Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series)

by Silver, Anna

  As her mind formed the thought, the way appeared before her. In the distance a tremendous mountain appeared, rising from the waves in jagged formations, disappearing into a roiling swirl of mist at its peak. That was her path to the Highplane.

  Si’dah stood and felt her hair dancing on the breeze. She squared the mountain in her jet gaze and took a deep, staggering breath. Inside, she called London to stir and fill her. Twice now, when London needed her most, she’d risen to answer her, to do what was required of them that London herself could not. Si’dah had watched the hunters of her people kill many times, and she’d killed herself. It was the way of things in her world. They needed flesh to buoy their own. They took only what was necessary and always it was she who met the spirits of their hunt on the Astral, seeking only those who came as a willing sacrifice. She supplied the hunters with the knowledge these spirits provided her, the knowledge of where to find them and how to slay them. And it was she, in reverence, who tended their spirits after and made sure they returned to the whole where they might find birth and life again.

  So when London needed to kill, it was Si’dah who showed her how. And when London needed to swim, it was Si’dah who provided the water, guided her dive, and flowed the knowing into her body that she might survive. Now, Si’dah needed London. She needed London’s fierce bravado to do what came next. Some risks are worth taking. After the failure and the fear of the Great Sacrifice, she needed London to teach her how to risk again.

  Si’dah relaxed and let her long limbs flood with the Other. When she stepped deeper into the water, it was London moving her feet, London steadying her heart and quelling her fears. And as less of her resisted and more of London took over, she moved from hesitant steps and broke into a full run, letting her powerful legs carry her far out into the surf as it swirled higher and higher to her hips. With a final push, London returned Si’dah’s favor, as she arced their arms high over her head and dove headfirst into the oncoming wave.

  * * *

  THE TIDE CAUGHT her body like a doll’s and rushed it along under the churning surf. Si’dah was careful to keep her mouth and eyes closed. She’d opened her eyes once to a flurry of aquamarine bubbles, but it was so disorienting that she quickly shut them again. Once or twice she’d bobbed to the surface, taking in quick lungfuls of air before sinking under again. Like everything else, her lungs were long and powerful, able to withstand the lack of air much longer than London’s.

  Now, she scrabbled unsteadily onto the black pebbled shore at the base of the mountain where the tide had spit her out. Her legs were wobbly and uncertain after the restless ride and she was dripping from head to toe, but no colder for it. Her skirts clung to her legs in plastered, wet folds and her hair hung over her shoulders streaming water from the ends, her plaits having come loose in the water. But the important thing was, she was here. She’d made it to the far shore, the passage to the Highplane.

  Si’dah glanced up and shuddered. The mists curled protectively around the mountain’s peak, in opaque tendrils of white shot through with lavender, blue, and black. They were so far above her that she doubted for a moment if they were even reachable. But surely the Astral wouldn’t have brought her this far only to shut her out. She was at the base of the mountain. All she could do was climb.

  Here the slope was more gradual and Si’dah simply reached out, digging her fingers deep into a crag, and pulled her feet up to a small platform of rock that jutted out a foot or two. From there, the stone outcrop itself sloped up the side of the mountain a ways and she simply had to step carefully so as not to get off balance or loose her footing and fall. When that slope ran out, she easily found another crack to wedge her fingers and toes until she came again to another gradient ledge which would carry her so far before she must scale the face yet again. In this way, her progress was slow but steady.

  Si’dah tried once to look up, but found the height dizzying and discouraging. No matter how long she climbed, the peak always seemed as high as ever. And yet, if she looked down, the waves tossed about so far below that she instantly regretted the error of it. So Si’dah focused instead on the ebony slick of rock immediately before her face or under her feet and hoped she would simply know when she’d reached the summit and could step off in search of her mentor.

  As it turned out, the summit reached her.

  She didn’t so much as climb into the mists as they seemed to descend around her, enveloping her in the soft cloud of their presence and cutting off all visibility of the tides below. Si’dah’s heart hammered with anticipation as the tendrils swirled before her eyes, but she dared not let go of her hold on the mountain just yet. Her right foot reached out for the narrow ledge she’d seen only moments before, and the sturdy stone was reassuring beneath her toes. Carefully, she eased over, until her weight all but rested entirely on the ledge and she could release her left foot from the little peak it had been gripping. With both feet firmly planted on the ledge, she crept forward. This incline had been the steepest by far and the path was little wider than the thick plait her mentor always wore in her hair, so she moved slowly, leaning into the mountain’s face and gripping little juts and crannies in the stone as she went.

  This ledge, however, didn’t run out. It simply grew steadily wider until the mountain seemed to fall away beneath Si’dah’s hands and the grade leveled out beneath her feet. With every step, she grew more certain of herself, more confident. Until at last she could breathe easy knowing she was no longer on the mountain or the ledge at all. The mist began to part before her, swimming around her calves joyfully, so that she could not quite make out the soft carpet of moss under her feet, only feel it like velvet against the tender, aching pads of her toes and heels.

  This was it. Si’dah had found the Highplane.

  Chapter 24

  * * *

  Mentor

  THE LITTLE LIGHTS of the hut glowed through the deepening mist and the dusk-colored skies like welcoming stars. It seemed the Highplane was forever cast in the long lavender shadows of twilight, the sky above hued in the shades of a deep bruise. The mist was damp and Si’dah hadn’t fully dried out from her tussle with the Astral tide. She’d wandered wet and unsure for long enough and was grateful the Astral finally saw fit to bring her to the steps of her mentor’s cottage.

  As she neared, a sweet aroma poured out into the currents of air eddying past her face and the heat of a fire could be felt even before she reached the doorstep. The Highplane lacked the dismal character of the Lowplane and the lively quality of the Midplane. Instead, it stirred with a mystical air that felt both merry and somber at once, teetering on the edge of a mystery that was eternally unfolding. Si’dah was glimpsing a world behind the curtain.

  As she reached the dwelling, she leaned against the timber doorpost and let her eyes drift longingly over the cozy interior and small but comfortable furnishings. This was the resting place of her mentor, the Si’dah who had gone before. This was the rich reward of a life well lived and a journey well traveled. For a while, she’d thought this could be closed to her. That if she didn’t manage to survive London’s world, she could never know this peace. That, like Hantu, trauma could thrust her back into the Astral forever to wander the Midplane like a wanton ghost. Now, she knew better. So long as there was no part of herself closed off, then there would be no corner of the Astral closed to her.

  She sighed with relief as her eyes danced with the amber flames of a hearth-fire and rose with the tendrils of sweet steam that seeped from a well burnished hanging pot. It was only when the door to the right of the fire opened that she realized the room she’d been studying was empty of any inhabitant. But a familiar form scurried in to stir something into the pot, bending over it, and though her back was to Si’dah, the fire’s glow revealed what she already knew: her mentor was here.

  “Took you long enough, silly girl,” the voice rang in recognizable tones.

  Si’dah smiled broadly and straightened. “You were expecting me.” She
should have known.

  Alyna turned and studied her old student, the black beads of her eyes winking within the puckered folds of her skin. “Did you doubt it?”

  Si’dah paused and considered. “No,” she said, realizing now that from the moment she’d set foot outside the grove, she’d known it was Alyna all along who had called her to the task.

  Alyna, short and a little stout for their kind, though still taller than many women in London’s world, nodded her silver-bunned head. The long plait she’d always worn was now wrapped high on her crown, little wisps escaping to shroud her face. “I should hope not. Taught you better than that, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” Si’dah said, easily filling the doorway. “You taught me much…but not everything.”

  Alyna snorted. “Everything is not mine to teach,” she huffed, then turned to stir the perfumed contents of her hanging copper pot.

  Si’dah watched her from her place at the door, uncertain where to even begin. This was Alyna’s way, short answers and curt replies. Plying her with questions was likely to do little good, especially if she thought you were asking the wrong ones.

  Alyna gestured impatiently. “Well, for Astral’s sake, come in! Don’t just gawk about my door like that. We haven’t all that much time.”

  Si’dah chuckled and stepped inside, finding an empty seat near the fire that overflowed with a soft, orange cushion.

  Alyna set two cups on a nearby table and poured the contents of her pot through a strainer into them. Then, she handed one to Si’dah. “Drink,” she commanded. “You’ll need it for the journey back, to fortify you.”

  Si’dah sipped timidly at the steaming cup, but the sweet herb of the tea eased her lips and worries and she found herself taking bigger and bigger swigs. “This is very good,” she commented between sips.

  “Hmph,” Alyna replied. “Should be. The leaf grows only here on the Highplane, fed by the mists. Haven’t tasted the likeness of it anywhere else.”

  Si’dah smiled and set her cup down. This would be Alyna’s version of eternal paradise. “Tell me Si’dah, why have I come?” she asked Alyna.

  “No, no, no,” Alyna said wagging a finger. “I have not held that title for many ages and have no wish to again. You are the Si’dah now…or were. But you will always be Anya to me.”

  Hearing her own name from those lips felt like home. Anya let the pretense of titles slide off of her and embraced the opportunity to just be herself once more. She smiled gratefully.

  Alyna straightened and sipped from her cup. “You are here because you have traveled beyond the bounds of your lessons and you seek guidance. And it’s about time, too.”

  Anya breathed deep and nodded. “Agreed. There is so much I didn’t know and don’t know still. So much you never told me. Even the Circle is baffled. Please, I need your wisdom, Alyna.”

  “The Circle, the Circle! Fools, the lot of them,” Alyna muttered.

  Anya gasped. “How can you say that? You held the seat before me. It is an honor to have a place among the stones. You told me so yourself.”

  Alyna scratched at her bun. “Bah! To have the high seat among fools is no great honor. We thought so much of ourselves. Nonsense, most of it. Though there was some benefit.”

  Anya was reeling with Alyna’s words. How could her mentor say such things? “But—but why did you push me to claim it then? Why did you teach me about the Circle at all?”

  Alyna plucked at a loose hair and set down her cup. She sighed heavily. “Anya, the benefit of friends is always good. Among our own kind, we were alone. When you came to me, you were so young. But I couldn’t wait to get my hands on you. You know why?”

  Si’dah shook her head slowly.

  “Because you were the only other soul in our clan who knew what it was like to be me. The comfort of having that kinship daily was worth more than all the riches of every world. When I came to the Circle, I knew what folly much of it was. To think themselves so certain of everything. It is to limit ourselves. But the companionship was what drew me and it is why I encouraged you. You have no idea what it is like to live a lifetime of service to a people who can barely know you. I found the friendship I sought in the Circle. And you, you found even more, I think.”

  Anya blushed. She had. She’d found love. She’d found Roanyk. But how could Alyna know about Roanyk?

  “I would not have made the sacrifices you have made,” Alyna continued.

  Anya often wondered what her mentor really thought of her decision to go through with the Great Sacrifice, leaving her people and everything Alyna had taught her behind. At the time, Alyna had counseled her merely to follow the wisdom of her own heart and the vision of her own eyes. “Does it disappoint you? My choice?”

  Alyna nodded and arched her thin brows. “At first it did. You had a successor at least, a girl born among the clan who could fill your shoes eventually. But you left her at a disadvantage, her training not even begun. She was too young and our clan suffered for it. But...”

  Anya peered at Alyna, who was wearing a knowing smile. “But?”

  Alyna leaned back in her chair. “But I think you are the stronger for it. You have surpassed me, Anya, because you were not afraid to give and to love.”

  Anya sighed and looked earnestly at her mentor. “Do you know what I can do? In that world? I can do much more than carry messages and read the currents of time. I can change things…make things.”

  Alyna nodded. “I know. I have seen it. Whenever I long for you, the mists show me where you are, what you’re doing. I have been following your progress with great interest.”

  Anya leaned in toward the old woman. “And you? Can you do them too?”

  Here, Alyna shook her head. “No. I’m afraid I do not have that capacity because I have not made the journeys you have. Here, in the Astral, all is possible for me. But to carry that power back into the buirn, the dense world? No. That is beyond me. That was inconceivable…until you.”

  “But you knew about it? You knew it was possible, before you saw me in the mists?”

  Alyna’s black seed eyes narrowed with thought. Her lashes fell low over them and rose slowly again. “I had heard,” was all she said.

  “Heard? From who?”

  “Ell-Adalese told tales of another dreamwalker in her world who was rumored to have had such gifts, but he died long before she began traveling and there were stories that his brain was addled with madness. She was always pressing on about such things. Always hungry for more than her share, that one,” Alyna explained.

  “I should have guessed,” Anya said with a frown. “She hasn’t changed.” She still couldn’t connect Adalese’s sudden absence with what Alyna was telling her, but she had no doubt that a connection was there. Why, after hearing about their powers, and Avery’s, and Elias’s, would she suddenly turn up missing? Especially when she’d known all along that such things were possible? Something about her shifty eyes stuck in Anya’s throat like an old bone.

  But Anya batted her worries about Adalese aside and focused on her present concerns. “We’re losing. One by one, we’ve fallen and I don’t know what’s happening to the others. I need…I need to try to help them. But I don’t know how. I can barely stay a step ahead of our enemies myself, as it is. I need to know how far I can push myself. And I need your wisdom.”

  Alyna rested her hands on the arm of her chair. “Anya, I could never tell you your own limits. Only you can determine that. As for your friends, I would encourage you, value those bonds above everything else, for when all else is gone, only those connections remain.”

  She placed a weathered hand on Anya’s arm. “Stop running, little one. Go back for those you have forgotten. Even if you fail, to give your life in service to another is the highest calling and you will never regret it.”

  Anya’s eyes were swimming now with tears. “But how? I don’t even know where to find them or what to do.”

  “Anya, you have the eyes of a Traveler. Trust them. They will sho
w you the way,” Alyna reassured her.

  “Is there nothing else you can give me?” Anya whispered, desperate.

  Alyna rose from her seat and moved toward a single door on the other side of the fireplace from where she’d entered. “I cannot give what I do not already have,” she said sagely, turning back to Anya just as her hand wrapped round the knob. “I cannot give you what you seek. But I know someone who can.”

  With a push, the door swung inward and a large, cloaked figure stepped sideways into the room.

  Anya sprung from her chair, nearly knocking it over as she did so. Her heart drummed in her chest with surprise. “What is this?” she cried.

  The figure moved in front of the fire, black against the bright flames and Anya froze with fright as Alyna lifted her wry hands to the hood and threw it back.

  For a moment, Anya was too shocked to move or speak. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth like paste as she stared in wild-eyed wonder. There before her, standing right next to Alyna, his long hair gleaming in the firelight, was Roanyk.

  A small squeak emitted from her throat before she could stop it and Anya was suddenly aware of the need to recover herself. “Roanyk?”

  His feral eyes were ice cold, his hair a little shorter, his beard gone. His red spots had faded around his eyes and auburn streaks lighted his once black mane, but she knew him. She always would.

  “Si’dah,” he said in a whisper.

  Alyna cleared her throat and Anya turned to her. “How?” she asked her mentor.

  “I will let him explain that. There isn’t much time and you two have a lot to catch up on. For now, I’ll leave you to one another,” she said, and with that, Alyna stepped out of the room and back through door from which she’d entered.