Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (16 page)

I stopped dead, the fight punched out of me. I’d never appreciated, until that moment, how thoroughly Ada had messed with my head. I was breaking to pieces because of a girl I barely knew—who I’d helped out of impulse. And who’d implied I was worth something. Not because of my name. Not because of some over-exaggerated story about saving the goddamned Multiverse. She’d seen me as I was, and in the end, she hadn’t run away.

So the Multiverse had found another way to take her from me.

I backed down the ladder, and jumped the last few rungs. No point in sticking around here when it hurt to breathe more by the second.

“Kay,” said Jeth, as I passed by his room. “For the record, I think you can find her.”

I nodded, more in acknowledgement than agreement, and left Ada’s family behind.

CHAPTER NINE

ADA

The thought that Kay was alive, searching for me, kept me walking without complaint for the rest of the day. That night, we camped under a constellation of stars in a deep purple sky. Once we’d left the mud behind, we’d walked through forests of dead, decaying trees, and past the ruins of cities. Nobody knew which world it was, but even the echo of a civilisation once here was enough to give me a brief sense of hope.

We’d stopped by a river to clean the filth of the swamp water from our skin—the Stoneskins were even slower-moving with mud all over their feet. I took a moment to turn my back on the group and quickly change my contact lenses, breathing a sigh of relief when the stinging pain ceased. I could still see as clear as before, but there was no magic here. The world was as stark and bare without lenses. I blinked the sting away, glad no one saw the tell-tale blinding white colour of my real eyes. They showed I was from Enzar, and I was a descendant of the Royals. But I should be in more pain than this, with the amount of filthy water that had gone into my eyes. Must be to do with the magic in my blood.

My clothes were soaked in swamp water, but that was the least of my problems. Even if I’d managed to find spare clothes, my Alliance uniform was far more sturdy and practical than any other material. Plus it was one of few links I had left to the world I’d left behind.

As for this world, it had little to offer except grey, lifeless trees. Like the trees on Vey-Xanetha, when Xanet’s power had been drained. At least the smell of decaying leaves was an improvement on the swamp.

Kay had left me a message. Now I had to figure out how to leave him one in return.

The Stoneskins weren’t watching me closely anymore, but the looks some of the humans kept shooting me were hostile enough I didn’t trust them not to throw me into the next swamp. And that wouldn’t end well for any of us. Walking while keeping an eye on everyone was even more exhausting when we had to navigate our way around dead trees and thick undergrowth. The heat made it difficult to think clearly, though at least the branches above gave a little shelter. I’d soon drained the water canteen, and walking all day on Valerian ration bars was starting to take its toll. What’d they do if I collapsed, pick me up and carry me? I might be important to them, supposedly, but why?

I had my communicator, tucked in the inside upper pocket of my coat, where the swamp water couldn’t wreck it. People had once lived here, or some kind of intelligent species, anyway. The forest had overgrown the small buildings, then died, the trees becoming skeleton-like shells. Maybe the humans—or whatever lived here—left first, because I didn’t see any signs of an attack.

“They protected you,” said Aric, and I jumped, not realising he’d moved to walk alongside me. The Stoneskins had stopped to talk amongst themselves and the humans were in a disorganised huddle, crossing the ground with their heads down.

“I have no idea why,” I said. Not like I could deny it, seeing as everyone must have seen they’d formed a human—or not human—shield between me and the selver. Which meant they’d probably jumped to the conclusion the Stoneskins and I were on the same side.
Great.

“Huh,” said Aric. “Guess you really are something.”

“I don’t suppose you know which world we’re on?”

He shrugged. “A dead one.”

“They’re all dead, aren’t they? How do the Stoneskins even know where they’re going?”

“Ask your buddies,” he muttered.

“They are
not
my buddies,” I said. “You think I wanted to watch people die? I don’t know why they need me, but if it means there’s a chance of us getting out of here? Yeah, I’ll use them if I have to.”

“Us?” Aric snorted.

“All of us,” I said, with a gesture around at the other people. No one seemed to be listening, and only a handful looked remotely alive. The others moved like robots, like they’d already given up hope of ever escaping.

It struck me like a blow to the heart. They were like the refugees, stripped of all hope. But no one had come to give them a way out.

I have to do something.

“Give it up,” said Aric. “The Stoneskins think they’re gods, and they’re probably right.”

“If you fall on your knees and start worshiping them, I’ll leave you behind,” I said, checking my jacket for water damage again. Lucky the pockets were tightly zipped, because if I lost my communicator, I’d be screwed.

“Very funny,” said Aric. “You and Walker are a match made in Cethrax.”

I snorted, though Kay’s name bit through me. “Yeah, you’d know about that place, wouldn’t you? Your family took holidays with the goblins. Pity you didn’t keep any of the source for yourselves, isn’t it?”

I realised my mistake as soon as I closed my mouth.
Oh, shit.
Had he even known the potential of bloodrock, not to mention the source his family had found? Though it didn’t matter, seeing as they were dead and he and I were stuck out here. I stumbled back as his fists clenched.

“You know all about it,” he said. “I don’t get why the Alliance let
you
get away with murder. You’re no one. Didn’t your friend kill people in disguise?”

Skyla. He’d gone there. My own hands curled into fists, and only the huddled, blank-eyed people close by kept me from knocking him out there and then. Like it or not, he was one of the few with the desire to escape.

“She wasn’t my friend,” I said. “And that’s none of your business. Your family almost destroyed a world using a source I’ll bet they didn’t even understand. Guess they didn’t give you a piece of whatever they used to open a doorway?”

Was
that
what the Stoneskins were using? From what I’d seen, the source looked like any other magic-based substance. But although the different sources appeared the same, magic-wielders could tell the difference. I’d thought
I
could. Maybe the Stoneskins’ presence stopped me from sensing it.

“What do you know?” he said, arms crossed. But his angry defensiveness hid genuine urgency. He wanted a way out of here as badly as I did.

“Not enough,” I said. “Didn’t your family tell you anything? Jesus, they really didn’t like you, did they?”

I regretted the words the instant I spoke them. Not because I felt sorry for the idiot as much as I knew I’d blown my chance of any tentative alliance. And it reminded me too much of
my
family, who were probably frantic by now. When Central had arrested me, Nell had knocked the crap out of a dozen guards to break me out of jail. In her eyes, everything that happened to me was their responsibility. And Kay’s, most of all.

Oh, God.

Aric didn’t hit me. His hands dropped to his sides. “Fuck you,” he said, and strode off to the far end of the group.

I didn’t follow.
Way to go, Ada.

Hours of walking later brought us to—miracle of miracles—something resembling civilisation. Judging by the overgrown train tracks and tall metal structures, it had once been a thriving town, even if it was deserted now. We were worlds away from Earth, yet I couldn’t stop myself noting the similarities. The tall buildings, the scrap metal heaps that might have been cars once. All decaying, eaten away by an odd black plant-like substance which covered everything. It crept along the ground and filled gaps in the concrete-like floor, very slowly. But it didn’t attack us. Just slowly submerged the town, and the remnants of human civilisation, like black algae covering the buildings and street lamps. Like an abandoned Earth town, almost.
How long has it been like this? What happened to the people?
Had they emigrated, like the Vey-Xanethans? If there were doorways all through these weird, backways worlds, maybe it was easier to move around. Or it had been in the past.

Even in the Passages, with the vastness of the Multiverse contained behind doors, I’d never truly appreciated how
empty
most of it must be. How many miles of uninhabited ground, of raging oceans, of endless skies with no stars. It was enough to make me feel the size of a pinhead.

A shout from the front brought me back to the present. Some of the Stoneskins had walked off in a separate group, and a line of others barred the way, preventing us humans from following them.

“Why are we stopping?” I whispered.

Gervene, who stood nearest, shook her head. “No clue. They do this in every town or city we find. Even an abandoned old house once. Maybe they’re looking for new recruits.”

“Hmm. The place is dead, though.” That did strike me as odd. Then again, I didn’t understand these people, if they could even be called people. Not at all. Maybe there were more of them hiding out in this creepy place. They had to come from somewhere

If only there was some way to get out, to escape. To hijack a car, or sneak into one of the buildings to find some otherworldly equivalent of a working radio or telephone. Whoever lived here had clearly been a technologically advanced people. They might not be dead—by the look of the abandoned cars and doors hanging off their hinges, they’d left in a hurry. They might not even have gone far. Like through a doorway.

I stood on tiptoe, trying to see through the windows of the nearest buildings. All were covered in more of the ink-like plant, and holes had been carved into the walls. No sign of anything living. The guards had been forced to move to the other side of a long split in the middle of the road, like it had been hit by an earthquake. Long swathes of the unfamiliar, black plant covered it like a net.

“They must have left before that thing showed up,” said Gervene, who’d surreptitiously moved closer to me. “I don’t think that plant is carnivorous.”

I opened my mouth then closed it again. I’d been about to say the Stoneskins wouldn’t have left us here if it was. But I was the one who was valuable to them.
Not valuable enough to let in on their plans, though.

And I wanted to know. The choice was either to avoid their attention and make a plan, or use their interest in me to my advantage and get the information I needed to get home. But how to do it without unintentionally dragging everyone else into danger, too?

I inched a few steps to the side, but didn’t quite dare get any closer to the tentacles snaking along the side of the nearest building. Some kind of writing was underneath it. Well, more like spray paint. But I couldn’t read the script. Not an Earth language. Still, an odd ring of familiarity went through me. As the slow-moving tendrils shifted slightly, another line of script was revealed … definitely familiar. Symbols, next to an arrowhead, white against the soot-coloured metal.

An arrowhead…

That was the symbol used to open a doorway. But there definitely weren’t any signs of magic here. Not of the usual sort, anyway. Whenever I was in the Passages, I detected a kind of resonant hum from being near a door. This time… nothing.

What
was
this world?

The skeleton of what might once have been a telephone post gave me an idea. I unzipped my jacket just enough to reach the inside pocket, and, double-checking no one watched, pulled out my communicator and hit the “on” switch. Even if there was a signal, it’d take a while to connect, but I couldn’t help watching the bars in the corner.

Gervene bent to examine the tendrils of inky plant on the ground. “I don’t recognise it. It’s not a cross-world species, it can’t be.”

“Bloody fascinating,” Aric muttered. “Wish those vehicles worked. I know how to hot-wire a car.”

“Even if they did work, they’re not like Earth cars,” I said. At least, I didn’t think so. Worlds could reach the same level technologically even with no contact with one another, but they were unlikely to turn out
exactly
the same. Even worlds that had been in contact for centuries had evolved differently—just look at Earth and Valeria.

Speaking of…

“So whereabouts in Valeria were you from?” I asked Gervene. Native Valerians were distrustful of magic-wielders in general, which had always struck me as odd given their reliance on magic-fuelled batteries to power their hover-tech. But they’d been open to offworlders for centuries, long enough to see the worst magic was capable of. They were one of the worlds to first implement the rule of the Balance, the three laws.