Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series) (35 page)

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He’s pretty bad, Rye.”

Rye tousled his hair and blew out a breath. “If you move southeast you’ll come to the road that leads into the settlement. You, uh, remember that road, don’t you?”

London chewed on her lip. How could she forget? The road where she lost Rye…where she lost everything. “Yeah. I remember that road.”

“Good,” Rye nodded. “It’s more risky but not as far. Can you get there?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You’re going to have to try. It’s the best I can do. There’s no way I’ll find you in the woods before the guards or the dogs do.”

London cringed, remembering the dogs. “Can you get away from…you know who? Can you help us?”

They both knew who she was talking about, though neither wanted to say it, wanted to admit he was sleeping in her bed. Rye nodded. “I think so. Just—wait for me if I’m not there right away. It’s going to take some finesse.”

“Bring medical supplies, if you can, if you have any,” London said.

“Sure,” he agreed. “I’ll try. Give me some time.”

“Hurry, Rye,” London said, the pull of her thread beginning to feel irresistible. “I don’t have much to give.”

LUGGING KIM THROUGH the trees was a hell of a lot easier said than done. His good leg wasn’t much use on its own and the shock made him limp and incoherent, but with Tora on one side and London on the other, they managed. London spread the briars before her apart and looked across the asphalt. The moon left a little dull gleam in the ribbon of road and London couldn’t stop the flashbacks of a night not so different from this one, more than seven months ago. She shuddered against her memories and pulled back.

Turning to Tora she said, “Nothing yet, but he’ll come. I know he will.”

Tora nodded and wiped at her nose. She’d cried a lot. Seeing Kim in pain, worrying about him, had pretty much turned the once confident Seer into a basketcase. “I hope you’re right. I don’t feel so sure about this.”

London put a hand over Tora’s. “You’re just upset, that’s all. It’s going to be fine. The Astral wouldn’t let us get this far without being able to go all the way.”

Tora nodded reluctantly.

Behind them, Kim moaned. They didn’t want to drag him out onto the concrete in case any vehicles decided to come or go from New Eden. With all the uproar at the Ward, it was just too likely they might be seen by someone other than Rye.

London waited a few minutes and said, “I’m going to check again.”

“Okay,” Tora whispered, stroking Kim’s hair.

She moved forward and pulled at the briars again, cutting her hands but not caring. This time, she deigned to crawl out until her palms were on the blacktop, hard and rubbery beneath them, and look toward the guard-post in the distance, too far to see in this dark.

A shadow moved up the center of the road, blocking out the dull gleam of moonlight as it went. London moved back into the brush and grinned at Tora. “It’s him. He’s coming.”

“You
saw
him?” Tora asked.

“A shadow,” London corrected. “But I know it’s him. I’m gonna go meet him so I can show him where we are.”

London started back for the crawlspace she’d made through the briars when Tora caught her arm.

“Wait,” she said. “This doesn’t feel right. Don’t go out there, London.”

“Tora,” London whispered. “It’s fine. It’s the only way. You’re just scared—for Kim. It’s understandable. But we can’t just sit here and let Rye pass us by.”

“I know,” Tora said. “And I am upset. But I’m telling you, something’s off. I feel Rye, but…I feel something else too.”

London sighed. She was so ready for this night to be over.

“Just…project yourself first. Just in case. Please?”

London looked at the puffy rims around Tora’s eyes, pink even in this lack of light, and squeezed Kim’s hand in her own before responding. “Okay,” she said. “For you.” She would do whatever she could to comfort Tora right now, who needed it as much as Kim did.

Closing her eyes for the third time tonight, London curved the Astral and pushed herself through it, until she stood over their three forms, Kim’s, Tora’s, and hers. Tora looked up at her projection and smiled. “I’ll be back…with help,” London told her.

She pushed through the undergrowth with some effort, past the yielding green-leafed yaupons and pine saplings, until she crashed through the briars and the tangle of kudzu onto the waiting pavement. Before her, the shadow was drawing close, only ten feet away at most.

“Stop,” she said to the advancing shadow. “It’s me.”

The shadow took a couple more steps and stilled, but she could just register the high cheekbones and reddish gleam of hair. “Rye,” she breathed with relief.

Before he could speak, a bright and terrible light suddenly flooded the street. London covered her eyes, finding the shock of it almost painful against her retinas. She looked away and back again, blinking, let her vision dart back and forth until it adjusted enough for her to drop her hand slowly. Squinting, she asked, “Rye?”

Silhouetted against the light, she knew his square shoulders and lean build, even with the extra weight. But there were other shapes moving in the spotlight, other shadows advancing up the road rapidly behind him. The shapes of men, guns, and dogs.

“Don’t move,” a male voice shouted. Not Rye’s, but someone else’s. A guard’s.

London couldn’t have moved if she wanted to. Her brain was working over all that she was seeing as though it had to move through quicksand to arrive at the conclusion that was gradually filling her with terror and despair. Rye had come alright, with Avery and Tycoon guards. With dogs. He hadn’t come to help. He’d come to capture.

Several men stepped up to Rye on either side. Behind them, another row of guards with leashes in every hand emerged, the dogs growling and snarling at her between the legs of the men in the first row. Rye stood dead center, his eyes meeting hers with a chill.

“How could you?” London shouted, finding her voice and her faculties all at once. “You betrayed me.”

Rye didn’t answer, didn’t speak for himself. Instead, another figure pushed through the men to the front. “I taught him well,” she said with a hateful smile. Avery’s papery skin glowed in the spotlight, her green veins pulsed around her face, and her eyes were blue chunks of ice.

London glared at her and Avery gestured to someone behind them. Another group of figures emerged from the guards, struggling. It took a moment for London’s eyes to adjust enough to recognize him apart from the guards that held him, but once she caught sight of his proud jaw and hulking chest, she knew it was Zen. He was cuffed somehow, arms behind his back, and yet he still gave the guards to either side of him such a fight that one met the concrete with his knees.

“Now I have both your men,” Avery said.

London stared at Avery. “Take me,” she said. “I’m the one you really want, aren’t I? The
dangerous
one. Let Zen go.”

Avery chuckled. “Tempting. But what’s to stop me from having all three of you?”

London flung her hair back over a shoulder. “If you don’t let him go, you’ll never get me. I’m too strong for you, Avery. We both know that.”

“Do we?” Avery said, but her cockiness was slipping. “I’m not so sure.”

“I am,” London said, and she felt the certainty of the words fill her. Even now, even here, she could get away. She could warp or shift or manage something that would let her elude the guards one more time. But she wouldn’t leave her friends. If she could work this right, maybe Zen would find her, Kim and Tora. Maybe together they could get away, and he could carry Kim to safety. Find the old Outroader camp nearby or something. It was the best she could hope for. Somewhere in the trees, she knew Tora was hearing it all, keeping watch over Kim’s body and hers.

Avery eyed her with malice. At last she said, “Fine. We’ll do it your way. But we’ll just catch him again. You know that.”

“Maybe,” London said, the fury in Zen’s eyes meeting hers. He didn’t want her to do this, she could tell, but he didn’t know what she did about Kim and Tora. He didn’t know she was projecting. “Maybe not. My money’s on Zen.”

Avery laughed under her breath. A guard on either side of her started for London but she called them back. “Wait! We don’t know if that’s really her or not. If she’s a projection, she can still hurt you even though you can’t touch her.”

London rolled her eyes, but her heart was pounding all the way through the projection to where she stood now. “You always were more clever than you looked, Avery. But I’m not projecting. That’s something you would pull. I actually care about Zen.”

“Prove it,” Avery said. “Do something that can’t be done as a projection.”

London stopped breathing for a second. She knew as well as anyone that projecting had its limits. And Avery knew too. “What?”

“Shift,” Avery demanded, the word a hiss as it left her lips.

London wanted to puke and do a victory dance at the same time.
She
could shift as a projection, but obviously Avery couldn’t. Only, she’d already done it once tonight and it had nearly killed her. She figured a second time would prove impossible or fatal.

In the trees, she could hear Tora whispering to her body, “Don’t do it, London. Please. It’s not worth it. Losing you won’t make us any better off.”

London thought about Kim bleeding into a bed of old leaves. And she thought about Zen being put through whatever torture Avery could imagine. From where she stood, she could see the purpling of his left cheek where he’d been beaten. There was no telling what else he’d endured. And she knew, for them, for her friends, she had to try. Not for herself, not for her chance to get away, but for theirs.

“Okay,” London called to Avery. Without the adrenaline spike of before, she had to pull the image up over her own carefully. She hoped Avery would be satisfied with something small.

She closed her eyes and opened them again, feeling the black settle down like slips of vellum. And she knew, without seeing herself, what they were seeing. She knew that it wasn’t her own dark brown irises staring out at the shocked faces of the guards, at Zen’s pleading expression and Rye’s look of pitiful shame. It was Si’dah’s ebony eyes, the eyes of a Traveler.

Even the effort of that, of just shifting her eyes, was enough to send her teetering on the edge of Astral oblivion. She could feel the gape of the edge planes drawing nearer.

Avery clapped, slow and mockingly. “Very good, London. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Why?” London demanded. “I shifted. You said that was impossible as a projection. Let Zen go.”

Avery shook her head. “Sorry, old friend. But that could be a trick. Could be contacts of some kind.”

“Where would I find those?” London asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Avery said. She gestured to one guard to unhand Zen while the other held fast. “You want him? You’re going to have to work for it. Shift!”

London ground her teeth and looked at Zen. He shook his head slowly from side to side and she knew he was right. There was no way she could hold another full shift against a projection without suffering some kind of consequence. The pressure, the power, was too much. But she had to give him the chance. If she could do it even for a second, maybe it would be long enough for him to get away.

London stared back at him and smiled. It was enough, it would have to be.

With a sudden rush, one that drained every last drop of effort from her, she pulled the whole of Anya’s features over her own, a million faraway memories flooding her brain as she did, of a little girl with black eyes and dark plaits, in a world she would never see again.

She saw Avery’s expression cloud as Zen jerked free of his guard, running for her, his mouth working though the sound never reached her ears. She saw Rye dive for her from Avery’s side, his fox eyes wide and haunting, the dogs tearing free of their leashes behind him. Several guards managed a step or two in her direction. It seemed everyone, everyone except Avery, had moved toward her at once. But she…she had only moved away.

ALL LONDON COULD see anymore was ice. The road, the trees, the night—they were all gone. Rye, Zen, Avery—there was no one now. Just her, a speck in a never ending field of white. Her bones ached, but not with the cold. They ached with something else. Loneliness? Distance? She couldn’t tell the difference. Was there a difference?

And the cold here, it didn’t seem to permeate her from the outside in. It was as if the cold came from inside her, pouring out over the plane to create the sheet of ice that kept her from completely sinking.

“Hello?” she called and her own voice sounded back at her. She didn’t expect an answer, she just needed to hear a sound, any sound, to feel alive.

London stood and dusted frost from the black reprocessed fibers covering her knees. Her thin tank wasn’t much use here but it was all she had. She wrapped her arms around herself and started forward. There wasn’t much else to do but walk. Though it looked like she might walk forever.

She could have cried, but she didn’t see the point.

Ice crunched under her feet, tiny hairline fractures rippling out from her steps. Not enough to break through, of course. But it was something.

The sky overhead wasn’t really a sky at all. There were no clouds, no swirling mists. Nothing she had come to know of the other planes. This was just a dense gray expanse; air thick like smoke, like fog, but with no movement. Everything was perfectly, perfectly still. Except her.

She knew she’d slipped before she ever opened her eyes. She could feel it—the snap. But there was nothing to do for it now. She wondered if they’d find her body in the woods. Drag it out, poke sticks at it. She wondered if she’d feel it when she died. She wondered if she was already dead.

It was hard to say how long she’d wandered when she first saw him. Maybe minutes, maybe hours or days. She knew there was no rotation of the sun or moon here. No time. But she couldn’t resist the idea of time.

In any case, he was the first non-white thing her eyes had seen besides herself. He wasn’t ice and he wasn’t frozen, even if he didn’t move. For a moment, she thought she’d only come back to where she’d started, and that maybe that fleck in the distance was just herself, waking up again to a world of ice.