The terrier’s doleful eyes watch me, and then he scurries over to her other side and pushes his nose into my mother’s hand.
I shake my head. “No. She’s not. She’s going to survive.” And they’re stupid! Stupid for saying that!
“Look at her, Sev. Look at her properly.”
Corin’s words wash over me, and it’s as if his words make all the burns appear, all of them on her face, her arms, her chest, her legs. The skin’s broken and raw, shiny in places, sooted in others. Her throat makes a wheezy sound as she inhales. The dog licks her hand now, licks it once, twice, three times, keeps going, over and over again.
“I can heal her,” I say, and I pull away from Corin, reach my mother. My terrier recoils a few feet.
I touch my mother’s chest, I’m drawn to do it, and….
And I wait for her to heal as I pull on my powers and….
But nothing happens. But it should—I healed Corin. The blisters on his face: I did that, I healed them!
“It’s too late, baby.” My mother’s voice is hoarse, croaky, doesn’t sound like her. Can’t be her. “And I know now. They told me I have to die.”
“What? Who?”
“They told me, baby…and it…it makes sense… For you, my baby. And…and I couldn’t live, not after this…not as an Untamed… I took too much.”
I stare at her. My bottom lip wobbles. “The augmenters? No. Mum. You can resist them.”
“No, baby.” She reaches out and somehow manages to move her arm. She removes my hand from her chest, then grasps my fingers. “I took too much of it… I took part of Three’s addiction so he could resist at times, and, baby, I poisoned the augmenters, used my Seer powers to do it…when I was strong enough. It was hard—doing it from afar. Some were more effective than others, especially at first…but all were bad for Untamed souls. I did it for you, so you could all resist. Even those without your soul. But doing it made me more addicted… I took your addiction—and theirs…all the addiction they should’ve felt, it came to me…and it’s filled me up.
“I pushed it down, ignored it, pretended I was the same, but it has been eating me, making it harder and harder to…and I want them. So I need to go. It’s time.”
“What?” I stare at her, feel everything inside me crumble. “No! Mum, no—”
“You don’t need me—not as I will be. And this is right… I feel it. This is what’s supposed to happen. Seers of Light see far, and I’ve seen far, far ahead, beyond what is my life, because that vision… This—this is supposed to happen. I realize it now: I end in fire. You live on, baby…” She inhales sharply, closes her eyes, and her whole body convulses.
“Mum?” I squeeze her hand, but she doesn’t squeeze it back.
For a moment, I freeze. No—no… But then her eyes flutter open again.
“Listen, Seven: bad things are going to happen to you…” Her voice croaks. “Be brave. My visions, they always happen, and these haven’t yet… Stay strong. You can get through this. And I know you can win. You’re a Sarr.” She blinks, and a tear squeezes from her left eye. “I won’t be here. But I’ll still be with you, in your heart. And you end this war, yes? Then you can join me, just as the….”
I gulp, hold her hand tighter. “No—no, Mum, you’re not dying, you’ll be here.” I try to smile, but I can’t.
“It’s too late to stop this from happening… And there are some things that have to happen, that are written into the fabric of the world. And I have to die for you to win. And we are shown some things, not so we can stop or change them, but so we can prepare. So we are not in the dark. And my death is the stepping stone to the last night… Let me go, baby. You have to let me go.”
My eyes glass over. “Mum, no, don’t… You’re…you’re all I have left now…our family, Mum. It’s just you and me. You can’t go, Mum. I can’t… I love you.” I’m shaking my head and hot, furious tears spill.
“Power divided is no power at all, Seven. You need this. They told me as I burned. Part of me has already gone. Don’t let my soul get sundered.”
She lifts her arm. It shakes. Her fingers are dry and hot, the skin peeling. She touches my face, and I see through her eyes, see through them like they’re a portal to another place. A gateway.
A gateway that is a mirror, that reflects what is but shouldn’t be. The inner truth that only a few see.
People.
People inside me.
The Sarrs.
All of the Sarr Seers.
And the first, the original, the first chosen by the Gods and Goddesses and spirits. Vala Sarr. I see and sense her, and, below her, is her daughter. I follow the line, find all the Sarr Seers in a blink of an eye, so quickly, all the generations, all of them created in the last two hundred and fifty years. And there’s at least one new Sarr Seer for each generation, sometimes more; and later, other families were chosen too, but that doesn’t matter. Because our lineage is the strongest. We have the original magic. We stand together.
And now there’s just me.
And the people I see, the Sarrs inside me—I am connected to them all, I stem from her, from Vala, the original Seer. Direct lineage.
I see it all—know it all.
And it’s…they’re all in me…the previous Sarr Seers…they’re here and in the New World…connections and…and so much power. I feel it.
Feel it inside me.
It is an angry tide crashing against the shore, throwing stones in high arcs. Driftwood arms try to reach the sky, but they can’t. They fall, forgotten.
It is the roar of an engine, power under foot. Acceleration, fast, furious, angry.
It is the sinewy muscles of a silverback gorilla.
It is the savage canine of a long-lost saber-toothed tiger, the point of mammoth’s tusk, the chiseled edge of an axe-head that bleeds.
It is the rush of blood from a wound.
And it is me.
It fills me, and I blink and it’s mine—the power, the people… and the image of my ancestors has gone. Like everything I just saw is far, far away. A glimpse from another world. Hundreds of worlds and—
My mother.
The last blink.
No.
I stroke her face. My tears mark an army across her skin and her last breath tangles in a net of words that bloom in me, words that scorch into my soul. Words that write themselves into me. Words that become me.
You won’t be alone, Seven. We are always with you, wherever we are, all with you. Ya Saba Moja. We are woven together, in you. And you are strong. You can resist because of your strength, because you are the accumulation, the pinnacle. And now, you will be the strongest Seer, the last Sarr, the goblet that collects us all together, that unites us.
Send me off, baby, release me, and correct what mankind has done. We have been in the darkness for so long—the longest time with no daylight. Even when we think it is light, it is not. There is so much evil. Make the sun rise, make it rise properly. Make everything right again, because you have all our power now. You are ready now. End this war, drink from our goblet, embrace your rightful power, and end it with you.
Her last breath tangles in me. Her eyes shut. And….
And then it’s over.
She’s gone.
I feel it. And…and I should’ve tried harder…should’ve used my powers, should’ve healed her and….
The power in the Sarr bank boosts. I feel her power there, her…her presence?
Emotion wells up inside me. I grip her hand harder. No. No. No.
Corin touches my shoulder, and then he pulls me against him. I start to crumble. And then I’m screaming into his chest, and his arms are around me, and darkness lashes across the world.
I scream and I scream.
And I don’t think I can ever stop screaming.
We send my mother’s body off. I say the Spirit Releasing Words. I make the signs of the Journeying Gods and Goddesses, even though they’re gone. I wonder if my mother will get to the New
World without them all.
I wonder if I’ll see her. If she’ll join the Lost. If it’s not really goodbye.
But I know it is, in that sense.
I feel it.
And I know.
She’s a powerful Seer. She’ll get to the New World. I just know it. Two did and…and I must’ve seen him…seen him in the gateway and didn’t recognize him. But can I sense his power in the line too? After a moment, I think I can. Though I never really met him; he died when I was five. What I feel could be anyone’s.
And so I say goodbye to my mother, and I feel her power in me, and I watch her body float away. Inside, I’m raw and screaming. It is a scream that can only stop when I stop. And stopping is what I want to do. But I mustn’t.
Corin holds my left hand. Esther, my right. The dog’s not far away, but he won’t come near me.
Taras and the blue-eyed-Seer watch. She said her name is Jana, I think… I don’t know. Time has passed. Too much time. And not enough. Conversations have happened—Jana’s spoken of her people, and Taras has worried about his, now left unprotected—but I didn’t really listen. It was when I was preparing my mother’s body for the send-off. And I tried to make her look as beautiful as her soul is.
I tried but…but she was too burnt. And, realistically, a part of me doesn’t know how she survived as long as she did.
Now, we walk away, just when her body’s out of sight, claimed by the sea with the sparkling lights. The wind kisses the tears on my face. Dullness throbs through me, pulls me along.
The augury will still stand.
We keep walking.
I think of Three’s face. The last time I saw him. My brother, a spirit. The pain in his eyes as he looked at me. Sorry. And the raw shame under that one word, layered over and over again. How his fingers shook. How he wasn’t strong enough to resist by himself, not at first. How our mother couldn’t make him resist all the time, only in glimpses. But how those glimpses must’ve got stronger. Because he then acted on his own. Twice.
And the first time was for me.
And now he’s dead.
The only way I’ve got him back is through his death.
But he’s free now.
Free, but still suffering.
Suffering. Suffering. Everyone’s suffering.
But maybe my mother isn’t.
“What do we do now?” Corin asks, his voice low. The terrier’s walking on his other side, about three feet away, and he’s limping slightly.
A hardness creeps into me. It fills my body. Turns me to stone, stone that shatters into fragments. Fragments that scratch and tear me up.
“We beat the Enhanced,” I say. “And we unite the Untamed.” I look across at Esther, then Taras and Jana. It’s already happening. I know it is. Our numbers are growing. “We unite the Untamed. We all come together, and we find out if there are any more of our Seers out there, others who escaped the Dream Land in time. And we get stronger. We get stronger, and we end the war.”
And it’s going to end soon. The augury said I was the strongest Seer, and now—with my mother’s powers boosting the Sarr legacy inside me—I am. I feel it. The power is mine.
And I don’t know how exactly I’ll win the war for the Untamed, but I know I will.
And I’ll do it soon.
I look up into the sky.
The darkest night—the last night—is starting.
In many ways, Divided is probably the hardest book I’ve written, and I’m so grateful to all the wonderful people who have helped me with this manuscript and given me encouragement when I most needed it.
To Rachael Bundy and S.E. Anderson, my wonderful critique partners: thank you. Your enthusiasm for this series is so uplifting, and the detailed feedback you’ve given me is incredible. I’m so grateful to both of you for the time you took to read countless drafts and passages of this book—as well as the hours and hours and hours you’ve spent workshopping different parts with me, even fitting these sessions into your already-busy days. You rock! I also love how we talk about my Untamed characters like they’re real people (and how, in public once, Rachael and I probably left those around us wondering what kind of people we associate with, when we spoke about how creepy Raleigh can be—using plenty of examples).
I also need to thank T.A. Maclagan and Katlyn Duncan, my wonderful beta-readers—your comments helped greatly. And Kiersi Burkhart, my accountability partner, thank you for keeping me on track with everything and for regularly checking in with me to see how it was all going and that I was meeting my daily word count goals. It was great talking to you on those days when I was stuck in the writing/editing cave with no idea of what was going to happen next for Seven—and your reassurance meant a lot. I did finally finish those revisions that I thought would beat me!
My writing groups have also been thoroughly amazing, not just in the technical advice they’ve offered, but in just being there and supporting me and my books. So, my heartfelt thanks must go to everyone in the YA Story Sisters, the Dry Spell Writers, and the YA Writers’ Critique Group HQ. Other authors I wish to thank for their on-going support are Stephanie Burgis, Deva Fagan, Megan Crewe, Tara Kelly, Dana Mele, Tiffany Schmidt, Catrina Burgess, Clara Kensie, Kimberly Sabatini, Tracy Clark, Jennifer Brody, Pintip Dunn, E. Mitchell, Lizzie Colt, and Kari Trenten. And additional thanks must also go to S.E. Anderson and Tracy Clark for blurbing Divided.
I’d like to thank Stephan Dudeck for the insight his blog (https://stephandudeck.wordpress.com/) gave me into indigenous groups of reindeer herders from his fieldwork in the Arctic. It was fascinating learning about the cultures of these different groups, and the information gave me a good grounding upon which I was able to build my own fictitious group of reindeer herders.
Next up in the list of people I must thank is my awesome editor, Michelle Dunbar. THANK YOU! Seriously, you’ve helped in so many different ways, and I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done. I can’t wait to work with you again.
Molly Phipps: with your stunning cover art and interior designs, you’ve really made Divided come alive. Thank you. I’m so proud of the book that Divided has become, and I can’t wait to see the designs you create for the final book in the Untamed series!
To my friends: thank you for being so supportive of my writing, even if it means I don’t always reply to your messages as quickly as I should, and, that when we meet up, I’m often talking about the characters in whichever manuscript I’m currently working on… Your support honestly means a lot.
Huge thanks must also go to my parents, my brother, and the rest of my family; as usual, you have been great and your support never-ending. I’m very lucky to have you all.
And finally, to my readers: thank you. Your support means the world to me.
MADELINE DYER lives on a farm in the southwest of England, where she hangs out with her Shetland ponies and writes young adult books—sometimes, at the same time. She holds a BA Honors degree in English from the University of Exeter, and several presses have published her fiction. Madeline has a strong love for anything dystopian, ghostly, or paranormal, and she can frequently be found exploring wild places. At least one notebook is known to follow her wherever she goes.
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Find Madeline online:
Twitter: @MadelineDyerUK
Instagram: @MadelineDyerUK
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Website: www.MadelineDyer.co.uk
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LOVE. DEATH. SACRIFICE.
THE LAST NIGHT HAS BEGUN.
* * *
Seven Sarr, the most powerful human in the world, is alive—and she’s on the run from her enemy. With the Dream Land gone, the Gods and Goddesses dead, and the Untamed’s number of Seers at a record low, Seven knows her people must attempt to work with the Lost Souls—including the most volatile and dangerous spirits—if they’re to have a chance of beati
ng the Enhanced Ones once and for all.
* * *
But when the Enhanced impose a new threat and Corin’s life is at stake, Seven must make her hardest choice: save the man she loves and let her people perish, or allow Corin’s death so the Untamed can survive.
* * *
Locked into a tight countdown to her own demise and solitary entrapment within a torturous realm, Seven must make her decision quickly. Her Seer powers are the strongest, and her death will end the War of Humanity once and for all. When the new morning dawns, the world as she knew it will be gone. What—and who—will be left behind is up to Seven.
* * *
Will her love shape the future of the world?
Divided Page 40