Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series)

by Silver, Anna

  THEY SAT IN a circle on Elias’s floor, legs folded, knees touching. Between them lay the scrap remains of Elias’s Oracle. He was going to teach them how to charm. One lesson for today, then they’d take it easy. Kim was going first.

  “Now, let the Oracle do the talking. Let something sing to you. You see? That’s how you pick a charm, you let it pick you first,” Elias instructed. He was pacing behind them, moving in slow circles back and forth around their little huddle.

  Kim held out his hand, palm down, and moved it silently just over the surface of the pile of items, feeling for something London couldn’t quite detect.

  “Very good,” Elias cooed. “Feel for the pull of it…your charm.”

  Zen crossed his eyes at London to make her laugh and Kim just looked plain confused. But Tora was mesmerized by what was taking place under his hand, her face was a canvas of concentration.

  At last, Kim reached down and plucked a pitted green marble from the mix. “This one,” he beamed, holding it to the light. He looked at Tora. “It reminds me of your eyes.”

  “Oh, gag,” London said but Elias was pleased.

  “Yes,” Elias agreed with a nod. “That is a good one.”

  “Now what?” Tora asked.

  “Now he must reach deep inside himself and find his own, personal portal to the Astral. It’s there that he’ll form his intention,” Elias instructed. “Remember to carry your charm with you,” he added as an afterthought. “You need to see it in the Astral for this to work.”

  Kim nodded and closed his eyes. As London had done before, he let Tora guide him carefully into a deep state of relaxation until it seemed Kim was all but gone, lost in meditation, and his body was merely a shell. Once she guided him there, Tora stopped talking and allowed Elias to take over.

  “See your charm in the palm of your hand,” Elias whispered into Kim’s ear. “And in your other hand, visualize your intention.”

  “How is he supposed to do that?” Zen whispered, but Elias shot him a dirty, keep silent look.

  “When you have both perfectly formed, bring your hands together, in both worlds at once, in order to do the binding.”

  They watched as Kim’s hands twitched, the one holding the marble slowly uncurled, and then they came together, palm to palm, holding the marble between them. His eyes never moved behind his lids, but before theirs a soft light manifested between Kim’s hands and then winked out. All at once, he was back, blinking and grinning like a wicked child.

  “Well?” Tora asked. “Did it work?”

  “I think so,” Kim said, shaking his dark mane. “Wow. That was wild.”

  “What was your intention?” London pressed him.

  His grin turned even more devilish. “Invisibility.”

  “Don’t you think that’s reaching a bit for your first time?” Zen cocked an eyebrow at Kim, his handsome face magnificent in the candlelight. “I thought these were supposed to be for protection and fertility, stuff like that.”

  Kim held one hand up and wiggled his fingers. “Sticky fingers, remember? Could come in handy for a guy like me.”

  Elias rubbed his chin. “It is a lot, but not beyond you, I think.”

  “Not beyond him?” London said, smacking her forehead. “He’s sitting right there! I can see him. Obviously it didn’t take.”

  “Well, he has to activate it first.” Elias gestured to Kim. “Go ahead, try to use it. Your intention was wrapped up in your desire to be invisible at specific times, not all the time, such as when engaging in sneaky or dishonest behavior. Try something now and let’s see if it works.”

  Kim stood and began circling the room. He tossed the marble from one hand to the next. As he neared her side, London suddenly couldn’t see him anymore. First he was there, then he just wasn’t. She felt an odd sensation, a sort of tug, on one hip. And before she knew it, he reappeared in front of them all laughing, tossing her piece of Zen’s geode in one hand as he gave her a cocky smile.

  “Did you see any of that?” he asked.

  “Nothing!” Tora said, beaming with pride. “You just vanished and then appeared out of nowhere.”

  “I had to set my sights on something, like Elias said, before the charm became effective.” Kim tossed London her rock and kissed his green marble. “This is so cool.”

  “Great. Just what we need. For you to be an even better thief. Nothing will be safe from your paws now,” London griped as she tucked the geode away. Her face was flush with embarrassment and she could see that Zen was blushing a little, too. That stone, that moment, was something private and special. And Kim, without meaning to, had exposed it.

  “Hey, don’t get sore, London. You can’t be the best at everything,” Kim said, taking his seat and rejoining their circle.

  Elias frowned at them all. “Quiet. It’s another’s turn.”

  “Wait,” London said. “So, your bracelets, the ones with all the knots in them? You’ve set an intention for each of those knots, right? Like a bunch of charms in one?” Suddenly, Elias was looking a little less crazy and making more and more sense.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “But it’s enough for you to learn to bind one right now. Now, who’s next?” He turned to Zen. “You.”

  Zen shrugged. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Careful, London,” Kim teased. “You know, Zen. He might go for fertility.”

  Zen ignored Kim and studied the pile of scrap before him. He finally picked up a short pencil with no eraser. “I want to be able to write messages that only the one they’re intended for can read,” he said looking to Elias.

  “Always the poet,” London muttered.

  “That’s like mine, copycat.” Kim frowned at Zen.

  “It is not,” Zen said, giving Kim a shove.

  London was exasperated. “Would both of you just grow up? Go ahead, Zen.”

  Zen closed his eyes and Tora’s gentle voice led him deeper and deeper into himself until, like Kim before him, he was perfectly still, his arms slack, his face blank, his soul absent.

  Just as with Kim, Elias instructed Zen on how to visualize the pencil and his intention at once, and to bring them together in both worlds, to bind one to the other. London had a hard time imagining how Zen would visualize his intention, but he seemed to have gotten it because they watched in awe as his fists wrapped around each other, the pencil between them, until the light flared inside and went out.

  Zen came to and everyone urged him to try out his charm. Elias ripped a corner from one of the pages in a book of his and handed it to Zen. Carefully, turning his back so they couldn’t watch, he scrawled the note. Then, with a flush, he passed it to Kim.

  Kim stared at it, shook the paper, stared some more, then said, “Blank, man.” He handed it off to Tora.

  Like Kim, Tora agreed that she could see nothing. Even Elias looked over her shoulder and shook his head. He too could not read whatever Zen had written.

  That left only one person: London.

  Either Zen’s charm didn’t stick and the pencil was totally bunk, or that message was meant for her and her alone.

  Tora held out the slip of yellowing paper to London. Its musty smell wafted over to her and with trembling fingers she reached out and took it. Before she ever even brought it in front of her face, she could already see the soft, gray scrawl waiting there, so like Zen’s shaded eyes.

  She held the paper before her and took a deep breath, feeling herself flush crimson from head to toe. She knew, without a doubt, Zen’s charm had worked, because this message was for her and nobody else.

  Across the paper she read, I think I’m falling in love with you.

  Chapter 18

  * * *

  Truth

  LONDON CRUMPLED THE paper up in one hand and swallowed the lump that had taken residence in her throat. “Got it,” she responded coolly.

  “Got what?” Kim asked.

  London scowled. “Zen’s message.”

  Kim rolled his eyes. “I k
now, but what was it?”

  London wanted to crawl under a rug. She glared at Kim. “Hello? Private, remember?”

  Suddenly, she could see the wheels turning in Kim’s mind as realization spread across his face. “Ohhh…”

  “Yeah.” London blushed again and looked at her hands.

  Zen cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “Isn’t it someone else’s turn now?”

  London shook out her hands. “Right. It’s mine.” She already knew what she wanted. With deft fingers, she reached into her own pocket and pulled out the half a geode Zen gave her. “I want to charm this.”

  Zen looked shocked but Elias was thoughtful. “Yes, this will work. It has value to you and so it will be good for your first time. Now, take it in one hand.”

  London did as he asked, but when Tora started her intonation, London held up a hand. “I can do it on my own. Thank you.”

  Tora smiled. They needed to be able to drop into the Astral and drag back out whatever they wanted at the drop of a hat. It was good for London to have made such progress.

  London closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She let that calm slide over her like a soft blanket, and she felt herself, and saw herself, wrapped up in the Astral. Like a swath of green fabric, the Midplane stretched all around her. London opened her hand and saw Zen’s tiny cave of crystals lying there. She opened her other hand and prepared to envision her intention.

  But how did one visualize truth?

  It came slowly, the visual image of her intention. First she saw a mouth, then an ear—her own. Then she saw the purest, clearest, most perfectly formed crystal materializing there. It hummed and vibrated, releasing a shrill sound that carried to her ears like a private wind. London waited a moment longer to be sure she had it right, then she brought her hands together and the images she’d seen in the one rippled and vanished as they made contact with the other. A blinding, brilliant light flashed with a crystalline ring, and the next thing London knew, she was opening her eyes.

  London blinked and squeezed her hands around Zen’s stone.

  “So?” Zen asked. “What was it? Whatever it was, it must have been good because that light nearly singed my retinas.”

  London looked to Elias and he nodded proudly. “You did well. Your intention was the truest and that’s why the reaction was so dazzling.”

  “Out with it,” Kim demanded, a little miffed to be outdone. “What was this mysteriously pure intention?”

  London looked at her crystals and smiled. “I want to know when someone is telling the truth.”

  Zen gave her a crooked smile.

  London couldn’t help herself, she remembered his soft lips on her last night and how much she’d wanted them to stay there even longer, but he broke the kiss off early, leaving her yearning for more. She purposefully looked away.

  “So how do we try it?” Kim asked.

  London looked around. “Someone needs to tell me something false and then something true. I’ll hold the crystals in my hand and consciously try to detect which is which by forming a question in my mind; that will be my activation. I don’t want to hear this thing all the time, only when I’m truly trying to ferret out a lie. I should hear a high pitch note coming from the crystals when it’s true, like an alarm.”

  “A truth alarm, huh? Pretty cool idea. Let me test it.” Kim sat forward and stared at London. “I used to have a crush on you.” He scrunched his eyes as though trying to transmit the message telepathically.

  London waited, holding the crystals in her palm and the question in her mind, Is he telling the truth? There was nothing. Either Kim was lying, and she sincerely hoped he was, or her charm was useless. “You don’t have to try so hard, liar.”

  Kim relaxed. “Okay, second statement. Sometimes you piss me off, but I’d trust you with my own life.”

  London held both the geode and the question firmly in place again, and heard the signaling whine made only for her ears, but she didn’t need that to know Kim was being honest. It shone in his face. He cared about her, he believed in her, and he trusted her. “Thanks, Kim. That means a lot,” she said quietly.

  He nodded once and cleared his throat. “Hey, we’re friends, aren’t we? Okay, lesson over. Can we nap now? Tonight’s kind of a big deal.”

  * * *

  SI’DAH PRESSED HER fingers to her face, where she could feel the softening of her features and the rounding of bones that had taken place since she’d last been fully herself, fully here. Only this time, there was a little less fear and a little less doubt. It was not her face entirely, and yet it was. London’s face was hers too, and this was somewhere in between.

  She looked at Geode. He stood beside her, monstrously large. His muscles were fuller and his sharp-slitted feline eyes had softened, the pupils rounded. The hair was receding from his face, she could tell, but it was very subtle yet. His jaw had squared considerably.

  Geode placed a hand to her chin, letting his thumb trace over her lips. “Beautiful…always.”

  She smiled at him, grateful for the reassurance.

  Atel stood to her other side, on her left. His back was straighter and he seemed younger somehow, as though even his leaves and branches had entered the springtime of youth. Beside him, Tora was herself, her fingers wrapped resolutely in his.

  Hantu strode toward them across the Midplane, a wary look on his face. It could only be Elias’s presence that disturbed him. The Beekeeper had come as himself, saving his tiny, buzzing body for acts of espionage. Tonight he stood on the other side of Geode, tall and dark as a fall of molasses.

  “You are not alone,” Hantu said when he was near enough. His hazel gaze shifted nervously to Elias. “You have acted apart from me.”

  Si’dah tried to reach Hantu with the earnestness in her eyes. But their pure black surface was less expressive than London’s warm brown irises and she feared the emotion was lost on him. “We have acted in the best interest of the Otherborn and the Circle. We bring two new elects, and we ask you to return to the grove with us.”

  Hantu stared at her. He was angry and she could understand why, but he would have to put personal issues aside for all their good. “Tora is welcome at our side. With my vote, which I give freely, and you are my witnesses, she is granted a seat in the stone circle. Together we make a majority. None can refuse her.”

  He nodded to Tora and she smiled and squeezed Atel’s hand, which twisted through her own like fingers of bark and vine.

  “But why should I accept an stranger in our midst?” He scowled at Elias, uncertain. “When we have so much to fear already?”

  Si’dah stepped forward. “Hantu, please. Listen to reason. This man has known the Astral far longer than any of us can imagine. He travels the planes, all of them, with ease. He knows where to find the Astral tides and how to ride them. He can warp, and shift, and charm. He can help us. We need his knowledge to win…to stay alive.”

  Hantu’s resolve seemed to soften a bit as he listened, but he still regarded Elias cautiously. “I need time with him. Time to trust before I can give you what you ask.”

  Si’dah clucked her tongue. “There is no time! Already the Winged One and her consort bear down on us from unknown planes. Already they have nearly squeezed the life out of me here. Already we are cornered in our world, your world, with nowhere to go. Soon, they will catch up to us. Without all that he knows, we cannot be ready. Don’t condemn us.”

  As she said it, Si’dah knew the words were true. Their time in the world of the Others was drawing to a close. Were their days an hourglass, they would now be down to the final grains. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but around her the Astral seemed to trill with her truth and the ring of her crystals sounded in her ears as they vibrated in her hand. They had very little time left. Soon, they would be caught.

  Her face was menacing and even with the subtle changes in her appearance, she towered proud and strong. But intimidation would not win one such as Hantu. He was right. He needed to trust.
How could they give that to him now?

  Hantu sighed. “Where is your hesitation now that you need it most?” he asked her. “Where is all the caution that has carried you so far, Si’dah? You speak and act in haste.”

  Si’dah fisted her hands. “Haste is all that is left to me…that is left to London. We have been stumbling through the Astral as though we were blind. There are infinite realms here, I have seen one of them, and yet we have only known three. And we have been fools to think ourselves powerful and in control in such a state.”

  Hantu glared at her. “It was I who taught you how to ride the tides into my world, into the hosts that I chose so carefully for you. Do you think it an accident that you were each born so close in age? Just under the noses of our enemies, the Tycoons? I arranged all of that. I made it possible and now you turn on me for another.”

  “Hantu, even you are at the limits of your wisdom and experience. Can you tell me you truly remember where to find the tides or how to catch one anymore? The Great Sacrifice has robbed us of so much. You have forgotten, as we have. And now you are trapped here. As we are there,” Si’dah implored him.

  Geode stepped forward also and placed a hand on Si’dah’s arm. “What Si’dah is trying to say is that we are more ignorant than we ever imagined. More ignorant than this man, Elias. More ignorant than Avery. And now, more ignorant even than Rye-Roanyk. When we first encountered Tora in your world, you told us to trust. You said the Astral was helping us, that it had brought us together. Well, now it has happened again. And we are asking you to trust. We did not act apart from you, Hantu. The Astral did.”

  Hantu’s shoulders slumped and he looked away from them both with a weary expression. Si’dah turned to Geode, hopeful. Was he breaking?

  “I can help you,” Elias said. He had been silent until now, and Si’dah noticed that when he spoke here, in the Astral, his voice had that same resonating quality as though it were echoing to them through a thousand bees buzzing. “You don’t have to be trapped here.”

  Hantu looked into Elias’s eyes. “How?”