examines his teeth, the tattoo on his arm, and the small scar on one side of his neck from when he was a child.

“Luckily, you have some distinct traits,” he concludes.

“Harder to identify bodies on the battlefield without ’em. ”

Fear sears his veins. “What?”

The young man frowns. “I thought you knew. STAR-7 is the nearest training facility to the border. It’s the battle-specialist facility. All Seeds trained here are sent to war.”

Sent to war. Tory presses the scalpel tighter between his fingers, mouth dry. He breathes the bitter odor of chemicals and doesn’t twitch, doesn’t smile.

The man taps at the scars on Tory’s palm absentmindedly. “Mind you, all the identifiable traits in the world won’t help you if you come face to face with a Legion unit. Which is why you get one of these.” He grabs Tory’s wrist, wrapping his fingers around it.

Tory stands frozen, mind racing and fingers numb.

It’s fine. This is fine.

The thud of pain in his shoulder, the lingering aches from healing, the weight of his limbs, this man’s words —they’re all easier to bear because he has a plan. He’ll cut the tracker out and escape tonight.

“Legion?” he tries, forcing his voice to sound conversational.

The man says, “Hmm, I’d say medium. You’re almost a small right now, but you’ll fill out some when you’re not killing yourself with healing.”

Humming under his breath, the man pulls a scuffed silver plate—about as long as his thumb, with a length of dense chain on each end—from a box.

He places the plate into a bulky metal contraption, fiddling with a few dials before pulling a lever so the top half of the machine slams down.

When he lifts the lever, the plate is stamped with a series of letters and numbers: (S-S)WS/2417

He seizes Tory’s wrist again, and Tory barely flinches when the chains close around it.

“Welcome to the Box.”