Stolen (9 page)

Chapter 13

W
HEN
N
AT OPENED HER E
YES, SHE WAS
standing at the edge of the forest again, and Faix was with her. The gleaming white city in the clouds was gone. “What happened?” she asked. “I made the bridge—I saw it, I felt it—and then . . .”

“You fell,” Faix said, looking deeply troubled. “That was not supposed to happen. It's why I brought you here after I caught you.”

She looked around and saw fields of flowers growing around the skeletal remains of broken cars, and broken, burnt trees standing next to healthy ones. They were at the border, where Blue land turned into gray.

“Do you see it?” asked Faix. “Two worlds, overlapping each other, one dead and one alive?”

Or one dying, and the other coming into being,
Nat thought.

“Exactly,” he said, nodding.

“What does it have to do with falling from the bridge to Apis?” she asked.

But Faix smiled inscrutably again, and instead of answering, he walked over to stand between two gray oak trees, one withered, the other lush with life.
Here.

She stood next to him.

The air was dead in one spot and alive in the other, electric. One part it was numb and destroyed, and the other was alive, vibrant, exultant. Nat stood in the middle, excited and alarmed.

Can you feel it?

Yes.

“When you fell, I believed at first that you had lost your hold on the ether, but then I realized that I saw the bridge as well, and it is the
ether
that failed you. It has happened before, but not at this intensity.”

“The ether failed? But I don't understand . . .”

He nodded solemnly. “Your world is dying,” he said, “and the Blue is returning, or so we had thought.” He gestured from the muddy forest floor to a wall of light, glimmering and magnificent. Faix whispered an incantation underneath his breath and a vision appeared in the light, that of a dark and infinite sky. “To understand its failure, you must understand the history of Vallonis.”

In the beginning was the word.

And the word was made flesh.

A world was born from a bright light. Mountains rose from the oceans, rivers snaked through barren valleys, a dark land was covered with green vegetation. Brilliant white castles appeared on the horizon, villages full of every kind of creature, from smallmen to sylphs, centaurs, and flying horses.

This is Atlantis. The first iteration of the binding spell, the one that would cover the world with magic. In Atlantis, the worlds of science and magic existed peacefully together.

Nat watched as the shining white city was swallowed by the ocean.

But the spell was weak, and the magic failed.

Next, a green island glittered in the middle of a lake.

This is Avalon. The second iteration. The second attempt to unite the world of magic with the gray lands.

A young girl with fiery red hair stood on the shore and stared out at Nat before the island disappeared into the mist.

Then the image showed her and Faix's reflection as they stood in the forest.
This is the third age of Vallonis, or the Blue, as it is known in your world. The third iteration, the third attempt to bring magic back into the world.

Faix cleared his throat and the vision faded. He turned to Nat. “The spell has been cast several times now, and every time it does not hold. Atlantis disappeared into the depths. Avalon survives, but is closed to the world around it. And as for the Blue . . .” Faix shook his head. “When the third spell was cast, the ice came with it. The cold was born on the same day. The spell that was supposed to transform this world is also destroying it. The magic turned against itself.”

“It's broken,” she said quietly, thinking of the corruption, of the sickness that had turned the marked people into thrillers, living corpses, their magic rotting them from the inside.

A spell that was meant to heal the world, to bring magic and wonder back into existence, had brought death and destruction instead.

“The very nothingness from which everything is made has been tainted,” said Faix. “Some believe that when the spell was cast, it was broken because the earth was too full of poison, that the oceans were too polluted, that the very foundation of life had already begun to crumble.”

She stared at the lush green trees of the forest and past that, into the countryside, covered in gray ice, at the world where the stars couldn't penetrate the veil, where the sun was just a memory.

“So there's no hope then?” she said, gazing into iridescent eyes. “No refuge for the marked?”

“Are you asking if there is a way to escape the rot and the ice? Since Vallonis itself is corrupted?”

“Yeah.” Nat had fought for Vallonis, she had bled and her drakon was broken, for the dream of a place that did not even exist.

“The spell can be recast, the damage undone,” Faix said. “Vallonis can rise again.”

“How?”

“In the beginning was the word,” Faix reminded her. “There is a codex, a scroll or a book called the
Archimedes Palimpsest
which contains the instructions for the binding spell. I have studied its history. The spellcaster, the one who reads from its pages, must hold the power of Vallonis in their very soul. The spell requires a sacrifice in its casting, but it also carries a reward.”

“A reward?”

“The caster becomes king—or the queen—of Vallonis.”

“What's the price?”

“The spell demands the greatest sacrifice of its caster. When the spell was cast three times before, each time the magic faltered because the caster failed to provide a sufficient sacrifice. Queen Vallona, first ruler of Atlantis, cut off her hand to bind the spell, but it was not enough. Atlantis sank. Arthur gave up his love and his wife, but the power of Avalon faded. Our queen gave her own son's life to cast the spell, but still it was not enough. The spell did not hold and so our queen has sought to cast the spell once more.”

“And did she?”

Faix shook his head sadly. “No. The corruption froze the book inside the Gray Tower, and the key to unlocking it was stolen from us by one we thought was a friend. Without the key, the binding spell cannot be unmade nor recast.”

“What happened to this friend?” she asked, remembering his words.
You will be betrayed as I have been betrayed.

“We don't know. Only that the tower still stands, and the world is still broken.”

“So find this key, get the book, and fix this broken world? Is that it?” She smiled at her confidence, but she was a drakonrydder; this was what she was meant to do.

“Yes, but it is not as simple as it sounds. Even if we find the key and its thief, and are able to rescue the book from the tower, there is still no guarantee we can find the source of the corruption to set the spell to rights.” The charm on his necklace glowed.

“What is that?” she asked.

He smiled. “It is a pendant that contains a portion of the first tree of Atlantis, preserved from the time before the first Breaking. This necklace has been in my family for thousands of years. There were ten pendants at the start, but now only a few remain. The pendants are used in the recasting of the binding spell. When the last piece of Vallonis is gone, we will no longer have the ability to remake this world.”

“Can I see it?”

Faix lifted the pendant from his neck and it hung in the air, a red sphere held by what looked like a tiny gold drakon claw, and inside the sphere Nat could see a silhouette of a tree. A whole universe inside a charm.

They were silent.

Nat, Nat, Nat.

Faix cocked his head. This time, he'd heard it, too.

It was the same voice she had heard when she first entered the forest, the same voice she'd heard when she stood on the cliff.

The voice was stronger now, louder, and it hit her like a punch to the head. Someone wanted her attention. Someone was in pain. Someone needed help, someone she knew. The voice was familiar. Over and over she heard it until she had to put her hands over her ears.

Nat!
the voice called, screaming and full of terror.
Nat!

Nat! Don't let them—! I need you!

Chapter 14

T
HE HOSPITAL LOBBY WAS EMPTY.
There was no one at the security desk, no one at admittance, no one at the nurses' station. The floor was black with ash, the air was filled with smoke, and strobe lights flashed as the fire alarms rang. Wes removed his phone again to check his notes. Eliza was in room 712. He needed a map, some kind of directory, but the computer on the nurses' desk was dead.

He burst through steel doors that separated the lobby from the rest of the hospital and immediately plunged into darkness. A bright strobe flashed, lighting the corridor to the stairway, blinding him for a moment before vanishing again. Wes had seen enough to orient himself, and he made for the stairs, groping in the darkness, and the light flashed again, but too late this time as he slammed into a cart filled with sharp instruments. Steel and glass clattered to the floor.

The hospital was nearly empty, and outside, he could hear the countdown.
EASTERN
EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS
SEVEN
MINUTES.

When the strobe flashed, he saw the door to the stairway and opened it, just as a boy with a star mark on his cheek and black hair stumbled past him. A doctor in a white coat appeared in the hallway, and when he saw the marked boy, he ran in the opposite direction. Wes kept climbing up, waiting for the light to flash again, and when it did, it revealed the walls were pocked with bullet holes. He passed more doctors, running away, running down.

“Eliza Wesson! Do you know where Eliza Wesson is?”

But the doctors only shook their heads and ran, fearful and mute. Wes understood their fear; he was afraid, too. The building felt as if it might collapse at any moment. He was running in the darkness; the only light came from the emergency strobes and the occasional ripple of flame. The structure—the walls and floors—was starting to creak. The higher he went in the building, the hotter it got. The floors beneath his feet began to buckle.

EASTERN
EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS
SIX
MINUTES.

Wes ran up the dark stairway until he made it to what he thought was the seventh floor. Eliza was in room 712. He stumbled over a body, then another. A shaft of light illuminated the floor from a hole blown out the side of the building. A bright golden shaft—Wes supposed it was beautiful, but given the circumstances, he didn't pause to admire it. Eliza's floor was littered with the bodies of dead prisoners and dead soldiers. He checked every face but didn't see his sister's. Outside, the screams of the crowd were fading. The dome was emptying.

EASTERN
EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS
FIVE
MINUTES.

“Eliza!” Wes called, thinking she might hear him if she was still in the hospital. “Eliza!” he called again, but there was no reply.

He heard footsteps echoing in the stairway, heading up, not down. Soldiers. Crap. He'd given himself away by shouting.

At the far end of the corridor, Wes saw the same security officer from the guard booth who had chased his team from the entrance to the alley and now the hospital.

“YOU! STOP!”

Wes opened the nearest door and crashed into an office, plunging into desks and Nutri coolers and computer screens. Where were Shakes and Farouk? Had they made it out? They knew the drill. They'd give Wes five minutes and that was it. There was no waiting. They should've gotten out, hopefully made it to the way station somehow. Too many people had been hurt or lost while trying to help him find Eliza: Liannan, Roark, Brendon, and now Shakes and Farouk. His team. His family.

The footsteps faded. Wes pushed through a door on the other side and found himself in a different corridor, a long white passage, lined with doors on both sides. He'd found the prison cells.

The strobe flashed. Wes checked the room numbers. 702. He was close. More flashes. 708. 710. Finally 712.

Eliza's room. Wes kicked the door open.

The strobe flashed in the hallway, illuminating the room. It was tidy, but empty. He had expected nothing less. All the rooms were empty; everyone was gone. But he had wanted to go inside the hospital on the fleeting chance that she might still be there. The strobe flashed, freezing an image in his mind's eye. White linens. White robe. A desk covered in paper.

Heavy footsteps outside, coming closer.

Wes lifted one of the manila folders on the desk. The strobe flashed. He saw her name typed on the front. A pink rabbit sat on the desk, the fabric faded, the fur worn. He had no memory of the toy. But it had to be from her childhood. He took the rabbit; it was something. If he never found his sister, he would have this one token, he thought as he stuffed the rabbit into his coat pocket. Had she been transported out already? Or was she one of those marked prisoners tearing apart the domed city?

He was about to leave when the door clicked open and he felt the barrel of a gun pressed against his back. Wes raised his hands, placing his palms on the back of his head and weaving his fingers together. He knew the drill, he knew how to surrender—he had been a soldier once.

“Turn around, slowly.”

Wes did as he was told. The light flashed, and he saw the security guard's gun aimed at his chest.

“Ryan Wesson?” the guard barked.

How did they know his name?

“ARE YOU RYAN WESSON?”

“Yes! Yes! I surrender. You can put that down.”

The light flashed again.

EASTERN
EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS
TWO
MINUTES.

The guard nodded, reached into his pack, and produced a pair of plasti-cuffs.

“What's the point, we're both dead,” Wes said as the officer snapped the cuffs on his wrists.

“Don't worry, icehole, they'll get us out,” the guard said, pulling out his radio. “I got him. Yeah, he confirmed. Meet us at the front.” He pushed Wes out of the room, to the corridor, toward the hole in the building where a blackbird heli was waiting, hovering.

The security officer pushed Wes out the opening and onto the floor of the chopper, and that was the last thing Wes remembered before the building exploded, crumbling to the ground, and everything went black.