Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Jacaranda

I t was hard to watch Valor try to hug his son. It was worse to see the sadness in Sarah’s eyes for the pair of them.

She is falling for Deacon.

I cleared my throat to shake myself free of the sticky emotion around me and told Silence, “I have business elsewhere. If anyone asks, I will be back in an hour, give or take.”

Deacon glanced my way. “Where are you going?”

But I walked to the rear of Sovereign and hit the lift button. It lowered and there was my onworlder. The crusty vehicle was an ancient ATV from Earth that I had swiped from a junkyard—I couldn’t afford a real Ladrian onworlder and it worked just as well as any of them. Most of the time.

I hopped on and drove down the path into the forest. Bushes and trees closed around the path—the ghosts weren’t sticklers for maintaining wide open trails. On Halla, some ghosts could solidify small parts of their bodies at will to touch things, but only momentarily and it took a lot of strength to do it. Not all ghosts could do it. Since there was almost no point in solidifying their legs, they never noticed if a path was clear until it wasn’t.

The air smelled cleaner on Halla. It hadn’t been as clear-cut as Orhon. Many Ladrians thought of the microplanet as overgrown and wild, but I liked it that way. Every inch of Halla smelled fresh and felt alive. I loved it. Nothing like riding through the forest to forget my troubles.

Fuck my troubles.

It wasn’t long before I parked outside my contact’s hovel. His roof was unlike the newer buildings on Halla—Gram Skir wanted his home to blend into the trees, so it would never be seen from overhead. The top was covered in branches he changed frequently. Tall bushes snuggled around the walls. If I hadn’t been there before, I would have ridden past it. There were no flowers, like at Valor’s home. Even the front door was a series of woven vines. It was well-hidden by nature. Almost like no one lived there anymore.

It made me worry for him. “Gram, you here?”

“Jac, thank the gods it’s you.”

When I turned around, there was movement in the bushes. He stood up and emerged with branches attached to his green clothes. Gram was short, being a Skir, but far more muscular than Drift. Gram and I looked more alike than he and his cousin—we had the same taupe skin and blue hair. But gray eyes, unlike most in his family. He smiled before he hugged me.

“Good to see you, Gram,” I greeted him. “How have you been?”

He laughed. “What is it that you want?”

“Protection.”

That caught his attention. “ You need protection?”

“Not me. Protection for Deacon’s new consort, Sarah. She will be living on Halla, and I have a bad feeling about this situation. How have things been here?”

“You haven’t been watching the news, have you?”

“Not about Halla. Actually, there haven’t been that many feeds coming out of here, come to think of it.”

“Sounds like Justice’s doing.” He shrugged and pulled the branches and twigs from his clothing. “Since he murdered the conduits and demanded no one burn the dead, uh, things have become sketchy near the cities.”

I nodded and sighed. “And since there are all those bodies available, that makes for a lot of abandoned bones...”

“And a lot of bone knives, hence the violence,” Gram added. “I guess we should be grateful the ghosts can’t kill each other with regular weapons, eh?”

My gut tightened. “This is not the news I had hoped for, Gram.”

“But it had to be expected, right? I mean, Justice wants the people to worship him instead of their ancestors. If all the ancestors are murdered, then he gets everything he wants. Leaving unburnt bodies is just leaving toolkits for the murder of ancestors.”

“Murdering the conduits was only the beginning of his power grab…” I huffed in frustration at the thought. “You got any banwine?”

“That shit’s hard to come by here. But I might have a bottle of the good stuff stashed away for a special occasion. Come on,” he said as he let me into his hovel.

I ducked under the doorframe, and the scent of rot hit me. An open cadaver laid on his table and my stomach rolled. “What are you doing with that?”

“Making bone knives. You want the big glass or the small glass?”

I glared at him. “You’re a part of this?”

He shrugged. “Everyone’s a part of this here, and I have to make a living, Jac. Big or little?”

I looked at him like he was stupid.

He grabbed the big glass from his cabinet and filled it with the clear liquid from the bottle, then handed it over.

I drank half of it down. “Do you ever regret that I sprang you from the royal prison, only for you to come here and make weapons?”

“Hey, I sell to those who want to defend themselves. I’m helping people. And don’t come into my home, acting like you’re so perfect. How much did you charge me to get out of prison?”

“Not enough,” I muttered. “I have mouths to feed, too.”

“Yeah, yeah. Speaking of them, how’s your crew doing, anyway?”

I smirked. “Ode is doing well.”

He chuckled and said, “I didn’t ask about her specifically.”

“Specific or not, you were asking about Ode.” I grinned at the older man. “Anytime we meet, you’re asking about Ode. You could have tried to be less transparent about it, but I would still know.”

He leaned against his sink and changed the topic. “I know you are employed by Deacon Ladrang, but have you ever considered leaving his employment?”

“How, by dying?” I drawled sarcastically.

“You could always fake your death the way you faked mine.”

“No. I am loyal to the Ladrang clan.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Valor Ladrang raised me alongside his own son. Deacon is nothing, if not honorable, just like his father,” I said, taking a drink of the banwine. “They pay well, too. Why would I go back to springing people from the royal prisons to make half as much money?”

“They might be as honorable as you think they are. They might not be. But if they are, then why do they still have contact with the conduits?”

I narrowed my gaze at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Predict,” he said of the ghost that had met them when they’d arrived on Halla a short while ago. “She has been hanging around Valor’s place.”

My brow knitted together. “Why is that a problem?”

“You don’t know…wait…you have no idea, do you?”

“Know what?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, aggravated. “Since they were murdered and became ghosts themselves, the conduits have grown ruthless. They built a temple here on Halla, and no one came. No one paid them tribute, because what was the point anymore? They don’t need to talk to the dead for the dead, you know what I mean? Ghosts can talk to each other without conduits.”

“But the faith—”

“No. When the older conduits, the ones who were still on Halla when the younger ones arrived, they didn’t understand why the younger conduits were building a temple. They told them their authority was stripped the moment they died, but the young ones wouldn’t hear of it.”

I shook my head. “The conduits not only spoke for the dead, but they spoke for the gods, too. Why didn’t anyone come to the temple?”

“Think about it. When was the last time you prayed to the gods?”

I shrugged. “Okay, fair, but—”

“Jac, you don’t understand. The younger conduits murdered the older conduits.”

My blood ran cold. “They did what?”

He slowly nodded. “They are the reason there is violence on Halla. Well, an increase in violence. They started demanding tribute from the ghosts, from the living, from anyone. They are afraid people no longer take them seriously.”

“Halla is supposed to be the one place where we are all equal. We are all equal in death,” I insisted. “It’s one of the first tenets of the faith. How could they try to create a power structure here?”

He shrugged. “They had power once. They want it again.”

I was infuriated and my voice became an angry growl. “The power that Justice stole from them…”

“Yeah,” he drank his banwine down. “But even Justice can’t scare them as much as their own myths.”

More confusion settled inside me. “What are you talking about?”

“According to the conduits, someone is coming to help the residents of Halla, both the living and the dead. Not sure how. A special conduit of some kind. I don’t know, I don’t follow the mystical stuff. But whatever it is, they are not happy about it.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it. They were respected by all, before Justice murdered them. Ladrians used to worship at their temples and pay tribute. It was a part of all our lives, until Justice decreed otherwise. “I can’t believe the conduits formed a gang.”

Gram sighed. “You could call it that. And they’re not the only ones. Since the conduits have been killing the unfaithful, others have been banding together for safety. People are choosing sides, Jac. Halla has gotten a lot colder in the past couple of years.”

“A shame…I had thought about retiring here.”

He laughed. “Not a great plan. Not anymore.”

“Yeah, well, I still need protection for Sarah. She’s a human. Can you do it?”

“I can try, but the conduits have their eyes on me. You might have better luck with some of the other living.”

“Why are their eyes on you?”

“I make bone knives,” he pointed out. “And then, there’s Omen…”

I finished my banwine. “You ever think about giving that up? The knife business.”

“I gotta eat.”

“There are other ways to make money,” I pointed out.

“Not as fast.”

“Understandable.” I held my cup out for more banwine and he poured, “Thank you. Have you heard from Fan and Bell lately?”

Gram shook his head. “Not in over a month.”

Not a good sign .

“Why is Deacon’s consort coming to Halla?” Gram asked.

“It’s a long and stupid story. But she’s a human and she is also—”

“He united with a human?” Gram’s eyes went wide with shock.

“Yeah, but she’s not just a human, she’s a—” Conduit.

Shit. Realization hit me, and I dropped the big glass and ran back to my onworlder. Gram didn’t wait for an invitation—he jumped on behind me, gripping my waist for safety.

He shouted over the motor, “She’s what?”

“In trouble,” I hollered back.

I couldn’t shout what she was—a human conduit—not if the other conduits were spying on Gram because then Sarah’s life would be in bigger, mortal danger.

The motor smoked because I had it cranked all the way up, but I wasn’t about to slow down for anything. Part of me wanted to pray to the conduits that she was safe, but that felt wrong in light of everything Gram had said and how evil so many of them had become. I pulled in front of Valor’s cabin and ran past the garden into the house, with Gram close behind.

I didn’t see Sarah anywhere, but I did find Deacon. “Where is Sarah?” I asked in an urgent tone. I desperately needed to see for myself that she was okay.

Deacon frowned at me. “Jac, what’s—”

“ Where ?” I demanded.

“In the toilet room,” he said, annoyed with my tone. “What is going on?”

“And Predict?”

“I don’t know. She’s around somewhere—”

Sarah came from the hallway and her smile lit up as soon as she saw me. “Jac, you’re back. Why do you look so odd?”

I panted my relief and took a half a breath before I saw Predict behind Sarah in the hallway, a sharp bone knife in a falling, arcing hand toward Deacon’s consort. She knew what Sarah was and planned to murder her.

Without hesitation, I ran forward, knocking Sarah out of Predict’s reach. The knife sliced through my chest and hit something sensitive, almost frying out my nerves as it embedded deep into my skin. I hissed in pain. I couldn’t think anymore—only the searing agony existed.

Thankfully, I had already begun to swing on Predict before she had stabbed me, and I knocked her into the wall and off balance. Valor lunged around me, stabbing Predict in the throat with his own bone knife.

Predict tried to scream and couldn’t, the fucking bitch. I fell to the ground next to her, our eyes locked in a deathly gaze, which is exactly what I wished for her. To fucking die.

My vision faded as I wheezed, “Is Sarah hurt?”

The last thing I remembered was her scream and the fear that I had failed her.