Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

Deacon

I t had been a long night, and after coming upon a damaged ship, I knew it was going to be an even longer day. As the suns came up, my android, Lanai Dea, asked, “Is there anything I can do to speed things along?”

I was on my back on a backskate that I had rolled onto the hard-packed dirt beneath Allegiant , trying to sort out the damage. “Are you in a hurry?” I asked sarcastically.

From my position, all I could see were her shining metal feet, and the impatient feet of everyone else. Lanai groused, “I do not care for the swamp.”

I almost smiled because she rarely registered a complaint. “And why is that?”

“In general, the humidity can aggravate my circuitry, but more specifically, this one seems to have jem’hora circling. It sets my perimeter sensors on edge.”

“I told you, Sarah has them under control,” I said, trying to categorize the various wires.

“It is my programming, Deacon,” Lanai insisted. “I do not like them.”

“You could be under here with me. Helping .”

My android paused for a moment. “I am out here, helping . Ensuring they only circle overhead and do not attack your companions.”

“You do not believe Sarah can keep them at bay?” I asked from where I was positioned beneath the ship.

“I believe she would try . I do not believe she would succeed. Not like I would.” Lanai Dea never had faith in anything but herself. Not that I blamed her.

“If you helped me down here, then this would go a lot faster,” I suggested.

“The wiring is torn, and you are as capable as I of the repairs,” she told me.

I wished I had her confidence. I knew how to do the work, but I had not done such things since the academy. “Fine. Guard the people.”

“Of course.” Her feet left the small space where I could see them.

I could have ordered her to help me, but there was no point to such a thing. Lanai was right—I could do the repairs. But something about doing the work myself felt wrong. I had people I paid to do such things. Just my luck, Treg was not on board.

No, not luck.

Someone must have known my engineer was not with us. As I worked on the repairs, I mulled over whether I thought it was conduits or one of Rex’s men who’d sabotaged the ship. I hadn’t noticed any absences among them, but I had been distracted by…well, a lot. It was not beyond the realm of possibilities that one of them was behind the vandalism.

Or Augur.

“Got it sorted out yet, my boy?” Rex asked.

At the sound of my nemesis’ voice, I dropped my wrench and it fell, hitting me in the forehead. I growled before I said, “Not yet and I’m not your boy.”

“Well, that makes sense, I suppose,” Rex mused. “I’m still not sure why you’re not letting one of my men do the work under there. They are as skilled with a bone knife as they are with a driver.”

I rolled out on the backskate and looked up at him. “I would sooner let the jem’hora work on my ship.” Then I immediately rolled back under.

“I told you before that my men had nothing to do with this,” Rex said.

“And I told you that I don’t care what you swear to me. I don’t even care if you believe what you’re saying. Your men are not touching my ship.”

“You’ve always had a difficult time with other men handling your things, Deacon,” he said, clearly a double entendre. “Seems to be a pattern with you.”

I prayed to the moons to make my wrench go from steel to bone, just so I had something in my hand to stab him with. But nothing happened. Not that I was surprised, but I was disappointed.

Then, I went back to work. “You can leave now, Rex.”

“Capital idea,” he said too cheerfully. “I should walk back to Faithless, get one of my superior ships, and deliver a mechanic for you. Perhaps, while you yell at him about the wiring, I can take Sarah for a ride. I’m sure I could show her all kinds of things. On Halla , I mean.”

He did not mean on Halla . “Fuck off.”

“Am I distracting you?” he asked, deliberately irritating me. “Far be it for me to do such a thing, my boy. But no amount of concentration will aid you in the repairs. You’ve never been handy—that’s why you hire out. Do the reasonable thing and let someone help you, before your union dies of thirst.”

“We have been out here for less than half a day, and…” I rolled on the backskate once more, glaring up at him. “I do not need to explain myself to you, Rex. Leave me alone.” Back under the ship I went.

“While you may not need to explain yourself to me, you may want to consider explaining yourself to your union.” Amusement threaded his voice. “They are agitated.”

“Let me guess,” I muttered. “ You’re the agitator?”

“Not everything is my fault.”

“Just go ,” I said irritably. “Go flirt with Sarah, go find a dreck to hunt, I don’t care, just leave!”

Sarah’s little feet walked up and stood next to Rex. “Why should he? Are you going to kill him again , if he doesn’t do what you want?”

The wrench fell out of my hand once again. My mouth went completely dry. I was no longer tethered to Halla by gravity, as the ground slipped out from beneath me. I rolled the backskate out from beneath the ship again, and looked up at her from where I was laying on the device.

“What did you say?” I asked cautiously, praying I’d misheard her.

Jac had become curious and joined Sarah by the ship, as she said, “You heard me, Deacon. I asked if you were going to kill Rex again .”

Jac’s eyes widened. “Sarah, maybe—"

She silenced him with a harsh glance.

I looked to Rex in disbelief as I climbed out from beneath Allegiant and stood. “You told her?”

“I did not,” he said, looking just as surprised.

I jammed my hands on my hips. “I thought you said you wouldn’t tell her.”

“And I did not ,” Rex said firmly.

“He didn’t have to tell me, Deacon,” Sarah said. “When he possessed me, I found the memory of it.”

Rex’s jaw clenched and his eyes flashed with anger. “You did what ?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t go looking for the memory, Rex. I sort of fell into it. I was trying to stay out of your mind, and I thought of Deacon and Jac, but Deacon’s face popped into my mind. A much younger Deacon.”

Time slowed down in my head. I wanted to reverse it, so I could repair the damage, take back what she had learned, and make her less ashamed of me. But I was not a magician. This was not in my control. My chest tightened and my heart hurt every time it pumped blood through my system.

“And?” I asked, my voice tight.

“I saw everything he saw before you killed him.”

My body went hot and cold at the same time. The air outside had vanished, like the air in my lungs. They know. They know. They know. My heart raced on those words, panic and a hundred regrets colliding together inside of me.

I said the first things that came to my brain, the apology I had worked on in my mind a thousand times in the years since it happened, modified for the occasion, all formality because everything else inside of me had shut completely down.

“I…I…You must be so disappointed in me,” I said, my voice sounding disembodied to my own ears. “To find out your companion is a murderer. I would apologize, but such a thing seems insufficient compared to my error. I will finish the repairs and once things are more settled, we can discuss the dissolution of our union. Excuse me.”

I started to get onto the backskate again, needing to get beneath Allegiant before I began to fall apart.

“You should have told me!” Sarah said, sounding as devastated as I felt.

Rex quickly explained, “I had forgiven him years ago, Sarah, that’s why I didn’t tell you. Well, that and I enjoyed tormenting him with the threat of telling you—”

“Not you ,” she barked at Rex as tears filled her eyes. “ Him . Deacon should have told us! That’s all I wanted, Deacon, is just your trust and honesty.”

“Oh, well that,” Rex gave half a shrug. “It was not his finest hour, though it was impressive. I can understand why he would not tell anyone, I suppose, though he should have bragged about taking me down. Many seasoned warriors had tried.”

I swallowed back the nausea rising up in my throat. “I do not have the time to sort through this right now, Sarah,” I said, not knowing how to repair the damage I’d done. “I have a ship to fix, so we can get the hell away from this awful place. Please excuse me.”

“Rex, you said you could get to Faithless before he can finish, right?” Sarah asked, just as I laid back down on the backskate.

“Yes, without question,” he replied.

“And you have ships there that can carry all of us to where we need to go?”

Rex nodded. “I do.”

“Excellent,” she said, swiping at the tear that trickled down her cheek. “Make it happen.”

Rex paused, looking from her to me, and back again. “Are you certain that is what you want?”

Sarah stared at Rex unblinkingly. “Did I stammer?”

“Right away, Queen,” he said, and I didn’t miss his sidelong smirk at me as he left to collect his men for the journey.

Without another word, Sarah hobbled away toward the swamp, with Omen following behind.

Jac looked unsure of what to say or do. Finally, he asked, “Do you need a hand?”

My life, and everything I held dear, seem to be crumbling right before my eyes and I was helpless to stop the destruction. “I’ve got it.”

“I don’t mind. I can—”

“I said I’ve got it, Jac,” I said angrily. “Why don’t you go tend to your consort since she clearly doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

I rolled back beneath Allegiant . At least things under my ship couldn’t get much worse.