by Silver, Anna
“I know where this is going,” Zen sighed, deflated.
“Zen, you have to be fully honest with me if you want me to trust you. If we want this to work.”
She could feel his energy pulling back from her in the darkness, retreating. “Forget it, London. I won’t do that.”
“But why?” she pleaded. She’d laid herself open for him and his rejection stung more than he could realize.
“Because you have no idea what you’re asking. You may as well ask me to stab you in the heart.”
“I don’t understand,” London said, her voice shaking with the tears that were flooding her eyes despite her efforts to restrain them.
“I’m not gonna do it. I’m not going to be his instrument of torture, his weapon to wound you.”
London shuddered on a sob and drew herself up, rolling over on her elbows. “Zen, please. I can’t be with someone who’s keeping things from me. You have to understand. After Avery…”
“Don’t after Avery me, alright? Nobody knows that sting better than I do. Have you ever heard the saying, Don’t shoot the messenger? I don’t want ‘us’ to be built on them, to be based on their betrayal.”
“On them? What do you mean, on them? What are you saying, Zen?” London sat up now. Zen was giving something away without meaning to. She was so close to drawing it out of him, she could feel it. It was like sucking the venom out of a snakebite. If she didn’t extract this secret, it would poison their relationship.
“Just forget it. You know what, London? This isn’t even about me. It’s about him. All you want is a way to get what I know about Rye out of me. I guess that’s been it all along. Right? You’ve just been jerking my chain to get closer to him? How could you do something so vile?” Zen shot up from where he was lying next to her and began gathering one of the blankets in his arms.
“Zen…no, wait! Please. You don’t understand.” She snatched at the blanket but he pulled it away.
“No, that’s the problem. I understand perfectly. I just never knew you could be such a bitch.” And with that, he stormed off across the room and put the blanket down, folding it over itself into a single bed. He laid down with his back to her.
London rolled over and put a hand to her forehead. How did that go so terribly wrong? How did she manage to completely screw it up? Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing. Not Rye. Not Zen. Not even Si’dah. Certainly not the Beekeeper and all his cryptic warnings. Everything was a mess and she felt like she was at the center of it, just like that feather in her reading. And then it hit her. The answers you seek cannot be found in this world.
If this world was too much for her to take, there was only one place to go. One place where everything, however senseless, always seemed to make perfect sense to her.
The Astral.
Chapter 13
* * *
Hive
SI’DAH TAPPED HER foot impatiently against the lush meadow floor of the Midplane. In the distance, she could see Hantu waiting for her, but she wasn’t sure she was up to all his wise words and warping practice tonight. London prowled restlessly in her, just under the surface like a hungry cat. Focus would be difficult. Why did she come here at all?
Just then, a tiny winged body darted past her face in midair, whirring like a bullet as it sped by. Her head jerked left and it circled back, winding wide around her and moving off again. She caught a glimpse as it did so and recognized it was a bee. The striped and segmented body hung from busy, translucent wings that hummed as it flew.
Again it rounded back, made a circle around her and sped off. It seemed to be beckoning her with its gestures, urging her to follow. She looked once more to Hantu, whose eager face smiled back, waiting to carry on with their patient training. And she knew there was no question, she was not up for it tonight. Her curiosity echoed the bee’s vibrations and she turned, leaving Hantu behind, as she stepped quickly after her new guide.
She wasn’t warping the bee into being, she knew that much. But whether or not this was something—or someone—more, she wasn’t certain. It moved quickly, but always boomeranged back to her whenever she fell behind. It seemed they carried on this way for miles, until Si’dah found that tree saplings began to spring up on either side of her as she followed, creating an avenue of sorts. It was down this path that the bee continued, always careful to be sure its partner was still in tow.
Where are you leading me? Si’dah wondered, but it was too late to turn back. The trees had grown into a tangled wall of leaves and limbs, hedging her in. She had no choice but to keep moving forward.
Eventually, the forest around her grew until she was no longer walking a lone avenue but picking her way through a solitary path that cut a meandering route into the stretch of growth running as far as the eye could see in every direction. This was a part of the Astral that Si’dah had never known before and it frightened her. She felt she must be on the fringes of the Midplane somewhere, bordering the lost marshes of the Lowplane, but she couldn’t say for sure. Only her little guide seemed confident of where they were going.
Si’dah pushed her way through the dense knot-work of vines and branches that crowded in on her. With every shove, the Astral pushed back, as though it did not want her to carry on. But she was determined. There was something oddly familiar about her leader and, for reasons she could not explain, she trusted the bee. Overhead, the mass of canopy blocked out almost all sight of the hovering Highplane and the Astral grew darker with each step, feeling savage and foreign to her. Si’dah felt as though she had stumbled onto another plane entirely. But that was impossible.
At last, the bee buzzed to a halt, lighting on a thick branch covered on one side by colorful fungus. The smooth bark reminded her of the ronan trees back home, but unlike the ronan trees, one couldn’t say where these Astral trees began or ended. It seemed they grew into each other, feeding into a network of forest that appeared almost more as one, infinite tree rather than many singular ones.
Si’dah placed a broad hand on the branch and swung herself up off the ground. She crouched in her skirts upon it next to the bee. She gave the creature a small nod and peered ahead. Through a break in the limbs she saw into a small, dark clearing where two shadows were conversing and their hushed voices carried back to her from it.
“You could have compromised everything,” a female voice scolded in harsh whispers.
The other shadow seemed to hang its head. “But I didn’t.”
“Luckily for you. Their patience with us is wearing thin. We cannot afford to keep failing them.”
The second shadow, a male, replied. “We won’t. We’re close.”
“Not close enough.”
“We’re closing in on them. They know it and they’re afraid. I could feel her fear, taste it in the air, like a bitter fragrance. You have to be patient. They have to be patient.”
The first shadow took a step away, as though thinking, and a shaft of light fell across her pale face. Si’dah drew in a desperate breath and curled her toes for balance. The paper thin skin, the throbbing green veins, the silky brown hair. All features she knew too well. This was Avery…Avery mixed with something else.
“I have been more than patient, but you try me. I’m not so sure it was worth saving you. I don’t think you appreciate the magnitude of what I’ve done for you. And I’m not convinced you’re over her. All this time you’ve been claiming to help us, to love me…I think you’re just stalling.”
“Don’t say that,” the male voice responded through clenched teeth.“Haven’t I proven myself? Haven’t I given enough, done enough, to prove otherwise? They believe me. Why can’t you?”
“Why were you on her then? That wasn’t by my command. I would never tell you to get that close. You wanted to see her, to touch her. I’m not a fool, Rye.”
Si’dah felt bile rising into her throat but she pushed it back. She couldn’t afford to get sick now. They would hear. They would see.
“I wanted to strangle her with my own
hands; that’s true. I wanted to squeeze the life out of her like a constrictor. But it was fury, not love, that drove me to get so close.”
Stinging tears filled the black wells that were her Traveler’s eyes. Si’dah’s heart tripped at this statement and recoiled. They were talking about her, about the attack. She knew it.
“It was desire. Desire that spurned your love and now your hate. I should have known I’d never be enough for you.”
Rye stepped nearer to Avery and the light splashed across his own features, so strong and stark next to hers, a mingling of both he and Roanyk. “Avery, you’re all I have now. You’re all I want,” he said as he caressed her face with tender hands.
“And you love me? You don’t miss her?” Avery asked, her eyes misty and light.
“Never. I love you now. Only.” He leaned down and planted a soft, plaintive kiss on her whitewashed lips, which looked like they could tear from too much force.
Si’dah leaned forward, disbelieving, and nearly fell off her perch. She clung tighter to hold herself and the leaves of her branch rustled slightly.
Avery broke instantly from the kiss. “What was that?”
Rye glanced around but Si’dah was crouched low so as not to be visible. “Nothing,” he reassured her.
“Someone is spying on us,” she said, her eyes wildly searching. “It’s one of them.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. They don’t even know about this place. This is ours, remember?” He wrapped tight arms around her and she relaxed in his embrace.
“You’re right. I know, you’re right. But let’s go back just the same. Coming?”
“I’m right behind you,” he answered.
Si’dah raised herself slowly and carefully until she could see Rye alone in the clearing. Avery had already stepped away, moving back, apparently, to London’s world. She never saw, as Si’dah did, when Rye lifted the hem of his shirt and wiped brusquely at his lips.
SI’DAH STUMBLED BACK, eyes blinded by tears, vision blurry, tearing through branches, vines, and limbs until she found herself on the narrow avenue and again the verdant Midplane meadows she knew so well. She didn’t wait this time for the bee to lead her, but left it behind in her haste to get away from everything she’d seen and heard.
This time, Hantu was not waiting for her and she curled herself into a ball in the grass, warping the blades around her until they stretched and wove themselves into a cocoon sheltering her body. There, in the little Astral womb she created, she cried until she at last fell asleep.
* * *
LONDON AWOKE ABRUPTLY, her mind foggy with the details of her travels. Around her, lights twinkled and the shadows of her friends could be seen moving in her periphery. She sat up and rubbed at her eyes until her vision cleared.
“How long have I been out?” she asked, blinking.
“A while. You must have been pretty tired. We all woke up hours ago,” Tora said from a chair across the room.
London scratched her head. She remembered the bee and the forest of one tree, she remembered cradling herself in the Astral and crying. And then everything went blank. She must have dozed off there and in that state, naturally found her way back.
Tora peered at her. “You didn’t…you weren’t in the Astral, were you?”
“No, no,” London lied a little too quickly.
Zen was visibly trying to ignore her and Tora shot him a suspicious look.
“Zen,” Tora said. “You were supposed to stay with London, remember? If she travels, it’s your job to travel with her.”
Zen shrugged smugly. “She didn’t tell me. How was I supposed to know?”
Tora clucked her tongue at him in exasperation and turned back to London. “Did anything happen? I mean, everything okay?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” London replied, being evasive. She rose and stretched and pulled on her shoes. “Where’s breakfast?”
“Don’t know,” Kim said with a sour expression. “Looney Toons isn’t up yet.”
“Don’t call him that,” London said with a scowl.
“Sorry,” Kim said in a mocking tone. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the pallet this morning,” he added under his breath.
London looked from Kim to Zen and suddenly the room felt too small for the both of them plus all their secrets. “I’m going to look for Elias,” she said and started toward one of the mysterious doorways.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Kim told her. “You don’t know what’s back there.”
But London just shrugged him off. “We gotta eat, don’t we?”
She turned toward the nearest door and took a few steps into the rocky tunnel until the light of their shared space was behind her and only darkness lay ahead. When the tunnel curved a little and she knew she wouldn’t be heard, she stopped and leaned against the cool stone to catch her breath. She didn’t want her friends to see her upset and she didn’t want to give Zen the glum pleasure of thinking it was because of him, though their fight still weighed on her. But right now, she was flooded with all the feelings her Astral espionage had produced and she wasn’t yet sure how much she wanted to tell anyone else, if anything at all.
Silent tears slipped down her cheeks and she let them fall to wet her shirt. She gave herself these few moments before wiping her face and starting down the tunnel again. The hum grew louder and more insistent and London’s curiosity began to take over where her broken heart had overwhelmed her only moments before. Whatever generated the noise was somewhere ahead and she was getting closer.
With careful steps, she pushed onward, letting her hands glide over the rocky surface around her and inching her feet over the unstable floor. She was so close now that the vibrations rattled through her nervous system and drowned out the incessant doubts that plagued her mind. She didn’t care anymore if Elias was back here, she had to know where that sound was coming from.
Something darted past her in the darkness and then seemed to turn and fly by again. Something small and hovering, a dot of a shadow in the dim hall. A faint light glowed up ahead and in it, she could see several more tiny things moving in a flash of motion, sweeping by each other and winging in and out of a large cleft in the rock.
She squinted as she neared and the brightness of the light grew and the fresh, warm, dry air wafted in from outside. The cleft was to her right, and left of that, just round a bend, the hall opened up into the desert morning. She neared the edge and peered out. She was standing at a precipice several stories up on the mesa. All around her zinged the busy, racing bodies of active bees.
London turned away from the bright daylight to face the long cleft. It was darker in there and she peered into it as she scooted closer. The sound of the bees was deafening.
“Elias?” London called, her voice drowned out by the hum. She leaned into the cleft, took another step, and let her eyes adjust. What came into focus horrified her.
Before her stretched a massive honeycomb, taller and broader than she by more than double. Honey bees covered it, crawling and crossing its surface and one another in a teeming glob. It was like a living thing, a giant monster of bees and stingers.
And before it, huddled down in a heap on the floor at its base, rested Elias…or what was Elias. His entire body, once slick and dark as oil, was now covered in the crawling network of bees as they swarmed over him. All London could think was that he was dead, that they were eating him somehow.
She opened her mouth to scream, when his head raised and a reverberating voice said to her, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
London snapped her lips shut and stumbled backward, confused, as the bee-covered figure of Elias rose slowly to its feet and towered before her. His eyes stared out at her from the wall of insects that covered him and he began moving in her direction, saying, “Keep very still and very quiet. Calm yourself. They can sense your fear and will grow agitated. They will protect their own.”
London backed away from Elias’s strange, ominous figure.
She knew the voice to be his and yet it was different, as though made up of the hum of the bees themselves.
“Stay back,” she managed, bumping into the bend behind her and feeling her way around it. “Oh god, are you hurt? Are they hurting you?”
“No. But they will hurt you,” he continued, slow and steady, and as he drew closer to her, it seemed the bees were dropping off of him more and more, and taking flight, winging out past London into the bright sunlight.
London stepped back again, feeling wind and sun at her back, knowing she was running out of ground. She had unwittingly backed onto the precipice and cornered herself.
As Elias’s bees dispersed, more of the man showed through, but London was still revolted and terrified. He reached a hand out to her, his thin fingers and split yellow nails clutching, stretching out of a sleeve of angry bees. He gripped her shirt and several of the bees began to pour onto her.
London panicked, backed up more and swatted at Elias’s hand, forcing him to let go, but the bees kept on coming for her. This time, the scream tore through her throat before he could stop it as she jerked away from his advance. The last thing she remembered was the sensation of falling.
Chapter 14
* * *
Rogue
LONDON HIT THE dirt with a thud, knocking the wind out of her, and rolled over, nearly sliding right off the rocky ledge that jutted out beneath the precipice where she’d been standing only a moment before. Her right foot dangled precariously over. A quick glance validated that it was still a long way down. She got to her knees and looked up. The precipice humming with bees was only about seven feet above. Elias stood at its edge, only a few bees remaining on his shirt and head, and watched her.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice more normal again.
