The Fractured Empire (The World Apart Series Book 1)

by Robin D. Mahle

  I plopped her on my bed and took the book out of my nightstand drawer while Clark glanced around my room. I looked around through his eyes and saw the opulent room of a pampered debutante, exactly what he would expect from someone like me. I hadn't been the one to decorate any of it, but that hardly mattered. That probably made it more excessive.

  I sighed. We don't have time for me to care what he thinks. This will all be over soon anyway.

  I flipped through the huge book as rapidly as I could, afraid carrying it out would attract too much attention. Clark bounced on the balls of his feet, impatient. About three quarters of the way in, I started to lose hope. Perhaps it was just a book of fairy tales after all. Finally, I came across an illustrated picture of the amulet around my neck, accurate down to the strange symbols inscribed into the casing.

  Just then, the front door crashed open. Multiple footsteps boomed through the flat. Clark took a defensive stance in between the doorway and me, but I yanked on his arm. He looked at me in confusion, and I shook my head. He was trained and armed, and I was no expert, but there were at least three people coming. I knew by now it was his nature to charge in and go down fighting, and I couldn't let him do that here. I tore out the page I was on as well as the next few and stuffed them down my shirt, silently apologizing to the book for vandalizing it in that manner.

  I stepped in front of Clark just in time for five Red Sons to crowd the hallway before us. I scanned them for signs that one might be Locke. It was impossible to tell with their identical uniforms and covered faces, but I doubted it. If Locke had been there, he would have spoken by now, and they wouldn't be holding such threatening stances.

  "We were alerted you were here," one said in an unfamiliar voice.

  I wondered if the lift operator had been discovered or if the staff earlier had heard more than they let on, not that it mattered now.

  "Please come with us to Redshaw Headquarters, Ms. Kensington. This man is under arrest for your kidnapping."

  "What, no manhandling this time?" I asked in a cold voice, mind racing.

  "Your fiance has made it clear your safety is of the utmost priority, ma'am. Please come peaceably and answer our questions, and you will be detained no further. Your father is also anxious to see you." The same man delivered all this information in a monotone voice, tinny through the mask.

  Perry must have spread news of our engagement to keep me safe, and I could hardly argue now if that move was keeping me alive. What effect it would have on my future remained to be seen, but I could use this.

  I risked a glance at Clark's face. It was murderous.

  The Renegade

  My father had left in a hurry with a distracted look in his eyes. I was the only one awake to ask him where he was going. Xavier was a chronically late sleeper, and Gunther had been up all night working on a project.

  "To meet with Professor Trauman. I have had my suspicions — well, we can talk about it later. The note for the meeting came with no notice, and I can't miss the opportunity. I'll see you tonight, Son." Those were the last words he ever spoke to me. Less than an hour later, a flash of blue light would beam evenly through the torrential rain, only one level below our modest country home.

  I had wanted to leave immediately to look for Father. What if that had been where he was? Xavier had reminded me that we were unlikely to find him in the chaos. That he would want us to stay here so he could find us. So, we had stayed and paced and sparred and worried the day away. Several hours after that, we would hear on the news that our Father was being blamed for the explosion. And only seconds after that, the Red Sons would come to break in our door.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Clark

  I wasn't sure if I should be more aggravated that Addie wasn’t denying I had kidnapped her or that she had a fiancé she forgot to mention.

  And here I thought we were past the debate of whether I had kidnapped her. "I'm glad you've all come to your senses," she said haughtily. "Yes, this man did kidnap me, and forced me to come here. He had help, though. They're downstairs now. A large, dark-skinned man and a smaller, pale one with red hair." She didn't look at me as she spoke, which meant she missed my gaping fury at her words. She wasn't finished yet, though. "I demand you arrest all three and take them in for interrogation. I believe they have information vital to our great capital's security."

  If the men were surprised at her words, they didn't show it. I couldn’t help it when my mouth dropped open. I wanted to think she was playing them, but I couldn't see how getting us arrested would fit into any scheme. Not to mention her as-yet-unmentioned engagement.

  I clearly don't know her at all. Is this why she stopped me from fighting?

  My blood boiled, more at myself than her, for being foolish enough to forget that she was the enemy. Standing here in her perfect, sheltered space, I should have seen that more than ever. Two men roughhoused me into handcuffs.

  I could have fought just to be ornery, but what was the point? There were five of them, each extensively trained and heavily armed with swords, and only one of me. I decided against injuring myself for the time being.

  They marched us out of the penthouse, the leader in front and two on either side of Addie and me. I wondered if Addie recognized her precarious position as well as I did. She looked more like an escorted prisoner, albeit an un-handcuffed one, than an heiress with an armed guard.

  We all fit shoulder-to-shoulder in the posh elevator. When we came to the first floor, more men were waiting. The rest of the lobby was empty but for my brothers and the staff. The leader of the Red Sons who had come upstairs ordered my brothers to be taken also. I shook my head, signaling for them not to fight. By some miracle, Xavier listened. We were outmanned, and I couldn't bear them being hurt for my stupid mistakes. The staff stared as we were all taken outside into waiting cars.

  I had the immense pleasure of being put with Adelaide, though I did enjoy her affronted face when they explained there was nowhere else for her to ride but in the back like a prisoner. If she saw it for the lie it was, she didn't let on. She only showed them all her haughty mask, a face I had not missed at all. I was starting to wonder if that was her mask or if the face on the boat had been the real cover-up.

  "Aren't you concerned for my safety?" she demanded.

  "Ms. Kensington, as future princess, you can be assured of our protection going forward. Let's just get through the questioning first." His voice was strangely monotone, and his word choice was interesting. The balance of power was tricky on Central. The Red Sons didn't directly answer to the monarchy, and the way he said questioning made me think it was not going to be pleasant. They did not like the monarchy throwing their weight around, meddling in Redshaw business. That much was clear.

  Then the rest of what he said registered. Not that it should have been a surprise, but this was more than a lie of omission. Hadn't Adelaide directly told me that there was nothing romantic between her and the prince?

  Was anything she said true?

  Still, knowing what she was in store for, I wasn't completely devoid of sympathy. Either she was the world's greatest actress, or she genuinely had no idea what the sinister questioning would entail. Though, why I cared at all was beyond me. I needed to focus on my own fate. The future princess of the most powerful empire in the world could certainly see to her own welfare.

  The drive was hardly worth getting in the car for. Addie had stared out the window the entire two minutes, unmoving, and the men driving us were silent. When the men from the front seats got out of the car first, Addie turned her head almost imperceptibly in my direction.

  "On my mark," she whispered, so low I wondered if I had imagined it.

  If she thought that I either trusted her after all of this or that I had even the slightest clue what was going on at this point, she was wrong on both counts. I didn't have a chance to convey that thought before the men opened our doors and yanked us out, her only slightly more gently than me.

  Add
ie straightened herself out and walked as though she was in charge toward her father's building. And maybe she was.

  "Ms. Kensington, we need to go to—"

  "Interrogation. Yes, I'm aware. Or was your concern that my memory was failing me since the last two times you mentioned it?"

  "No, Ms. Kensington." Even through the helmet, frost could be clearly heard in his tone.

  But again, Addie declined to react, only continued her trek into the building. The doorman and secretary both looked shocked to see her, but she didn't bother to acknowledge their existence, either.

  The car holding my brothers arrived shortly after ours, and soon we were all gathered in the lobby. Xavier's face was a thundercloud, and Gunther's eyes were narrowed as he took the room in. They looked overall no worse for wear. It was too soon for relief, but I was grateful we were all intact for now.

  A group of Peace Keepers came in from a back door.

  "Think you can handle escorting them to the interrogation room?" The Red Son who had captured us said disdainfully.

  The Peace Keeper nodded, no small amount of hatred in his eyes. Clearly, they didn't consider one unarmed girl and three handcuffed boys a threat. They were probably right. Though, my brothers and I were a force to be reckoned with when we worked as a team, this place was crawling with both Red Sons and Peace Keepers. I doubted we could all make it out of the building unharmed, and I wouldn't risk one of my brothers.

  "Let's get this over with," Addie said, marching for a narrow hallway.

  "Ms. Kensington, we were—" The Peace Keeper began.

  "I am quite certain I know my way to the interrogation room."

  She did?

  "You can get there from here, can you not?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "Then stop wasting everyone's time and be on with it." Her authoritative tone left no room for argument, especially when the Red Sons were snickering already.

  If I wasn’t so angry with her, I might have been impressed. Two men followed at her heels, and one more each for my brothers and me. They had disarmed us, and we were handcuffed behind our backs, but at least the odds had gone down to less than two against one.

  We walked down a couple of isolated hallways and into a back stairwell. The men led us down. Toward the bottom, Addie went boneless and collapsed on the stairs, stopping in a heap at the landing. She mouthed something on her way down. It probably looked like "ow," but it wasn't. It was "now." This was her mark. The men were focused on her for a second, and it was enough.

  I threw myself back against the stairs, bending at the knees. I pulled my cuffed hands under my body to get them in front of me. My brothers did the same, Xavier in front of me and Gunther behind.

  Even in handcuffs, it was the work of moments to disable the men. I went for the two by Addie, Xavier the middle two, and Gunther took on the one closest to him. Though he preferred not to fight and rarely lifted weights, the boy was wily and quick on his feet. Father had trained each of us to our strengths, determined we would never be left defenseless.

  I choked one with the chain to my handcuffs, and high kicked the one next to him. He fell to the ground. When I had rendered the one in front of me unconscious, I delivered a second kick to the head of the one trying to get up from the ground, and he, too, went still. I looked around, and the other three were splayed across the stairs, also out. Addie had pulled herself off the floor and was dusting off her gray dress, heading for the stairs we had just come down.

  "Up the stairs four flights, then we'll exit to the right. The vault will be two doors down to the left. It's disguised as a storage closet on a mostly-unused floor. We probably have two minutes at best, and I'm sure my father has security cameras. I don't know how we're going to get out, but we can barricade ourselves in there while we work out a better plan than this one." She was running up the stairs as she spoke, her flat shoes clopping against the concrete.

  There was no time to decide if I trusted her when we had no other options. I overtook her easily on the stairs, and Xavier stayed back to protect our flank while Gunther kept pace with Addie.

  The hallway was empty, as Addie had predicted. We raced to the nondescript wooden door, which she opened with her key. There was another steel door behind it, and this one had a numerical keypad. She thought for a second and tried an entry. It beeped red.

  "You didn't know about the code? Fantastic," Xavier grumbled.

  "Hush. I'm thinking." She entered another code, and it was red also.

  It wasn’t likely she would have many more chances before we were locked out. Voices sounded in the stairwell, and the three of us took a defensive stance behind her. I never would have told him this, but I was proud of Xav. Despite his general surliness where Addie was concerned, he was as quick to jump to her defense as I was. It reminded me more of the big brother he had always been than the questionable man I’d been dealing with lately.

  With shaking hands, she tried one more time. This time, it flashed green, and the lock clicked open. We rushed inside, shutting it behind us. Gunther flipped the light switch and Xavier worked on barricading the door. It didn't look like we could lock it from this side.

  Addie turned around and fished the papers out of her dress. It wasn't a sight I would have minded being privy to, but now wasn't the time. She scanned them lightning fast, nodding as she did so.

  I looked around the room for signs of what might be a port. There was a camera in the corner. We didn't have long, then.

  The vault was smaller than I had expected and packed with items from the museum and other ancient-looking things. I wondered if they had moved everything that had originally been in here or if Redshaw Corp had been amassing Levelian artifacts for years, and the incident was just the excuse they had needed to confiscate these things. The pedestal and its guardian statues were in the center of it all.

  Addie headed directly toward them. "Okay, I think we need to press the symbols on my necklace in the order they are in on this pedestal."

  "That's it?" I asked. After everything, it felt a little anticlimactic.

  "According to the story. Do you think we haven't had a difficult enough time of it thus far?" she shot back.

  "No, of course not." I shook my head. I tapped Gunther on the shoulder. "Do Addie's necklace. I need to look for something."

  That had been the wrong thing to say. Three sets of eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  "Is there another reason you're really here, Clark?" Addie's voice held betrayal.

  I avoided her gaze, but Gunther's was no better. He looked ashamed of me. He had been so convinced we were doing this out of the goodness of our hearts, and he wasn't wrong. Of course, I would have helped Addie anyway, but there wasn't time to explain that or what I needed to look for now.

  I told them that. Xavier grunted, and Gunther shook his head sadly, but he went to help Addie. Guilt churned in my stomach.

  This is the right thing to do, I told myself. It’s Father we’re talking about.

  I looked furiously around the room.

  "Can you at least tell me what you're looking for, so I can help?" Xavier asked.

  That was fair. I pulled out the cylinder and told him we needed something it could be inserted into. I could hear Gunther and Addie debating which one of the worn symbols on the pedestal corresponded with the pristine ones on her necklace.

  "Okay, there are two left, and they could be either of these." Gunther said. "It's your call."

  I glanced back to see him holding the amulet in his hand, he and Addie wearing twin expressions of wariness. Xavier called to get my attention.

  "I think I've found something." He was standing by a small stone cube with an insert the exact size of the cylinder. This could be it.

  A pounding on the steel door rattled the artifacts in the room, and then the ancient furniture Xavier had attempted to barricade it with splintered. This felt familiar. Only this time, there was no window to jump out of.

  "Try that one," Addie said quiet
ly to Gunther.

  The Director and three Red Sons came through the wreckage just in time for a blinding flash of blue light, and then there was nothing.

  The Heiress

  I had finally gotten the nerve to ask Nell about her family nearly two years after she had brought me Shensi. Conversations with feelings weren't my forte, and I hadn't wanted to bring something up I couldn't react appropriately to. But we had helped ourselves to a large portion of my father's best scotch and were splayed out on my bed talking about nothing and everything, and the question just popped out.

  "What did happen to your family?" I asked, apropos of nothing. Nell was silent for a minute, and I wanted to suck the words back in.

  But then, she answered. "My father died before I was born. My mother died on our home island, shortly before we left for Central. Then, the trip here was perilous, and only I survived." Her voice was clinical as she recounted the events like they had happened to someone else. I recognized the tendency as one I had, also.

  "And your grandmother, right? The one you live with?"

  "Right. Of course. I just meant of my siblings."

  I had no response to that. It tugged at something uncomfortable in me to realize the girl who had been consoling me all these years had lost far more than me. People had called me self-centered before, but I had never felt it ring as true as it did in that moment.

  "I'm sorry," I finally got out. For her loss, and for not being the friend she had deserved.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Adelaide

  For the second time in my life, I felt the curious sensation of being put back together from nothing. There was a flash of blue light, and we materialized in a large clearing in the middle of a wooded area. The towering trees looked ancient and foreboding with black, glossy leaves gracing the pale, gnarled branches. I was in the Dark Woods.