Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

Deacon

A siren abruptly woke me in the conduit temple. I gave Sarah a few nudges. “Up, up, up!”

She lifted her head and glanced around groggily. “What—what’s that sound?”

“ Allegiant’s siren. Get dressed, we have to go now !” We threw on our clothes and while we ran to the ship, I hit the comm and shouted, “ Allegiant responding, go ahead!”

“Deacon, is that you?” Silence asked, her voice breaking.

“Yes, go ahead.” After we reached the cockpit, I worked on getting the ship ready to fly. Sarah strapped into her seat next to me.

“Wave just got here and…Kapok is dead—”

“ What ?” Sarah gasped.

“Tiger and Jac have been taken by the conduits’ leader, Mother Portend,” Silence went on in a rush. “Wave says she wants to trade for our conduit. I don’t understand what she means—”

“Where is my father?” I demanded, cutting her off.

“We’re all in the house.”

I headed the ship in that direction. “Has he called anyone for help?”

“Yes, a few—”

“Call more. I’ll be there shortly. Allegiant out.”

“The fuck is going on?” Sarah hissed, looking just as panicked and worried as I was.

I pushed Allegiant to its limits. “You know as much as I do.”

“Why did they go to Mother Portend’s house?” Sarah asked.

I hesitated a moment, knowing she wouldn’t like the reason. “Jac has been trying to find out why Predict attacked you. I guess his investigation led him there.”

A horrified look passed across Sarah’s features. “It’s me…they want me…don’t they?”

I swallowed hard and nodded, refusing to lie to her about the situation. “That’s what it sounds like.”

“Then, I have to go,” she insisted. “It’s my fault they were out there. This is the only way to save them—”

“Absolutely not!” I shouted.

“I have to!” she yelled right back. “What choice do we have?”

“We have choices,” I assured her. “We are not without friends on Halla, my consort.”

Sarah curled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, as tears flowed down her face.

I reached out and touched her arm, trying to comfort her. “We will save them. I promise you.”

She sniffed hard and nodded but did not respond.

I had no other words for her. Instead, I focused on getting us to my father’s home quickly and safely. But all I could think of was Jac and Sarah. How could I trade one for the other? I was loyal to my best friend, but also to my consort. They both meant everything to me. There was no clear path forward.

Like the war, all over again.

When we landed next to Sovereign , Wave ran out to the ship. She looked awful, angrily pounding on the window.

Sarah asked, “What is she doing?”

“I don’t know.” I knew what she was doing, but it was too much to explain to a civilian. We came out of Allegiant , and Wave ran to us. Without a word, she slapped me across the face.

In my defense, Sarah jumped on Wave and threw her to the ground, surprising me.

I pulled her off of Wave, who wailed in the dirt, “You weren’t there!”

I crouched next to her and said, “I’m here now.”

I opened my arms and Wave sat up, letting me hold her as she sobbed in dismay. I had seen it in the war, this sort of hysteria brought on by true horror. It made me fear for what Kapok’s fate had been, which I did not want to think about.

Father and the others soon followed and eventually, we made it into his house. Wave croaked out what had happened, and something deep inside of me went numb, preparing for what was to come.

I can’t lose Jac like this .

Ode offered sedation for Wave, but she refused. “When I close my eyes, I see the knife protruding through Kapok’s chest. You think I will ever sleep again, Ode?”

I asked Father, “Who did you call?”

“Bell and Fan,” he said. “But they aren’t answering my call. Offhand has been silent for weeks, but I tried anyway. Mock answered, though. He’s on his way.”

“That’s it?” I asked incredulously, my hopes sinking. “That’s all we have coming to help defend us?”

“No one talks to me anymore,” my father said sadly. “It’s not like the old days, son. After my execution, your mother wasn’t the only one to turn her back on me.”

I growled and punched the wall, startling everyone. The surface didn’t move—instead it bloodied my knuckles and crunched some bones. I didn’t feel a thing.

Ode rushed to me. “Let me see that—”

“I’m fine,” I barked angrily, jerking my arm out of her reach.

She cringed slightly, making me realize what I had done.

I exhaled a harsh breath. “Sorry, I need some air.” I trudged out of the house.

Sarah came out after me. “Deacon, let Ode help—”

“What can she do?” I asked, whirling around to face her, my insides in knots. “Bandage me up? What’s the point?”

But her kind eyes saw my hand, so she took it in hers and raised it to her lips and kissed my scraped knuckles, tears shimmering in her eyes. “I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now. I won’t pretend to. Your father can’t rouse his friends to help. I don’t know why Portend wants me, but—”

“She will kill you , Sarah,” I said in a harsh tone. “Just like Predict tried to. Mother Portend was their leader when they were alive, and that means Predict tried to kill you because Portend wanted her to. If you were to go to them, then you would die, and I am not letting that happen.”

“That is not up to you, Deacon.” She lifted her chin stubbornly. “This is my choice. I’m not going to let two people die for one. Mom said the afterlife isn’t all that bad—”

The thought of losing Sarah made me insane, not to mention the horrific afterlife she would endure. “You would be stuck here on Halla, with the conduits who murdered you. What is the point of that?”

She met and held my gaze. “You respect me, don’t you?”

“Of course, what kind of question is that?”

“Then let me do this,” she rasped, the emotion in her voice coming through. “It’s the only way to save Tiger and Jac. You have known me for a few days, but you and Jac have been together since you were boys. I won’t let that end because of me.”

“You can’t—”

“She’s right, son,” Father said as he came out of the house. “You owe Jac more loyalty at this moment.”

“Keep that word from your mouth,” I hissed at him angrily. “It’s your fault we don’t have allies—”

A shriek from inside the house jolted us all. Wave ran out of the house, pointing up the path, still shrieking. As the suns came up behind the forest, a procession of thirty conduits marched down the treelined path toward the house. Their gray hooded battle robes marked them as conduits. They were ready for a fight too—their ghostly bodies lost their translucent nature and solidified in waves.

They are practicing solidification, so that they might come at us with everything they have. They are not prepared for a peaceful prisoner exchange. They are prepared for a battle.

Sunlight shone through portions of them, instead of all of them. Nearly all were solid at their hands and feet. Watching their bodies go from sheer to solid with such speed was dizzying, and I wondered if that was the point. Each carried bone knives and other bone-based weapons. There was no telling how many weapons each had—their hooded robes covered them head to ankles, with only their mouths and hands fully exposed.

Sarah began to step forward toward them, but I grabbed her arm to hold her back.

She glanced back at me, tears welling in her eyes. “Let me go, Deacon.”

My heart slammed in my chest and I could barely breathe. “I can’t—I just found you.” There was no mistaking the desperation in my voice.

“Please let me do this,” she pleaded. “Let me save Jac and Tiger.”

My heart ruptured in two as my hand loosened around her arm and I reluctantly let her go. I had to prove I respected her. How could I doubt her now?

Head held high, Sarah bravely walked toward the conduits, and her every step away from me was a knife in my heart. Another group of thirty conduits approached from the other side of my ships. The two groups came together forming a circle in front of my ships to surround their crone.

Mother Portend stood in the middle of the circle alone. Sarah walked to the edge of Father’s blue flowers, and the conduits in the front of the procession stopped there, too, facing off with her.

One conduit asked, “You are the conduit they keep?”

“Yes,” Sarah answered.

“And you come willingly, knowing we could murder you?”

“Let my men go into the house first,” Sarah demanded. “And then I will come with you.”

The conduit waved her hand, and Tiger and Jac were revealed to be on their knees in the middle of the conduits’ circle with Mother Portend.

Jac looked around and upon seeing Sarah shouted, “Sarah, no, you can’t!”

“It’s alright, Jac. Everything is going to be fine,” she lied, her voice eerily calm. “Let them into the house.”

“How do we know you won’t change your mind and fight us?” the conduit asked.

“If I did that, you would slaughter everyone here,” Sarah said accurately. “I don’t want that.”

The conduit nodded once, but Mother Portend put a hand on each man’s shoulders as she called out, “When I opened my pit, these boys were sharpening bones to kill us. I take offense to that. I am impressed that you would offer yourself up for them, contra. But would you offer yourself up for only one of your men?”

My fists balled as my body tensed. I wanted to spring at them, but that would get everyone killed. We were alone in this, and I had to be smart. But I wanted to be stupid and release the rage simmering inside of me.

“Yes,” Sarah answered.

Portend smiled evilly. “I am glad to hear it. Tell me, which of them—”

“Jac,” she answered instantly.

Portend scowled, looking aggravated at Sarah.

“Oh, did I step on your moment?” Sarah boldly challenged the crone. “You were going to make some big speech about making me choose between them, right? I choose Jac. Hand him over. Now.”

Portend glared at me. “She’s got spirit, like the dead one. Good. It will be fun breaking your consort before I kill her.”

The crone lifted Jac to his feet with her power and sent him on his way to us. Then she forced Tiger to stand.

She taunted Sarah, “You get to choose the way this one dies, but we will wait to do that in private. More intimate that way. I want you to have time to think of something truly painful. Do you like fire? I like fire.”

As Jac passed by Sarah, he demanded, “You can’t do this!”

“It’s done,” she said sharply. “Take care of each other for me, okay?”

“Don’t go,” Jac begged her, all of us feeling helpless at the situation and what we were up against.

She kissed him, then shoved him toward me. I caught him and kept him on his feet. Then, she offered her hands to the conduits.

“Now what?”

The conduit nearest to Sarah smirked and said, “I’m first in line.”

She peeled back her hood, revealing herself to be Omen Ayext. Then, shocking everyone, she drove her bone knife into the conduit next to her, clearly defending Sarah. The conduit struggled, but the bone knife was driven through her belly, and she fell to the ground.

Omen stood between Sarah and the rest of the conduits, protecting her. "Get back in the house,” she told Sarah.

Sarah shook her head. “No, I—”

An explosion distracted us all, as Fan and Bell rode down the path behind the conduits on their onworlder. Fan drove, while Bell threw another grenade at the conduits. It must have been filled with bone fragments, because when it burst, the nearby conduits fell to the ground.

The rest of them scattered, including Mother Portend, who left Tiger behind. He seemed to have been hit by the fragments, too—he’d fallen to the ground with the others when the grenade went off.

Omen laughed at the sight of Fan and Bell, then produced a whip from her robe. It was spiked and ivory colored. She swung it around herself, cracking the air and hitting two more conduits with it, slicing through their necks and killing them both.

Father handed me and Jac bone knives, and we ran toward the fray. He gave one to Sarah on his way into battle so she had something to defend herself with. Jac and I stood on either side of her, prepared to protect her with our lives and ready for the next conduit to come at us.

Fan and Bell must have run out of grenades—they drove up to us and Fan asked, “You got more weapons? We’re out.”

Suddenly, the conduits vanished, seemingly into thin air, all but Sarah and Omen. Omen warily backed up to where we were by Sarah. Father had one of the conduits down on the ground, but then she vanished with the others.

He turned to Omen and asked, “What is happening?”

Omen looked just as confused, and concerned, as we all were. “I don’t know—”

“Can you see them?” I asked.

“No,” Omen said.

“Sarah, can you?”

She looked around frantically and shook her head. “No.”

But then we heard them. Chanting whispers that got louder as we stood there, like they were closing in on us. Fan drove the onworlder toward a dead conduit and snatched up her bone sword, just before another conduit appeared and slashed at him with her knife. Then, she vanished again.

He clutched his arm and cursed, before driving back to us. Bell hopped off the onworlder and reached out for Omen’s first victim’s knife but was thwarted by a conduit. She stabbed the back of his thigh, then disappeared again. He fell to the ground and fought to get to his feet.

Mother Portend’s voice proclaimed, “You can’t kill what you can’t see.” Then a bone knife slashed the air, before it sliced across my chest, drawing blood.

I sucked in a painful breath and quickly brought my weapon up to defend myself, but my attacker was gone before I had moved.

Omen said, “If we can stop whoever is chanting then we can break the gift they’re using.”

“How the fuck are we supposed to do that?” Jac asked.

The door on Father’s house creaked, and I turned that way, afraid a conduit had snuck past us. But it was Silence coming out to the battle. Surrounded by Gram, Treg, Drift, and Camp Deo, she strode toward us with the twins on her back in a pack.

Once next to us, she raised her hands, and the whispers instantly stopped. White fog flowed from invisible conduits into Silence’s palms. With her own powers, she had stolen the voices of the chanting conduits. All of our enemies were visible once more.

We wasted no time fighting back. I lunged at those in front of me, and the others did the same, except for Camp Deo, who took Silence’s babies back into the house. Fighting alongside my friends and family and my consort, I prayed we would survive this. But the odds were not in our favor.

I dodged a conduit’s slash, leaning around her for the one behind her. Jac took on the one who slashed at me first, then twirling back for the two behind himself. Father, being a ghost, was able to fight both hand-to-hand, and with his bone knife. He didn’t need them to solidify to fight them on even terms like the rest of us.

Gram fought with two knives, slashing in unison. Treg had taken half a dozen knives into his gelatinous body, before they realized they could not kill him that way. He began to chase after conduits, swinging a pilfered bone sword and shouting, “Come on! I want to play, too!”

It was Drift and Sarah who worried me the most.

Drift had taken Sarah out to get Tiger, before I had a chance to stop them. He crouched to check on Tiger, while Sarah watched for attackers. I couldn’t get to them—there were too many combatants between us. As I spun around, knife in hand to take out the three who had closed in on me, I saw that Mother Portend was approaching Drift and Sarah.

I dove between Father and his attacker, stabbing her, then ran through a hole in the crowd. But someone cut my calf before I could reach them, and I fell on top of a conduit on the ground. She wasn’t dead—and she was nearly solid.

We struggled, turning in the dirt. She kicked my groin and shoved me off of herself as I coughed from the impact. She straddled my chest, bringing her knife down toward my face, but I bucked her off and she tumbled over my head. Soon we were both on our hands and knees in the dirt, facing off. As she lunged, Treg stepped on her back, forcing her flat with his mighty, gelatinous weight. He stabbed her in the back, smiled at me, and kept moving after more of them.

I turned to see Sarah’s predicament. Drift was bloodied and laid out on Tiger’s back. But Sarah was on her feet, knife in hand, squared off with a cackling Portend. I ran to her, barreling into solidified conduits until there were too many to push and all I could see was them.

An explosion, louder than the grenades, sounded near us. Conduits flew into the air in parts. Some of those nearby looked around or felt around their bodies for signs of shrapnel. I took out a few more while they were distracted. But my focus was only on Sarah, and I cut a deadly path toward her.

When I had a clear view a few meters from them, Portend had her eyes on me, a handful of Sarah’s hair, and a knife to Sarah’s throat. Blood ran down the side of my consort’s face and she appeared listless, her body limp and upright only by Portend’s grip on her hair. Fury, unlike anything I’d ever felt before, raged through me.

Smug satisfaction filled the crone’s eyes. “You should be grateful I am doing this for you, Deacon Ladrang. The living will only ever disappoint you.”

“Let her go!” I demanded, even though Portend had the upper hand, and she knew it.

“Drop your knife,” she countered.

I did without hesitation, praying it saved my consort’s life.

As it clattered to the ground, Sarah suddenly thrust her left leg out for leverage, grabbed Portend’s knife hand and twisted sideways. Sarah pushed the blade backward across her own throat, sacrificing herself as she managed to shove the tip up into Portend’s torso.

I ran to them as they both fell to the dirt. I heard nothing but an awful roaring sound in my head. I saw only a sea of red as the battle raged on around me.

When I reached them, Sarah’s blood was everywhere. Portend was dead. I dropped to my knees and held my hand over Sarah’s gushing throat. Her eyes were on me for a breath, before they fluttered back and her body went completely limp.

An awful, helpless feeling nearly strangled me. “No, no, no!” I screamed, then I shouted for help.

I looked up to see if assistance was on the way and was shocked by what I saw. My android, Lanai Dea, had returned, and she was with Mock—the short Ladrian was atop her pink shining metal shoulders and swinging two bone maces on chains. Lanai Dea used a bone sword and skewered conduits as she outran them with mechanical speed. The pair tore through enemy troops.

Ode appeared next to me and immediately went to work on Sarah. She applied injection after injection, and the wound at her neck began to reknit and close. It was then that my hearing came back all at once.

“…don’t know where to get blood for her,” the doctor was saying.

“I don’t— Silence .” Seemingly out of nowhere, the idea came to me. “You said family is the best bet?”

Ode nodded. “Yes, but—”

I ran through the dwindling battlefield as fast as I could and shouted, “Silence!”

“Yes?” She came from the back.

“Come with me!” I grabbed her hand, and we ran together. Narrowly missing another one of Treg’s chases, we made it back to Sarah. “Use Silence for blood.”

Ode was confused. “But she’s not—”

“Sarah needs your blood, Silence,” I said, interrupting Ode. There was no time to discuss Silence’s complicated family connection to Sarah. “Can you—”

Without question, Silence lifted her sleeve up for Ode and offered her arm. “Whatever you need to save her. Do it.”

“What is going on?” the doctor asked me.

“No time to explain, just do it!” I demanded.

She pulled her tube out and set Sarah up for the transfusion. “Watch for conduits, Deacon. I’ve got this.”

But the rest of our side had the conduits on the run. Our enemies did not come for us—now, they were too busy trying to escape. I did not know what had turned the tide. I assumed it was the big explosion that had sent conduits flying into the air.

It was a miracle, but I could not celebrate until I knew my own miracle was going to survive.