Chapter 30

Deacon

Just before the full moons’ rise, Rex landed a slate blue ship twice the size of Allegiant next to my ship. Of course, his ship had to be bigger.

I rolled my eyes and kissed the back of Sarah’s hand, before I let it go on my way to greet him. The passenger door opened, lowering a ramp to the ground, and he led the charge out of the ship. Rex was followed by no less than twenty fighters, and all but Rex were armed with hand cannons, which I found a bit concerning.

“Those won’t help with the ghosts,” I said, pointing out the obvious.

Rex dismissed my concern with a flick of his hand. “They always carry them, as a part of their job. I’m hated by more than ghosts. Just a precaution, my boy, I assure you. Are the conduits here yet?”

“Not yet.”

He turned to speak to his men, and slung across his back in a holster was the longest bone sword I had ever seen. “Surround the perimeter, teams of two, watch each other’s backs. You know how crafty those bitches are. Trust no one until you hear from me,” he ordered his crew.

“Rex, you’re not in charge here,” I said, already feeling my irritation rise.

Without looking at me, Rex held a hand up for me to stop speaking. As his men ran around the perimeter to follow his orders, he asked, “Where are the rest of your people?”

“Inside that cottage,” I said, pointing to my father’s home. “I’ll get them.”

“Yeah, you get them, and we’ll set the perimeter,” Rex said with a nod. “Jac, we need you to—”

Jac cut him off. “I’m not doing anything but staying by Sarah’s side,” he said, taking the role seriously.

Rex turned around and smiled at him like a predator. “Exactly what I was thinking. We need her as protected as possible. Deacon, you should stay with her, as well.” Then his eyes shifted to seduction when he looked at Sarah. “You are the hostess of this little bacchanal. We need you guarded. Can’t let anything happen to you. We will center you in the perimeter and when the conduits get close, we take them out.”

“What? No!” Sarah shouted. “That isn’t part of the plan!”

“You’re not taking them out, Rex,” I snapped furiously. “That goes against the truce we made, and everything we have agreed to. You will not attack the conduits.”

But Rex calmly smiled. “I misspoke. I meant to say, we get into concealed positions in the event that we need to take them out. Apologies, for the confusion. We will, of course, abide the agreement. And we will enforce the agreement. By any means necessary.”

Rex’s whole entire demeanor, and behavior, did not set well with me. “There is no need to—”

“Over there,” Jac said, interrupting me as he pointed at the path in the forest that ended near my father’s yard. “They’re coming.”

We walked to my father’s yard, me, Sarah, Jac, Rex, and Omen. The conduits in front of us walked a three-wide formation toward us. Augur was in front of them all.

Quietly, I mumbled to Omen. “They’re not in battle dress. A good sign, yes?”

“A very good sign,” Omen said with a relaxed smile. Then she called out, “Augur, what say you all?”

The speaker for all the conduits replied, “We are with the contra. Our Queen.” Every ghost conduit knelt before Sarah, with Omen as the last one to do so.

“I am honored, my ladies,” Sarah said in a pleased tone, taking charge. “Rise among friends.”

Augur stood and smiled as she approached Sarah. “Thank you, my Queen.”

“Please, all of you, just call me Sarah.”

Augur nodded. “And so we’re clear, you forgive the first attack? We were under Mother Portend’s orders. We had no choice in the matter.”

“I do,” Sarah said graciously. “You are powerful warriors, you proved it that day. I am grateful to have you by my side.”

“And Rex?” Augur turned to him. “Given that we have taken up with Sarah, that pays the debt between us, yes?”

“ No .” Rex retrieved the long bone knife slung across his back and shoved the entire length into her gut and out of her back.

Sarah gasped in shock.

What the fuck?!

Rex swung for another conduit before I was able to react. I pulled my bone knife from the holster and thought to plant it in Rex’s back to stop his attack, but a bright flash of red light pulsed in my vision, and I was knocked backwards on my ass.

Hand cannon fire.

My head throbbed, ringing like a bell, and I couldn’t see. But I could hear.

Sarah’s screams filled my head. I tried to sit up and couldn’t—not without the world spinning around me. Then I heard Sarah’s voice shift into something I didn’t recognize. It was as though she had many voices at the same time. My vision cleared.

The conduits moved together to attack Rex, but he was one of the best fighters I had ever met, and his men crowded the field. They fought tooth and nail against the conduits. But when Mock tried to fight against Rex’s men, they shot him with their hand cannons. The red light pulse ravaged his legs, taking them out from beneath him.

What the fuck was happening, and where are Sarah and Jac?

I searched for them from the ground, but all I saw was a wall of scrambling legs. Until Jac fell backward, a burn on his shoulder from the hand cannons. He caught my eye and crawled to me between fighters. He pushed me through them, hauling me toward my father’s home.

Once my back was against his front wall, I was able to ask, “Where is Sarah?”

“There!” he pointed to the middle of the action.

Amidst it all, Sarah’s hands wove around, as she controlled every conduit on the field. Sending them after specific targets, making them use their magic against our enemies. But then Rex tried to come at her. Two conduits attacked him, along with Fan and Bell. His men shot Fan and Bell and came for the conduits with bone weapons.

“You good?” Jac asked me with concern.

I tried to stand. I fell back again, struggling not to vomit. “Can’t fight—go save her!”

He ran into the battlefield, only to get pinned down by Rex’s men.

My useless body wouldn’t do anything I told it and panic seized me. I’m trapped here to witness their deaths? This is bullshit! He came here with this plan all along—to take us all out at once and leave once the threat was neutralized. Not while I’m alive.

I used everything I had in me to crawl from my father’s front step toward Allegiant on the outskirts of the battle, my legs dragging behind me. When it looked like I wasn’t going to make it, I tried to use my gauntlet driver to call to Lanai Dea as I continued to crawl, but I lacked the dexterity needed. When I thought I was close enough, I called out as loud as I could, “ Allegiant !”

“ Allegiant here,” my ship said loudly on the outer speakers.

I turned back around to see if I’d attracted the wrong kind of attention with my callout. I had. Rex was on his way to me.

“ Allegiant , call Lanai Dea to service, now!”

“Calling Lanai Dea.”

Rex was almost on top of me, and I had no defenses for myself. But I knew that if Lanai could get to the field, my people would be safe, and the thought made me smile at the bastard as he lunged with his bone knife right at me.

Then, he stopped, hanging suspended in midair in front of me, the tip of his knife at my throat.

His eyes went wide, and his words were panic itself. “What are you doing? Stop! You can’t—”

“I can,” Sarah declared in a raspy voice.

I watched as Rex’s ghostly body was absorbed and compacted into Sarah, who stood a few feet away. Once he was gone, the bone knife fell to the ground at my feet.

She knelt next to me, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Are you okay?”

I gasped and stared at her in horror, still trying to make sense of what I had just seen, and what had happened to Rex. “What did you do?”

“I love you, Deacon. And I love Jac. Tell him for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

She kissed me, grabbed the bone knife, and held the blade at her throat. I was scared she would hurt herself to hurt Rex, and I roared, “ No !”

Sarah said, “Tell Allegiant ’s siren to sound.”

“ Allegiant , siren now!” I blurted.

The siren rang out, deafening everyone on the battlefield of my father’s yard.

Sarah gestured with her hand, and I shouted, “ Allegiant , stop!”

All eyes were on my ship, then Sarah, with the bone knife at her throat.

Jac shouted, “Sarah, no!”

But she ignored him and proclaimed, “I have taken Rex Terian as my hostage. He is trapped within my body as we speak. All of you, stand down now!”

“How do we know you have him?” one of his men asked.

Quietly, she said, “Rex, do the honors.”

Her body vibrated until she tipped her head toward her shoulder, revealing Rex’s head. Then his gruff voice snarled, “She fucking has me. Stand the fuck down. None of you will get paid if I’m dead.”

Sarah straightened again, shaking and absorbing Rex’s ghost. She demanded, “Lay all your weapons down, get onto your ship, every single one of you. I know everything he knows about you. Your names, how many there are, all of it. If any of you decide to stay here for any reason, I will kill Rex and I will blow up the ship with the rest of you on it. Go. Now. While I feel merciful.”

I watched as the mercenaries loaded up, each one with an eye on Sarah, as if she might somehow do something more extreme. Once she knew they were all on board, she turned to me.

Very calmly, she said, “For this to work, I have to go with them.”

“What?” Fear for her safety jolted through my entire body. “Why?”

“If I let Rex go now, he will kill me and everyone else here,” she said, her eyes pleading with me to understand. “I can hear it in his thoughts. I have to get him back to Faithless. Right now.”

I shook my head frantically. “You can’t go with them!”

She smiled sadly at me, bone knife still at her throat, just in case Rex became unruly. “You know I have to. If I don’t go now and force negotiations on Rex, he will come back here with an army. He will wipe all of us off of Halla—I can hear the plan he’s trying to formulate. This is the one contingency he didn’t think of. Him being my hostage. He is really pissed right now.”

She almost giggled, but then her face fell into a more somber expression. “I will not let us live in this perfect cottage in fear of the next time Rex gets cranky. That is not the life we are meant to have, Deacon. None of us. I did not come all this way to lose my family now. I will be back, I swear it. I have to go.”

“Don’t, please,” I begged. I reached for her, but my arm flopped to the ground and my gut tried to heave from my concussion.

She turned to Jac, who was running toward us. “Take care of Deacon while I’m gone.”

“Where are you going? What is happening?” He shouted ahead of himself.

She walked up the ramp into Rex’s ship and her body quaked and jerked. Rex growled out her mouth, “You cannot kill me in a way that matters, Queen.”

Then her body trembled again and her softer voice said, “That is a problem for another day.”

The passenger door closed behind her just as Jac pounded on it, roaring mindlessly. The ship lifted off and he fell to his knees, gasping for breath or sense. He crawled to me, his mind a wreck, worse than when I had pulled him from the moat.

His voice was hoarse as he begged the question in my mind, “What do we do?”

I had no fucking idea.