Then Sorcha wrapped her arms around him and pulled Raed through the bars of the prison. Even just that small moment caused the Young Pretender to wince in pain.
“Hold on,” she whispered to him, while keeping her shoulder under his arm. Sorcha glanced left and right up the corridor. It was hot and it stank down here, and it was a smell she was familiar with: the wretched odor of unwashed and uncared-for humanity. It often came with the presence of geists. They were not able to control human bodily functions very well.
Holding Raed up was proving difficult too. At full strength it would have been awkward, but as she was currently, it wouldn’t be long until they both ended up on the ground.
“A little help please, Raed,” she grunted, maneuvering him as best she could down through the cells, in the direction of where Aachon and the crew were.
“Sorcha,” he stumbled over her name and shuffled his feet, desperately trying to get them under himself, “where are we going?”
“To safety,” she said, hauling him higher. “Haven’t you heard? Wherever you are, I need to be. Some call it fate.” Despite the whole sorry situation, she squeezed his arm. Hopefully it conveyed reassurance.
He worked his mouth a few times, gathered some strength and pressed on. “You seem to be short one Deacon. Where is Merrick?”
The Young Pretender was always one for the questions. “We got separated, but I have Aachon with me. We’re using a weirstone so I can see, and we’re going to get you out of this.”
That got Raed’s attention. His head rose fractionally, and his face shifted into something that was a strangely concerned expression. “I have to get to Fraine.”
She’d had quite enough of him throwing his own safety to the wind so that he could chase his twisted sister. “She’s lost, Raed. You can’t save her.”
“No”—the Young Pretender tugged on her arm—“I know I can’t—but she is getting ready to start a rebellion. It will tear apart the Empire.”
Sorcha swallowed. This was just the kind of news she really didn’t need to hear, but it was also the kind she could do nothing about right now. As a Deacon her area of expertise was the unliving—not Pretenders to the Imperial throne.
So she murmured, “We’ll see, Raed, once we find Aachon.”
As she moved down the corridor supporting him, Sorcha saw they were not alone. She stopped, stock-still.
The rows of cells that lined the corridor were not empty. Her gaze locked with a woman in the cell next to the one the Rossin had been in. Sorcha had seen plenty of dead-eyed people in her time in the Order; it was pretty much a standard for the possessed souls who were the prey of geists. This was nothing like that. She could see no sign of the Otherside in the woman. All that despair and hopelessness was very real and very human. The way her twiglike hands clutched onto a far-too-swollen belly was not a protective gesture; it was almost a pleading one.
“Deacon,” the woman’s voice was barely a whisper. “By the Blood, a Deacon.” She gave a little laugh, one that sounded like a mockery of amusement. “I waited for a fellow Deacon to find me. I dreamed about it, and now here you are—but far too late.”
Sorcha stopped dead still in her tracks. “You…you’re a member of the Order?”
The woman glared at her, taking a step back from the bars and standing up as tall as her condition allowed. “I was. A Deacon of the Phia Abbey, only a year ago I was brought here, and now look.” Her trembling hands sketched the devastation of her body. “I dreamed of being an Abbot one day. All the women here like me had dreams.”
“All the women?” Sorcha swallowed hard, turned and looked up the line of cells. Around each doorway, she could see other thin hands wrapped desperately around the bars.
At Sorcha’s side, Raed levered himself upright, away from her. He looked as frail as a newly hatched bird, but none of the other women were any better. They were all trapped in a real living, breathing nightmare. Each of them had the tattered aura of members of the Order, and each of them had the dead eyes of a long-term prisoner.
“We can’t leave them here.” The Young Pretender staggered, holding himself upright as best he could. That was the trouble with Raed Syndar Rossin; in his presence Sorcha found herself doing things that weren’t particularly sensible.
She tilted her head, and closed her eyes for a second—not to reach out to Aachon—but to consider her options. Usually she would have gone to the nearest Abbey for support, and to clean out this damn nest of undead horror. That was not a choice she had here. The logical part of her mind said that they couldn’t possibly get all these emaciated, pregnant women out of this place—not when she was weak and underpowered.
Then she looked at Raed. In those hazel eyes she wanted to be better than logic permitted. Sorcha sighed, “Yes, you are completely right.” Activating Voishem once again, she thrust her Gauntleted fist through the bars and toward the woman. The once Deacon however stepped back, shaking her head. “Too late. I told you too late!”
“Don’t be a fool,” Sorcha hissed waving her phased arm. “Come with us.”
The woman folded herself into the dank corner of the cell and continued to shake her head violently. “You don’t know how powerful they are. There is nowhere you can go where they cannot.” She jammed her tiny fist into her mouth as if to block out any more words that might escape her.
Sorcha pulled her hand back and turned to Raed in despair. “I can’t make her come, but I can…” She shook her head in frustration. “This is so—”
“Then we move on.” The Young Pretender clasped her hand. “Find if there are others.”
Merrick had spent hours with Sorcha when she was locked in her own body, telling her what had happened to him when he’d gone missing from Orinthal. He’d also spent a bit of time talking about Raed, and how he had left her. Merrick had emphasized how he suspected Raed’s disappearance had something to do with the Young Pretender’s sister.
Sorcha heard the crack in his voice, and didn’t need to be a Sensitive to understand how important it was for him to save a young woman—even if he had given up on his sister.
“Raed,” she said as gently as she could manage, “we can’t force these women to come with us. We can’t save everyone…”
“I know that,” he snapped. “Fraine’s different—she’s trying to start a bloody civil war. I have to stop her.” His expression was so tormented that Sorcha reached out to him. “We have to take her,” he repeated, and she knew that look. Raed could be funny, jovial and gregarious, but when he put his mind to something that was it.
“Fine,” she whispered, “then let’s get moving.”
Like two old men after a hard night drinking, they staggered farther up the hallway, heading gamely in the direction Sorcha could feel the tug of Aachon. As they went, they passed more women in the same state as the previous ones, all of whom turned away and hid their faces when Sorcha reached for them. It was by far the most ghastly thing the Deacon had ever seen in her time hunting geists, and yet she found herself walking past her colleagues with a masklike expression.
We’ll get them later. We’ll go back to the Mother Abbey and bring a contingent of Deacons back here to clean this nest out. We’re not abandoning you.
It was the best she could do, but it didn’t make it any easier to walk past these fellow Deacons—these fellow women.
They reached the end of the cells with people in them. These last few were only full of shadows. When Sorcha propped Raed up against one of these, she leaned back to take a few breaths herself.
Darling.
The chill voice ran up her spine and made her spin around.
“What is it?” Raed’s fingers brushed hers. “I hate it when you see things I can’t.” He was trying to be amusing, but it fell flat in the darkness and shadows of the hive.