Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (2 page)

I gritted my teeth and walked into camp, where some people had set up a makeshift fire.
Find allies,
whispered a voice in the back of my head. It sounded like Nell—practical, cool in a crisis.

“You’re the one they stopped for?” a woman asked as I approached. She wore a tattered suit, torn and mud-stained, but clearly from an Alliance world. Earth? She handed me something I vaguely recognised as the kind of factory-made instant energy bars they made on Valeria.

“Oh, thanks,” I said, ripping off the plastic. The unidentifiable gravel-like substance didn’t look particularly appetising, but at this point, I didn’t care. “Where’d you get this?”

“At the last pit-stop,” she said. “Swiped a bunch of them. They let us gather supplies. Kind of nice of them. There’s nothing out here in the wilderness.”

“This is Valerian,” I said, between mouthfuls.

“Yeah, some cross-world traders were shipping them. Pity we couldn’t steal any of their tech. Then we might have a chance in the stars of getting out of here.”

I looked at her. “You know a way out?”

Someone laughed. “Who is she?” asked a claw-footed man—had to be Avian—who had two claws missing from one foot, giving him a pronounced limp. He spoke English with a halting accent.

“I’m Ada,” I said. “I’m from Earth. Where are they taking us?”

A guy leaning on a rock laughed, showing slightly elongated teeth disturbingly similar to my once-friend Delta’s. “Where, she says. Haven’t a clue, have we?”

“Ignore him,” said the woman in the business suit. “I’m Gervene, from Valeria. They caught me in the escape tunnel. Is that where they got you, too?”

Huh? “I don’t know about escape tunnels,” I said slowly. “I was in the Passages…”

“The escape tunnels are in the Passages,” said Gervene. “I assume you were running away, right?”

I shook my head. “No. I was in there investigating something, and the Stoneskins came through a door. It wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“Wasn’t supposed to? Who are you, the doorway police?” The long-toothed man laughed loudly at his own joke, and Gervene smacked him on the arm.

“Quiet,” she said. “They’ll hear us.”

“They were looking for you,” said long-toothed man to me. “Heard them talking about a girl.”

“But—that’s impossible,” I said. “They found me by total accident. I wasn’t even meant to be there.”

“They have their ways,” said another man, who was covered in so much dirt and blood I couldn’t tell where his hands ended and his sleeves began. Nor if it was his blood, or someone else’s.

“Tracking,” said Gervene. “They’ve been combing the Passages for months. Sending their creepy little Cethraxian spies.”

“What?” This situation was getting more bizarre by the minute. “You’re saying they have Cethraxian spies… looking for me?”

“Considering we’ve finally started moving again now they’ve found you? I’d say so.” The long-toothed man shuddered theatrically. “I hope it’s quick.”

“I hope they destroy themselves,” said Gervene.

I looked from one face to the other, frowning. The other girl in the group appeared no older than fifteen, terrified, and hadn’t spoken a word.

“What am I missing?” I asked. “What’s their deal, anyway?”

“No clue,” said Gervene. “Whatever they’re planning, they need a lot of magical energy. They picked up any magic-wielders they ran into while searching the Passages. They caught me fleeing Valeria through the escape tunnel. You really don’t know about it?”

“I’m seriously missing something here,” I said. “So you’re all magic-wielders?”

Several nods.

“And they need us for their plan… okay. But me? What do they need me for?”

Probably to blow something up,
an unwelcome voice whispered in my ear. I might as well be a walking bomb, given how the adamantine in my blood made me able to channel unlimited amounts of magical energy. Here, away from the Alliance, on a high-magic world…

I didn’t dare think about what they might want to use me for.

“They said they needed my
help
,” I said. “But seeing as they’re deluded psychos, I’ve no clue what they meant.”

The long-toothed man’s mouth twisted into an odd smile. “I have a feeling things are going to get interesting around here.”

“Where are they going, anyway?” I asked. “Is this their world?”

“No,” said Gervene. “At least, I don’t think so. It’s not their destination, anyway. From what I could pick up, they’re searching for a certain place. Whichever world they’re going to, they haven’t found it yet.”

“You’re Valerian,” I said slowly. “Why were you running away?”

Gervene’s expression closed up. “I get to keep some secrets,” she said. “I don’t believe for a minute you were there by coincidence.”

“They were tracking powerful sources,” said the avian man. “That’s what they said.”

Sources. Oh, shit.
They must have picked up my trace, like a tracker, when I faced the god. I’d channelled so much magic, it had been like I’d sent a beacon across the Multiverse. Of course someone would have noticed. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the signal had gone to all the Alliance’s trackers and scrambled them. And the Stoneskins must have caught the signal, opened a door… and waited. Then I’d gone into the Passages less than twenty-four hours after I’d been on Vey-Xanetha, and stepped right in front of the door. I’d practically broadcasted my location without even realising it.

Dammit, Ada.
I could practically hear Nell’s lecturing voice telling me to consider the consequences of my actions. But really, who could have predicted I’d wind up kidnapped by these thugs? What did it matter, anyway? I needed to get out of here.

“So there’s no way back to the Passages from here?”

The long-toothed man laughed.

“Stars, no. Don’t you think we’d have run for it by now?” said Gervene.

“All right,” I said, crossing my arms defensively. “Just checking. They got through to the Passages in the first place, right?”

“Yeah, they have their ways,” said Long-Toothed Guy. “Well, the StoneKing does.”

“StoneKing,” I said. “Right. That’s their leader?”

“Yeah, can’t say I want to meet him,” said Gervene. “They say he personally executed the last person to try to run.”

“Not surprising,” muttered the bloodstained man.

“What happened to you?” I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity.

No answer. The guy shifted his feet, eyes fixed on the ground.

“Okay. Just wondered.”

“Might as well try to escape while you can,” said Long-Toothed Guy. “Before you lose hope like the rest of us.”

“So that’s it? You’re planning to march to your deaths?”

“To wherever they’re taking us,” said Gervene. “Every other world-stop’s a transit point on Cethrax, I know, but we can’t run off alone in that place, not right in the middle of wyvern territory. None of the worlds we’ve been through have been survivable. I don’t have anything on me, none of us have any weapons—nothing can hurt those Stoneskins. Just keep quiet and hope they don’t kill you first.”

“Wow.” I shook my head. “Real optimistic, guys. Why Cethrax?” Also,
wyvern territory?
Like things couldn’t get worse.
As if, Ada. You’ve jumped from the frying pan onto the surface of the sun.

“I heard it from one of them,” said Gervene. “Cethrax overlaps with most worlds at some point, through the escape tunnels.”

Again with the escape tunnels. “You’re not talking about the hidden Passages, are you?” I asked. I didn’t actually know how far the only Passage unknown to the Alliance extended, but it did overlap with Cethrax. A lot…

“Guess they’re hidden from most people.” Gervene shrugged. “They’re used for illegal trade amongst the allied worlds, if they’re willing to risk the monsters. No Alliance guards.”

Holy hell. “That’s how the offworld trade gets around Alliance laws,” I said, before I could stop myself. “I always wondered…” I cut myself off before I gave the game away. Not three months ago, I’d lived under the Alliance’s radar in London, working with a whole network of people to help other offworlders fleeing worlds like mine. Nell had wanted me to have as normal a life as possible so she’d never told me the details of what went on behind the scenes, but I’d figured a lot of it out. There were hundreds of people involved, from the volunteers at the world-transit points who helped teach offworlders how to blend in on the new world they’d be living on, to people like Delta and me, who helped them travel safely through the Passages to their new destination without being caught by the Alliance or eaten by one of Cethrax’s monsters. I’d always thought of the hidden Passage as a lucky coincidence.

But it made sense other people used it, too. The illegal offworld technology Jeth experimented with had to come from somewhere. Delta’s family had used those tunnels to keep contact with Cethrax, and so had the Conners.

Then it hit me what else she’d said. “Did you say Cethrax overlaps with most worlds?”

Gervene blinked. “It’s part-incorporeal, new doors open all the time. Usually they’re drawn to the Passages, but sometimes they’re drawn to other sources.”

Sources. Like Vey-Xanetha. Cethrax had a connection with that place, and the Stoneskins had used it. Hard to believe no one had thought to look into it before. But so few people knew about magic sources. So few, an operation like this had slipped through the Passages unseen.

“Damn,” I said. “That’s how the Stoneskins dominated the vox-kind?”

“Cethrax?” said Gervene. “Of course. The Cethraxians believe the Stoneskins to be the incarnation of the undergods they worship.”

I shivered. My last experience with living gods hadn’t ended well.

I have to escape. There has to be a way.

***

I woke to the same, starless black sky.

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but I’d been walking for hours, and I was numb all over with exhaustion and shock.
Kay,
was the first thought that came to mind. I curled up, biting down on my hand to keep from crying. He’d tell me to stay strong. He’d tell me to fight.

You’re all right.

A few tears escaped, but I fiercely brushed them away. I’d make these bastards pay.

Around me were the sleeping forms of the other human prisoners. Some had huddled under the blankets, others had folded them to make the rock-hard ground less uncomfortable to lie on. I glanced over at the Stoneskins’ tents and didn’t see any movement, but for all I knew, they could disguise themselves as rocks or something. You never knew.

Don’t think.
I stood up to pace around the camp. The ground was rock, the sky was blank, and we might have been the only people left in the Multiverse.

The thought made me shiver uncontrollably. I couldn’t believe I’d let myself get captured again. Nell would give me the lecture of a lifetime if I ever got home. Another sharp pain pierced my heart. My family didn’t know where I was. That I was alive. Would the
Alliance
think I was dead? How could anyone follow me if they didn’t know which world I was on?

“What are you doing, walking around?” hissed the avian man who lay nearby.

I shrugged.

“Another mad one,” said a nearby male. “They always kill those first.”

“Nah, she’s pretty. They’ll want to keep her.”

“StoneKing did say he was looking for a queen,” snickered the long-toothed guy. I shot him an angry glare.

“Seeing as everyone’s awake,” I said, quietly, “can anyone tell me why they haven’t just opened a doorway to wherever they’re going?”

A pause. I suspected their sources—whatever they’d used to open the door—had burned out, but how much did the others know?

“They ran out,” said the avian man. “They tried using some of the prisoners as sacrifices, but it didn’t work. They had an… instrument they stole from the Alliance. That didn’t work for long. I can’t understand their speech.”

Klathican. They spoke Classical… but that didn’t mean they came from Klathica. It was the most common language in the Multiverse, after all. But who
were
the Stoneskins?

“Right,” I said. “They don’t seem worried they’ll lose us in the wilderness.”

“We’re expendable,” said the man. “Useful, but expendable. They’re planning to sacrifice all of us, you know.”

“Nah, they’re planning on sucking the magic right out of us.” The long-toothed man shuddered theatrically.

“That’s not possible, idiot,” snapped Gervene, with a glance at the terrified-looking teenage girl huddled nearby.

“Are you definitely all magic-wielders?” I asked.

“I reckon so,” said the first man who’d spoken. “There was a girl who didn’t have magic they caught, they killed her right away.”

“Shit,” I said, my throat closing up.
They’re amassing magic-wielders for something. An army?

I held back a shudder. I’d escaped a similar fate on my homeworld. For over twenty years on Earth, I’d thought I was safe, secure in the knowledge I wouldn’t be used as an assassin, like if I’d remained on my homeworld, Enzar. Enzar’s war had consumed whole worlds, and magic-born magebloods fought against the ruling Royals, who’d injected their children—like me—with magic to give them a fighting edge in magical warfare. Safe, with my family. We’d been happy. Not always financially secure, but happy.