Chapter 2 #2
His disappointment, dissatisfaction, is palpable.
He can’t kill me, and he hates that I defy him on any level.
He can’t kill me, and unless he allows me to heal, to touch essence, he’ll no longer get everything he wants from me.
The defiant laughter drains from me until I’m barely breathing.
That’s when I realize that I’m bleeding out — slowly but surely. He’s nicked something vital in my neck.
He can’t kill me.
But … if the universe can’t reach me … then … can he?
Can he kill me? Even if that’s not his intent?
“Whatever is happening to this woman must stop,” a quiet voice says, drawing me from my pained slumber. “She has to be given time to heal.”
“I understand,” a woman murmurs back. Her voice is familiar, with a southern accent like warm caramel sauce.
Though I usually crave caramel in a creamy cold form …
“That wound on her neck —”
“That’s not for you to question,” the woman says. Her voice is brusque with fear now. “You’re getting paid well enough.”
Jewels. I think her name is Jewels. From before … after the interdimensional portal but before this room.
Interdimensional portal … where did that idea come from? That shouldn’t be at all possible. The energy that threads around the globe through the intersection points, with the Conduit as the anchor, is a shield … or should be a shield that —
“I know who he is, who I’m working for, and what he does to those who disappoint him,” the first person says, defiant while also lowering their voice.
“But I’m not some lowly healer without protections in place.
” Their accent is different. Navajo, maybe.
But the Diné peoples don’t usually contract with anyone from the Federation.
I try to get my eyes open. I can feel residual essence coating my neck and shoulder, and more across my tongue.
Healing spells, salves, or brews, at best guess.
That essence is inert, though. Possibly because my own essence, even while unconscious, even as drained as it is, naturally protects itself.
But more likely, given that I do actually require healing, the blood wards etched throughout my cozy prison are blocking all essence-wielding.
I thought keeping the Conduit in a cage at all, or for any length of time, was impossible. I just hadn’t reckoned on that cage being built by a Conduit’s surviving — rejected — soul-bound mate.
And apparently, caging a Conduit in this way comes with its own set of issues.
“Keep her alive,” Jewels says stiffly. “And there won’t be any problem.”
I get my eyes open. Thankfully, my head is already turned toward the two people hovering by the closed, rune-etched steel door.
The familiar-sounding woman is indeed Jewels, the dark-blond, hazel-eyed shifter with the intricate braids who I saw after almost dying in the portal.
When I was almost trapped in the in-between.
I’m fairly certain she’s the only person other than the Cataclysm allowed access to my prison, but she most often comes and goes when I’m unconscious.
I also assume that there are cameras and other monitors hidden from my admittedly hazy sight.
Next to Jewels stands a deeply-tan-skinned, slim woman in a sleek aquamarine pant suit. She’s carrying a small medical bag and waving her free hand, clearly frustrated. “I can’t work properly in here! If I can’t wield my power, then —”
“Shut up,” Jewels hisses. “Just … go.”
“Go?”
“Whatever he’s paying you isn’t worth your life.”
“He’s not going to kill me or hurt me,” the healer scoffs, not sounding wholly convinced. “Do you know how valuable I am to my tribe?”
“We shouldn’t be having this discussion,” Jewels says firmly. “We shouldn’t linger in this room, and we shouldn’t be discussing anything other than what you need to heal her.”
“I need access to my fucking essence!”
“Just … go. Go now, and I’ll cover for you. He’s … distracted, occupied.”
“I’m under contract —”
“If you can’t heal her, he will kill you.”
“I told you that —”
“He will kill you. The contract, the deal with your tribe, is nothing to him. Nothing compared to what she means to him.”
“I don’t … I don’t understand.”
A long pause ensues, during which I contemplate trying to speak. I can pay the healer more than anything the Cataclysm can offer, has offered.
But before I can articulate anything, the healer whispers, “You have to get her to eat. You have to get her out of this room, fresh air, sunlight. She needs to … move ….”
“She’s not going to die,” Jewels snaps, not sounding remotely sure about her own assertion.
“She is clearly dying.”
“He won’t allow it.”
“He’s not a fucking god!”
“He just might be.”
The healer scoffs. “Seriously?”
“If you can’t heal her under these conditions, then he will kill you. He won’t allow her to leave this room.”
The healer shifts on her feet, clearly hesitating now. I don’t blame her. The Cataclysm is actually worse than his reputation, and it seems clear that we’re in the Federation. She’s extremely vulnerable here.
Coming to some decision, the healer yanks open her bag and starts pulling small, corked vials of mage brew from its depths, pressing each glowing glass vessel into Jewels’s hands.
“I don’t think these are working properly,” the healer says.
“They need essence to latch onto, for lack of a more precise explanation. But I … keep giving them to her every three hours. If you can do nothing else, then these will have to do. Change the bandage every twelve hours … here …” She starts pulling out healing patches, though the shifter can’t really hold much else.
A few of the patches flutter to the ground.
The healer just watches as they settle on the concrete, then she shoves her entire bag at Jewels and reaches for the door latch. She can’t open the door. It’s too heavy. Starting to panic, she pounds on it instead.
Jewels sighs. Dropping the brews and the few healing patches she’s holding back into the bag to free one hand, she yanks open the door, visibly bracing herself to take its weight.
I catch a glimpse of four figures beyond the door.
Two huge shifters in Cataclysm MC cuts lurk at the far side of a corridor.
Two dark-haired and dark-tan-skinned males stand guard on the near side, both in dark-blue suits but wearing traditional Navajo jewelry, a mixture of semiprecious turquoise and silvery metal.
Not waiting for the door to be fully opened, the healer practically leaps into the corridor, startling her two companions.
One instantly faces off with the lurking shifters, a silver blade suddenly in his hand.
Presumably my guards — or maybe they’re guarding Jewels?
— are berserkers. More like those from the confrontation …
from before I was tossed through the portal.
I can’t feel any essence through the now-open door, but it’s a safe guess that the Navajo mage might actually be able to hurt the berserkers with that silver blade, depending on the alloy used to forge it.
The other Navajo guard reaches for the healer as if to shield her. She presses a hand to his chest, holding him at bay for just long enough to lean back to meet Jewels’s gaze and whisper, “What about you?”
Still within the room and holding onto the medical bag, Jewels sighs heavily. Her gaze flicks across the enforcers in the corridor. “I’m protected. I’m pregnant. It’s a girl.”
Even if I can’t touch essence, it’s clear from her tone that Jewels is voicing that statement not just to assuage the healer’s concern. To remind herself? To remind the Cataclysm enforcers in the corridor?
The healer nods, visibly stopping herself from speaking. Her gaze flicks over Jewels’s shoulder, toward me, and her eyes widen — at seeing me awake? Or maybe at seeing my purple eyes for the first time? Though she had to know I was an awry, yes?
Or maybe the blood wards completely dampened her senses, but now, standing in the open doorway, she can feel me, truly see me?
The healer visibly pales, opening her mouth as she raises a trembling hand in my direction.
But before she can speak or react any further, her guard clamps his hand down on her half-raised arm.
He, too, has seen me over her head. He pulls her closer, and she tears her gaze away from me, eyes flicking warily to Jewels instead.
Reaching for the handle to close the door, the dark-blond shifter hasn’t noticed I’m awake.
“If you need —” the healer starts.
“Just leave,” Jewels says wearily, slowly pushing the door closed with her shoulder.
I catch sight of the healer flinging one last glance in my direction as she’s quickly escorted away. Then the door latches, and Jewels throws the bolts.
I was already assuming the door was soundproof, but the lack of reaction from the healer’s guards — specifically how they didn’t react as they would have if they’d heard her panicked pounding on the door before it opened — confirms it.
Seemingly unaware that I’m watching her, or that I’ve heard everything she’s discussed with the healer, Jewels just stands there, medicine bag clutched in one arm and forehead pressed to the metal-clad door. She takes a shuddering breath, then slaps her free hand over her mouth to muffle a sob.
I close my eyes to her momentarily unfettered, fear-fueled grief. I turn my head away, unable to absorb it, to do anything about it while confined to this bed … confined to this bed and not even able to find the strength to speak to Jewels.
Though I also don’t want to take on the responsibility for her life by offering a favor for her help in escaping.
No. I hide from Jewels’s grief — from the obvious reasons for it — as if I’m not the most powerful person in the world. As if everything that I was taught about the role I was to undertake as the Conduit was actually all hinged on some delicate framework.
Some corrupted, rotten framework of my aunt’s construction.