Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

Sarah

C onduits. They were everywhere, seemingly out of nowhere.

I ducked a bone knife coming at my face by leaning right and tried to get my own out of my thigh holster, but another conduit, standing in the water next to the catwalk, stabbed my calf with her knife.

I screamed from the excruciating pain—it was unlike anything I had ever experienced—and kicked the leg, trying to dislodge the knife. But she yanked it out to stab me again.

Pulling it out hurt as much as when it went in, and the intensity of the pain nearly blinded me for a flash. When I looked again, Omen had thrust her knife into my assailant’s arm. My attacker disappeared beneath the catwalk.

Omen dashed past me to fight another conduit. I was angry to be taken out of the fight so fast, but more than that, I was scared shitless. Rex’s men battled as hard as any of us, but no one was as fast as Jac. He was a ruthless blade, stabbing efficiently, dancing between his enemies like he had been born to fight. Deacon, with his longer reach, was able to stab those who did not see it coming.

Two conduits wrenched free of my friends long enough to pursue me through the crowd. Their eyes burned on me, as though they knew this was all my fault.

They’re not wrong.

I turned and tried to run, tried to climb through a mess of scattered limbs and ivory flashes in the moonslight, but I was trapped against the railing of the catwalk.

Fuck this. I climbed between the rails and dropped into the water, out of sight. Swampy and smelly, the water came up to my shoulders. I hoped nothing in it would eat me or stab me again—I didn’t know where my first attacker had gone, but once I was in the water, I couldn’t see her. For that matter, I couldn’t see much beneath the catwalk—the moonslight didn’t reach beneath it. I hid under the slimy wooden planks, hoping to be forgotten.

My pursuers dropped into the water on either side of me, and terror gripped me. I held as still as I could, hoping they could not see me in the darkness. Then a bone knife stuck out of the head of the one on my left, before she collapsed into the water. A moment later, the one on my right met the same fate.

Then Rex slid into the water, his eyes on me. “You’re hurt.”

I nodded, trying not to whimper from the pain.

His eyes darkened tempestuously. “They’re not going to stop coming after you. You’re the one they want to kill.”

Almost to illustrate his point, another jumped into the water on my left. They slashed my shoulder open, before he could zip around and take them out, fast and efficiently. Stifling a scream, I clenched my right hand around my wound, trying to stop the bleeding. The searing agony was brutal, making me feel dizzy and faint.

“You don’t have any fighting skills,” he said, and sadly it was the truth. Fighting and killing were not my forte. “We are far outnumbered. Can you call your jem’hora here?”

“It hurts too much,” I whispered, tears burning my eyes from the stinging, burning pain from my lacerations. “I can’t focus enough to—”

“Then let me possess you, so I can defend you.”

My eyes widened at his suggestion, and what it meant. Mostly, breaking the promise I’d made to Deacon. “No.”

Another conduit splashed into the water beside me, and before they could plunge their weapon into my chest, Rex quickly eliminated them before I could even move.

I swallowed back a sob of pure fear, hating my own weakness and inability to protect myself. I’d never felt so scared and vulnerable in my entire life.

“Let me help you, Sarah,” Rex insisted, his eyes intense as the battle continued to rage around us and up on the plank above us. “I’ll keep you safe. You know I will. And I’ll leave when you tell me to. I swear it.”

I realized I had no other options, other than to die, because without Rex’s help I was doomed. I had no choice but to trust him. “What do I do?”

“Stow your knife first.”

I shoved the blade back into the sheath strapped to my thigh under the water. “Now?”

“Hold up your hands.”

Shoving my fear and misgivings aside, I obeyed his order, raising them up out of the water. Rex put his hands against mine. At first, I felt the pressure of him, since he was a ghost. But then it faded, as his hands became my hands. His presence felt warm, like a summer rain that dripped up my arms as he entered my body. He turned, aligning his torso with mine, and that summer rain feeling washed over me until we were one and he was completely inside of my body.

He quickly pulled my bone knife from my thigh holster, using my hand. “Don’t fight my movements, just let me control your body. Don’t watch what I’m about to do, Sarah, you don’t want those memories for the rest of your life.”

In my mind, I said, okay.

He climbed back onto the catwalk, and the slaughter began. He was right—I didn’t want those bloody, gruesome memories for the rest of my life, so I retreated from my eyes and tumbled into the combined well of memories that was both of us. It felt like the moment before I fell asleep at night—inevitable, sucking, but welcoming.

My mind was a fractured mess, trying to figure it all out as I felt my body jerking about as Rex fought the enemies coming for me. With him in my body, I could see his memories, too, but his mind was like a filing cabinet—orderly, with places for everything. Like he had cleaned up for guests.

The memory of Rex’s brother burning his favorite pet cina was neatly filed in his childhood anger, a collection of terrible thoughts from his youth. A girl who told him he was ugly when he was three. His mother choosing his brother over him, when he had asked who her favorite child was. So many hurts and devastations.

I wondered whether it was a violation to keep looking into his psyche. I had stumbled into our shared well of memories on accident, but if I kept looking into his memories, was that a betrayal of any kind of friendship we had built?

I tried to pull away from the memory well, but I couldn’t. Rex’s self-loathing and rage, the things he kept an emotional mask on for, sucked me further into it. It was too powerful to fight. I tried to think of anything that wasn’t Rex’s—any happy thought of my own.

Deacon and Jac .

Deacon’s face flashed in Rex’s memory. A young, handsome Deacon. As I focused on him, the picture surrounding him became clearer. Rex had some kind of weapon drawn. I had never seen it before, but I knew the feeling of pointing a weapon well enough to know that it was. Deacon stood in front of someone, shaking his head.

When I focused hard enough, I could hear Deacon, “…not letting you do this. Not again.”

“You don’t have a choice. We have our orders.”

“I don’t care. Fuck the orders. Fuck the general. The war is practically over, Rex, we don’t need to do this!”

“Are you a soldier or are you a coward?”

Deacon’s jaw clenched. “I am not a murderer.”

Rex tried to brush past him, but Deacon grabbed his arm and twisted it until Rex was on his knees, yowling in pain. I felt it—the sharpness of having my shoulder almost ripped from the joint.

Deacon snarled, “We’re not doing this.”

“The fuck we’re not.” Rex maneuvered out of the hold and spun around on Deacon. They fought hard, and Rex ended up on top.

Watching him bloodying Deacon’s handsome face made me want to cry. I couldn’t even look at him. But since I was in Rex’s memory, I wasn’t sure if I was the one who felt that way or if Rex did, too.

When he was done, Rex stood up over Deacon and said, “I’m sorry, my boy. This is the way it has to be.” He turned and looked at the little girl that Deacon had been shielding. “Sorry, kid.”

He aimed his weapon at her. Something sharp stuck me through my back and into my heart. The weapon never fired. It hit the floor.

Deacon grunted, “I’m sorry, Rex.”

Rex collapsed to the floor, seeing two more fallen bodies in the room. A woman watched Deacon take the little girl away, before she smiled at Rex with blood on her teeth.

She hissed at him, “You failed.”

Rex coughed as he watched Deacon leave with the little girl. Blood poured out of his mouth as he choked out, “Yeah. I did.” Then everything went dark.

In that darkness, something grabbed the nape of my neck, yanking me through the black, until it dropped me into the middle of another one of Rex’s memories.

His first meeting with Augur. “…control us. Physically and mentally. It’s every conduits’ nightmare. Bad enough when it’s a Mother who controls us, but the contra can hold power over every part of us.”

“Why should I care what she can do to you? You bitches have been trying to kill me since I got to Halla. Let the contra have you, for all I care.”

“I know the conduits have declared war on you, but honestly, I’m tired of fighting. I don’t want that for my sisters.”

“What exactly are you asking?”

“If you can seduce the contra, then you can use her to control the conduits.”

He didn’t believe her, not at first. But he wanted to. “Why the fuck should I believe that this isn’t some kind of new tactic?”

She shook her head. “I’ll bring a copy of the holy text. You can read it for yourself. The contra is our bogeyman, our devil. She is the one thing in the worlds that can control a conduit, besides a Mother. I was in Mother Portend’s inner circle. I knew what she knew, and she always said that was why the contra was foretold to bring the end of our power—not that she would kill us, but that she would control us. Use us for her own ends. We would be nothing but her slaves, in our hearts, in our minds, and in our deeds. But if you seduced her, if you controlled her, then you would be safe, and I know you, Rex. You don’t care about micromanaging your ghosts like she would. Help me save my sisters from such a fate, Rex.”

“Better the devil you know? Something like that?”

Augur nodded. “I’d rather you held our leash than some stranger who could use us for our own devastation.”

“Get your sisters to stop trying to kill me, Augur.”

“I don’t know if I can, but I will try.”

“And if the contra can control you, what then? What do I do with an army of conduits?”

She smiled. “Whatever you want. I know you want to take all of Halla. We can do that for you.”

“I believe we have a deal.”

Rage filled me as that memory faded. That fucker is trying to use me to have his own army of conduits?

I had been used before by my ex, Ryan, and it wasn’t ever going to happen again.

I am done being used .

With that thought, I shot out of the well of Rex’s memories and came back to my eyes. The fight was loud, shouts and cries in every direction. Rex had my bone knife pressed against Augur’s throat.

I gathered all my might and used my voice. “Stop!” I demanded.

I had taken back control from Rex, and my body stopped the movement. So did Augur’s. The anger in me boiled until it burst out of my mouth, and I roared, “Stop!” at the top of my lungs.

All of the conduits were instantly stopped in their tracks, twisted and frozen in the unnatural positions of battle. My friends looked at them strangely, before they pulled away from the conduits. Two of Rex’s men, however, took advantage of the moment, and stabbed their opponents to death.

I turned to Deacon and hollered, “Get them!”

He and Jac stopped those men from killing any more frozen conduits, because that was not my purpose here.

I closed my eyes, focusing on filling the well between myself and Rex, of embracing this newfound power of mine. It kicked Rex out of my body. He stumbled out of me, blinking in shock.

I kept the knife at Augur’s throat and asked Rex, “Why were you about to kill your ally?”

Rex shook his head. “She was no ally,” he insisted. “She sent her drecks after us. That’s why she ran—to make them chase us down.”

I gritted my teeth, furious that we’d been duped. “You deserve death for that, Augur. For pretending to ally with us, for costing us a soldier. For tricking Rex. You are a betrayer.”

I permitted her to speak, and she growled, “Do it, Contra. I am tired.”

But I slid my knife into the holster and let her go.

Because all of the conduits were still frozen from my command, she couldn’t move, as well.

“What are you doing?” Rex barked at me, his face flushed with fury.

“What I came here to do.”

Taking a deep breath, I turned to the crowd of the confused and said, “I am the contra, and I am the Queen of conduits. I know what you fear. That I will make you my slaves for all time. Stand straight,” I ordered them, while the rest of our crew looked on, silently watching what I was doing, shocked by the abilities that I possessed. As was I.

Every conduit stood straight, but it was clear that each of them was afraid of me, of my power over them. I needed to be clear. “That is the last order I will give you tonight, and I only gave it because I need your attention. Conduits, I do not need to be your enemy. I am here only to give you a choice. You can follow me and live your lives in relative peace, or you can deny me, and Rex will have a chance to settle old scores. But it is your choice, and no one else’s. Rex has agreed to a truce until tomorrow’s full moons rise in the early evening. Come to Valor Ladrang’s home tomorrow to tell me of your answer.”

Augur hummed for attention, unable to speak.

“Speak,” I permitted her.

She looked at Rex skeptically. “How do we know he will abide the truce?”

My voice dropped in anger. “Rex?”

He nodded, his eyes on me. “We will abide the truce. No more harm will come to the conduits from me or mine, until they give us their answer.”

“And there won’t be some trap for us at Valor Ladrang’s?” Augur asked, still wary of our motives.

Rex spoke up. “This is Sarah’s idea for you. Valor is on her side. If I arranged a trap at Valor’s, he would slaughter us all. I know his reputation personally. There will be no trap.”

I turned back to Augur. “Do we have a truce?”

Augur’s gaze narrowed. “Do we have a choice?”

“I could end you now,” I offered facetiously.

“Then we have a truce,” Augur said.

I smiled. “Good. Once we are clear of the catwalk, I will release you all. If we hear any of you following us, I will order you all to fall on your own bone knives. Be on time, Augur. I don’t want there to be any room for misinterpretation of anything, and you don’t want that, either.”

“Agreed,” she said.

I hobbled on the way back down the catwalk and with each step, the pain in my calf grew like my anger with Rex.