Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

Jacaranda

S ilence is in labor.

“That’s my cue to exit,” I told them.

Deacon frowned at me. “You do not want to be here for this?”

“You want to be here for this?” Sarah asked him incredulously, now well aware of the history between Silence and his father and the betrayal of their affair.

“My family is growing today. Of course, I want to be here.”

“And I do not ,” I said, and sighed, not understanding how he could be so forgiving, and accepting. “Nothing against your family, Deacon, but birth is too messy for me. I can take war, I can take on fights, I can even take the sewers of the royal prison. Birth is where I draw the line. Besides, I need to see some of my other contacts here so we can figure out what we’re doing for security.”

Our eyes met in agreement, because we both knew I was referring to Sarah’s safety, which was now paramount to both of us. “Understood. Be safe.”

“Always.” I offered Gram a ride back to his place, but he declined once he heard where I was going afterwards. “Suit yourself,” I said with a shrug.

“If I’m home when you get to Omen’s place, when she’s done killing you, she’ll come after me.”

I laughed. “Why would she kill me or you?”

“I told you where she lives, and she hates you.”

I scoffed at that. “She doesn’t hate me—”

“She threatened to feed you to her baby drecks, and we both know you wouldn’t be the first to end up as food for them.”

I frowned. “Keep an eye on my crew and Sarah while I’m gone. Don’t let anyone into Valor’s house who isn’t already here. Not under any circumstances.”

“Why are you going to see her, anyway?” Gram asked.

“Answers.”

After exiting Sovereign, I hopped onto the onworlder and rode into the forest again. Omen’s place was deeper than Gram’s, so it took an hour to get there. Just enough time to pre-regret going to see her.

Omen’s home wasn’t as hidden as Gram’s. She had one of the newer silver roofs on top of a white cylindrical home. Pink flowers grew on thorned vines across her yard. A blue stone path led to her front door.

I turned the onworlder off and took a deep breath. I’ve come this far, and I’m not going back without answers . Walking up to her door, my heart sped. I didn’t want to see Omen Ayext, but I didn’t have a lot of options, either.

I knocked and called out, “Omen, you in?”

The door opened, and there she was, her gaze immediately narrowing on me. Another woman who wanted me dead. Her transparent body was just as curvy as I recalled, but her smile was absent. “Come to feed my drecks, have you?”

I arched a brow. “Any chance we could have a conversation instead?”

She produced a bone knife and thrust it toward my throat before I could move. But the point stopped before it pierced my skin. “Just so we’re clear, Jac. We are not friends.”

“We’re clear.”

She moved the knife back into her holster and said, “Then you can come in.”

I took a breath and stepped into her home, feeling like a cina in a dreck’s lair. Her home was much nicer than Gram’s, though that might have been the lack of a dead body on her kitchen table. It was well-decorated and pristine. I felt like I was bringing dirt into her home. Good.

“Sit there.” She gestured to the padded bench in the parlor. She left for the small kitchen and returned with grapes, the kind that would release a deadly poison if you harbored any ill will toward the other person. “As we are not friends, I need to know.”

I sighed. “Of course.”

She ate hers, then I ate mine. She stared as she waited, and when I did not drop dead within a minute, as she’d clearly anticipated, she asked, “Water with herbs?”

“No, thank you. I’m not here for pleasantries.”

“Then tell me, why are you here?”

I got right to the point. “I’ve heard the other conduits have gone mad.”

She huffed and sat back in her own seat. “So?”

“Are you with them?”

“Are you asking if I’ve gone mad?”

I shrugged. “I’m asking if you’ve gone back to your roots.”

She smiled. “I haven’t been with the sisterhood for many years, though it’s not as if anyone cares.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Justice Bateen didn’t care that I am no longer with the sisterhood. He only cared that I’m a conduit, so,” she drew a line across her throat with her finger, “that was all it took. I had stopped working as a priestess for over five years by the time he had gotten around to killing all of us.” She huffed. “Guilt by association, I suppose. And now you’re here to accuse me of being on their side.”

“Not accusing you of anything, Omen. Are you in touch with them?”

“Why would I tell you anything?”

“Because a long time ago, we were friends, and—”

She laughed. “Is that what you call a few cheap thrusts in the back of the temple every couple of months when we were young? That’s a friendship to you?”

I didn’t appreciate the jab. “Hey, I saved your brother from the royal prison when you called me, didn’t I?”

Her full lips smoothed into a line of acquiescence. “You did. That’s the only reason I didn’t butcher you the moment you knocked on my door.”

“I hope his life is worth more than just the absence of a bone knife in my throat.”

She laced her fingers together on her lap. “How is Gram, anyway?” she asked of her brother. “I haven’t seen him in a week.”

“What makes you think I’ve seen him lately?”

She laughed caustically. “Who else but my baby brother would have told you where I live?”

“He’s good,” I told her. “Stupidly selling bone knives, but he’s good.”

She almost smiled. “And Drift?”

“Your cousin is doing great on Deacon’s ship.”

She nodded, looking pleased. “Glad to hear it.”

I tipped my head curiously. “I thought you hated the Skir side of your family tree.”

“Oh, I do,” she said, then sipped her water with herbs. “but they’re still family. And Drift never stood a chance at the academy, not without Deacon in his corner. The Ladrangs are good Ladrians. I imagine you’re working for them again?”

“Among others,” I said, then got back to business. “I need information, Omen. Will you help me?”

“That depends on what information you want.”

“The conduit who is foretold, what do you know about that?” I asked.

A thought flashed through her eyes, before she feigned innocence and asked, “A conduit who is foretold?”

I nodded slowly. “I understand there is a special conduit who makes the others nervous. She’s foretold to bring about some kind of change, and by the look on your face, you know exactly what and who I’m talking about.”

She looked away and muttered, “This is why we could never be friends, Jac. You know me too well.”

“Some would say that enhances a friendship.”

“Fools.”

“What do you know about the special conduit, Omen?” I persisted.

“What makes you think I would spill the secrets of the sisterhood?”

“Because you hate them as much as I’m starting to,” I growled irritably.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, she began to sing. It wasn’t words, or maybe it was a language I didn’t know, but when she sang, my head vibrated from the inside. I held my ears to make it stop, but it didn’t matter. She was inside my brain. Pain drilled through me there and something dripped down my face from my eyes. I closed them tight.

Then she stopped.

When I opened them again, either her house had changed or we had transported, but we were inside of a ship. The walls were gray and covered in finger-sized panels.

She said, “ Enlightenment , show us Text 8:62.” Then, she tossed me a piece of fabric. “Wipe the blood from your face, Jac. It’s unseemly.”

I did and the ship’s panels morphed together into one image of text. It was the Holy Script —a book I had only ever heard of and no one but conduits had read. I knew it in my bones as soon as I saw the image. There was no reason for her to be so secretive otherwise.

I read it aloud, “The contra will come in the guise of an ally. She shall be unlike the conduits of Orhon in stature and breeding yet filled by royal blood. Her ways will be strange, and you will know her by her essence. She will bring an end to the power of Orhon conduits, if she is not destroyed. Beware, my daughters.”

Royal blood? That’s not Sarah. The fuck?

I needed some kind of confirmation. “What does this even mean?”

“Seems rather obvious to me.”

“They think some foreign conduit will come and destroy the power of the sisterhood?” I asked incredulously.

She flatly laughed and rolled her eyes. “Fucking conduits. Bunch of paranoid little girls. Good news for you, none of them like me since I left, so I don’t really care what they think of me talking to you about all of this. No, I take that back, talking to you will piss them off and that suits me just fine."

"I'm glad to be of service, Omen. Any idea who their leader is these days?”

“No. It was Mother Portend, but from what I’ve heard, she’s holed up in the mountains, keeping away from all of it.”

“Damn,” I muttered beneath my breath before asking, “So, what does the text mean, according to the conduits?”

“They think the contra is some alien conduit who is coming to destroy them.” She shook her head in disgust. “They don’t realize that Justice Bateen was the contra. He murdered us and took our power—it’s right there in the text. But none of them think it was him , because of the pronouns.”

She laughed caustically. “As if we hadn’t spent years interpreting and reinterpreting the sacred texts, debating their true meanings and hidden mysteries…yet somehow, this section of text must be completely accurate, according to the sisterhood. According to them, the contra has to be a woman, so it couldn’t be Justice Bateen. They’re ridiculous!”

I frowned. “Is that why they’re trying to rebuild here on Halla? To strengthen themselves before a fight with the contra?”

“I guess that could be it. That, or they feel slighted because no one has paid them homage since they arrived here. Maybe both. I don’t know what they’re thinking anymore.”

The conversation felt like a dead end. “Where are we, anyway?” I wondered, glancing around.

“My home.”

“Your home is a ship?”

“Can you think of a faster way to get off of Halla?”

I shook my head. “If you leave Halla…wait, are you strong enough to leave Halla?”

She smirked. “I may have done it once or twice.”

“Damn, Omen, I had no idea.”

“Never underestimate a powerful woman, Jac.”

“I try not to. Why come back?”

She sighed. “I may be powerful, but even I have my limits. When you’re dead, Halla pulls at you when you leave. It’s the strangest sensation. Like when you try to separate magnets— you’re just drawn back here, until you’re born to the ether. Not physically, but mentally. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Hmm.” I felt the same way about getting back to Sarah and Deacon. “And your ship—when it’s your home, it’s an illusion?”

“Every conduit has her gifts.”

“Even some non-conduits do too, I’ve heard.” I didn’t mention the gifted Ladrians I knew.

She nodded once. “That’s true. What are you fishing around for, Jac?”

“I need to know if you would use your illusions or anything else to attack the contra.”

“Attack Justice Bateen?” She laughed. “If I get the chance, absolutely.”

I wasn’t sure if I should share what was on my mind, but I needed to know where her alliances were. “What if the contra wasn’t Justice Bateen? What if the other conduits are right, and it’s some alien conduit? Would you attack her?" I had to know, for Sarah’s safety and wellbeing.

"That’s an interesting question.” She pondered it for a moment. “But I would not. If there is someone who can stop the conduits’ reign of terror here, I would support that. Wholeheartedly. If you ever come across such a creature, let me know. I’ll be first in line to follow her.”

I tried to get a read on her, but Omen was too mysterious for me. “How can I know you’re telling me the truth?”

“You can’t. We’re not friends.”

“And if we were?”

“Can you ever really trust your friends, Jac?”

“I do.”

“Fool.”

I laughed. “Probably.”

Then, she smiled. “Perhaps one day we can be friends, Jacaranda Cozz. I have shared a secret with you. I expect a secret in return.”

“As is the way of the sisterhood,” I mused. “I thought you had left them behind.”

“I left the sisterhood, but their ways are wise. Tell me a secret, or my knife takes another life.”

I nodded once. “Uh, okay. I’m allergic to cashews.”

She punched me in the chest. “Give me a real secret, or I give Halla another ghost. Yours.”

I rubbed my chest where it ached. “You can keep your knife in the holster, thanks. A real secret, then?”

“Make it a good one, worthy of the information I’ve given you.”

I thought fast and blurted the first thing that came to mind, “I came in my boss’ consort today.”

Her eyes lit up as she studied my face. Slowly, she smirked and said, “You’re not lying, are you?”

“No.”

“A worthy secret.” Then, she began to sing again.

I held my ears and closed my eyes faster this time, but still, blood dripped down my face. After we were back in her house, I wiped my face with the fabric she had given me before.

“You be careful fucking your boss’ consort, Jac,” she warned. “Someone who doesn’t like you would use it against you.”

“Do you plan to use it against me?”

“No.”

“Does that mean you like me, Omen?” I teased.

“I could be persuaded to hate you less. Probably. One day.”

I grinned at her. “I’m wearing you down.”

She chuckled and rolled her eyes at me. “Get out.”

I left Omen Ayext’s house-ship and rode back to Sovereign , hoping Silence’s whole birth thing would be over by the time I returned, but I doubted it. Ladrian labor could go on for days.

The ride back was long and full of unwanted thoughts. If the conduits believe Sarah is the contra, then they will never stop coming for her. To try to kill her.

I didn’t know how to stop over a hundred of the most highly trained, best educated Ladrians who ever existed. Outside of that, I didn’t know how to tell Sarah that they were going to hunt her down. I hoped Predict hadn’t told them anything before she had died, but I didn’t know for sure. And I really needed to know for sure.

When I pulled up to Valor’s property, everything seemed fine, which told me Predict probably hadn’t been able to send before her demise.

Wave was outside with Camp Deo. The pair came to me, and Wave said, “Silence had her babies.”

“Babies?” I asked in shock. “Plural?”

“A girl and a boy,” Camp said happily.

“Did Silence survive the birth?”

Wave nodded. “She’s fine. Strong, actually. It is rare for a birth to be this fast.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Maternal deaths weren’t common, but not unheard-of, either. “Glad to hear it.”

“Want to come in and see them?” Camp asked.

“Uh—I’m good. Feel free to go in without me.”

She practically skipped into Valor’s house. Once over banwine, Camp had confessed she hated that she would never get to have her own babies. She adored them. But being an android made that impossible. I had pointed out that she could assemble one, but according to her, it wasn’t the same thing.

I asked the historian, “Why aren’t you in there, cooing over the babies?”

Wave raised an eyebrow at me, like she had smelled something unpleasant. “I recorded their birth data. That is the end of my responsibilities with them. Why aren’t you in there?”

“I’m not a baby person, either. Wanna go for a ride on the onworlder instead? I could use the respectability of a historian with me when I talk to some people.” I used my gauntlet driver to contact Kapok and Tiger for them to join us.

She sighed as she looked at my ride. “Sure. Why not? I wouldn’t mind a distraction.”