Page 44 of Claiming Sarah

Sarah

“Do you really need a chaperone back here?” Omen asked.

There was no one in the interior corridor leading to the concession station, so I had to agree. “No, I don’t. Deacon is just paranoid, and did you know this fight would be to the death?” The thought made me want to hyperventilate. Or throw up. Or both.

She shook her head. “Shit. I like Jac.” Then she quickly added, “Don’t tell him I said that.”

That made me laugh a little, since Omen professed to hate Jac. “If he lives, I promise I won’t.”

“He will live, Sarah,” Omen said, sounding just as optimistic as Deacon. “Jac is nothing, if not quick and strong and fierce. He is one of the best warriors I have ever known. Don’t tell him I said that, either.”

“I need booze before I will start to feel better about this,” I insisted as we continued to walk through the empty corridor, which seemed to be endless.

“Order some neneed,” Omen suggested. “It’ll be the cheap stuff in a place like this, but it’ll get you intoxicated before kocha will.”

I pressed a hand to my anxious belly. “Is it good for the stomach?”

“Stick with kocha then.” She narrowed her gaze on me. “Are you not feeling well?”

“I think it’s just nerves.” I exhaled a breath, which didn’t do much to help calm my anxiety. “Since we arrived on Faithless, I’ve felt sick about pretty much everything.”

She smirked. “You mean ever since you threatened the border guard and could have gotten us all killed with your bravado? That was excellent, by the way. Very impressive.”

A jittery laugh escaped me. “Thanks.”

“And if you feel sick, tell yourself tostopfeeling sick.”

I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“I am not sure if you can do it, too, but when one of the conduits felt ill, Portend could tell her to stop feeling ill, and she would feel better immediately.”

I closed my eyes as we kept strolling down the corridor and told myself, “Stop feeling sick. You feel fine.”

Shockingly, my energy picked up, like when I had too much coffee, and my stomach gurgled before it settled down. I opened my eyes and smiled. “Wow, that’s a great trick.”

“A usefultool,” she said, almost correcting me with her tone. “We do not perform tricks. That is for magicians.”

“There are Ladrian magicians?” I asked, fascinated by the thought.

She nodded once, as her expression darkened. “They are a terror.”

“Where I’m from, magicians are usually middle-aged guys who perform tricks for children’s birthday parties and corporate events.”

“Where I’m from, they are men who can alter reality, making you see whatever they want you to see, and it is always a nightmare. If you are lucky, that is all they do to you.”

Still captivated by the topic, I asked, “Why would they do that?”

“Magicians have long been opposed to the faith, to conduits, to Mothers, all of it,” Omen explained. “They belong to an ancient cult who believe we led people astray…”

The despair in Omen’s voice was palpable. It was strange—I had never thought of Omen as someone who would be upset merely by speaking about something. She was always so even keeled. But now, she looked haunted and shaken.

The magicians must be terrible.“You don’t have to tell me anything else about them, if you don’t want to.”

She shook off the darker emotion and tried to appear like herself again. “Thankfully, they are rare now. After the conduits executed their high ranking officials, most of them are scattered to the wind.”

“We executed them?” I didn’t like the sound of that, either.

A proud smile tilted her lips. “As many as we could find. I beheaded several myself.”

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