Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (19 page)

“You can’t blame him for that,” said Carl, “seeing as you’re the one who brought half the archives down.”

“I’ll thank you to stop the gossiping,” said Ms Weston. “It’s with very good reason. And some of them are missing.”

“Missing files?” I said, with my best attempt at nonchalance.

Ms Weston narrowed her eyes. “I want a word with you, Kay. I told you to stay out of patrols.”

“Carl asked me to help,” I said. “I’d have spoken to you first, but I forgot I don’t have a working communicator. It was broken…” I reached into my pocket and held up the remains of the metal contraption in demonstration. “Not the first time it’s happened.” Given my habit of breaking the things, that was unfortunately true.

“So I see,” said Ms Weston, in cold tones. But it was a million times better than her accusing me of what I’d really done—robbed Central and gone offworld illegally. For once in my life, I was actually grateful for the damned magic that made it possible for me to break the law and get away with it. If that wasn’t a sign I’d lost the freaking plot, I might as well declare allegiance to Cethrax’s undergods.

“I’ll get you a communicator,” said Carl. “If you can confirm you had nothing to do with this.” He indicated the metal piece. The auros.

I didn’t have to feign confusion. “I honestly have no idea where it came from,” I said. Or what it was doing near the doorways to Cethrax. I hesitated before saying, “I found something similar by the place the Stoneskins opened the doorway they took Ada through. On Vey-Xanetha.”

“Is that so?”

My heart missed a beat. She didn’t know. But using the auros to find a doorway hadn’t worked anyway. No—I’d need a trace to follow. But it was pretty clear the Stoneskins
had
been opening doorways. Right there in the Passages.

“Was there anyone guarding the Passage at the time?” I asked. “Because it seems to me it ought to be a priority, given what’s happened.”

Ms Weston’s eyes flashed. “Thank you for your concern, Kay, but I’ve told you before that I’m quite capable of doing my job.”

“He has a point,” said Carl. “I did say we should keep the whole corridor under guard, not just the stairs. Especially with those reports coming in from New York’s Alliance.”

“This again?” said Ms Weston. “They can station their own guards there if they’re worried. We have too few staff to spare for a twenty-four hour guard.”

“There are more corridors than I realised,” said Carl, with a look at me. “Kay was right when he said they go on for miles. Parts of them are hidden, too—I think only magic-wielders can see the hidden stairs on the eastern side.”

If it was true, I was willing to bet Central hadn’t tracked all of them. Carl had been running patrols and the other magic-wielders were exempt from missions after the Vey-Xanethan fiasco. Which meant I’d probably seen more of the place than anyone else… apart from Ada.

“I see,” said Ms Weston. “In that case, Carl, you will focus your attention on making sure patrols cover the area alongside the hidden Passage. See to it. And Kay, I’d like a word now. In my office.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ADA

I stared. “You’re from my homeworld.”

The StoneKing shook his head. “No. We are not. But it is our destination.”

“You’re taking me back there? Why?” I clamped my mouth shut before I said,
there are easier ways of getting there than the back end of nowhere.
What if the Stoneskins were unaware of the paths used by the refugees? It would be a stupid idea to clue them into the hidden tunnels Nell and I had used. But how did they know where they were going?

“You are Adamantine,” said the StoneKing. “You are the only surviving Royal outside of the Empire, and you are going to help us have our revenge on the ones whose orders condemned us.”

My frantic heartbeat pounded in my ears.
No. No.

“Who?” The question came out as a whisper.

“The magebloods.”

My pounding heart missed a beat. “Huh?”

“The mageblood scum were the ones who sent out the order to the allies of the Empire. They needed soldiers to overcome people who made themselves invincible. The Royals, with their magic sources,
were
invincible, or so I am told. Anyone who got close to them on the battlefield was obliterated. The magebloods lost millions, and the magic channelled through the Royals was enough to knock off the Balance across ten universes. They had to be stopped. Therefore, the magebloods’ surviving leaders, safe in their adamantine bunker, came up with a plan: us.”

I stared, mouth hanging open.
An experiment. Just like…
And it gave me a weird, guilty sense of relief that the
Alliance
hadn’t done that to them. No, someone else had.

“Damn,” I whispered. “You weren’t created on Enzar, were you?”

“We were created in a laboratory on a world capable of holding us captive--created to be the magebloods’ shields. They created thousands of us—starting with volunteers, then resorting to kidnapping and coercion across a dozen worlds. Nobody stopped them. Our group escaped by pure chance.” His gaze drifted over the other Stoneskins. “They thought we forgot where we came from, but all that’s left for us is revenge. We needed a weapon of our own to take down the people who turned us into monsters. We needed you.”

What the hell?
My thoughts were scrambled. Sure, I’d guessed they might be an experiment, but
Enzar?
It made sense, horribly so, but that didn’t make it any less unbelievable. Enzar had been cut off
from the allied worlds for twenty years. There was no way in aside from the transit points, and if there was one thing I was sure of, those places had nothing to do with the fighting. No way could anyone we worked with have known the Stoneskins existed.

Created on another world capable of holding us captive…

“You haven’t said how you even knew I existed,” I said. “There were a lot of Royals… right?”

“There were,” said the StoneKing. “Until the magebloods killed them.”

A shiver ran down my spine. He’d seemed… coherent, when he’d been speaking to me. But now real madness burned in those green eyes, and his face was more stonelike than ever. Menacing. Unhinged. The magebloods had damaged him, made him into a monster, and I had to look away from his eyes, squashing down the part of me that whispered we were more alike than not, on the inside.

“Okay,” I said, as if we were chatting at the bus stop. “So you found out I…”

“Escaped? I heard tell of a servant who fooled the whole palace, and who killed a dozen guards smuggling a baby out of the capital while the Royals were fighting. Most dismissed the rumours, but who could have carried out such a plan? The Royals were dangerous, their abilities capable of wiping out whole cities, and even the magebloods didn’t dare fight them directly. The idea of a mere servant nonmage with no magic stealing one of their children—would you not find it intriguing?”

Nell.
I stopped breathing as a sharp pain struck me right in the heart. Where was she now? She’d never give up on me. I could picture her right here, coming to take the StoneKing down.

Nobody was invincible. Even the Royals, with their unlimited magic.

“How’d the magebloods kill the Royals?” I asked.
My real parents.
Of course I’d known they were most likely dead, but still…

“Magic, of course. The Royals might have been more powerful, but the magebloods outnumbered them.”

“Wait. You said you want to use me for revenge on the magebloods. But you implied you were working together, with them.”

“We are on neither side,” said the StoneKing. “We have methods of tracking magic-wielders, and either will be fair game for us when we reach Enzar. Your war has ravaged half the Multiverse. I imagine there are many who want to see an end to the fighting.”

He’s actually insane.
“So you hate all the Enzarians… but you want to work with
me?”

“You aren’t one of them,” said the StoneKing. “And I would hazard a guess you only know half of what you can do. You are listed as dead in the Empire. Nobody alive knows you exist, save for us. You will be our silent assassin. You will win me the Empire, Adamantine.”

“You,” I said, “are insane. You’re crazy if you think I’d ever do that, for you or anyone else.”

“I never said you had a choice, Adamantine.” The StoneKing shook his head, almost sadly. “We will break you if necessary.”

“Listen to yourself,” I said. “What are you planning to do with the other humans you picked up? Aside from let them get eaten by killer plants and Cethraxian monsters?”

The StoneKing’s mouth twisted into a smile. “What use is an army of only one magic source?”

“You don’t know anything about me, do you?” My heart beat too fast, but he was pissing me off, and if I gave the illusion of confidence, maybe it would buy me the chance to get in a question of my own. “What did you do, run around kidnapping people who looked like me until you found me?”

But there were no other Enzarians amongst the group.

“Of course not,” said the StoneKing. “We merely made use of a certain area of Cethrax with links to the Passages and to other worlds. We were stuck there for some time, though it gave me the chance to bring the Vox to an understanding to allow us free access to their territory.”

“You trapped the Vox?” I said. “How? It’s magicproof, like you.”

“And astonishingly easy to trap in chains. It is amazing how willing most races are to comply when you threaten those they care about. We are stronger than any creature even on the desolate world of Cethrax. Everyone bowed before us, and as an added bonus, we were able to enslave a magic-creature for a brief time, too.”

“So you were using Vey-Xanetha as your source—for what?” I asked. “I’m lost here. I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

“We were told you are a source in yourself, Adamantine. I never expected to find a lone girl so easily, which is why it came as such a shock when I returned to find the doorway closed, the Vox free from chains, and Veyak once again reduced to a puppet to serve humans. A pity. But we had what we wanted. You left a trace that was easy to follow, Adamantine.”

“A trace,” I said, grasping his meaning. “You have an Alliance tracker?”

“
I
am the tracker, Adamantine. It was built into my skin long before the magebloods tampered with me.”

A moment passed
. He’s serious.
Built into his skin… like a magic boost. An injection. A
tracker?

“You can find
any
magic-wielder?” I stared at him, unable to help myself. “On any universe?”

“Including Enzar,” said the StoneKing. “Even though the Alliance has closed all direct Passages, we finally found a signal.”

An icy sensation shot down my spine. If the StoneKing
was
the tracker, it meant I couldn’t steal it and use it to find my way back to Earth. I’d have to find another way out.

I didn’t let any of my thoughts show on my face. “You have a world-key. Why not just open a door straight to Enzar?”

“I can track magic-wielders, individually, not worlds,” said the StoneKing.

“But you found Vey-Xanetha.”

“Through tracking an individual. Veyak—magic given consciousness—was a perfect fit for our purposes.”

“For
what?”
I said. “What did that have to do with me?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” said the StoneKing. “But it helped us recharge our transporters. There are few places outside the Alliance with the required energy stores to do that.”

I shook my head. “You’re saying you cut open a doorway between Vey-Xanetha and Cethrax, enslaved a Vox
and
a living magic source, all because you couldn’t charge the batteries on your… transporters? You mean world-keys, right?” I shook my head. His plan seemed more like a joke by the second.

The StoneKing blinked at me. “The doorway itself opened naturally, as part of the cycling seasons on that world. We merely prolonged it from our temporary base on Cethrax.”

The doorway on Vey-Xanetha opened naturally… they’d mentioned a chasm. And if this guy was a walking tracker, he’d have been drawn to Veyak as soon as the doorway opened. Holy shit. How had whoever created him let the StoneKing and the others escape?

“You know how many people died because of that doorway?” I said. “The summoners sacrificed their own lives trying to close it.”

“It is no concern of ours,” said the StoneKing. “We did not use that world to its full extent, but it proved useful to have a union with the Vox. It certainly helped us to find
you.”

He really was batshit crazy. “You chased me based on a rumour, thinking I’d be your assassin? I won’t kill people, for you or for anyone on my homeworld.”

“That remains to be seen,” said the StoneKing. “I think I can give you an incentive. You don’t want revenge on the people who murdered your family?”