Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series) (9 page)

“I wish you’d just tell me,” Zen said, his face earnest in the muted colors of dusk. They’d wandered around the school’s corner to be alone. Once again, they’d agreed to leave the truck to Tora so she could tell Kim in private.

London pulled her hand away and sat on a bit of exposed and rusted bleacher. “It’s not that easy,” London said.

Zen sat down next to her, his firm shoulder bumping against her lean one. “London, whatever it is, I can handle it. If I can handle the truth about Avery, I can handle this. Why don’t you ever trust me enough to just tell me the truth?”

London braided and unbraided a long strand of her hair.
I could ask you the same thing
, she thought, but she didn’t say it. She looked at Zen and saw strength in the calm gray wells of his eyes. “It’s Rye.”

Zen’s eyebrows drew together. “What about Rye?”

“I saw him at the barn where we got the water. Or a transmission of him anyway. He was describing us to the regiments stationed there over some kind of tele-signaling device. He told them I was dangerous.”

Zen’s throat bobbed as he swallowed the truth of what she was saying. “So he’s alive and he’s helping them, too.”

London nodded. Saying it brought the horror and shock of that realization back fresh and her eyes filled with tears.

“Oh London, I’m so sorry” Zen whispered and pulled her to him, pressing her face against the broad, warm expanse of his chest as he stroked her hair.

For a moment, she let herself just crumble, right there in his arms. She knew those big, tender arms could hold all the pieces of her together while she let go. And she needed that, she needed to just let everything go, if only for a second. She was tired of being London and Si’dah. She was tired of being Otherborn.

When she could breathe a little easier, she pulled back and wiped at her face. Zen’s shirt was darker where she’d left a splotch of tears. “I’m sorry,” she said, swiping at it uselessly.

“Don’t be,” Zen smiled.

London peered at him from behind her wet lashes. “I have to say, you don’t seem very surprised. Here I am falling apart and you’re pretty steady. He was your friend, too.”

Zen looked up into the sky as the last of a hazy sunset of teals and oranges disappeared. “I know he was.”

“So…aren’t you sad? Aren’t you crushed?” London angled her body toward Zen, feeling something slide almost imperceptibly between them again, his secret, and wanting to scale that wall.

“I’m disappointed, but I guess Avery has pretty much prepared me for anything.” He smiled at her, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Despite his name, she didn’t believe this unaffected version of Zen. Something wasn’t adding up. There was something he wasn’t telling her. “You sure this doesn’t have anything to do with your secret about Rye?”

Zen avoided her gaze. “No.”

She wasn’t buying it. London pulled his chin toward her until he could no longer avoid her. She put both hands to either side of his face, holding it so he couldn’t turn away. “Zen, are you sure? Is there anything you want to tell me?”

He didn’t budge, didn’t try to turn away, but she felt the muscle in his jaw on one side feather with tension. As last he said with an unwavering gaze, “No.”

London exhaled and started to pull her hands away, but he caught them in his own. “Don’t London. Don’t pull away from me.”

She froze. He was the one keeping secrets, not her. He was the one driving a wedge between them. But for some reason, she couldn’t bear to let him down. She couldn’t bring herself to say or do anything as he leaned into her. She closed her eyes against the softness of his lips on hers, against the touch of his hand at her neck. She let herself dissolve in the tenderness of his kiss. If there were no Si’dah, if there were no Rye, this could be the defining moment of her life. Zen could be everything her heart ever wanted.

But there was Si’dah. And there was Rye. And her heart was already broken.

London pulled away, breaking their kiss, dizzy with the scent of him. “Zen.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “I—I’m sorry. I can’t.”

She drew her hands up into her sleeves and stood to go.

“London, please. Don’t leave. I shouldn’t have. It just…happened.” He rose to stand beside her and his face was only centimeters from her own. She could feel the draw of him, like a magnet pulling against her lips. If she didn’t step back now, she’d end up kissing him again and who knows what else. Her heart was too tangled up with seeing Rye to handle this, too.

“No, it’s my fault,” she said backing away. She tried for a casual laugh. “Don’t worry, I won’t take advantage of you again.”

Zen stepped toward her. “I don’t think that.”

But London was already turning towards the truck. “It’s late. We gotta hit the road. I think it’s your turn to drive.” She didn’t wait for his response, didn’t turn around to see the look on his face. She knew she couldn’t take what she might find there: hurt, disappointment, rejection. Or even worse: hunger, desire, love.

Whatever Zen’s feelings for her, there was really only one thing she couldn’t handle, one thing driving her toward the truck and away from him. She couldn’t handle what her feelings were becoming for Zen.

THEY DECIDED ON making a wide arc around Capital City and zigzagging their way through an indirect route that moved ever closer to where Zen suspected the Mesa Camp to be. London wasn’t a fan of Maggs, especially now that the memory of Zen’s lips on her own made her pulse race, but she was grateful Zen’s sexual exploits had at least turned up something useful. She wondered though, in spite of her insistence to keep a certain distance between herself and Zen, if she wasn’t just another one of his challenges to forget Avery. She hoped to keep him far enough away not to find out.

So far, it wasn’t working.

Not only was he at her side almost nonstop in the truck, but Geode seemed to find a way of haunting her in the Astral as well. Not more than two nights ago, she’d wandered an endless meadow along the Midplane, warping and unwarping the scenery around her, practicing her gift as Hantu instructed. Only to sense him shadowing her, though he disappeared every time she turned around.

Since her success at warping their truck into looking like a Tycoon convoy vehicle, she was growing more controlled in the Astral and Hantu encouraged her to continue warping with intent to strengthen her focus.

Si’dah had gazed at him and asked, “How does what I manage here have any effect on London’s reality?”

And he’d replied, “Who’s to say what is reality? Is the Astral any less real than London’s world simply because it is malleable? Is water less real than stone because it is fluid? Or air less real than earth because it is harder to see?

“That is not a question you would have asked a lifetime ago. Your Other is growing stronger in you and I’m glad to see it, but don’t let her doubt become yours. You must let your confidence and experience become hers.”

Si’dah felt like her child self again, Anya, when her mentor would scold her ignorance.

Now London sat opposite Zen in the back of the truck, their legs stretched out next to one another as the western landscape slipped past them in dusty layers. She pretended she was studying the lettering on the bottom of an old bottle they picked up at a pit stop outside a long abandoned filling station. But really she was just trying not to notice that he was staring at her with an unflinching gaze.

When she could take it no longer, she snapped. “What? What is it, Zen? You’re freaking me out.”

He didn’t blink, just replied coolly, “There’s something different about you.”

London sighed and set the bottle back in a small crate of scrap. “What are you talking about?”

He squinted as though to bring her into focus. “I don’t know. It’s like you’re changing.”

London combed her fingers through her near-black waves. “If you mean I’m getting bitchier, then I would have to agree.”

But her attempt at humor failed and neither Zen nor Tora, who was now hanging over the front seat studying London with the same intensity, laughed or even cracked a smile.

“I’m serious,” he said. “You don’t look the same to me but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is that’s changed.”

Tora nodded. “I know what you mean. I think it’s in her face. The cheekbones look more angular or something. And her hair is definitely different. It never used to lie like that. Have you been eating much?”

London scowled. “Would you two find something else to ogle? I’m fine. And yes, I’m eating. You saw me scarf two of those Dehydrated Dinner packs just this morning.”

But Tora only considered her quietly. Finally she said, “You think they’re putting something weird in those packs? I mean, something other than the sedatives they put in everything? I hate when we have to eat those.”

Zen shrugged. “Don’t know, but I’ve eaten several since we’ve been on the road and I don’t feel any different.”

“Or look it,” Tora added.

“Who says I feel different?” London crossed her arms. This was really beginning to get on her nerves.

“Don’t you?” Tora asked.

Come to think of it, maybe she did. A little anyway. But London wasn’t about to admit that to these scrutinizers. “No.”

“You haven’t noticed any changes?” Tora seemed skeptical.

London looked away from her as the truck bounced over a series of potholes, not wanting the Seer to read anything in her expression or elsewhere. “Other than my hair? No. And that’s just the weather or hormones or something.” London remembered the regiments outside the barn talking about the twins. “Probably all this fresh air,” she echoed.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Tora said.

Zen just kept staring at her.

“Can you divert your gaze, please!” London bellowed at him.

“Why?” he shrugged nonchalant, leaning on one elbow. “I like this view. A lot. No matter how it changes.”

London felt the blood flood her face and she knew without a mirror that she was blushing crimson from her chest to her ears. She put her face in her hands and huffed her frustration but before she looked up again, she noticed that her cheekbones did seem to press against her palms with a little more prominence than she remembered. Were Zen and Tora right? Was something happening to her that she didn’t understand or was she only detecting it because they’d put the thought in her head?

She tore her fingers through her hair and tried not to think about the fact that Tora was right. London’s hair was notoriously unruly. Or at least it used to be, was supposed to be. Only now, it fell in glossy undulations to the center of her back and tangled far less than the heap of haphazard curls she used to have to deal with. She thought of Hantu and how much he reflected the features of himself and his Other, Degan. But Hantu was in the Astral. This was the real world. Things like that didn’t happen here.

Then Hantu’s words from the night before floated back to her,
Who’s to say what is reality?

Trucks also weren’t supposed to be able to shift their appearance from white to black as easy as batting an eye. Hell, dreams weren’t even supposed to be possible. No, mostly things like that didn’t happen here…unless you were Otherborn.

SOMETHING WASN’T RIGHT. Si’dah curled and uncurled her fists, flexing her long fingers in the dazzling Midplane light. Her hands felt wrong. The pads of her fingertips were fuller and her knuckles less pronounced. Her people had lean, strong bones with powerful joints that made them agile hunters. Their hands were large with long fingers to wrap around branches. Scaling the native ronan trees of their lands made them efficient at catching game. These fingers looked swollen almost, with a growing pink cast around the nail beds. These were not her fingers. Not entirely.

Si’dah sighed and dropped her hands. Sometimes she felt like she didn’t know herself anymore. Had she ever been Anya? Was she truly once the small girl with black eyes who scampered behind the Si’dah before her like a lost shadow? Nothing seemed certain anymore. Nothing seemed real.

Her world dimmed and Si’dah looked up into a building fog. Unintentionally, she had warped the Astral. Like before, it was reflecting her emotions. When she let her guard down, this happened. But she’d been doing better, learning to focus her intent on the fabric of the planes around her in order to manifest something useful, something desired.

Si’dah closed her eyes and focused on Hantu’s words to her:
Don’t lose yourself in thought or emotion. Find your center, Si’dah. Form your will there and push it out into the space around you.

What was her will? Right now it was to clear the fog and regain the light. Si’dah envisioned a green meadow sparkling like emerald stones in sunlight, clear as a polished crystal. She held that image until she could feel it reverberating through her and she pushed with everything she had.

Opening her eyes, she saw that the fog was indeed lifting, except for a trailing patch behind her that wouldn’t clear no matter how she tried. She spun slowly, and the fog remained always behind her, always to her back.

What was this?

Si’dah grunted, unnerved. It seemed some part of her was still unclear. The Astral was like a mirror one didn’t want to look into. It was always showing those bits of herself she tried hard not to see.

Si’dah tugged at a plait in her hair. She combed her silken, raven-wing waves. New hair, new fingers…what would be next?

Suddenly, she had the characteristic feeling that someone was watching her. She knew, without any doubt, without her vision to confirm it, that there were eyes upon her. She could feel them moving over her form with a feather’s touch, almost caressing her every feature from behind.

Si’dah cringed. She felt violated, but mostly she felt scared. She was not alone.

Hantu would not creep up on her like this. Nor would the Seer. She didn’t think Atel could if he tried. His every move resounded like dead tree limbs creaking in the wind. That left only one person. The same she suspected of following her the last several nights she’d been here. The same whose feelings for her were growing into something unexpected and new, something hungry, like the eyes upon her felt right now. And his feline graces would allow him a stealth few others enjoyed.