Divided by Emma L. Adams

Author:Emma L. Adams [Adams, Emma L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 27279160
Publisher: Emma L. Adams
Published: 2016-06-04T05:00:00+00:00

11

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.

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