by Silver, Anna
Astral Tide
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By Anna Silver
Copyright © 2014 by Anna Silver
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to your online retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Dedication:
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For my readers.
You have no idea how grateful I am for each and every one of you.
Acknowledgements:
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ASTRAL TIDE has been a new and amazing journey that I could never have made alone. First, a big thank you to my second set of eyes, friend, beta-reader, proof-reader, and general advisor, Sheryl Babin. You are always there, for every call, text, or email. I don’t know what I’d do without you!
And a massive thanks to my cover artist and fellow author, Carrie Butler. I leaned on you for a lot more than just cover art, and you never complained. Also, your work is incredible!
Another shout out to both my editor, Jena O’Connor of PracticalProofing.com, and my formatter, Jessica Lewis of AuthorsLifeSaver.com! You two give new meaning to the phrase “dynamic duo”.
As always, I’m grateful for the support and encouragement of family and friends, whose contributions are too many to name here. And the exceptional support of my husband and children, who have traveled every bumpy step of this journey at my side.
Finally, I have to acknowledge my readers. Every blogger, every fan, every person who took time out of their lives to support my work and let me know how much they enjoyed it, I am eternally grateful for your presence in my life. You’ve kept me going, and more importantly, writing.
Table of Contents
Dedication:
Acknowledgements:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 1
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Bayou Camp Four
THE INFECTION, HER infection, was spreading. London counted ten cots and two pallets all together in the dreamers’ tent, aside from their own four. That was three more than their record-breaking nine at the last camp. And they’d only been here six weeks.
A cloud of gnats buzzed around her mess of black curls and London swatted at it, perturbed. It was more humid here than in Capital City, if that could be believed. She should have known when they referred to it as Bayou Camp Four. Apparently, there wasn’t enough solid ground this far east to hold the Outroaders together. They’d broken up into four separate camps that dotted the watery terrain like the strings of cork bobbers they cast across the swamp each morning in hopes of hooking breakfast.
The Otherborn hadn’t just come to the fourth of the bayou Outroad camps, but it was the fourth camp since they first left Capital City. When they fled the last camp, Twisted Oaks, in a rush to outrun the raid, they’d made such a wide arc around their old walled haunt to get here that London never even realized they passed it. Most days, Capital City was just a dark and dreary memory to her. Sometimes there was the dream of a Scrapper’s paradise. Sometimes a nightmare of armored trucks and hopeless living. The Outroads were harsh, it was true. There were no ration tickets here to pave your way. No sedative-laced cigarettes to blunt the pain. But at least they were free.
“Wow, twelve!” Kim remarked, sneaking up behind her.
London turned and smiled. “Crazy, right?”
Kim shook his head in disbelief. “Remember when that first kid pulled us aside in the camp outside of Pillar City? You were so freaked out you almost shit your pants!” Kim dissolved in a fit of laughter, slapping London roughly on the back of the shoulder.
“Watch it,” she warned with a scowl, giving him a shove.
Kim settled down, but a small smile of satisfaction played on his face. He’d pulled his long, inky hair into a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck. He looked good these days, London noted. Real good. The fresh air, and Tora, had done wonders for him. Love was the best makeover.
“And I wasn’t that freaked,” she said. “You weren’t any better. At least I thought of setting up our own tent to separate the dreamers from everyone else in the camps.”
Kim shrugged. “It was a good idea, I’ll give you that. Makes the other campers feel a little less ill at ease around them. I wish they’d stop acting like it was some kind of disease.”
“Isn’t it?” London replied, her eyes dancing darkly across the twelve empty beds lined up before them. Since it started a few years before, dreaming had only brought her heartache. Even her Other, Si’dah, the being she appeared as in her dreams, had suffered.
The Others were dream shamans from distant worlds who used the Astral as a go-between, a portal, through which they thought they could soul jump from one world to the next, the same way they traveled within the Astral from one plane to the next. They were reborn here, looking human, expecting to know themselves on the inside straight away. Instead, they lost themselves among the new incarnations. Only adolescence began to bring on the memories as strange recurring dreams, waking their true souls, the Others, from a fifteen-to-seventeen-year slumber. It had since been a bumbling trek back to the truth of who they were and what they were supposed to do: take down the Tycoons, rebirth the Astral in their world, establish a new order. Nothing short of saving the world.
“Come on, London,” Kim said. “Don’t tell me you’re still buying into that paranoia? You should know better—we should all know better—by now.”
But the despair had draped itself across London’s mind again like a final curtain. What she knew was that Si’dah had cost her everything that was dear to her in this world, however little that was. Carrying Si’dah’s soul around like some kind of parasite had led one of her dearest friends to betray her. It had forced her to leave her mom behind. It had brought Pauly, the only father she knew, to a brutal end. And worst of all, it had delivered Rye into the hands of the enemy. What’s more, she couldn’t just forget Rye and move on like a normal person, because Si’dah, her Other, was just as sick with love and longing for Roanyk as London herself was for Rye. No matter how she’d like to, Si’dah would never let London forget about Rye.
London turned to Kim. “What the hell do we know?” It w
asn’t really a question.
Fortunately, Tora sauntered in before he could launch into another one of his stop-being-so-negative lectures. She wrapped her arms around him from behind, kissing the side of his neck. “Hey, London,” she said.
“Hey.” London busied herself with a wadded blanket on one of the cots.
She didn’t begrudge her friends their romance, but it was still hard after seven months to see Kim with Tora. Every time they laughed or kissed, her heart wound itself into tight, little, hungry knots. Watching them, she couldn’t help thinking of Rye. It was enough that she’d lost the love of her life, and apparently of Si’dah’s, but she’d lost her best friend, too. Zen tried to comfort her. They’d bonded over their mutual loss. He still believed Avery was dead, which was better than letting him in on the truth: that she’d sold them out as Otherborn to the Tycoons for a better life in New Eden. And for all any of them knew, Rye was dead, too. But deep down, London couldn’t let herself believe that Rye was truly gone. And no matter what, Zen would never be Rye. No one would.
“London’s going to her dark place again,” Kim informed Tora.
“Screw you, Kim,” London snapped. “Not all of us are living happily ever after with our true loves, okay? Some of us left our hearts back there in New Eden. Some of us lost the only thing that matters in this pathetic excuse of a world!”
Kim crossed his arms, breaking away from Tora’s hold. “Oh, so we don’t matter to you anymore?”
“That’s not what she meant and you know it,” another voice broke in. It was Zen, looming in the doorway of the dreamers’ tent.
“Go ahead,” Kim said. “Defend her. You two aren’t helping each other.”
“Like you are?” Zen moved to London’s side, squaring off with Kim. It wouldn’t come to blows, it never did. But if he ever decided to use the brawn that came so naturally to him, Zen would flatten Kim, no matter how fast the latter was.
“Would all of you just stop it?” Tora boomed, pushing herself between the three of them. She turned her jade eyes on each of them until they broke her gaze and the tension shifted. “We have bigger problems coming.”
London threw her hands up. “Great. The psychic wonder is at it again.” Her tone was annoyed but she knew deep down that they never would have made it this long or this far without Tora’s visions.
“I’m serious,” Tora told her, but before she could explain, an Outroader dashed into the tent. It was Eric, the younger boy who’d drug his own cot to the dreamers’ tent only two weeks ago.
He was doubled over as though he’d sprinted the entire length of the bayou to get there. His muddy hair fell over his face in shaggy layers and he was breathing hard.
“What is it?” London asked him. “Eric, what’s going on?”
He was a good kid who’d taken to following her around like a lost puppy ever since they arrived. He was too young for her, three years her junior. She didn’t date thirteen-year-olds ever—not even when she was thirteen. But he was nice and helpful. When he started dreaming himself, he acted elated to know he’d be sleeping in the same tent as her.
“S—” he tried and failed.
“What?” Kim asked, leaning in to hear him.
“Sss—” Eric stammered.
“Eric, deep breaths. Now tell us slowly. What’s up?” London put a hand on his shoulder until he was looking her in the eye.
“Scout!” he managed at last.
Tora shot London an I told you so look and London rolled her eyes. But there was no time to rib the Seer. Scouts rarely made it to the bayou camps. Only in the case of a dire emergency. They needed to get to that scout fast and find out what was going on. The four of them sprinted from the tent toward the little south-facing clearing where the Camp Elder kept her ramshackle hut. The bayou camps didn’t bother moving around like the Capital City camp did.
London had only one thing on her mind as she ran. Not another raid.
They’d moved from one camp to another since they left Capital City and its Outroaders behind. The Pillar City camp, then Twisted Oaks, now here. So far, the Tycoons had managed to catch up with them every time. Outside of Pillar City, Tigerian trucks rambled right into the middle of the campgrounds, shooting indiscriminately into the crowd of running Outroaders. Keeping a dreamers’ tent on the fringes of the camp borders had saved them. They were in their own truck and beating pavement before the Tigerians ever figured out they were really there. They’d been settled and living outside Pillar City’s walls for three months with the Outroaders. Long enough to think they were safe.
They went to Twisted Oaks because someone in the Pillar City camp said the Tycoons didn’t know about it. It wasn’t stationed directly outside a walled city, but instead had sprung up in the gnarled groves east of Pillar City and north of Capital City. Kim wanted to keep heading west, but London and the others convinced him they needed a camp like Twisted Oaks—off the Tycoon’s radar.
For a while, she thought they had actually found a place that couldn’t be tracked. It was slow going, picking through the patches of concrete and wilderness to get there. They had two and half months of relative peace before they brought the first raid in Twisted Oaks’ history to the camp. By then, the Tycoons had switched tack and sent black plated vehicles with outfitted guards to take them in. It was another narrow miss.
Here, they prayed the alligator-infested waters would stand between them and the Tycoons’ regiments. So far, it had worked. The worst part was, London couldn’t figure out how the Tycoons were tracking them at all. But if the bayou camps failed to harbor them, she didn’t know where they could turn next. The Outroaders were bound to get tired of sheltering the Otherborn raid-magnets.
When they hit the clearing, London came up short. It wasn’t just any scout standing outside of Elder Keziah’s door. She knew this man. They all did.
“Tora?” he said as they approached.
“Clark. When did you start running scout instead of tracking?”
“When Abigail took over the Capital City camp—your old home. Remember?” Clark glared without word at London and the rest of them.
London didn’t bother to look away. She stared him down until his eyes moved on. As far as she was concerned, Clark was dirt. When they were in his camp, he’d put a gun to Rye’s head and squeezed her injured arm so tight she thought she’d die. Instead she fainted. Then, he led Ernesto, the Tigerian’s King Scrapper, right to them in the woods. In a matter of days, he’d rendered her unconscious and nearly gotten her raped. She would have run him out of the bayou if he didn’t have information they needed.
“How is Abigail?” Tora asked.
London couldn’t believe the Seer would even ask about a woman she’d watched put a bullet in her brother’s head. Tora’s heart was too big for her own good.
“Better without them around,” Clark said, nodding at London, Zen, and Kim.
It had been pretty clear after the Tigerian raid that led to the original Elder’s death that Abigail would take over the Capital City camp. And it had been equally clear that she would not roll out the welcome mat for them again.
Keziah, the Elder of Bayou Camp Four, stepped outside. Her pink flowered dress was faded to white at the edges and her tightly curled silver hair was knotted behind her head. She wrapped a dark hand around Clark’s and shook it hard. Colored strings adorned her scrawny wrist, knotted at varying intervals. Keziah claimed they protected her. “Come on in outta this swamp air, scout. Tell ole Keziah what’s happenin’ in the rest of the world.”
“What about us?” London piped up.
“What about you?” Keziah stared blankly at her.
“We need to hear whatever it is he has to say,” London told her. She folded her arms and took her best unwavering stance.
Keziah squinted her yellowed eyes at London. “If whatever he says concerns you, I’ll let you know. Now scat!” She closed her planked wood door in their faces and London heard the beam slide into place behind it.
“Well, that’s just fabulous,” London huffed. “Like that old bat’s gonna know what concerns us. Anything Clark has to say concerns us.”
Kim tapped her shoulder and placed a finger over his lips. He gestured toward the corner of Keziah’s shack. They all followed him around back, where a sizeable crack in the rotting wood near the ground made it possible to hear the muffled voices inside.
London put her ear to the crack.
“…spotted cutting through the Ag District,” she heard Clark saying.
“How many?” the old woman asked.
“Half a dozen.”
Keziah’s whistle sounded through the crack. “And what makes you so sure they’re headed here?”
“It’s those Waller kids. They’ve been drawing raids like flies to shit— pardon the expression—ever since they left the city. Twisted Oaks had its first raid ever only two months after they arrived. It’s no longer an Outroader safe zone because the Tycoons have it pegged on their map, thanks to them.”
“I don’t understand what the Tycoons would want with them kids so bad.” London could hear the telltale creak of Keziah’s prized rocking chair as it worried the floor. “They’re odd, never sat quite right with me. But they’re just kids.”
“No one knows what the Tycoons want with them, ‘cept maybe Tora, our old Seer. She’s the blond traveling with them. But if I were you I wouldn’t let them stick around to find out.”
“You think I should banish ‘em?” Fear shook the old woman’s voice. Her knotted bracelets and alligator infested bayou were not going to be enough to keep her safe from the curse of harboring the Otherborn.
London heard Clark take a deep breath. “No ma’am. I think you should kill them.”
