The Fractured Empire (The World Apart Series Book 1)

by Robin D. Mahle

  My head wasn't in the right place. Not only could I still feel Trauman's blood on my hands under these gauntlets, but I had nearly fallen over when I caught sight of the man attacking the girl. That mask had haunted my dreams for three years now. Just seeing it made my scar ache again.

  Who were those men? How many of them were there? If I hadn't been so outnumbered, I would have tried to take one for questioning. I didn't know how they were involved in the explosion, but they knew something. I was sure of that.

  I just watched the last man my father spoke to die. The necklace powerful enough to have caused the Silent Explosion was in the same building, not to mention those men. They know something about the explosion. That’s too many connections to be coincidence.

  My gut told me the masked men had killed Trauman. Gunther would have given me the statistical likelihood and outlined a hundred different possible scenarios before I kindly asked him to shut right up. But I knew, as my father had known, that sometimes a gut feeling was enough. Those men had killed the professor and tried to steal the necklace tonight.

  But why?

  In all my digging, I hadn't even been able to put a name to the group associated with that mask. It was cloaked in secrecy and guarded with precision. I was starting to think I was one of the few people who had seen the masks at all and lived to wonder about it.

  I tried to focus on the situation at hand, but it wasn't easy. I was still reeling from everything that had happened in the museum. I had been soaked with blood and out of options, so I had stolen the Red Son's uniform off his unconscious body. I had felt especially guilty about taking the man’s custom-made sword, especially when I had my own retractable one hidden down the back of my jacket. But, to not do so would have been a dead giveaway.

  It wasn't my proudest moment, but I had been trained for practicality, not sentimentality. The man had still been alive. I had debated calling for help, but I knew it would be only moments before someone came for Trauman and discovered the Red Son as well. So I had left the door unlocked and walked calmly away.

  I had taken the back hall to the Exhibit Room as quickly as I could without drawing attention to myself. The necklace became my sole priority. When I reached the girl, she was seconds from losing her head.

  That socialite was now staring at me with disbelief and not a small amount of terror. She opened her mouth to let out a scream, so I lunged toward her and placed a gloved hand over her mouth. I had no idea if the men were giving chase, but I wasn’t taking any chances. She attempted to pull away. I reached around with my aching shoulder, ignoring the shooting pains, to bring her back into my hold.

  "Quiet! I don't know if anyone is… oof!" I was cut off when the girl landed a well-placed knee into my groin. The sudden pain caused me to loosen my grip, allowing her to slip away. I put my hands up, showing her I meant no harm, still bent over with a grimace.

  Please don’t scream…

  Surprisingly, the girl didn't make another sound. She was nervously fidgeting with the small, glittery bag hanging from her wrist. When she lifted her head, the initial fear in her eyes was replaced with a startling determination. She pulled out a small cylinder from her purse, about twice the size of the one I had taken from Trauman and pointed it at my face. It didn't take me long to recognize it. ShutEye. Nerve spray issued to Red Sons to help subjugate noncompliant or hostile civilians. One spray of that, and it would be lights out for me.

  Before she could set it off, I slipped to the side, grabbed her hand and in a spinning motion wrenched the canister from her. It was hard to make out in the moonlight, but I was pretty sure the expression on her face was pure, unadulterated fury. Before she could do or say anything else, I pressed the button on the canister, causing a small mist to jet directly into her face. The effects were instantaneous. She crumpled toward the ground. After only the slightest hesitation, I decided to catch her. Hissing through the pain in my shoulder, I hoisted her up and made my way into the darkening woods.

  I had stashed a go-bag in a convenient abandoned building, where Gunther was supposed to meet me if things went awry. And things had clearly gone awry.

  It was only moments before I emerged with the girl in near total darkness, but I was no stranger to traversing the wilderness minus one of my senses. For training, Father had blindfolded us completely, so the slim beams of moonlight peeking through the trees were more assistance than I had grown accustomed to. Fortunately, the clearing wasn’t far from the tree line.

  My shoulder was throbbing by the time we reached the clearing. The girl wasn't heavy, but she seemed to be wearing a hundred-pound dress with folds of fabric that kept trapping my arms and blowing in my face. I plopped her unceremoniously against a tree, wondering how wrong it would be to just leave her here after I cut the necklace off.

  A heavy sigh escaped me. Gunther won’t let me do that… maybe I can just drag her to the edge of the woods.

  Crouching in front of her, I slipped off the Red Son’s gauntlets and reached around to undo the necklace. She was still out cold. Never having used nerve spray, I couldn't remember how long the effects lasted. Some of her hair had fallen from its pins, but I could feel the entirety of the chain around her slim neck, and there was no clasp. I wasn't an expert in jewelry, but surely all necklaces had some sort of closing mechanism.

  My bag was in the branches of a nearby tree. I grabbed it with my good arm and felt around for a flashlight. I paused to listen, straining my ears. There were no signs of the men chasing me nor signs of my brother, so that was a mixed bag. I decided to risk the tiny beam of light.

  Even on a closer inspection of the necklace, I could see no way to get it off. The front of it was constructed of heavy gold rectangles, increasing in size until they got to the ornate jewel in front. In the back was a thinner chain of woven gold connecting the two rectangles furthest to the back.

  I ran my fingers through my hair and ran through my options. The amulet’s supposed to be the important part, right?

  I flipped off the flashlight. Then, I grabbed my strongest dagger and hooked it around the thinnest part of the chain, facing away from her neck. I put my hand around the front of the necklace to protect her, then pulled at an angle with all my remaining strength. I heard the clink of breaking metal, but the necklace didn't give.

  What the hell? I grabbed the flashlight again. It was my dagger that had broken. I blew out a huff of air. Of course it had. I let the flashlight fall to the ground while I stared at the now-jagged edge of my dagger.

  On the way down, the light caught on a chain in the girl’s lap. I gingerly picked it up. It was some kind of locket, bronze and modern in style. Though it was intricate and looked like it had cost a fortune, it clearly wasn’t part of the amulet. She must have been wearing it underneath the ancient necklace.

  Light rustling in the woods sounded behind me.

  I have company.

  And that’s when the girl began to stir.

  The Heiress

  It was the day of Mama and Amelie’s funeral. Theirs weren't the only funerals being held today, but we had opted out of the mass memorial, preferring to mourn them separately. The bodies had been crushed in the rubble, so the flaming rafts that drifted out to sea were empty save for a small urn each flanked by the mementos we had placed with them. My mother's wedding ring and my sister's locket had both been left at home on the day they died so as to not draw attention to their wealth in the fourth sector, so my father and I placed the jewelry on the funeral rafts, along with a handful of photographs, as was our custom.

  My father stood stoically by my side at the front of the crowd that had come to pay their respects. He didn't put a consoling arm around me or reach out at all. I felt my eyes well with tears.

  "Not where they can see you," he said in a low voice, his body rigid. I hated him in that moment, but I stared ahead, unseeing, and willed the tears not to spill. I wasn't succeeding until a hand on my shoulder grounded me.

  "Deep breaths," Locke
said quietly. He was the head of my father’s guard, so my family had gotten to know him fairly well in the past two years. He had come today out of respect, rather than in his official capacity. "Count backwards from five, taking a breath in between each one. I'll do it with you." And he did. He didn't remove his hand from my shoulder.

  When the formalities of the funeral were over, it was customary to stay and enjoy food and drink together. I wasn't sure how I would endure that, but Locke stepped in again.

  "Director, shall I escort Ms. Kensington home where she might be away from prying eyes?" His carefully-worded question reminded my father of his insistence that the world not see the Kensington family as living entities with actual emotions, and to my everlasting gratitude, my father nodded. That day was the first of many in which Locke would save me in one way or another.

  Chapter Eleven

  Adelaide

  My eyes didn't want to open. That should have bothered me, but I couldn't seem to dredge up any fear. Sensations came to me disjointedly, as though in a dream. The dry crunch of leaves underfoot. The scent of leather and cedar and something distinctly masculine. Strong arms cradling me gently to a solid chest. Somewhat labored breathing tickling my ear. Before I could piece these things together to form a coherent picture, the swaying motion of being carried lulled me back under.

  The next time I came to wasn't nearly so peaceful.

  I awoke to a throbbing in my head, my mouth feeling like it had sprouted a desert. My ankle was swollen and pulsating with pain. Something rough dug into my skull, and the dampness from the ground seeped through the underside of my gown. I tried to remember what had happened, where I might be now, but my foggy brain was getting me nowhere. I forced my bleary eyes open and blinked them a couple of times to clear my vision. What I saw made me recoil against the tree I appeared to be propped against. My heart pounded in my throat, terror chasing away the last vestiges of my drowsiness.

  The man from before, the one wearing Locke's uniform, was crouched before me holding a broken knife. I remembered now. The moonlight glinted off the jagged edges of his blade. He also had my sister’s ashes dangling from their chain in his hand. Before I could scream in either anger or fear, a deep voice startled us both.

  "Clark! What the hell?" Whoever it was sounded angry, though he kept his volume low.

  The man in front of me, Clark, lifted his eyes to the sky and exhaled loudly. Then he glanced at the knife in his hand, as though surprised to find it there. He stood up, lowering the hand that held the weapon.

  "Oh, this." He gestured with the knife. "Not what it looks like." He had the nerve to look exasperated.

  As if he had just been knocked out and kidnapped.

  Clark pointed at me. "Little Ms. Debutante here is wearing the necklace, and when I tried to cut it off her, the damn thing broke my favorite knife."

  So he hadn't been trying to harm me, if he’s telling the truth.

  There was a beat of silence. "What are you even doing here, Xav?" Clark asked.

  "Gunther asked for my help. He said he had a bad feeling about this mission," the deep voice said.

  I turned my head to see, but the beam of a flashlight on the ground nearby rendered the rest of the forest black and imperceptible.

  "Don't be mad, Brother. Would you rather I have brought one of the other men?" This voice sounded younger and somehow warmer. It had a slight accent I couldn’t place.

  "Debatable," Clark answered. He stood up, taking the flashlight and my necklace with him, and walked in the direction of the voices. Even with the light by them, I couldn't make out much about the two new men with Clark's large frame blocking my view. Furious whispering ensued, along with a slew of unfamiliar hand gestures.

  This is my chance to escape. I tried to move. Unfortunately, my limbs were still too heavy from when the bastard had sprayed me with my own ShutEye. And I’m getting nowhere on this ankle. No doubt Clark had realized that before sauntering off.

  Not to mention, I would die before leaving what I had of my sister’s ashes. I needed a plan, so I resorted to what I did best, taking the facts I had and analyzing them. I was fairly certain there were only the two new additions. That meant it was now me, injured, against three men, at least one of whom was exceptionally skilled. I couldn't be sure how long he had carried me or in what direction.

  These trees were the same as the ones by the museum, so it was reasonable to assume we were still in Graham Forest.

  That’s not helpful. This forest isn’t huge, but it’s certainly large enough to get turned around in. I held back a groan. Even if I could hobble on one foot to traverse the forest in the dark and not get eaten by something, I had no idea where I was or how to get home. The more I analyzed the facts, the heavier the sinking feeling in my gut became.

  Despite my desire to travel, I had no training in navigation. My breath was starting to come quicker. Running off now, in the middle of the forest, could prove to be deadlier than staying.

  Clark did say he wasn’t trying to hurt me. Even if he was, perhaps there’s an ally in one of the newcomers. That was something.

  I closed my eyes as thoughts of my friends made a cold sweat break out upon my brow.

  Did Perry and Nell get out all right?

  It was likely the prince was fine even if the men had descended on the ballroom. As the only heir to the throne, he had a retinue of guards, some in uniform and others sprinkled throughout the crowd. Nell was another story. I had no idea what had happened to her.

  If they’re safe, do they know that I’m not? Between a lifetime of ditching class and the fiasco two evenings ago, I did have an unfortunate history of escaping undesirable events.

  Also, a glance downward revealed the bodice of my strapless dress slipping precariously low.

  Fantastic. Part of me realized this was the least of my problems at the moment, but I tried to yank it up anyway. My efforts were in vain. I was sitting on the folds of the dress, and I couldn't summon the level of coordination needed to accomplish the task. I had never been especially modest, but it was one more infuriating thing I had no control over.

  I needed to calm down. I took a deep breath, counting backwards from five, like Locke had taught me.

  Locke!

  "Excuse me. It's Clark, correct?" I spoke evenly as I directed my question at the huddle of arguing men. Maybe it was stupid to draw their attention back to me, but I had already determined I had no real options here. I desperately needed to know what had happened to the man who was more a father to me than The Director. The whispering stopped, and all three men moved closer.

  The one now holding the flashlight with a gloved hand was slightly built with lean muscle. Flaming red hair curled around his goggle-bedecked newsboy cap, and his skin was so light, it was nearly translucent. He was wearing dark pants and suspenders over a lighter-colored shirt.

  The other was his polar opposite, a colossal man with dark skin and even darker hair, mostly covered by a fedora. My attention was on Clark, though, whose size was somewhere in between the two. He was far enough from the tiny orb of light that I knew the deep red of his stolen uniform should be hidden by the shadows the forest was making, but I could clearly see it in my mind's eye. My vision went red at the thought, anger and fear competing in my body for dominance.

  "Where is the man to whom that uniform belongs? What have you done with him?" My question was met with silence while the three shapes looked at one another, further enraging me. I wanted to stand up and confront him, but my legs were still refusing to bear my weight. I had to settle for glaring at him from the ground, hoping he could feel the heat of my gaze.

  "I asked you a question. Were you planning on answering or does your repertoire of skills end at kidnapping defenseless women?" That elicited a snort from the large man, while the smaller gasped.

  "I did not kidnap her!" Clark said.

  "So, she came willingly?" the redhead asked hopefully.

  Now it was my turn to snort. "That
depends on whether you consider being knocked out and carried into the wilderness without one's consent 'coming willingly.'" I hoped the sarcasm in my voice was evident. “He also stole my necklace.” At this, the redhead's face turned hard. The expression looked wrong on his face. He looked at Clark, who was busy glaring daggers at me.

  "As I was trying to explain, what I did was save her life," he responded, still not taking his eyes off me. "You'd think she might be grateful. As for carting her off into the forest, the men were chasing us, and she was doing her damnedest to ensure we were both a head shorter, so I did what I had to do. I was going to let her go as soon as I got the necklace, but—" He cut off and gestured with the clearly broken knife. It was hard to believe a necklace had done that. “And I did not steal your necklace. I was trying to get the other one when this one was broken instead.”

  Cold fury filled me when he said that.

  “You broke it? Give it back before you destroy it entirely, you incompetent prat.”

  He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Truth be told, his explanation about how I wound up here made sense when he put it that way, but I wasn't about to admit that, not when I was still trembling with rage at the sight of my damaged necklace swinging from his hand. My insult appeared to have bounced right off him, and he still wasn’t handing it back. The two men appeared mollified as well, but he had left a crucial part out.

  "And the uniform?" I asked in the cold, demanding voice I thought of privately as my heiress voice.

  "I borrowed it off a Red Son." He was deliberately being evasive, I was sure.

  "Yes, I know exactly which Red Son it belonged to, and I know he would not have given it willingly. By what means did you take it?"

  "The man I took it from was unconscious. Someone — not me — did that before I got to him. I took the uniform, because…" He hesitated, then shrugged. "I needed it."