by Anna Silver
Silently, Tora and Rye had scavenged the borders of the old camp, gathering scraps of food, filling a few old bottles with rainwater collected in barrels and anything else they could find that would be useful. Then the three moved out, putting as much space between them and the clearing as London could possibly muster.
Beside the fire, London chewed on a second scrap of jerky Tora had snagged from the smokehouse. She could feel the strength and energy flowing back into her from the food and water, cresting like a thick, sluggish wave over each of her muscles.
Tora shrugged, her knees pulled tightly to her chest, her eyes set on the crackling flames. “Another site. Maybe an old one we’ve used before. Probably a new one they’ll clear over the next few days. This raid was bad. They’ll be anxious to reestablish themselves somewhere no one else knows about.”
“It was us, wasn’t it? That drew the Tigerians?” London asked.
Tora simply said, “Yes.”
They were quiet for a moment before London said, “I remember you. From my dream.”
Tora looked up, her face unreadable in the firelight. “It was you, then. The woman with black eyes.”
London glanced at Rye before answering. “Yes, she is me.”
The time for secrets was over. Tora had made a greater sacrifice for their sake than they would have asked of her. What more could she prove? Whatever Tora’s feelings for Rye, whatever London’s own insecurities, the time for petty grievances was long past. From this point forward, they would put everything on the table.
“How?” London asked her. “How were you there?”
But it was Rye who answered, “Tora’s a Seer, London. She dreams, too.”
“You are?” London looked at her. She’d never suspected it. No one in Capital City was dreaming and New was still a dirty word behind the walls, but she never considered that it might be different among the Outroaders.
Tora fixed on them both, the fire casting wicked shadows across her sharp features. “Yes. I’m a Seer. But the real question here is, what are you?”
London looked at Rye, a sea of silent words swimming between them. This was it. No turning back. To voice it to someone outside the group seemed to solidify it for her all the more. And yet, Tora wasn’t really outside. She wasn’t inside either, but she was a Seer, whatever that meant. All that mattered to London was that, apparently, a Seer dreams.
London inhaled deeply, the acrid bite of smoke filling her with courage. She broke her eye contact with Rye and returned Tora’s steely glare, her chin high and unapologetic. Nothing to hide. Not anymore. They were what they were. They had to accept it, and so did the rest of the world.
“We’re Otherborn.”
Saying it and explaining it were two very different things. The fact was, London didn’t have a solid grasp on it herself, and she probably understood more than any of the rest of them—besides Degan, who was conveniently lost to the Astral and not much help in moments like these.
But Tora listened patiently and reserved any judgments, restricting them to the privacy of her own thoughts. She kept her questions pointed and direct. And she managed not to look terrified. Or amused. She dreamt, so that was not a new concept for her. And she’d seen London as Si’dah already. So there was much in their story that she simply took for granted, no matter how preposterous it sounded. It wouldn’t be so easy with someone else. But then, who else would they tell? Who else would believe them? Who else would care?
When they got to the part about their song, London coursed over it casually, not wanting to linger on that afternoon with Pauly—their last. But New, as it turned out, was just as unheard of in their camp as it was in Capital City, and Tora struggled to grasp what they were saying. She asked a lot of questions that forced London to spend more time reliving the whole debacle than she cared to.
“You mean…it’s never, never, been sung before?” Tora had relaxed some, leaning back on one arm, as she questioned her new friends.
“I mean it’s never even been written before,” Rye corrected. “Or played. Or sung. Not until London and I. Well, mostly London.” He beamed with pride, but London was anything but proud of their accomplishment. Remembering the song filled her with shame.
“That’s impossible,” Tora said, gnawing on a piece of jerky.
“So are night pictures and visions of the future, but it never stopped you, did it?” London reasoned.
“I believe you,” Tora corrected. “I just don’t get it.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the first,” London sighed. “Can we drop it now?”
“Sure,” Tora agreed.
“So, you see why we couldn’t tell Harlan?” Rye asked, moving on.
Tora nodded. “Yeah, I get it. But he would have believed you, especially with me there and after the language thing,” she said, carefully skirting Reginald’s name and place in it.
“Fat good it would have done,” London muttered. “He’s dead now, isn’t he?” Her mood had turned sour with talk of the song. She couldn’t help it. Everything she hated about being Otherborn seemed to float to the surface with the subject.
Tora turned swiftly away, hiding fresh tears, and Rye gave London a hard, What the hell? look.
Unintentionally, London had brought the conversation back around to all they’d seen in the clearing, all Tora had lost. She cursed her lack of tact, and tried to change the subject. “All right, you’ve got our version. Now it’s your turn. If a Seer isn’t the same as being Otherborn, then what is it exactly?”
For Tora’s part, describing a Seer came much easier. A Seer dreams, sometimes at night and sometimes in the day. Sometimes they aren’t dreams as much as feelings, impulses, flashes of knowing that can’t be ignored. To London, it sounded a thousand times easier to deal with. At least she knew the purpose of many of the things she saw. There were no disassociated memories to contend with. No otherworldly personas stowed away in one’s soul. No mysterious Astral plots to unravel. And most importantly, no one trying to take control of your head. In fact, it sounded like Tora had much more in common with Si’dah than she did with London.
“Sounds a lot like a Si’dah,” London mused.
“A what?” Tora blinked.
Rye grinned right up to his ruddy eyes. “You’re right, Tora’s kind of like what our Otherborn were before they became Otherborn.”
London explained that Si’dah was both the name and the title of her Otherborn, the black-eyed woman Tora had seen in her dream. “That’s what she did for her people. She was their Seer.”
“Do all the camps have a Seer?” Rye asked.
“No.” Tora shook her head. “As far as we know, I’m the only one. But there are a lot of camps around the walled cities, more than we could ever know about. Maybe even some in the vast stretches of wilderness between. Communication is hard. We hear a lot, being that we stick so close to Capital City, but there’s no way to keep in touch with all the Outroaders.”
“So, no one dreams in the Outroads either then? Just you.” London poked at the fire with a nearby stick. She was chilly in just her tank and pants, despite the warm season. The fire felt good on her goose-pimpled skin. And it kept the dogs away, or so Tora told them.
Tora lowered her eyes. “Reg did. Sometimes. They were silly things really, not like mine. And they were rare. Abigail believed it was because he was so close to me. Like a virus he caught from me.”
“What do you think?” London asked.
“I think maybe the dreaming is coming back. That it spreads from one person to the next, not because they catch it, but because it awakens something dormant within. Something we already have but have lost along the way.”
“Something we’ve forgotten,” London added. “Like the second mind.” She looked at Rye.
“Do you think that’s why we’re here? The Otherborn, I mean? To bring the dreaming back?” Rye asked.
London picked at the fraying edges of her bandages. In all the chaos, she’d never had the chance to
tell them about Degan in the grove. About the moth and the message. It seemed wrong to say it now, without Zen and Kim there to hear. But she convinced herself that, as soon as they caught up with them, she’d fill them in as well.
“That’s part of it,” she sighed aloud, bringing Rye and Tora’s focus back to her.
“You know this because…?” Rye questioned.
“Degan told me. While I was unconscious. I was there, in the grove, and he found me and told me.”
“What did he tell you?” Rye asked. “Have you been holding out on me?”
“He told me who we are. Who he is. He helped me remember how we came to be. And he told me what we’re doing here…in this world.” She wouldn’t meet their eyes over the fire, dreading this part, knowing how big a pill it would be to swallow.
Rye cocked an eyebrow at her. “What are we doing here, London? In this world?”
Another deep breath, she tossed her stick into the fire and looked him full in the face, “We’re taking down the Tycoons. We’re restoring the dreaming. And we’re basically saving the planet.”
Rye’s jaw practically landed in his lap. “Come again?”
She sighed, as though she were having to explain that two plus two equals four to a six-year-old. “This is not our world. It’s Degan’s. A long time ago, we met in the Astral and he asked us for our help. We’re part of an Astral committee of sorts, you and I, called the Circle. And we set up a place for dream shamans from all dimensions, Seers like Tora here, to meet. That’s the grove.”
Rye clamped his jaw closed and shook his head as though he were trying to clear it. “A shaman committee?”
“Right,” London confirmed. “Anyway, we agreed to help him. But it meant giving something up—making the Great Sacrifice.”
“What did we give up?” Rye wanted to know.
“Our worlds. Our people. Ourselves. We escaped into the Astral, waited for the right opportunity and inserted ourselves into new souls, incarnating in this world in order to help it.”
“And Degan?” Rye said.
“Degan did the same. Only…”
“What? Only what, London?”
“Only he died here, before he could extract himself and reach the high plane. And now, he’s trapped, forever, in the Astral.”
Tora shifted uncomfortably, tucking her knees beneath her. “This murderer you spoke of, called Kingsnake. Do you think that’s his purpose? To trap you there, where you can’t be of service to this world any longer?”
London looked at Rye when she answered. “Yes. We’re sure of it.”
“So, a sudden death, like a murder, traps you in the dream world eternally, the Astral?” Tora pressed further.
“A sudden or traumatic death rarely gives the soul time to heal, to make the transition needed to move on to the next place. We are children of the Astral—Rye, you, and I—because we left our lives, our homes, to enter that place wholly. Because we were born from it to this place and these bodies. If we lose our lives suddenly, our souls will return—grafted together—to the womb from which they came. It means no more lifetimes. It means no hope of rest.”
“And if we die naturally, would they leave us, the Otherborn?” he gulped.
“I don’t know exactly,” London admitted. “I guess that’s the idea. I’m not sure they thought this plan through all that well, to be honest.”
“So, now what?” Tora asked, refusing to let the gravity of London’s words paralyze them.
Rye huddled on his side of the little fire, transfixed by the flames, “How should I know?”
Tora waited for someone to respond.
London figured she was feeling more out of her element and more in it at the same time. Tora couldn’t have guessed all this, no matter how good her Sight was, but even she could see that it had tried, in its way, to prepare her.
And London sat stiffly in the glow of the blaze, shivering just a little despite the heat, and not knowing why. Until she saw the flash of pearlescent green drift through the dark like a miniature ghost. She stood, following the specter as it danced in and out of the swaying oaks and pines rising darkly around them. She steeped in the déjà vu of the moment, almost unable to speak as Rye and Tora watched her with imploring expressions. When, at last, the vision landed on the low branch of a young tree directly across from where London stood, its pale jade wings undulating with the night breeze, London knew she had an answer for Tora.
“Now, my dear Seer, we follow our dreams. To Avery…and the Tycoons.”
TWENTY
Moth
“London,” Rye began, trying to keep up with her. “This is ridiculous. We can’t keep going like this. You need rest. We all need some sleep.”
London put a foot out, misjudging the terrain in the dark. The tree root surprised her and she stumbled, twisting her ankle on the way down. “Damn it!” she cursed, scrambling back up on shaky legs.
“I agree with Rye,” Tora chimed between breaths. “This is too much, even for me.”
“No,” London insisted. “I’m fine. We keep going.”
Rye crossed his arms stubbornly. “London, listen to reason. We’re following a friggin’ moth! It’s absurd. We’ve been at this for hours and we’re getting nowhere. We have to stop, rest before the sun rises.”
“Don’t you see, Rye?” London begged for his understanding. “It’s not a moth, it’s Avery. She needs us. And she’s leading us to her.”
Rye glanced at Tora, her face plastered with concern where it was usually unreadable. “Could be delirium,” she suggested.
“I’m not delirious!” London shouted, not caring who might hear. “Avery talked about signs, about following the signs. And when I was in the Midplane—with Degan—we saw this moth, and he said it was a message. And then it shows up here. You think that’s just a coincidence?”
“You saw this moth, this very exact moth, inside the Astral grove?” Rye pressed.
London hesitated. “Well, basically. I mean, not this exact one. Obviously. But more or less.”
“Look, London, you’re not well. And you’re not making sense. You need rest.”
Rye had unfolded his arms and was petting her shoulder with a gentle hand, but his patronizing tone only inflamed her more.
“But Luna Moths only fly at night!” she simpered. What couldn’t they comprehend?
“London,” Tora tried. “Don’t you think, if this moth really is your lost friend, Avery, that she’ll wait for you? That she’ll understand if you need a break?”
London balled her hands into fists at her side. Her hair was a dark tangle of leaves and twigs. Her clothes were tattered and filthy, her bandage unraveling like her patience, and, to Rye and Tora, like her sanity. One boot had come untied, and, while the infection was receding, her left arm still blazed a blistering red at the rim of her scabbing wound, which was probably the only thing keeping the bandage on at this point. She was so pale, she was nearly as green as the moth’s wings, except under her eyes, where violet moons saddled her hollow cheeks. And she was thin from the days of nothing but liquids poured down her throat. Her tank top hung off her shoulders where it had been tight. She was certain she looked about as brittle as the leaves littering the forest floor. Try as she might, she couldn’t blame them for their assessment. But they were wrong, and she would not give in. Even if Tora had a viable point. She’d come back from the edge of death for this. And only death would stop her.
“Look at me,” London said quietly, carefully. “Really look at me. Don’t you think I feel this? Don’t you think my feet ache and my legs burn and my stomach growls? Don’t you think I’m tired and thirsty and desperate for sleep?”
She held her arms out to them so they couldn’t turn away from the angry red edges of her wound peeking through the shred of bandage or the pattern of old scars. “Don’t you think this hurts?”
Rye winced. Tora cast her eyes to the ground. And London felt, maybe for the first time, the full shame of what she had done
to herself. But she continued, undaunted.
“However bad I look, Avery could be worse. She could be hanging by a thread. She could be unconscious or bleeding out. She could be half alive. Tortured. Alone. We don’t know. The only thing convincing me she’s not dead already is that moth, and I won’t give up on her. I won’t resign her to whatever terrible fate is waiting.”
London stepped to Tora. “Back in your camp, when I was out, you could have let me die. And maybe, if you had, Reginald would be standing here now instead.”
Tora jerked her head up, meeting London’s desperate face with an impenetrable, feline glare.
London knew she had touched a nerve and she treaded lightly from there. “But you didn’t give up on me, even when it seemed hopeless. And you didn’t know me, had no reason to care. Except your Sight telling you that I meant something. Something important.”
London bore her dark eyes deep into Tora’s heart, trying to make her understand. “Back there, after Reginald, you told me to make sure whatever I was here for was worth your brother’s life. If we don’t find Avery, then it may have been for nothing.”
Tora blinked and looked at her feet, but she didn’t respond.
London turned to Rye. This would be hardest to say, but she wouldn’t let Avery down, and she wouldn’t let her fool feelings get in the way anymore.
“I don’t know—” she started, almost succumbing to the tears but managing to swallow them back. “I don’t know what I mean to you anymore.”
“London—” Rye interrupted, but she cut him off.
“No, let me finish. I don’t know what I mean to you, Rye. I honestly don’t. After everything back there in Capital City. Maybe that was just a kiss to you. Just a moment. But I know what it was to me, and I know what you mean to me. And when I think of Zen and what he’s got to be feeling right now, my heart bleeds. Because, whatever I am to you, you’re my whole world…and hers.”
She let that last bit sink in a minute. By her, she’d meant Si’dah. There were only traces left of what once existed between their Otherborns, but Rye would get it because he’d felt it in the grove that first time, same as she had. And it was so powerful, so altering, that it threw them all out of the dream space. Like her, he would start to remember, eventually. Then he would know what they had. Why he kissed her.
