Bray exited the small house, following Samron and two others around the stone platform and across the settlement, past children playing, women carrying babies, and men or women hurrying from one place to the next, busy with tasks. A few people carried animal carcasses and skins. Others carried tools, or worked on some of the less intact houses. The soldiers wore guns, as if they were afraid to put them down. Bray looked toward the house at the far edge of the settlement, where he’d met with Enoch. The man’s door was closed. A few soldiers lingered around it, conversing in the loud, strange tongues that were quickly becoming familiar, though he didn’t understand them any better.
Reaching the building where they’d taken Flora, Samron looked at Bray. For a moment, Bray thought he might give him a weapon, but he issued a warning.
“Enoch said not to kill her.”
Bray nodded. “I won’t.”
Samron opened the door, ushering him inside.
Flora sat in the middle of an empty room, her hands tied behind her. Her face was marred with scratches and cuts, as if she’d been fighting most of the night. Her eyes were red with puffy bags underneath. She didn’t appear to have slept. Bray stepped in and looked behind him. Samron and the soldiers peeked through the doorway, watching.
“Can I speak with her privately?” he asked.
The soldiers traded words he couldn’t understand. They shut the door.
Flora stared at him with a vacant expression. She didn’t recoil. She didn’t spit words of venom, as she had the day before. It seemed as if she’d accepted her fate, or perhaps she was numb from what was clearly a long, sleepless night filled with what appeared to be violent interrogations. Staring at her, Bray expected to feel hatred, but the sting of the initial betrayal had worn off. He needed answers more than vengeance.
“Are they dead?” Bray asked.
He didn’t need to clarify his question. Flora’s eyes flashed something he couldn’t read as she opened and closed her dry, cracked lips.
“Where are Kirby and William?” he asked again.
She said nothing.
“I heard what your people have done to the people of Halifax,” he said. “I have heard the story of the land your people stole. Everything your people said was a lie.”
New fire sparked in Flora’s eyes as she cleared her parched throat. “Stole? These people have taken everything from us. We defend ourselves. We kill them to survive.”
“Do you?” Bray asked. “Taking their scalps doesn’t seem like survival to me.”
Flora fell silent a moment, watching him. “You don’t know our rituals. You are an outsider.”
“I know that you throw people from the bridge. I know you tried to kill me.” Bray paused, turning to leave the room for an emphatic point. “And I know that you are going to die here, in a strange settlement among your enemies.”
Flora was robbed of a response as fear ran through her eyes.
“You deserve it,” he added with a vindictive expression that felt good.
Flora stared back at him, trying for defiance, but tears traced tracks down her cheeks. She strained against the ropes binding her, as she probably had been for most of the night. She blinked away some of the tears, as if she were ashamed.
“I have failed Deacon,” she said. “I will die anyway.”
Bray watched her. “For failing to kill me, you mean.”
Flora picked a spot on the wall at which to stare. “I was to bring back your scalp.”
“My scalp?” Renewed anger blazed through Bray’s eyes as he considered what might’ve been his death.
“It was for the marriage ceremony,” Flora explained, more quiet tears falling. “We must bring a scalp of an enemy to Deacon to be considered for marriage. When you met me, I was supposed to get one from a Halifax man. But I failed. And then I met you and your friends, and I thought I could make up for my failure by bringing you back to the islands. I figured Deacon would find use in the guns, and William’s power with the demons. I was trying to keep myself alive.”
“You traded our lives—and our knowledge—for your own.”
“Yes.” Flora’s shame seemed to take on a new source. “When you went out on the hunt, you offended the hunters with your traditions. Bartholomew found me, and told me to get your scalp for Deacon. I failed that, too. I am a dead woman, even if I were to escape this place.”
“You won’t get out of here alive,” Bray warned.
“I know that. And I wouldn’t want to. Once we are captured, we are as good as dead. I will suffer a fate worse than what you saw on the bridge, if I were to go back.”
“Worse?” Bray didn’t try to hide his bitterness. “Your people were happy to see that woman dropped.”
“Not all of us find the ceremony joyful,” Flora said, lowering her head.
“You deserve worse than what she received.”
Looking at Flora’s pathetic condition, he couldn’t say anything else. He recalled the way she had looked at him in the forest. For a few seconds, he had seen doubt in her eyes.
“You sound as if you don’t believe in all the rules of your people.”
“Our people have strict laws. We follow them. Deacon tells us they are the way of the gods.” Guilt passed over Flora’s face as she looked away from Bray. It seemed as if she couldn’t face the man she had tried to kill. Bray was reminded of the people in Brighton, forced through ceremonies and rituals without a choice. That didn’t excuse her actions, but it explained them.
Flora coughed through her dry throat. Hating himself for his sympathy, Bray pulled his flask from his belt and gave her a drink. Flora accepted, sipping through cracked, parched lips. She swallowed.
“William is just a boy,” Bray said. “Regardless of what has happened between us, he doesn’t deserve to die. If he is dead, you are to blame.”
“It was not my intention to see him harmed,” Flora said, more tears falling. “I assumed Deacon would find a use for him and for Kirby.”
“I need to find my friends. If there is still a chance to get to them, I need you to help me. Perhaps this is a way you can make up for what you’ve done to William.”
Flora watched him for a second, before her eyes fell. “They were alive, last I saw them. They were taken to the second island.”
“By you and Jaydra?”
“Yes.”
“So that part is true,” Bray put together. “Do you think they’re still alive?”
“It is possible. I do not know. Deacon will make a determination, much as a determination was made on you. If it goes well for them, they will be welcomed into our community, but he will need to trust them first.” Flora watched Bray with a hard look. “One thing I know: they will not be allowed to leave.”
“Kirby will not be forced into a choice like that,” Bray said, some of his hope fading. “She will refuse.”
“Then she will die,” Flora said, regret in her voice. “Deacon will use persuasion. He will use William, or whatever he needs, to get his way. If that fails, he will kill her.”
Bray knew she was telling the truth.
“Deacon is a leader to be feared,” Flora said. “You have seen some of what he does. Other things whispered about in rumors, I have determined are true.” She looked at the wall again.
“What do you mean?”
“I saw one of the things our people talk about, when the soldiers aren’t listening. Deacon makes blankets from our enemies’ skins—the ones the women bring back, and others. I saw this myself.” Flora looked as if she was making a last confession, as if she had nothing to lose. “Other things I haven’t seen, but I believe. He holds some of the Halifax people on the second island and tortures them. He uses strange devices created by a man named Jonas, who helps him, according to the whispers. The soldiers do his bidding. They kill anyone who doesn’t obey his wishes. Anyone who doesn’t work toward the good of the islands is made to disappear. Some are taken in ceremonies like the one on the bridge. Others are taken in worse way
s. It is a system that allows us to live and prosper, or so he tells us.”
Bray nodded. The tactics might’ve been commonplace in his township, but some sounded worse. “You don’t believe these are for the good of your people.”
“I don’t,” Flora admitted, looking around the room immediately after she spoke, as if Deacon might be lurking in the corner, waiting to torture her, even though her predicament might be worse. “I’ve seen too many things that haunt me while I am trying to sleep.”
“Other things?”
Flora lowered her head at what was obviously a painful memory. “My father was killed in one of the bridge ceremonies like the one you saw. He was thrown to his death because of a disease. I lost him when I was only six. I should’ve had more time with him. It is not a way a man should die, regardless of an illness.”
Bray thought back to the shrieking woman he’d seen tossed over the edge. “No, it isn’t.”
“I hate Deacon for what he did to my father,” Flora said, still looking around. “I don’t think I’ve ever said those words aloud. But that hate doesn’t matter, because now I am going to die.”
Bray couldn’t help feel pity again. “Do the rest of your people feel the same way about Deacon?”
“Probably not everybody,” Flora said. “Some do, but to speak about it would be to invite death. We go along with what we are taught, because we want to live. We watch our loved ones ripped away when they make a mistake or a misstep. We watch our people thrown from the bridge, or pulled into the woods. We keep quiet, because that is all we can do.”
“Perhaps there is another way,” Bray said, thinking on it. “What have you told the Halifax men?”
“Nothing.” Flora smiled faintly, revealing some dried blood on her teeth. “I will honor the gods with my silence, as the rest of my people would do.”
“You will honor them with a meaningless death?”
“What else is there to do?”
“Maybe there is a way you can live.”
“How?” Flora seemed resigned. “Our people have warred for generations. I will share the fate of all the others they have captured. It is the way of things.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be. I will talk to Enoch, the ruler here,” Bray said. “Perhaps there is a chance you can be saved, if you agree with what I have to say.”
Chapter 45: William
William walked around blindly, feeling the familiar walls of the same, dark building in the woods into which he’d been thrown a second time. He’d never forget Deacon’s calm expression, the awful cries of pain coming from the Halifax man before he died. Any fate would be better. In some ways, he was glad to be back to his dark prison. It was certainly better than being in that room.
But he wasn’t safe here, either.
Ever since he’d returned, William’s mind had spun with conflicting thoughts. The scared boy who had been in that room, watching that man die, would’ve said or done anything to avoid death. He’d promised cooperation in that room.
But would that buy his life?
William knew it wouldn’t. He’d seen enough rulers to know that minds changed. He might be helpful today, but not the next. Soon, he would be the Halifax man with the sharp, pointed knives to his neck, or another man he didn’t see, forced to sit in that bloodied, spiked chair. Or burned, like all those people had burned in Brighton. William’s surroundings might’ve changed, but the motivations of the people around him hadn’t.
Deacon believed that William’s power was a learned thing. He didn’t know it was a strange gift inexplicably given to a boy infected by the spore. Even if William himself was helpful, at some point, he’d lose his use to Deacon.
And then William would die.
Whatever it took, William needed to escape these people. He just wasn’t sure how he’d do it.
Chapter 46: Bray
Bray followed behind several Halifax soldiers as they led him back to Enoch’s house. They knocked, awaited an order, and then opened the door, releasing the smell of smoke from within the small, cluttered room. Enoch was behind the table, looking as if he had been waiting for Bray. His gun sat on the table in front of him.
“You have spoken with the girl,” he surmised.
“Yes,” Bray said, stepping in. “She told me my friends might be alive.”
“It sounds as if she told you more than she told us,” Enoch admitted.
“I think she has more to say.” Bray paused, motioning behind him, where several soldiers stood farther back, holding a bound, but cooperative-looking Flora. “I have brought her with me.”
Enoch looked confused before Bray said, “I was hoping you might speak with us both.”
Enoch looked from Bray, to Flora and his guards. After a long pause, he said, “Allow her inside.”
The guards brought Flora into the room. She kept a stoic face through her fear as she stood compliantly, hands tied, waiting for whatever was going to happen. Enoch motioned to the single chair across from him, and the soldiers helped her into it. She sat.
“Go,” Enoch told the guards. “I will speak to them alone.”
He waited for the soldiers to leave and quietly close the door, before he spoke again.
“It is not often that I allow an enemy to sit across from me in this room,” Enoch said in a hardened tone to Flora. “And even less often that they are allowed to leave.”
Flora stayed quiet.
Trying to break some of the tension, Bray said, “I appreciate you listening to what we have to say.”
Enoch sat back in his chair. “You act as if you and the island girl are friends.”
“We might not be friends,” Bray said. “But perhaps we can be of use to each other.”
Enoch nodded, waiting for something to impress him, or an offer he hadn’t heard. “Say what you’ve come to say.”
Bray said, “The people of Halifax and the people of The Arches have been at war for generations. Words will not erase years of violent history. I have no false hopes of that.” He pointed at Flora. “Yesterday, this woman had a sword to my throat, and then a knife to my head. If not for the help of your men, I might’ve died the way too many others have. But I believe what she told me this morning, when we spoke. I believe she spoke the truth about my friends, or as much as she knows.”
“You believe a woman who would try to kill you?” Enoch shook his head.
“I wouldn’t, if I hadn’t seen her sincerity. I believe Flora gave me honest information. Things that you might want to hear. I believe the prospect of death has compelled her to speak the truth.”
Enoch looked as if he might laugh. “The nearness of death compels many to speak, but half of those things are lies. Everybody knows that.”
“Maybe so,” Bray said, trying to project sincerity in what he was about to say. “But Flora told me some things about Deacon’s rituals. He uses his soldiers to slay anyone who disobeys. He uses ceremonies to force his will. He tortures those that oppose him.”
“That information is not new,” Enoch said. “The islanders have always been that way.”
“That is not all. Flora tells me that not all of the people on the islands are there by choice. Some are women and children who have been brought there against their will, while their men are slaughtered. They are forced into The Arches.”
Enoch nodded silently as he processed that information.
Getting to a point, Bray said, “I believe this might give you an advantage. The people in The Arches have all been taught to fight, but some of those, the enslaved ones, harbor a secret hatred toward Deacon. They might falter when they see the power of the guns. If you can kill Deacon and his men, the others might surrender, and you will lose fewer people.”
“What does this have to do with Flora?”
“Flora knows the times the guards are less vigilant. She knows the soldiers’ routines. She can help you win a war.”
“And why should we believe any of this?” Disbelief crossed Enoch’s face as h
e jabbed a finger at Flora. “Why would you help us, when you wouldn’t speak with us all night? Why would you betray Deacon? Almost everyone that comes here from the islands won’t tell us a thing. Those that speak, often tell lies, as I said before.”
“Because he killed my father,” Flora said, breaking her silence. She looked at Enoch with a stare that projected her hatred for the islands’ leader. “He threw him from the bridge.”
“A shame,” Enoch said. “But that is the way of your people, is it not? I have heard about your ceremonies.”
“It might be my people’s way, but it is not mine,” Flora said, anger burning in her eyes. “My father died too soon. No one deserves a death like that.”
“So why stay?” Enoch looked at Flora as if she were foolish. “My soldiers found you alone. You could have left The Arches and gone off in the woods. You could have found a new life. If it is as bad as you say, any place would be better.”
“My family lives there. They will not come with me, and I will not leave them behind. The rules are too ingrained in them.” Flora was resolute.
Enoch remained quiet.
Hoping they were getting through, Bray said, “I believe we can both help you fight, if that is what you want, Enoch. With my knowledge of the islands, and Flora’s, you might be able to avoid some unnecessary bloodshed. Perhaps you can recover the islands without losing too many of your men.”
“You think you can save your friends from death,” Enoch said, making Bray’s argument before he voiced it.
“If they are still alive, then yes.” Bray took an angry breath. “But that is not all. These men betrayed me. The island’s soldiers surprised me in a coward’s attack, after days of lies. Deacon and his soldiers deserve death, for what they have done. If you are waging a war, I would like to fight alongside you.”
Enoch looked at the gun in front of him, on the table. “We have been given the tools we need to win a war that was a dream, several days ago. The discovery of these objects you call guns is a gift from our Holy One. We are prepared to fight. But I do not think we are ready to do it yet.” Enoch sighed as he looked between the two of them. “Even if I believed Flora’s good intentions, my people are still learning the weapons. Some soldiers are better than others, of course, but they will need time.”
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