Free Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series) by Anna Silver Page B

around his clove colored eyes. Dark cinnamon lashes softened the fox-like contour of his gaze. He’d put on a little weight too, but not much. She could see it in his face, rounding his high cheekbones and sharp chin. Probably he was eating better with the Tycoons than he ever had in his life. Pin point freckles dusted his nose, barely visible. His shoulders were still broad and square, the lean muscle beneath his dark green shirt more prominent than before. Beyond that she could see nothing else.
    A broken sob rose in her like a wave and she rode it to the surface where it burst and receded away, taking his face with it. There was nothing else now. Only the darkness. London was lost in it.
    Tora’s voice cut through the void to her consciousness. “That’s right. Let it all go, London.”
    London
? Was that her name? In this space she almost wasn’t sure. The blackness swallowed things like names. It erased everything that once mattered. But the voice carried on anyway.
    “You’re completely relaxed. Withdrawn so deeply inside yourself that you’ve come out the other side. You’ve reached the infinite you. This is the part of yourself, the part of Si’dah, that walks with the Astral.”
    Through the blackness, a small, green light became visible. It swam closer until it seemed she could reach through it and touch the flowing blades of grass just on the other side.
    But another voice sounded as though it were coming down a long tunnel to reach her. “You better hurry up. I can just make out something up ahead. It looks like trucks.”
    And then a second, distant voice penetrated. “Shit. It’s a barricade. We’re screwed. I don’t think they’ve noticed us yet, thank goodness for the dark, but they will any minute.”
    The first voice, Tora’s, pushed her deeper. “Anything you need is available to you here. Do you understand? Warp the space around you and pull it through.”
    She placed a foot through the tear in the blackness and felt the soft tickle of grass on her sole. She dragged her other foot in and perched on the edge of nothing and the Astral, feeling the aliveness around her. Anything was possible here. Even…
    “Trucks! Black trucks!” Kim shouted. “I think they’ve seen us.”
    Even black trucks. She almost giggled at the simplicity of it all. Everything around her went black as night. The green grass hardened into ebony plating, armoring her in a cocoon of coated steel. Holding that space around her, she stepped back through to the void. Only it wasn’t a void any longer, it was the interior of a black Tycoon regiment truck.
    “They’re waving us through! I can’t believe it!” Zen was shouting.
    Names. She knew their names. The voices had names. Kim and Zen and Tora. She had a name, too. London. Or was it Si’dah? Either way it was inconsequential. All that mattered was holding the space around her, holding the black armor to her until the danger was gone.
    Whoops and hollers reverberated through the metal plates to her. Cheers. Finally, the first voice, Tora’s, broke through to where she was holding on so tightly. “London, you can let go. Let go now.”
    London opened her eyes, and for a split second, the reality around her held fast. She could see the sleek interior walls of the Tycoon truck clearly.
    “That’s amazing,” Tora said as her eyes met London’s.
    With that, everything seemed to ripple and it was gone. Their own messy truck bed of ration boxes and scraps enfolded her and London was back completely. She’d lost the Astral thread she managed to pull through.
    “I lost it,” she said, disappointed.
    Zen patted her on the back. “You saved our asses is what you did.”
    She looked at Tora. “I did?”
    Tora nodded, a bright smile lighting her face. “You did. You made this Tigerian bucket of bolts look like a first-rate Tycoon convoy vehicle. They waved us right through. They never even knew it was us.”
    “Thought we were one of their own,” Kim added