Otherborn (The Otherborn Series) Read online

  For his part, Rye puzzled silently over much of what Tora had said in the last couple of days. He knew he distinctly heard Reginald refer to London as the lady from your dreams when answering Tora. It meant Tora was dreaming too. It had to. But he had no idea if her dreams were anything like theirs.

  Plus, she kept dropping subtle hints about knowing more than she let on. Mentioning they would be great friends and having her own secrets. Saying she knew London well enough. What was she driving at? Was it possible Tora was Otherborn? How? Wouldn’t they know her? And yet, until the other night, they’d only known one another by the signs and symptoms of the dreams, not by their Otherborn.

  Unless Harlan and Abigail gave up their vigil, it looked like he’d get no answers tonight. The only bright spot in an otherwise increasingly dismal situation was that London moved a couple of times, shifting her head on the sweater-pillow or clenching the fingers of her scarred, but otherwise well, arm.

  Rye took these little twitches as a good sign, though Abigail repeated her delirium theory over and over again. She was clearly annoyed that she’d been pulled into Harlan’s all-night watch when she believed London’s other language was probably just mumbled gibberish, the fever talking—not a clue to her secret identity. Rye, not liking to admit it, figured the Healer was right as the night dragged on without incident.

  It wasn’t until right before dawn that Harlan got his wish.

  Rye woke to a shuffling sound and saw London thrashing miserably on the cot next to him. Her fingers clenching and unclenching, her legs jerking, her head turning from side-to-side. Afraid it was a seizure, he called out for Abigail immediately. He should have kept his mouth shut.

  The Healer and the Elder rushed in from the chairs out front where they’d been dozing.

  “It’s not a seizure,” Abigail said after examining London, rubbing her weary eyes. “She’s dreaming is all. Night pictures, like Tora’s.”

  Rye stared at the Healer. Did all the Outroaders know of dreaming? Clearly Tora did. He wasn’t sure if he could trust this woman though, so he pretended not to understand. “What do you mean? Night pictures are a myth from before the Crisis. No one really has them.”

  Abigail stretched and sighed. “Yeah well, Tora has that effect on people. It’s a wonder poor Reg gets any sleep at all.”

  “Tora? You mean—”

  “I’ve tried every tincture, poultice, concoction, extract I can think of to cure her of it. You name it, I’ve tried it. It’s a terrible affliction, if you ask me. And it’s contagious, too. Just look at poor Reginald. But he won’t part with her.” Abigail patted London’s good arm. “It’s no wonder really. Your friend here’s already so weak. No way she could fight it, I guess.”

  Rye’s eyes were large as dinner plates. Just like the dreams spread from London to each of them, so Tora had inflicted her brother with dreaded night pictures. Maybe London was right. She always thought of the dreams as a curse—a disease. Clearly Abby and the Outroaders felt the same. But did Tora?

  Abigail seemed to notice Rye’s growing fear. “Ah now, don’t you worry. It’s not likely to hurt her in any way.”

  Unsure how to respond, Rye watched London’s face pass through a series of mute expressions. He wanted so much to be with her wherever she was, whoever she was. But he could never express that to someone like Abigail. To someone who thought the dreams were a contagion to be feared and cured. He certainly had no intention of admitting he had them himself.

  Tora yawned and stirred in her corner, asking if everything was all right.

  “Fine,” Abigail muttered, preparing to leave, when London let out a shrill cry.

  Her eyes pressed tightly closed and she moaned long and low, which broke into what could only be described as sobs. They watched her, wondering what she was seeing behind those lids.

  Abigail whispered to Harlan, “She’s getting worse.”

  “Ro—” London gasped. “Roanyk!”

  Rye started at the sound of his Otherborn’s name. He noticed Harlan observing him and was determined to control himself so as not to give more away.

  Rye rubbed the hair back from where it was plastered against London’s shining forehead, noting with alarm how hot she felt. “Shhh,” he soothed, though he wasn’t sure he wanted her to stop, if only because his heart quickened at the sound of her voice. He cursed himself for leaving her the other day to walk alone, but he needed the breather. The intensity of his feelings in the midst of everything that was happening had reached physical proportions and he felt like a steaming kettle that might blow from the pressure. He should have taken the time to explain. He knew his distance hurt her.

  She moaned again, grew very quiet, then said breathily, “Al mihte ru Roanyk…al mihte ru…” as clearly as if she’d been perfectly conscious and well. Her eyes never opened, and Rye knew that it was not London speaking, but Si’dah.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Abigail whispered.

  “What language is that?” Harlan asked aloud, but no one was able to answer him, not even Rye. He looked accusingly at Rye. “Will you still pretend you don’t know?”

  “I’m not pretending.” Rye glared back. “I don’t know.”

  “It was a language! You heard it! Abigail, don’t tell me it’s just fever gibberish now. That girl dreams! She spoke something. It was clear. It wasn’t mutterings, was it?”

  “Hard to say, Harlan. I mean, it sounded like language, but not one I ever heard before. Not that I’ve heard much, mind you.” The old woman was clearly perplexed.

  Rye knew that the flow of the words and syllables were too controlled to be mere ramblings. They’d all picked up on it. He couldn’t pretend otherwise. But he also knew that Harlan would never believe he really didn’t know what dialect London was speaking and that he couldn’t actually give him the answers he was seeking as Elder.

  “Tell me!” Harlan shouted. “You foolish boy! You’ll endanger us all! Can’t you see, we could help you?” The Elder was aggravated in the extreme with what he took to be Rye’s stubbornness, and he shook an angry fist as he shouted.

  “Harlan,” Tora said gently, putting a hand on his arm to calm him. “Harlan, you’re only upsetting yourself. Rye is telling the truth.”

  The old man looked at her with disbelief, but something in her gaze appeared to register with him. His fist fell limply to his side.

  Rye couldn’t help but wonder why everyone at the camp seemed to put so much stock in someone as young as Tora. She had some kind of influence with the Outroaders, something that made them believe her, regardless of the evidence. And she dreamed. Maybe he and the others weren’t being perfectly honest, but the Outroaders weren’t telling their full story either, especially Tora.

  “It’s the truth, Harlan, I swear by it.” Tora’s sharp blonde hair swung as she looked from Harlan to Rye, her green eyes searching his for understanding. “He doesn’t know because…because it’s not human.”

  FOURTEEN

  Answers

  Clark marched a bleary-eyed Zen and yawning Kim into the already packed quarters of Tora’s tent. His rifle remained steadfastly at his side, not that he was awake enough to use it.

  Tora backed closer to Rye, her legs shielding London’s cot. She was now positioned dead center, between Rye, Zen, Kim, and Harlan, Abigail, Clark. For a moment, Rye felt sorry for her. She was taking up for them, putting herself between them and her own. Then he remembered that she had just exposed their secret while keeping one nearly as big, and he wondered if he could really trust her. Maybe they’d be better off without a mediator.

  Harlan shifted nervously in his rumpled sweats. The gray dawn outside was negotiating the faded blue borders of Tora’s tent, casting them all in barely discernible light. The little flickering lamp created shadows within shadows along the walls.

  “I need answers…from someone,” the Elder said at last. He looked from Tora to Rye, to Zen then to Kim, both of whom had only just arrived and with no clue as to what was h
appening.

  Rye clenched his jaw. If Tora knew so much, let her explain.

  “What’s going on?” Zen asked.

  Harlan replied, “Your unconscious friend here finally spoke. I heard her myself. The boy was right. She speaks another language.”

  Zen looked at Rye, but Rye wouldn’t meet his gaze. His defiance wouldn’t let him betray his emotions or London’s secret under the Elder’s scrutiny.

  “What language?” Zen asked with mock innocence, attempting to quell the anxiety that rose with the sun.

  “We don’t know,” Rye said rigidly.

  “I do,” Tora told him, and Rye glared at her. “Sort of.”

  “Tora says the language isn’t human,” Harlan explained.

  Zen looked at the Elder, bewildered. “And you believe her?”

  “Yes,” the older man said unflinchingly. “I believe Tora. Without question.”

  Rye and Zen exchanged looks of suspicion. “Why?” Zen asked Harlan.

  “Because,” Harlan said, “she’s our Seer.”

  The three boys gawked at Tora. What was a Seer? Was it anything like an Otherborn? Had Tora walked the Midplane, too? Was she familiar with The Between?

  Rye’s initial awe hardened into doubt. Whatever Tora was, she was a liar. All these hours in her tent, all those cryptic comments. They met the Healer, the Elder. Never once did she explain what she was, a Seer, or what that meant. If Harlan trusted her so much, she could have asked him to let them go.

  Sensing the shift in Rye’s demeanor, Tora turned to them. “I can explain,” she said, pleading.

  Harlan interrupted her. “No. First you explain her—then you can explain yourself.” He pointed wearily at London.

  Tora took a deep breath, looked at Rye, and began. “I first saw her, well both of you, in a dream about three weeks ago. You were holding hands in the clearing. You looked basically like you do right now.” Tora rubbed one arm and glanced over her shoulder at London’s still form on the folding cot. “That’s why I noticed you in the tunnels. I recognized you from my dreams.”

  “Go on,” Harlan urged.

  She turned back to him. “I know about the scout, Harlan. The one you met with the other day outside our camp. I felt he would bring important news, so I followed you. I know it was wrong, but my Sight insisted I needed to hear that message.”

  Harlan scowled but nodded in understanding.

  Tora carried on. “Anyway, I knew there was a connection between the visitors I’d foreseen and this message we would receive.”

  “That doesn’t explain anything,” Rye interrupted. “Except why you were staring us down in the tunnels.”

  Tora gave him an imploring look. She was clearly struggling to put her gift into plain words, to draw for everyone else the connection between them, herself, the scout, and London’s delirious language.

  “Tora, tell me about the language, about the girl.” Harlan pressed. His voice was tight, barely controlled, like he didn’t want to put his valuable Seer under too much pressure, but he needed answers. “How did you know?”

  “Like I said, the first time I saw them was three weeks ago. But I saw them again, nearly every night since. Always the same. Holding hands in the clearing. Just a flash really. Only, with each appearance, they stood in a new spot. At first, it was so subtle, I barely noticed. But then I realized they were drawing closer and closer to my tent…to me. That’s how I knew.”

  “Knew what?” Zen asked this time.

  “Knew that we’d be close. That they were here—had come for…well, for me.”

  A flurry of protests erupted at this statement, not the least of which was Harlan’s, who kept insisting no one was going anywhere and that Tora couldn’t leave them “blind.”

  But it was Zen who caught them all off guard with his sudden fury. “That’s ridiculous. We came for Avery. Not you!”

  Rye realized how much their stagnation was weighing on Zen. His friend was suffering more with each passing day. Just as Rye ached watching London, wondering if he would ever see her warm, chocolate eyes again, so Zen must be wondering the same about Avery’s quiet, cornflower gaze.

  He put a hand on Zen’s chest, as if to hold him back, and clarified, “What Zen means is that we left Capital City to find our friend, who is still out there somewhere, missing or kidnapped. You’ve held us here and now look where we are, short another...” His voice cracked on the last word, but he kept his eyes firmly fixed on Harlan, Clark, and Abigail.

  “The infection would have spread anyway. You would’ve been lost in the woods with her unconscious if not for us. At least we’ve given the girl a fightin’ chance,” Abigail defended. “The dogs would’ve had you in less than a week out there.”

  Rye knew the Healer’s logic made sense, but he couldn’t shake the need to blame the Outroaders. This wasn’t supposed to be how their journey unfolded. Everything went wrong at the hole where Zen fell, throwing them off course. He blamed the Outroaders for it all, whether that was rational or not. Their hole, their guns, their fault.

  “I didn’t mean to forget about your friend, Zen,” Tora continued, giving him as soft a look as she could manage. “It’s so hard to explain. The Sight isn’t solid like you or me. It comes in layers. It feels and moves and shifts. But I take meaning from it, just the same. Can you understand? So, I know you set out for one reason, and I know that reason brought you here, to us. I know that reason still weighs heavy on your hearts. But sometimes there are reasons for things which we can’t always see, not clearly anyway. In this case—your case—I’m that reason. The Sight has told me that much.”

  Zen didn’t speak.

  But the tension in Kim’s face eased up at Tora’s words. “We get it,” he told her.

  “We do?” Rye shot at him, incredulous.

  “We do,” Kim insisted. “I know what it’s like to try and describe something that defies rational explanation,” he added with a measure of Don’t be a dick in his unflinching eyes.

  Tora gave him a thankful smile.

  “Tora,” Harlan spoke, placing his hands on her shoulders, an air of desperation surrounding him. “Please. Tell me how you know about her language. What is it?”

  She apologized and carried on. “Like I said, the dreams kept comin’, drawing closer and closer to me each time. The last night I saw them, they were standing right in front of me, here, in my tent. I knew then the time had come. Sure enough, there they were, standing in the fire pit the next day. Only they weren’t alone. There were four, where I’d only seen two.” She nodded to Zen and Kim. “Anyhow, after that, no more dreams. Point taken, right? No need to see them again. They were here.”

  “And?” Harlan gestured a tad impatiently.

  “And then she got sick. Before I could make sense of any of it or ask any questions or explain what I’d seen. I took ‘em in. I knew that’s what the Sight would tell me to do. That’s when she came to me again…alone.”

  “London? When?” Rye asked.

  “Last night,” Tora answered. “A new dream. This time, she and I were holding hands. Here in the tent together, standing over her cot. She looked at me and smiled. A kind of knowing smile. Her grip grew tighter. Like she feared I’d pull away. And I knew. I knew she had something to show me or tell me that she didn’t think I’d understand. She was squeezing so hard, I looked down at our hands and saw long, knuckled fingers wrapped around mine, too long to be hers. Alarmed, I looked up and London was gone. In her place stood the tallest woman I’d ever seen, boring into me with the most intense black gaze. Her grip on me was so, so strong. I tried to struggle until…until I realized she was still smiling London’s smile. And there was kindness in it. Then I relaxed. When I did, she let go. And then she was just London again, standing beside her own cot, grinning at me like we’d just stolen the last piece of candy in the world and eaten it together.”

  Everyone was enraptured with Tora’s story, even Clark. When she finally stopped speaking, the spell broke. T
hey all blinked and fidgeted to regain their surroundings, but the protests of earlier had died down and the shouting didn’t resume.

  “She didn’t speak to you?” Harlan asked quietly.

  “Didn’t have to,” Tora answered. “She said as much with that smile.”

  “But how does that explain the language, Tora? How does that tell us anything?” the Elder complained. His voice wasn’t angry, but a trace of irritation showed itself in the high, tinny way he said anything.

  “Don’t you see? She was showing me who she really was. And it wasn’t a teenage girl from Capital City. In fact, it wasn’t a girl at all. She’s not our kind, not really.” Tora ran a handful of golden fingers through her stick-straight hair.

  “Then what kind is she?” Harlan asked.

  Tora straightened. “I think only she can tell you that.”

  By defending them, Rye realized Tora was alienating herself more from the other Outroaders. It was a big risk. This was her home, her family. He knew Tora had seen London’s Otherborn, but he could sense the Elder’s misgivings growing. It sounded ludicrous—a nonhuman human. Abigail had already expressed that she thought Tora’s gifts were a sickness. Rye didn’t know how or why Tora did it, and he wasn’t sure he believed all that here for me business either. But whatever Tora said, she believed in it. And she believed in them, which was more than he could say for anyone else. Still, he didn’t think London would ever agree to tell the Outroaders about Otherborn. But London wasn’t here. And he had to do what he could to bring her back.