Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series) (26 page)

She placed a weathered hand on Anya’s arm. “Stop running, little one. Go back for those you have forgotten. Even if you fail, to give your life in service to another is the highest calling and you will never regret it.”

Anya’s eyes were swimming now with tears. “But how? I don’t even know where to find them or what to do.”

“Anya, you have the eyes of a Traveler. Trust them. They will show you the way,” Alyna reassured her.

“Is there nothing else you can give me?” Anya whispered, desperate.

Alyna rose from her seat and moved toward a single door on the other side of the fireplace from where she’d entered. “I cannot give what I do not already have,” she said sagely, turning back to Anya just as her hand wrapped round the knob. “I cannot give you what you seek. But I know someone who can.”

With a push, the door swung inward and a large, cloaked figure stepped sideways into the room.

Anya sprung from her chair, nearly knocking it over as she did so. Her heart drummed in her chest with surprise. “What is this?” she cried.

The figure moved in front of the fire, black against the bright flames and Anya froze with fright as Alyna lifted her wry hands to the hood and threw it back.

For a moment, Anya was too shocked to move or speak. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth like paste as she stared in wild-eyed wonder. There before her, standing right next to Alyna, his long hair gleaming in the firelight, was Roanyk.

A small squeak emitted from her throat before she could stop it and Anya was suddenly aware of the need to recover herself. “Roanyk?”

His feral eyes were ice cold, his hair a little shorter, his beard gone. His red spots had faded around his eyes and auburn streaks lighted his once black mane, but she knew him. She always would.

“Si’dah,” he said in a whisper.

Alyna cleared her throat and Anya turned to her. “How?” she asked her mentor.

“I will let him explain that. There isn’t much time and you two have a lot to catch up on. For now, I’ll leave you to one another,” she said, and with that, Alyna stepped out of the room and back through door from which she’d entered.

SHE DIDN’T KNOW whether to run or throw her arms around him, so Si’dah simply stood there. She considered sitting back down in her chair, steadying her shaky limbs, but something coursed through her veins like lightning, both elation and fear, and she could not bring herself to relax her position. She stood frozen before him, muscles coiled and ready to spring into action, the craving in her heart growing with the nearness of him.

“What? How?” she began, realizing slowly that she was only able to get a word out at a time, as all the questions wrestled in her throat.

Roanyk took a step toward her and she instinctively took a step back. He sighed and looked down, toying with the hem of his cloak. “I deserve that.”

Si’dah fisted her hands and then forced herself to slowly uncurl them again. “You tried to kill me,” she said quietly.

His face shot up and his eyes pierced into hers like icicles. “No,” he breathed with such sincerity she nearly staggered beneath the weight of it. “Never. Only to—to scare you. I needed to frighten you…as a warning.”

“Well, you succeeded,” Si’dah said, an ounce of venom in her voice. “I was terrified.”

Roanyk hung his head again. “I know. I am sorry.”

Si’dah swallowed and tried to still her frazzled nerves. She crossed her arms and turned to the side, thinking. “A warning about what?”

“About us,” he answered quickly. “About her. You needed to know that you were being followed, watched. That she was gleaning information from you in the Astral, picking it from your heads like ripe berries, and using it to find you in the Others’ world.”

“So you tried to kill me? You couldn’t have just told me?” Her eyes were wide with her puzzlement.

Roanyk let go a long and weary sigh. “No. I couldn’t have. I am watched all the time. I need them to think I am helping them, that I’m on their side. It’s my survival. And it’s the only way I could try to save you. You needed to know how much danger you were in, here as well as there. It was all I could do to warn you and still maintain my position among them.”

Si’dah started at this. He was trying to save her, when all along, it was she who should have been saving him. How quick she had been to doubt him. Her heart lurched and she choked on her own remorse.

“I am failing you,” he said when she didn’t speak. “I’m sorry.”

Si’dah shook her head, her ebony waves falling over her shoulders. “No. It is I who have failed you. The night we—we lost you, I tried to throw myself from the truck. I wanted to go back for you right away, but we had no means, no resources, nothing that could possibly help free you. These long months apart have been agony for me. For so long, I didn’t even know if you were still alive.”

Roanyk took another step towards her and this time she didn’t back away. Beneath the cloak, his shoulders slumped a little, and as he neared her, a bit more of Rye seemed to seep through. His face melting into fox like angles, and his own hair becoming the dark auburn fall of Rye’s, but his eyes were still the same color as a winter sky. “Please, you have to know. I never blamed you. What could you have done, any of you? I wouldn’t wish this on another, least of all you. At least…at least I can try to be of some help to you where I am. Try to divert them. But,
she
is so smart, so suspicious. How did we not see it in her before?”

Si’dah felt her appearance ripple and ebb until it was London’s pale, full-lipped face staring back at him with her own obsidian eyes. She thought of her mentor’s words about the Circle only moments before. “We were fools,” she answered with a humorless laugh. “The lot of us.”

He drew close to her, close enough to touch, and the tension prickled between them, magnetic. “Alyna brought me here, arranged all of this, so we could meet. So I could help you any way I can, but I can’t stay long.” His tone was grave and his voice thick with gravel.

“She doesn’t know you’re here then?” she asked, staring up into his radiant face.

He reached out and gently brushed her hair over one shoulder. A tender smile played at his lips. “I like it,” he whispered and she blushed. So many changes had befallen both of them since they’d last truly been together. “No, she cannot come here. This plane, at least, is closed to her. To know the peace of the Highplane, you must have peace within. And peace is something Avery will never have. We are protected behind the mists…for now.”

“She won’t know?” Si’dah hardly believed it could be true.

“Not if I’m brief. She’s asleep now. Even she can’t escape the need for genuine rest, though she’d like to. But she never lets herself truly sleep for long. She’ll wander the planes soon, checking. She’ll know if I don’t join her.”

He ran a finger along her jaw and Si’dah trembled.

“That’s how you came to me. Before.”

“Yes,” he answered. “I get minutes to myself, that’s all. And I haven’t fully mastered projection yet. She doesn’t know I can do it at all.”

There were so many things she wanted to ask. What was projection? How was Avery using the other planes to spy on them exactly? What else was she making him do besides spy on them and depriving him of sleep? But she had to focus. If their time was short, she needed to find out what she could about their friends and the Tycoons’ plans. “Do you know what happened to Elias? The man that was helping us. Do they have him?”

Roanyk sighed and dropped his hand. “Yes.”

“He’s alive then? He’s okay?” Si’dah was desperate for hope. Elias didn’t deserve to be tangled up in their mess.

Roanyk shook his head. “He’s alive but…”

She put a hand to her mouth and held her breath. “But what? He’s not okay?”

“No. He’s unconscious. We don’t know what happened. They smoked them to calm the swarm, until they all began to drop and crawl back toward the hive. When he fell, he returned to his own form, but he was already out. No one’s been able to revive him.”

Si’dah covered her face in her hands. How could this even be possible? “He slipped,” she said quietly, lowering her hands. “He was forced to hold the shift too long. But how would they even know about Elias?”

Something wasn’t adding up. Elias was Otherborn, but he was rogue. The Tycoons, even Avery, should have never known about him. They should have fled his home the second she, Kim, and Tora made their escape in pursuit of them, thinking they were only leaving behind a hive of bees. How did they know to look for him at all?

Roanyk shook his head again. “Avery knew. I don’t know how. There’s very little I can keep from her, but she manages to keep quite a few secrets from me. She knew before the raid. They were ready to take him in when they arrived. But no one expected him to be unconscious.”

So, Avery didn’t know about slipping? Well, that’s one thing in their favor at least. “He’s in a coma,” she told him. “It’s not likely he’ll come out of it, but they don’t have to know that. Just do your best to keep him alive for me, please. I’ll figure something out.”

He nodded. “I’ll try.”

Now for the hard part. Si’dah swallowed and leaned back to have a clear view of his face. “And Zen? What’s happened to him?”

Something dark passed over his face, but Roanyk quickly pushed it away. “He’s captive. She doesn’t want him dead. She’s been interrogating him since he came in. She’s going to try to turn him, like she thinks she did me. Use him. She’s planning something big. Something I don’t even know the scope of. There’s all this construction happening right outside of New Eden, something massive. Near an old building they’ve been using behind the scenes for years. It’s a building like a plant, or…or a prison. I don’t know. That’s where they’re taking everybody. That’s why they’ve stopped trying to kill you and the other dreamers. I guess you’re more use to them alive now than dead.”

Si’dah took a deep breath and felt Roanyk’s fingers entwine with her own. “He hates her,” she said at last. “He’ll never let her break him.”

But Roanyk didn’t look so sure. “I don’t know. He loved her once. And she’s pretty convincing when she wants to be. She’ll appeal to that again, his love for her, his desire to protect her. If that doesn’t work, she’ll simply threaten him until he caves.“God, I’ve missed you,” he said suddenly, pressing his face close to hers so that she couldn’t think straight for the nearness of him. He moved back a little and traced his fingertips gently along the new lines of her face, London’s face. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Even now?” she asked. “A lot has changed. I don’t really know myself anymore, and yet I seem to know myself better than before. Does that make sense?”

“Perfect sense,” he smiled. “But it doesn’t matter, because I’ll always know you...in my heart.”

He set his lips to hers, gently at first, the pressure building slowly as they began to explore one another again. When he finally pulled back, he left her shuddering for breath. “It’s okay, you know, if you don’t feel the same way anymore. I know about…him,” he whispered to her.

She blushed and tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let her.

“I won’t pretend my feelings for him aren’t different,” she said, knowing he was referring to Zen. “But I also won’t pretend my feelings for you aren’t the same.”

He smiled and kissed her once more, a soft caress of his mouth. “I have to go now,” he said, a grim sadness filling his expression, and he turned to walk away.

“Rye!’ she called, snatching at him before he could reach the door and he turned back, the freeze of his icy eyes now warm and russet brown like autumn leaves. “I love you. I’m coming for you, do you understand? I won’t leave you with her. I’ll find a way.”

He reached up to hold her chin, stroking her pouty bottom lip with his thumb. “I’ve never doubted it, London,” he said. Then he replaced his hood, hiding his face from her, and dropped his arms. Turning away, he passed through the door and back into Avery’s possession.

THE HOUSELANDS AROUND Mesa City were little more than crumbling remains of a forgotten age. With little vegetation to shelter them, the sun had done its deteriorating work with no impediment, leaving a haunted dustbowl in its wake. But even the bones of this pre-Crisis past provided more refuge for London, Kim, and Tora than the gaping stretches of dirt, cactus, gravel, and grass that had been their only protection outside the camp. A wide, worn down road cut like a blade through the Houselands, shooting straight into the heart of the city, stymied behind the familiar high, concrete walls.

London glared at the walls and felt nothing. No fear. No dread. And very little relief. Her promise to Rye still beat in her heart like lifeblood,
I’m coming for you…I’ll find a way
. And yet here she was, moving farther from Rye and closer to the Tycoons at the same time.

It’s only for a little while,
she told herself as the dusty gray city loomed before them.
Just until I can think of something. Just so we can get ourselves together enough to fight.
All words she’d told herself before, more than seven months ago, in the back of a truck outside of New Eden. This time, she swore that she meant them.

They ducked into a dilapidated housing structure, a complex of apartments that once was home to hundreds of pre-Crisis families. Some of the roof had blown off in a twister and many of the doors were blown open or gone. Animals had made themselves at home in nearly every corner of the place. Rat droppings littered the faded old carpets, dried practically into dust beneath their feet. Scrappers had already picked the place clean of nearly anything of value that they could carry. But they found what they were looking for. A solitary sink, chipped ivory porcelain, rested in the broken blue tiles of a bathroom counter. Its little drain was plugged by a metal plunger, rusted into place. The water here had been cut off long ago, but that didn’t matter. London wasn’t sure she would ever need to access Tycoon water again. She simply called it out of herself and the sink was full and clear. They tore Tora’s reprocessed jacket into three pieces, wetting it to sponge the hard baked clay off their skin. If they were going to venture back behind the walls, they needed to be as inconspicuous as possible.