Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (33 page)

Crash.

The giant staggered back, the car tipped sideways and then upside-down, and I hung onto the side handle, cursing the Valerians for not thinking seatbelts were a necessity in vehicles which had a questionable relationship with gravity. The car ricocheted off the Passage wall, skidding on the metal and landing mercifully the right way up, outside Cethrax’s doorway. Even with the sciras protection, I felt like I’d been thrown into a freaking dryer.

Nell groaned, climbing back into her seat. “I am never letting you into a car with my daughter.”

“Ha,” I said, shaking my head.

Get to Ada.
God only knew which world she was in now.

A thud rang through the car and sent us spinning down the Passage again. The stone giant had followed us, and was seriously pissed off.
Crap.
I retook control of the now-battered and half visible wheel and steered the car around the corner, through the staring crowd. “Valeria!” I shouted, without time for a warning before the giants reached the guards.

To their credit, the guards changed direction fast, even to orders given by a hover car-driving lunatic who’d probably smashed every one of the Alliance’s laws into pieces in the past five seconds alone.

As the giants lumbered towards the crowd, the Vox’s face re-materialised in the air, furious. “You will not trespass on my world again,” he snarled, and that was the last I saw of him before I’d driven the car over the heads of the crowd and through the doorway to Valeria.

***

ADA

Energy surged through my body, sparking off the source’s surface. Light overwhelmed my eyes, and the StoneKing stood back, but still within reach. Beyond, I was dimly aware of Valeria’s surrounding buildings, but wherever we stood felt apart from all that. Cut off.

The source remained fixed to my hand. I wasn’t sure if I could let go even if I tried. No pain, just static, burning under the surface. Waiting to be unleashed.

No.
I couldn’t draw the magebloods here. Not to Valeria.

Every second stretched out into oblivion. I twitched my free hand.
Move. I can control this.

Sparks rose, higher, white creeping into the corners of my vision. I turned to the StoneKing, whose grinning face swam into focus.

At last.

Big mistake.

I moved my free hand, sending a rain of sparks through the air, and jabbed two fingers into his eye socket. The jolt shook my hands, and the StoneKing screamed, falling to his knees. I fell, too, but kept my fingers in place—the other Stoneskins moved in, breaking the circle.

I released the charge. My body shook, the metal in my hand vibrated. I knew without a doubt that the Stoneskins were the opposite of the Royals, because while they might be adamantine on the surface, on the inside, they could break.

The StoneKing broke away from me, sparks flying from his ruined eyes, pieces of adamantine crumbling. His hands reached out blindly and grabbed at me, but too late. I put every ounce of strength left into the charge pouring from my fingers, grabbed the world-key from his limp hand, and shoved him into the abyss.

And the screaming started. The others Stoneskins split the circle. Some fell to their knees, openly wailing. The sound of smashing glass resounded as others wreaked havoc on the buildings. I swore and turned around in time to intercept a blow from the other Stoneskin. His free hand lashed out, snatching the magic source.
Oh, hell.
If that thing blew up, the city would, too. I kicked the Stoneskin in the leg, thanking the Multiverse the sciras’s effect had held. He stumbled into another Stoneskin who turned on his companion with a roar of anger.

My fist clenched around the world-key. The doorway’s scene shifted, from one world to the next, until it stopped on the desert of my homeworld.

The magic signal from Enzar lured me like a siren’s chorus. Before I could pull the world-key free, the two Stoneskins nearest to me had crossed over the threshold, hands held high as though hoping the StoneKing himself would fall out of the sky.
He’s dead.
But another Stoneskin held the magic source—and he ran over the threshold into Enzar, too.

“Get back here!” I was faster than him, and his surprise let me tackle him to the ground. I couldn’t let him unleash that source. Especially not here. We tumbled downhill and came to a rolling stop on the scorching red sand. “Hell,” I gasped. Even with the sciras, I felt bruised all over, but the fierce sparks igniting in my veins from Enzar’s atmosphere reacted to the source like a magnet, daring me to take it in my hands. My nails bit into my palms instead.
I can’t touch it.

Forks of lightning stabbed through the sky. Enough power brewed here already.

Too much for me to control.

“This is yours, Adamantine,” said the Stoneskin, grabbing my hand with a smile as insane as the StoneKing’s. “Take it.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” I said. “I’m not your weapon. I decide how and when I use magic, not you, nor anyone else.”

My hand, however, drew closer to the source with every breath, until—

Mine.

The sensation rolled through me like the rumble of a giant’s voice, my veins fizzing with magical energy. Like a blindfold had been removed from my eyes, I saw the magic that made this world unique, bright, shaped differently to anywhere else in the Multiverse. A buzzing rose in my ears, and I was barely aware that I’d stood, holding the source high, until the ground trembled and lightning flashed over my head.

Hell.
If I drew all the power over here, I’d draw the army, too. The doorway was still open.

I’d bring the war to Valeria myself.

I shook my head, forcing my hand to lower to my side.
Dammit. You know better than this.
I
could
control my magic. Even here. Even as a Royal.

I turned around, forcing myself to step forward. The Stoneskin who’d handed me the source had already moved away, back towards the doorway.

“Get back here.”

I threw myself at him. Magic exploded from my fingertips as I jabbed them into his eyes, still holding onto the source. He was dead, crumbling to pieces, almost before I touched him.
Power.
I could see how the Royals had decimated the magebloods. They only had to touch someone to reduce them to dust. Even an army.

A walking bomb…

I shook my head, again, kicking the Stoneskin’s remains aside. Others fought Alliance guards on the other side of the doorway, where the towering skyscrapers of Valeria were still visible above. I had to close the door before Enzar’s overflowing magic spilled over into Neo Greyle. But how the hell to do that with a source in my hands?

“Shit,” I said, teeth rattling with the magic once again burning within my bones.

I had to end this. But unleashing the power might destroy the world.

“Ada!”

My eyes bugged out. Kay jumped out of thin air, followed by Nell, like they’d teleported into existence. Kay saw me behind the doorway flickering out, and he ran towards it.

The source burned the palm of my hand, and my vision flickered again.
No.

Nell and Kay both ran through the doorway, and I screamed at them to stop—if they got too close, they’d get caught in the blast.

I couldn’t control it.

My other palm burned, reminding me I held onto the world-key. There was something I could do—but if I failed, we all died.

I threw the world-key, and Kay caught it. I didn’t dare speak aloud in case the Stoneskins heard, but I willed him to understand—
amplify it. I can’t stop this. But I can stop anyone else getting caught in the hit…

“Ada.”

“No,” I moaned, falling to my knees. “Stay back—you have to open the abyss.” Send me somewhere I couldn’t do any more damage. A distant world.

I’d die. But if I held on another moment, until the doorway fully opened, he’d live. The others would survive.

I tried to smile.
It’s okay.

The abyss grew wider, splitting the worlds in two.

Kay was amplifying it. My head filled with buzzing, but I had the vague sense he shouted at the guards to move out of the way—the ones still fighting—and the Stoneskins were falling into the gap, dragged into the abyss.

A slap in the face sent me reeling. Another Stoneskin yelled in my ear, telling me to release the magic. Telling me to blow the world sky-high. I clenched my free hand and hit him hard enough to send him stumbling backwards. Towards the edge.

I followed.

“Ada!”

The magic reached its peak. The world went blinding white, and the Stoneskin tripped backwards, over the edge, and was gone.

Magic sparked from my hands, and I threw myself after him.

Sorry, Kay.
I’m sorry.

***

KAY

The guards on Valeria’s side of the doorway had withdrawn from the edge, but those able to stand up to the Stoneskins had caught on pretty quickly. Either push the Stoneskins over the edge of the crater, into the fog, or if not, run like hell.

I should be doing the same—I punched an intercepting Stoneskin, snapping his jaw back.
Get away, you bastard.
Another hit me back, and the unsteady ground sent me reeling, stumbling over something on the floor. Pieces of—adamantine? I snatched one of them up, and it crumbled, coating my hand in black.

A scream made me look up. Ada. She stood unmoving on the other side of the abyss, magic sparking around her from whatever she held in her hand. Hell—it was a battery, and with the high level of magic on Enzar, it was going berserk.

Shit.

She stumbled forward. I knew what she was going to do. There was so much magic burning inside her it’d blow the world to the sky, so she was going to throw herself over the edge of the abyss.

I kicked the Stoneskin out the way and ran towards her. Another Stoneskin slapped her in the face and rage pulsed through me. I ran, shouting her name, but she’d already hit him back.

Magic sparked higher, making my skin buzz all over. The ground trembled, and I caught myself before I fell over the edge, too. I had to move fast. But Ada was metres away.

The Stoneskin screamed, tripping into the abyss. Ada hadn’t touched him, but as she turned to me, her eyes had gone pure white, gleaming. The magic level had melted the lenses in her eyes and the Stoneskin had been blinded.

She jumped as the magic was unleashed in an arc of lightning, piercing the abyss. As it hit the fog, it dissipated into empty space, but it kept coming. She was suspended in the air, eyes wide and unseeing, magic pulsing out of her in waves.

The world-key lay on the ground. If I didn’t close the door to Enzar, the magic would spark over the edge.

And Ada would fall into the abyss.

I grabbed the world-key and switched off the amplifier. The doorway to the abyss shrank rapidly, around Ada. I had seconds before it closed, taking her with it.

I reached out, my hand locking around her ankle, and sent us both tumbling out of the air. We landed on hard desert sand under blinding sun. I gasped as my own magic reacted, sparking to life under my skin like a lit fuse.

Ada lay still in my arms.
God. No.

“Ada…”

Those bright white eyes opened. “Kay,” she said, uncertainly. “Am I dead?”

“No,” I said, and would have collapsed with relief if not for the world-key in my hand. We needed to get off this world. Back to Valeria.

“What happened to the source? I must have dropped it.” She coughed, blinking.

“Hang on.” The world-key was tuned into Valeria, and when I reactivated it, a new door opened right to the same spot the abyss had been. Guards immediately turned towards us, in various states of shock and confusion, staring at the desert.

As I helped Ada cross the threshold, a dozen weapons pointed at us. “What the devil!”

“Hold it,” I said. Ada wriggled free of my arms to land on her feet. I put one hand on her back to steady her and closed the doorway with the other.

Enzar shrank to a pinprick, reflected in her eyes as it disappeared.

“What happened to her?”

“What did she do?”

Oh.
None of them would have seen Ada’s real eyes before.

I had a hell of a lot of explaining to do. Again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ADA

Several hours of total confusion followed. Half the guards were on Valeria and the other half were in the Passages, and Kay was forced to explain, several times over, my eyes didn’t mean I was on the enemy’s side. The two of us stood apart from the group, in the wreckage of the plaza the Stoneskins had ruined. A wall of guards cut us off from everyone else. Even Nell.