I stayed in Fern's hut for a while. My body was fine now, and I was pretty sure my Core wasn't cracked or anything after the last fight. Shift didn't fail me any longer either. I transformed a few times to ensure everything was alright, but ended up stopping when a light headache crept up the back of my head.
"Everything's in order."
But was that really the case?
As far as I could tell, I was in the Eserian Grove. Fern had told me about her home a few times during our conversations, and she had always been adamant about me staying away from it. She didn't know how the fae would react to me, and she was convinced they would likely kill me if they knew I existed.
Fortunately, that didn't happen. That didn't mean I was safe, though.
As far as I was concerned, it would be hard to leave the Eserian Grove. They may have brought me into the grove, but would they really allow me to leave alone? Surely not. There was no trust between us. If anything, the fae would distrust me. Maybe they would even go as far as to claim that I had helped them only to learn more about them, to befriend them, and then stab them in the back once I knew all I had to know about the grove and the Eserian.
At least, that was how I would think about a stranger from the other side. I would be suspicious too.
That only means I have to work even harder to earn their trust.
But what would happen once they trusted me? Once they no longer worried about me leaving the grove? Would I leave the grove and the Eserian to return home?
"I should return home," I told myself, but was that really the best decision?
The earl's soldiers were not something I was overly worried about. Maybe I should have been, but there had been a reason behind the soldiers' secretive behavior. They hadn't worn the earl's emblem until a day before my escape. By then, we had already been in the air for days.
Their actions had been highly illegal, if I had to guess. The earl would have to explain himself at court if his scheme were to become known. With a bit of luck, the court was already on it.
My bigger concern was Father.
Right after the Choosing, he had looked disappointed–scared, even. My mother and siblings had been stunned silent and worried about me, but not Father. His reaction had been different. So had the Order's Wizards'.
Unlike the other Chosen the earl's people kidnapped, the Wizard had glared at me. On the flying ship, his reaction had been the oddest of all. The other Chosen he ignored as if they didn't exist, yet he looked at me. Glared at me. Like I was supposed to be dead. His eyes told me as much even though he never said it out loud.
"The others had Red Powers. Rare and powerful Powers dyed the Orb of Power red. Black Powers… What is wrong with them?" I wondered to myself, slumping back onto the dangerously soft bed.
I had never seen or heard of Black Powers before. My awakening was the first I'd witnessed, and I hadn't had the luxury to research it.
Shift. A Black Power. Carrying the means to transform into the creatures I killed.
Xavier Halur
Core: Tier-1 (8.7%)
Primary Power: Shift
Accessible Shifts – Human (Main form), Blue Slime, Arok Serpent, Hnoll, Greyskin Borillar, Kerink, Spiketail Trout, Herculean Ant, Human
The Status, and especially the list of Accessible Shifts, didn't offer many answers. What it did offer, however, was information.
Human.
Putting my main form aside, Accessible Shifts clearly showed that I could transform into other humans. Humans old enough to have undergone the Choosing. And I could transform into exact copies of them. Ailments and all.
"Is that what makes it a Black Power? The ability to turn into just about everything I've killed, smell, presence, and everything else included?"
My eyelids grew heavy again, so I forced myself upright. After a moment, I leaped to my feet and paced around the hut, my mind drifting in several directions.
Shift copied everything. Their Power as well… maybe?
It was certainly possible, and easy enough to confirm.
I shifted into the first human I'd killed. My shoulder ached, and my right leg cramped almost immediately. I had to shift my weight to my left leg. This form's balance was a little odd, but acceptable enough to run a few experiments.
Taking a deep breath, I spoke. "Hello? This is an experiment. I am trying to figure out how my vocal cords work."
Then I hummed to myself, tilted my head, and moved around a little. Not for long, though, considering I was on a time crunch with my transformations. Curious about how much had changed, I called upon the Status again.
Xavier Halur (Cedric Skali)
Core: Tier-1 (31%)
Primary Power: Shift, Burst
"Yes!" I exclaimed in Cedric's voice and triggered the Power.
The moment I did, I knew it was a mistake.
My right leg flared up in pain as I shot forward, crossing from one side of the hut to the other in an instant. Burst carried me far in a fraction of a second, but the pain in my right leg was terrifying. The Power might have been worth using in a desperate moment–it could have saved Cedric's life if he had managed to use it against me–but the leg burned horribly.
It was almost as if Cedric's body had never properly adapted to the Power, or as if it was simply too weak to use it. Maybe he had used his Power foolishly, which resulted in his right leg's condition in the first place.
Regardless, Shift's effect wore off. I was forced back into my main form several seconds earlier than I had accounted for. As for the reason, it was simple: using another Power consumed the energy Shift required to maintain the transformation. That was only a theory for now, but I had another human to test.
A fire Power to experiment with.
As for my conscience, it was oddly clean. Being in the skin of another human should have felt wrong, but instead it felt familiar. Just like the other Accessible Shifts had.
I was getting used to Shift.
Maybe that should have scared me. Instead, I found myself curious about what other mysteries Shift was still hiding.