Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

Jacaranda

T he ride out to Mother Portend’s mountain cabin was long and annoying, mainly because of my passenger.

Wave shouted over the onworlder, “Can we stop again?”

“You wanted to come, remember?” I shouted back.

“I didn’t know it would take this long,” she grumbled.

Right then, the trees opened up to a clearing and a cabin, so I slowed down to a stop. My battered body was grateful for the reprieve. Being crouched forward on a bumpy path for over an hour with my arms outstretched to hold the handlebars had irritated the deeper parts of my healing chest wound.

The sharp pains dulled when I sat up and stretched. “Seems like we’re here.”

“Thank the gods,” she mumbled as she wobbled off the vehicle and walked into the forest.

“Where are you going?” I asked her retreating back.

“I have to pee again,” she replied in a snarky tone. “Is that okay with you?”

I rolled my eyes and checked my gauntlet driver to see where Kapok and Tiger were. But the readout didn’t work. I smacked it a couple of times, but still, I got nothing. Then I saw Kapok and Tiger ride up on the proper onworlder we borrowed from Allegiant .

Once they reached me, Kapok brought the onworlder to a stop and asked, “You think this is the place?”

“It’s the only cabin on the nearest mountain,” I said, glancing around. “I’d say it’s a good guess.”

A green light came on inside the cabin.

“That’s weird,” Tiger said, pointing to it.

“I don’t know. Maybe Mother Portend likes colored light.” I shrugged and headed for the cabin.

Kapok and Tiger came with me to the door. I knocked and while we waited for a response, Kapok asked, “And we’re here because you think the conduits are going to come after—”

I silenced him with a sharp look. “I just want information.”

“Then why are we here?” Tiger asked.

“The better to threaten her for information.”

The door slid open, and an old ghost stood there. She was faded from time, but still present. Long gray robes covered her all the way to the floor. The kind of robes conduits wore for battle. I wondered if she was always dressed in her old war uniform, or if we were special.

Her wizened face formed a smirk as she flirted, “Three handsome boys at my door in the middle of the night. How could I get so lucky?”

“Good evening,” I said, ignoring her comment and getting right to business. “Are you Mother Portend?”

“That depends. Are you here to kill her?”

“Unlikely,” I said.

“But not a denial?” She laughed hard. “Come in, boys. Yes, I am Mother Portend.”

We walked into her cabin, and I hoped it was not like Omen’s. I didn’t want to be stuck inside another ship. It was dumb luck that Omen hadn’t decided to escalate the situation—if she had, I would have been screwed. I looked around but had no idea how to spot an illusion. More than that, conduit powers varied widely, so there was no reason to suspect her of such a tactic. But the faded old lady didn’t hesitate to let us into her home, which meant she was not afraid of us.

“How are things all the way up here?” I asked her. “You like staying away from everyone else?”

“Who are you?” she asked, eyeing me cautiously.

“Jacaranda Cozz.”

Her brows raised. “You’re Wishful’s son?”

“You know my mother?” I replied in surprise.

She smirked. “We’ve spoken. And you boys?”

“Kapok and Tiger Orne,” I answered, introducing them both. “Why are you up here in the mountains all alone?”

“I like the quiet,” she said, her reply vague. “What brings you boys here?”

“Sightseeing,” Kapok lied.

She smiled up at him. “Not much to see here. Just a dead old lady on the top of a mountain, so unless you have a very specific fetish, there’s really no reason for you to be here.”

“I’m game, if you are,” he said with a wink.

“Oh, I like this one,” she said, her cackling laughter echoing in the room. “He has spirit.”

“I like him too, that’s why he works for me,” I replied, then directed the conversation back to business. “Tell me why the conduits have lost their minds, Mother Portend.”

“Getting murdered tends to put people in a bad mood,” she said flippantly. “You’ll find out one day.”

“Your mood seems just fine.”

Another smile. “I don’t let much get me down.”

Tiger said, “You were in charge of the conduits, right?”

“Yes, boy. Why do you ask?”

“They were your responsibility, and you’ve let them run wild here on Halla,” he said, an edge of hostility in his voice. “The violence here is your fault, isn’t it?”

Fuck. Why did he have to come out swinging?

She stepped up to him and roughly grabbed his cock over his uniform, making Tiger grunt in pain. “So this is why you think you can talk to me like that? Like I’m some sort of helpless old woman you can sass, boy?”

“Please—” Tiger’s voice was hoarse.

“Let him go,” Kapok shouted and lunged for her.

But she held her other hand up and he froze in midair. Her eyes never left Tiger’s though. “I am no one to be trifled with. You come to my home, running off at the mouth like this at me? Me ?”

I tried to come up behind her, but she stomped the floor and it opened beneath me. I fell several meters into a narrow pit, crunching into a pile of bones. Some of the bones were stripped of their flesh. Some weren’t.

I dug my hands and feet into the sides for purchase and started to climb my way back up. The mostly healed wound in my heart stabbed at me as a reminder that I was supposed to be taking it easy. I ignored it as best I could, but halfway up, my arm seized up and I dropped back down. Fuck.

The crone peeked over the edge and laughed manically. “Do you think you can get out of my pit, boy? Better men than you have tried. Just sit tight. I’ll be back soon.” Then, she vanished from view.

Oh, fuck this shit . I grabbed two long bones from some of her corpses and used them to anchor into the dirt walls on my way back up. Searing pain shot through me, but I had expected it and forged on this time. When I reached the top, the cabin was empty, and the door was open. Everyone was outside.

I spied around the edge of the doorframe, so no one saw me. Kapok and Tiger were on their knees in the middle of a circle made of dead conduit ghosts. Mother Portend stood behind the Orne cousins. “These boys came to my home and accused me of letting you lot run wild,” she said to the ghosts. “They seem to think you are not operating under my orders. Are any of you under that impression?”

The dead conduits shook their heads. One said, “None of us have disobeyed you, Mother.”

“Someone thinks you are operating on your own,” she said, then regarded Kapok and Tiger again. “Boys, who told you I was here by myself? The first one who speaks lives.”

“We were just following our boss’ orders,” Tiger answered quickly. “You would have to ask him.”

“We don’t know anything,” Kapok said.

“The youngster is smarter than you. It’s a shame. You had spirit.” Mother Portend rammed a bone knife through Kapok’s heart from behind. It pierced through the front of his chest and he made a gurgling sound as blood poured out of him.

I slapped a hand over my mouth to stop from shouting as Kapok collapsed to the ground, his body lifeless, but I heard a scream anyway. It wasn’t Tiger, either—he had passed out.

Wave. Shit.

She had walked up just as Kapok was murdered. The crone held her hand up and Wave was dragged into the middle of the circle by her throat. Wave’s eyes were huge and filled with fear, as they ought to be considering what this ghost was capable of.

Mother Portend said, “You with them?”

“Sss,” Wave hissed around being strangled.

“Good.” She dropped her to the ground next to Kapok’s body. “Your friend is dead. The youngster hasn’t the stomach for this kind of thing, and your other friend is in the hole inside my cabin. Would you care to join any of them?”

Wave shook her head frantically. “No, ma’am.”

“Finally, some reverence,” Mother Portend said, sounding pleased with Wave’s acquiescence. “Tell me, girl, why are you running with such terrible men?”

“I don’t have a lot of options,” she croaked out. “I’m just a historian.”

“For what family?” Mother Portend demanded to know.

“The Ladrangs.”

Fuck. Why did she have to tell the truth?

Mother Portend paused at that bit of information. “Employments end when your employer dies, so Valor didn’t send you since his own brother beheaded him. Who then?”

Wave swallowed hard. “I…I work for Deacon.”

The crone’s eyes narrowed on Wave. “Why is he poking around my planet?”

“I don’t know.” Wave visibly shook in fear. “I was bored at Valor’s house and went for a ride with Jac. That’s all I know.”

“Deacon came to visit his father?”

Shut your mouth, Wave. Do not mention Sarah, Silence, or the twins.

“Last I heard, Deacon was yelling at his dad about Silence Bateen.”

The crone chuckled. “Can’t say I blame him there, considering Valor’s betrayal. Is Deacon fond of the men with you?”

She nodded jerkily. “I believe so.”

Mother Portend tapped her chin thoughtfully. “And what of the conduit he brought with him?”

My heart dropped to my feet, panic clutching at my chest. Keep your fucking mouth shut, Wave .

“All the conduits are dead,” she said, confused.

She doesn’t know. Thank the gods.

The crone stared at her, then one of the conduits near her nodded. Mother Portend said, “Oh, that’s what you really think. How interesting. I want you to get a message to your boss, Deacon. Tell him that he can have his men back in exchange for his conduit. He has until the suns go up.”

Wave shook her head. “He doesn’t have a conduit—they’re all dead—”

“Are you telling me my business girl?” Mother Portend snapped.

“No,” Wave said quickly.

“Then go.” The crone waved an impatient hand in the air. “You have only a few hours for him to return with my conduit.”

Wave stepped backward, then turned around and ran to Allegiant’s onworlder and left. Once she was no longer visible, Mother Portend ordered some of the dead conduits to follow her.

Then she told the others, “Put the boy and the body in the pit with the other one. We have work to do.”

Another conduit used her power to levitate Tiger and Kapok in front of her as they came back to the cabin.

Fuck. I was outnumbered, outgunned, and a man down. I can try to fight my way out, but I’ll die, and she will still try to trade Tiger for Sarah . The two bones in my hands were not sharp enough to work as knives. I hated yielding to Kapok’s murderer. But I was out of options.

I ran back to the pit and tried to climb down but falling was faster and better for my healing chest wound. I landed with my knees bent, which didn’t make the landing much easier, but at least I didn’t blow out my legs.

Mother Portend looked down into the gaping hole and taunted me from the opening. “You look lonely, Cozz. Don’t worry. I brought your friends.” Then she added, “One of them wasn’t good at telling me what I needed to know. Sorry.”

Kapok was dropped in first. His body fell on top of me.

“Fuck you, Portend!”

She cackled. “Be nice, or the youngster will have one more thing in common with his cousin.” Then she dropped Tiger in, too.

Thankfully, Tiger wasn’t stabbed. The floor above us closed up and we were left in the dank, dirty dark. It was then that I heard Tiger’s whimpers. “She killed him, Jac.”

“You’re awake?”

He sniffled. “She thought I was weak, so I pretended to pass out. I figured she wouldn’t kill me if she thought I was useless.”

“That was smart, Tiger,” I said, knowing the guilt was eating up the other man inside. “You did good.”

“I didn’t save Kapok,” he rasped.

“Neither did I—”

“You couldn’t,” he said angrily. “You were here.”

“I was at the doorway,” I confessed. “I saw it all go down. I—”

He shoved me against the wall. “You should have saved him!”

“I never would have stood a chance,” I yelled back, trying to make him see reason. “Neither would you. We both did the smart thing.”

“A lot of good it did,” he huffed and released me.

“We can’t take on an army of conduit ghosts on our own, Tiger.”

“But Kapok said you could take anyone ,” he countered.

I sighed wearily. “Since I’ve gotten to Halla, I’ve gotten stabbed by one conduit and almost died. I was abducted by another one and tossed around like ragdoll by the oldest conduit I have ever met. If you haven’t noticed, muscle and fighting skills are not what it’s going to take to survive this. I don’t know if being dead makes the conduits faster or if it’s that they have nothing left to lose…I don’t know anything about them anymore. But what I do know is, we have to fight smarter.”

I heard Tiger do something in the dark. “My gauntlet driver won’t work. Yours?”

“Mine stopped working the moment we got here.”

The bones shifted around me, knocking into each other as Tiger dug around. “I can’t get Kapok’s to work, either. I could try to wire them together, amplify their callouts—”

“I don’t think it’s the drivers,” I told him. “It’s the conduits’ gifts. I’ve heard of conduits who can deaden electronics.” Truth was, I didn’t want to contact anyone even if we could. If they knew we were alive, then they would try to save us and they would end up dead, too.

“Fine. It’s not like I could do it in the dark, anyway.”

He sounded so defeated. I wished I could have offered him some kind of comfort, but I had nothing left to give.

Tiger kicked the bones. “Fight smarter, huh? Seems smart to me to start making knives. You?”

It was useless—there was no way we could fight our way out. But the kid needed something to do. And a knife will make it easier to do what I have to do.

“Yeah, let’s do it. We can use the flat rocks in the walls to grind the bones to sharp points. Feel around until you find something like that. I’ll try over here.” I reached around in the dark and kept finding Kapok’s lifeless body.

I will make my knife as sharp as possible, so it cannot be felt. I don’t want Tiger to suffer, and it will be easier to cut my own throat with a sharp blade. I won’t let us be traded for Sarah .

I found a femur and a flat rock and began to hone.