Mortal

by Ted Dekker

  Smell of Corpse—true, mundane Corpse—blew in with the sudden gust of air through the columns outside. A man, dressed in the clothes of the city.

  This was Alban, a Corpse spy loyal to Rowan and paid heavily by the Mortals to watch events at the Citadel and ordered to report as needed. As such, he was loyal to the Regent of Order as well as determined to remain Corpse until such time that Order permitted his Mortality.

  Which would be never.

  “Forgive me,” Alban said, striding down the aisle, right for Rom.

  “What is this?” Triphon said, moving to stand in front of him.

  “I’ve brought a message from the Citadel,” the Corpse said, staring around himself nervously. He positively reeked of fear.

  “Yes?” Rom stepped past Triphon. “What is it?”

  “Feyn’s body.” He cleared his throat. “It’s missing.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  SARIC DRILLED ROWAN’S ASHEN face with an uncompromising stare, fully aware that the Regent knew about Feyn already. That she’d been hidden deep in stasis, dead by law. That her body had not decomposed.

  None of these disturbed Rowan as they did the rest of the senate, now bursting out in cries of alarm and horror. No, Rowan’s terror was in seeing Feyn’s body here, in the senate, rather than in the crypt that had housed her for the last nine years, her body fed by nutrients. Now the old pillar of Order wavered in his regal robe, threatening to collapse along with the power he’d protected for so long.

  Saric ignored the uproar echoing through the great hall, his eyes lingering on the Regent as he savored the onset of crushing victory.

  One voice roared above them all. “What is the meaning of this?”

  He broke the gaze reluctantly. Turned to Dominic, who stood trembling to his right, hands balled to fists, face blanched with fear. The outrage settled on the floor, all eyes on the scene before them: Rowan on the right, standing like a dead man; Dominic on the left, possessed by terror. Two Legion coated in armor, each on one knee, their heads bowed, undisturbed by the chaos.

  Feyn. Nude body supine on the altar of Saric’s making, dead to the world, veins dark with dormant blood beneath pale Brahmin flesh.

  Saric, towering over them all, Maker of their destiny, seizing unmitigated power before their eyes.

  “What sickness compels a man to exhume a body from the grave?” Dominic thundered. “She has passed to Bliss!”

  Saric brushed a thumb over one of her cold eyelids. Saric himself had lovingly braided her hair, washed and perfumed her body, working gently around the long scar in her chest where the Keeper’s blade had cut her down. It had faded some, from what had to have been an angry and grotesque thing to a beautiful seam. The musky scent of her filled his nostrils with promise.

  “Has she?” Saric asked softly.

  “Yes! How dare you violate the sanctity of this chamber with the dead!”

  “She’s no more dead than you who breathe and bleed and piss.”

  “This is your purpose?” the man cried. “To use the dead as a lesson? To defile the Maker with profanity?”

  He lowered his hand, glanced up at the speechless man, this defender of Order… who would now watch its demise. “And a powerful lesson indeed, wouldn’t you say?”

  He turned, considered the senators, many of whom he knew by name. There, Nargus, from the Sumerian house, robed in blue as was their custom. And there, Colena, the aged bat with powdered skin to hide the deep wrinkles that whispered death. Stefan Marsana from northern Europa, Malchus Compalla from Russe, Clament Bishon from Abyssinia—all leaders who served in the senate when he himself had been their Sovereign for a few days. Only a handful were new to him.

  Today he would be new to them all.

  “Guard!” Dominic ordered. “Remove this body!”

  Saric didn’t bother to acknowledge the demand. His Dark Bloods had already handled the Citadel guard.

  He stepped to the front of the platform, aware of every eye upon him.

  “Tell me, Rowan, Regent of Jonathan… Is Feyn, who was rightful Sovereign before her cruel and unwarranted death, in Bliss at this moment? Or is she here with us?”

  The Regent’s mind was either too preoccupied with the tragedy unfolding before him or not occupied at all, having shut down.

  “Answer. Now.”

  The Regent’s eyes flicked to Dominic. “I… It is unknown.”

  “Isn’t it appointed for all to live once? Once for them to die? Isn’t that what your book claims?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you die that death, your soul goes either to Bliss or Hades, is that not written?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet our own ancient texts record accounts of those brought back to life. Were they truly dead? Had they gone on to Bliss when their hearts stopped?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Rowan said.

  “No, you don’t. Because you don’t really know the powers that make life and death. Only the Maker can know these things, isn’t it so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Feyn might not be in either Bliss or Hades at this moment, but here with us. We cannot know. We can only know if she is dead or alive as we understand life and death. Tell me this is true.”

  His brows relaxed slightly. “It is.”

  “And so, according to your understanding, is Feyn now alive or dead?”

  He hesitated, choosing his words. “Dead. By law.”

  “Not by flesh?”

  No response.

  “Did you not aid the alchemists in keeping her body in stasis in a crypt below this very Citadel since the day she was slain?”

  He blinked. He could not hide the truth etched on his face.

  “Yes.”

  Saric spoke before the floor could react. “And you did it in anticipation of the day when that boy, Jonathan, had safely risen to sovereignty and you might bring her back without compromising his reign.”

  They all stared at Rowan—Dominic, the senate leaders, Corban, Saric—all but his two children, who bowed their heads in submission still.

  “Rowan,” Dominic hissed. “Surely not!”

  Rowan gave a shallow nod. “What he says is true.”

  “Why?”

  “The reason no longer matters,” Saric said. “The truth is this: that if Feyn were alive today, she would be Sovereign, as succession fell to her before Jonathan. Tell me, Lord Regent, is that not true?”

  He nodded, his face a hollow mask.

  “And you would not be Regent, because Jonathan would have no claim to Sovereign office.”

  “None of this matters now!” Dominic said, stepping forward with sudden urgency. “Feyn’s fate is sealed. She is dead. Jonathan is Sovereign and will take his seat in eight days.”

  Saric rounded on him.

  “Only the Maker decides if Feyn is dead! And today you will see her Maker.”

  His statement put the senate leader back on his heels.

  Saric spun to Corban: “Bring it.”

  The alchemist withdrew a black velvet pouch from beneath his gown and crossed the dais. Saric shrugged out of his cloak and draped it over Feyn’s lifeless legs. Without any explanation, he took his right sleeve cuff in his fingers and folded it back four times, exposing his forearm.

  “Rise.”

  The two Dark Bloods rose and stepped to one side, ominous. Out in the senate, no one moved.

  To Corban: “Proceed.”

  The alchemist set the pouch on the table beside Feyn’s head and pulled out a pair of black medical gloves. After slipping them on, he withdrew a clear rubber tube roughly two feet in length from the pouch, stainless steel needles on both ends.

  Before him, Feyn’s lifeless body reclined not in death, he knew, but in defiance of it. The jugular there, just beneath her translucent skin, begged to pulse once again. For his absolute mastery over her. For the gift given him by Pravus, now perfected by him so that he could bestow it as he wished. As he did now. He could not suppres
s the slight tremble that spread through his torso at the thought. This was his destiny: to consume and give life as he alone chose.

  Master and Maker.

  His eyes closed. His mind raged with beautiful darkness.

  “Sire?”

  His eyes opened. Corban stood ready, stent in one hand. Saric silently presented his forearm.

  “I beg you do not do this!”

  Dominic’s protest was cut short by the dark glance of one of Saric’s children. Saric hardly noticed. His attention was on the stent in Corban’s hand. The bite of its razor edge in his vein. He gasped, softly, as it slid home.

  Black blood spilled into the tube. Filled it to the clamp halfway along its length.

  He held the device in place as Corban slipped the other stent into Feyn’s jugular. The alchemist lifted his eyes to him.

  Saric nodded.

  Corban removed the clamp from the tube.

  For a fleeting moment, Saric became aware of how perfectly still the chamber had become. Fear ruled the hearts of those within Order. But he was the Maker now. They would remember this day. His supremacy. The glittering eyes of the Dark Bloods upon them so that none dared utter a sound.

  His blood entered Feyn’s jugular slowly, pumped by his heart in a transfusion of life. He let it flow, curling his fingers into a fist, willing it to flood her. It would not be a making like his at the hands of Pravus, but one perfected, both more potent and refined. He’d brought only six to life in this way.

  They called elected Sovereigns to-be “sevenths.”

  Feyn, his half sister, Sovereign of the world, would be his seventh. The one he, not the dictates of Order, chose for the throne.

  “Sire?”

  Saric ignored Corban, eyes fixed on his arm.

  “Sire, it is enough.”

  “No.”

  Corban would only inform, never protest. He’d been Saric’s first and could never betray him. As with all of Saric’s children, his heart was not his own, but solely owned by his Maker.

  He waited until he felt the first hint of depletion and then went a moment longer, his heart surging, tenaciously pressing blood into her lifeless body. Dominic backed away, lips moving in prayer.

  To the wrong Maker.

  “Now.”

  Corban moved to reclamp the stent, but before he could, Feyn’s eyes snapped wide. Her body arched, the small of her back jerking a full foot off of the stone table.

  Corban swiftly slipped the stent out of her neck.

  For a full beat, her contracting muscles held her in contortion, impossibly bent. And then her mouth suddenly spread wide and she sucked in a thick lungful of oxygen. Her ragged gasp echoed through the hall.

  She collapsed on the table, eyes wide. And then she clenched them tight and screamed.

  It wa a raw scream of birthing in excruciating pain that Saric himself so longed to feel. He had not been made in this way, but how he wished he had been!

  A second scream chased the first, joined now by a hundred cries from the assembled dead on the senate floor.

  Saric tore the stent from his arm and stepped back. Blood dripped down his arm. He did not gloat, he did not smile, he did not offer any sign of satisfaction. All were beneath him.

  He simply was. Maker.

  Feyn collapsed against the table, panting, clawing at her neck, legs stiff. The solution that had kept her in stasis had preserved most of her muscle, but it would take hours to recover any semblance of her former mobility.

  And a few days for the pain to leave entirely.

  Saric stepped to her and gently lowered his hand to her heart. It throbbed beneath his palm, beneath the sudden flush of her skin. Of his life, become hers. She absently tore his hand away, oblivious, twisting in panic.

  He slapped her face. “Hold!”

  She stared with wide, dark eyes, seeing him for the first time.

  “Hold,” he said, with tenderness this time. “The pain will pass.”

  She whimpered once and settled.

  “Better.”

  He leaned forward, kissed her lightly on her forward, and whispered his will into her very soul. “My love, my Sovereign… Rule for me.”

  Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, toward the table beneath her.

  Saric snapped to Corban: “See to her.”

  And then he turned to address the senate chamber, now roaring with fear and dissonant confusion. Many were out of their seats, some crowding the aisle, some close to the doors. All in horrified shock.

  He held up his hands.

  “Esteemed members of the senate, leaders of Order, I have but one question to put to your leader before your witness, here, in these hallowed halls. He will speak truth for all to hear on pain of death.”

  They expected him to turn to Rowan, the Regent. Instead, he faced Dominic, who immediately glanced at Rowan with questioning eyes.

  “Feyn is alive,” Saric said, done with mincing words. “Chosen at birth by the laws of succession as our rightful Sovereign. Does she or does she not retain full claim to the Sovereign office?”

  His mouth opened but he didn’t seem capable of speaking. His eyes darted to the stone table where Corban and one of his children were easing Feyn up by the shoulders.

  He blinked. “If she—”

  “She breathes. She bleeds. The same as you. No. Better than you, now. Was she not designated by birth rightful Seventh in line for Office?”

  “Yes.”

  “Louder. Speak the truth for all to hear!”

  “She was—she is.”

  “I will permit you to live.”

  He walked over to Rowan, who was now only a frail mirror image of his former self. “Forgive me, old friend, but there can only be one Sovereign,” he said quietly.

  His hand flashed with a speed they would soon come to know all too well. The knife beneath his vest filled his fist. Before any could see, much less react, the blade slashed through the Regent’s neck, four inches deep.

  Blood spurted from the man’s jugular onto the dais floor. Rowan grabbed at his head in an attempt to keep it, eyes already fading. He toppled with a loud crash as Saric turned his back.

  Corban and one of the Dark Bloods had eased Feyn’s feet to the ground. They stood her upright, facing the Senate Hall. She trembled, leaning to one side, weak as a fawn staring out at the world for the first time. Such terrible beauty. Heart of his heart. Blood of his blood.

  “Now,” he said to those on the chamber floor. “I present your Sovereign. You may kneel before her.”

  The senators looked from one to another, only the barest rustle of turning heads and bodies shifting in seats filling in the oppressive silence of the chamber.

  And then one man moved.

  Dominic.

  He stepped slowly forward. A motion born of obedience—not to the man on the dais, but of a lifetime of Order. The Sovereign stood, alive. And so he knelt.

  The rest of the chamber followed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE CORPSE SPY might as well have walked into the council chamber and told Rom that the Citadel had fallen into the ground. No. That news would have been far better received.

  Rom felt the blood drain from his face. Surely, he hadn’t heard the words correctly.

  “Feyn? What do you mean missing?”

  “I mean her body is gone.”

  “Gone? It can’t just be gone.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. It was there just three days ago.”

  “That’s not possible!” His voice rang through the stone sanctum. “She’s been in stasis. She can’t just disappear!”

  “Everything in her chamber is as it should be, but her lines have been cut and her body is gone.”

  Rom felt the hot prickle of panic against his nape. Lines cut. Feyn gone. There had to be a mistake.

  “You went to the wrong crypt, then. Did you see her body being taken?”

  Alban’s fear-filled eyes darted to Roland, searching for help.

  No
ne would be forthcoming.

  “There are no other crypts like it below the Citadel. I’ve been checking the same room for five years now, sir. It’s no mistake. She was taken in the last two days. I came as soon as I could.”

  “Then Rowan took her.” Rom spun to the Book, who’d ensured and monitored all of the arrangements for her stasis. “You knew of this?”

  His eyes were locked on the spy. “No. Did you go to Rowan with this?”

  The spy shook his head. “You yourself instructed me not to. In the case of any tampering with her no one but you was to know. But I spoke to him about some other matters and am certain he knows nothing of her disappearance. He would have said something.”

  “If not Rowan, then who?” Rom demanded.

  “Saric,” Roland said.

  Rom stared at the prince. Just behind him, Saric’s Dark Blood slumped in the interrogation chair, dead from Jonathan’s blood.

  “Who else knows?” he demanded of the spy. “How long has she been missing?”

  “As I said, two days at most. I swear to you, I came as soon as I discovered the empty chamber.”

  There was no deceit in his scent.

  “You know nothing else?”

  “Nothing.” His voice wavered. His eyes were on the Dark Blood.

  “There are no other changes in the Citadel?”

  “None that I know of.”

  Rom raked at his hair. “Leave us. Wait at the edge of our camp for orders. Speak to no one and be sure to stay downwind.”

  The Corpse dipped his head and hurried out. For several long seconds, no one spoke.

  Feyn, the once Sovereign to-be.

  The sudden swell of emotion coursing through his body surprised him.

  “Book?” His voice was raw.

  Behind him, the Keeper remained silent.

  Rom turned and faced him. “Tell me something, man!”

  “We may have a problem,” the old man said softly.

  “If what Roland says is true…”

  “How would Saric know to look for her?” Triphon asked, rising. “No one but Rowan knew!”

  “And that Corpse,” Michael snapped. “We’re fools to trust any of them.”

  “We knew,” Seriph said.