Mortal

by Ted Dekker

  Jonathan considered Maro for an even moment, and then silently lifted Keenan down from the saddle before dismounting behind him. The boy, a full head and a half shorter than Jonathan, was trembling. The closest Corpse outpost that Jordin knew of was nearly four hours’ ride from here. Had the young Sovereign gone expressly looking for Corpses to bring back?

  He leaned over and whispered something to the boy, but before Jordin could wonder what it was or move toward them, Maro had stalked forward. The boy staggered a step backward, dirty face wide with fear.

  The zealot nodded at Jonathan. “The law protects all of us. No one’s above it.”

  “Remember whom you speak to,” Jordin bit out quietly.

  Maro turned, saw her, and narrowed his eyes. “Censure from a deserter’s daughter?”

  She felt the color rush to her face, hot.

  Rhoda, the blacksmith, had joined the fray. “What’s this?”

  “Jonathan’s brought a Corpse to camp,” Maro said, stalking to Jonathan’s right, as if to flank him. Surely he didn’t mean to actually confront him. How could any Mortal rebuke Jonathan?

  Jordin moved with him, voice thick and low. “Back off.”

  “What good is life if ruin finds us before the blood in our veins has come into power?”

  “The blood in your veins? That blood in your veins isn’t your own. How dare you question your Sovereign?”

  “It’s our blood that will allow us to rule a world of dead Corpses. And it’s our laws that protect Mortals until we can. We defend it to the death.” Maro jutted his chin toward the Corpse boy. “Against death.”

  He turned, looked around at the crowd. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Seriph, the ranking council member, had by now joined the circle of onlookers.

  “The dead will bury their dead,” Jonathan said quietly. “But I would give Keenan life.”

  “By breaking the law?” Maro demanded. He looked over at Seriph. “What do you say?”

  Silence settled in the valley. Even the breeze seemed to take note. There had never been a direct confrontation like this within camp, or between any man and Jonathan. Where were Rom or Roland to set things straight?

  Seriph eyed the Corpse boy, seeming to choose his words carefully. “The law is clear. No Corpse may enter the Seyala Valley without council approval. No more brought to life until Jonathan ascends.”

  “He breaks the law in bringing a Corpse here. Tell me this isn’t true.”

  Seriph hesitated. Accusing a Sovereign of breaking the law was unheard of. Even the Nomads knew that. He seemed very aware that his words might be first of their kind spoken in public by a ranking council member.

  “He breaks the law,” Seriph said softly.

  “He breaks the law,” Maro repeated, bolder now. He paced again, to his right then back, as an interrogator before a prisoner.

  “He is the Sovereign!” Jordin cried, indignation hot in her veins.

  “Our valley will not become a graveyard for the dead,” Maro said. “For every Corpse lining up to be handed a life they don’t even understand. And we will not pollute the camp with stench of Corpse!”

  Maro slid his knife out of its sheath and strode toward the boy without offering up any explanation for his intention.

  Jordin knew what would happen before it did—the moment Maro moved she knew.

  She knew that Jonathan would move to protect the boy, regardless of Maro’s intentions. Which he did, boldly and without compromise.

  She knew that she would cut in between them to protect her Sovereign. She turned on Maro, who had the audacity to slash at her. Maker, had he lost his mind?

  Jordin arched back, steel hissing a bare inch from her chin, her own knife instantly in her hand.

  On the edge of the circle—Seriph, staring in shock. Beyond them, Triphon, Rom—coming toward them, Roland behind them. They strode across camp, but not quickly enough.

  “Heretic!” Maro hissed, circling to his left. Deliberately, she knew, to draw her from Jonathan. She turned on her heel, holding her ground.

  “You know what I think, Maro? That the day before you were made Mortal you stank twice as bad as this boy.”

  His eyes narrowed, muscles along his shoulders tensing with his legs. She braced herself—but with a sudden cry, the Corpse boy bolted out from behind her.

  “Get back!” she shouted. Too late. Maro rushed straight for the boy. Jonathan flew between them as Jordin lunged, slashing upward. No sparring match, this—she went for the tendons. Maro’s knife dropped free, but his arm, still in full swing, connected with Jonathan. Maro’s hand struck Jonathan’s jaw, snapping his head to the side and sending him reeling back onto the boy.

  And then Rom was on Maro, grabbing the zealot from behind. He threw him forward, fell onto his back, grabbed him up by the hair and slammed his forehead into the hard earth with enough force to break his nose with an audible crunch. Not once, but twice.

  Maro lay unmoving. Jordin could smell the life in him, but he was mercifully unconscious.

  Knee still in the zealot’s back, Rom jerked the man’s head up, his face grisly with blood. Their leader was breathing heavily, not from exertion, but from fury. Jordin had never seen such a look on his face before.

  “No one touches the Sovereign!” he roared. He released his grip on Maro’s hair and let his head fall with a solid thud. “Are we clear?”

  Those gathered gave no argument.

  To Roland: “Take this fool away. See that he’s punished. He’s not to come within twenty yards of Jonathan again or I swear I’ll put him in chains or worse.”

  Roland’s face was set as stone, but he gave a curt nod.

  Behind Jonathan, soft crying from the Corpse boy. Rom considered the boy for a moment, but when he spoke next, it wasn’t to Jonathan.

  “Take the Corpse back to where he came from.”

  Jordin blinked. Rom had addressed her. She glanced at Jonathan. Just two mornings ago he had bowed to Jonathan’s wish to turn a Dark Blood… no matter that it had ended badly.

  “But—”

  “I won’t have our mission compromised. There is far more at stake here than one Corpse. Do as I say.”

  She could see it then: the strain around his eyes. The dark evidence of sleeplessness the lines at the corners furrowing deeper than usual. The tension around his mouth.

  She glanced from him to Jonathan, whose eyes held on hers for a moment. And then he nodded once…

  Jonathan dropped to one knee, leaned in, and whispered to the boy. Tears streamed down the boy’s face. Then Jonathan got up and, with one glance at her, walked through the crowd, which quickly parted before him.

  She hesitated again, torn between obeying Rom and going after Jonathan.

  “I’ll see to Jonathan,” Rom said, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

  Jordin nodded. Steeling herself against the smell, she took the boy gently by the hand.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get my horse.”

  The boy was trembling as she led him away. She didn’t need to look back to see that more than one steely gaze followed her.

  Or to know that Saric and his Dark Bloods were no longer the only threat to Jonathan’s sovereignty.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SARIC STRODE DOWN THE CENTER aisle of the vacant senate chamber, arms clasped behind his back, black robe hemmed in red cording flowing around his feet. His eyes lifted from the majestic tapestries on the walls to the massive, ever-burning flame of Order. Feyn walked beside him, half a step behind.

  He’d dressed her in white today.

  One day he would reassume the Sovereign office he had held too briefly before, and she would once again be in the grave. Or perhaps he would keep her in stasis. He hadn’t decided.

  “Sister?”

  “Yes, brother?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her as they walked. “Is that who I am?”

  Feyn’s gaze flitted to him then ahead of her once more. �
��You’re my Maker.”

  “Please don’t forget yourself again.”

  “No, Maker.”

  “You may also call me Master.”

  “As you like.”

  “Master.”

  “Master.”

  Saric led her down the aisle and up to the dais. Out to the Sovereign’s white marble table at the center. He swept around and faced the great chamber, arms still clasped behind his back.

  “This is where I made you,” he said.

  She studied the table with dark eyes. Her face was powdered, making her pale flesh even whiter than when it was bare, the dark veins beneath like thin claws reaching up from her neck, ready to strangle her at his command.

  “This is where I gave you the gift of life.” Saric turned and ran his hand lightly over the table’s surface. “It was here that I commanded you to live. How does this make you feel?”

  She hesitated. “Eternally grateful.”

  “And you know that he who gives life can also take it. Because those who know the purest and fullest kind of life understand that power is its greatest expression. In this way the life I offer is far greater than any the Mortals can know. I serve that truth. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I ever found a greater life, I would seize it with as much vigor.”

  “Yes, I believe you.”

  “Good.” Saric lifted his hand and ran the back of his forefinger over her cheek. “I have a very special gift for you today, my love. It might be painful to see at first, but I assure you I give you this gift only for your own benefit. How does that make you feel?”

  “I will serve you as you see fit and be glad.”

  “Then you will accept this gift with as much gratitude as you did in accepting my life. I insist.”

  She dipped her head.

  “Good.” He walked away from the table, clasping his hands once again. “Your scouts were far more effective than I expected. I commend you.”

  “They were successful?”

  He glanced at the side entrance, where one of his children waited for his command, and nodded. The warrior bowed his head and vanished behind the curtain.

  “Two of them identified and reported one of these Mortals north of the city. They were able to send news and kill his horse before the man could escape. My men took him in a canyon this morning.”

  Feyn showed no emotion. Good.

  The curtain parted and two Dark Bloods emerged, supporting a sagging and nearly naked form between them. Corban followed, gliding with his eerie step behind them.

  The Mortal scout was too weak to move his feet or hold his head up, but Saric had been assured that he would be conscious. He groaned now as they dragged him up onto the dais and dumped his beaten body onto the marble table.

  The guards each took a knee and bowed their heads, rose and quickly stepped back.

  Saric watched as Feyn considered the body, her expression absent of emotion. Only two days earlier the body on the altar had been hers, lifeless before he’d given her his blood. Now it was another struggling to breathe on that cold surface, his body bloody, eyes nearly swollen shut, fingers and toes still held in the grips of the screw clamps they’d used on him.

  Saric stepped to the edge of the table and the so-called Mortal on it, his gaze dropping to a cut on the man’s rib cage. The blood looked no different from any other human’s blood. And yet it contained Jonathan’s life.

  “His name?”

  “Pasha,” Corban said.

  “Pasha.”

  For a moment Saric felt a pang of empathy for this wounded man laid out before him.

  The man undoubtedly had a wife and those he loved. He was only doing what he was told, like his own children, subservient to his own maker, Jonathan. The boy who had been born with life in his blood. A life some thought was stronger than his own. It was not this man but Jonathan whom he abhorred for the promise of a mortality that conflicted with his own.

  His empathy for the frail form sunk beneath a dark wave of rage. But Saric was no longer a man mastered by emotion. He took a steadying breath.

  “He’s told you what we need to know?”

  “No, my Lord. But he has agreed to tell us. We waited as you ordered.”

  “Good. Wake him.”

  Corban withdrew a syringe from his pouch, approached the table, and injected the Mortal in the neck. The man lay still for another moment—before his mouth suddenly parted and his eyes tried to open in what would have been a wide-eyed stare had they not been so badly beaten. As it was, they managed to part only to slits.

  Satisfied, Corban stepped back. “He’s should be quite willing.”

  Saric turned to Feyn, who was still watching the Mortal with apparent dispassion.

  “He’s alive, Feyn. Where you once lay dead, this man lays alive.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  He stepped around the table, tracing a finger along the man’s shoulder and over his hair until he came to his other side, opposite Feyn. He felt her gaze, lingering on him.

  Saric leaned forward. “Pasha. Can you hear me?”

  The man moved his head once, just barely.

  “I’m going to ask you a few questions. If you answer them without the slightest hesitation then I will send you back to your people as a warning. If you hesitate even once, I will assume you are resisting me and I will kill you where you lay. Is that understood?”

  Again, the slight nod. A tremor in the man’s hand on the edge of the table, like palsy.

  “Do you know who I am? Speak to me.”

  He tried to speak, half-cleared his throat, then uttered a single, raspy word.

  “Yes.”

  “And you are acquainted with my children. I realize they can be quite brutal. But at least you know that we mean what we say. So when I say I will kill you, I mean it.”

  He nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “Yes.” The man was shaking.

  “Good. Tell me, Pasha, what do your kind call yourselves?”

  “Mortals.”

  “Yes, Mortals. And Mortals believe themselves to be alive?”

  “We are.”

  “Tell me how you came to have this life.”

  “I was… given the blood,” the man said, speaking barely above a whisper.

  “Whose blood?”

  “Jonathan’s.”

  Saric lifted his eyes to meet Feyn’s as he continued. “Tell me what evidence you have that you are alive. What changed when you took his blood?”

  “I… I came to life. I felt new emotions. I saw new things. I understood.”

  “And do you understand that Jonathan cannot be Sovereign? That Feyn Cerelia is Sovereign, and if she were to die that I, not Jonathan, would be Sovereign?”

  The Mortal looked confused.

  “No, I didn’t think so,” Saric said. “But now you understand that I fear no Mortal, including Jonathan, who is no Sovereign but subject to Feyn. Understand also that I will assure peace among all who live, either in or out of Order. Can you accept that, Pasha?”

  A nod.

  “Say it, please.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes. It seems you didn’t want to submit to that peace earlier. I’m sorry they had to persuade you as they did, but these wounds will heal. You are now demonstrating your willingness to work toward a lasting peace by being truthful. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. How many Mortals of your kind has Jonathan given his blood to?”

  “More than a thousand.”

  “Only a thousand? How many can fight?”

  “Seven hundred.”

  “Only seven hundred. So few? Why?”

  “There is… a moratorium… on making new Mortals.”

  The confession was curious. Why? Saric would think any reasoning party would feel the need to build an army.

  “Well then, it doesn’t appear that your Mortals have any intention of harm. You can understand how your
secrecy might have led us to believe otherwise.”

  He glanced again to the cut on the man’s ribs, still oozing blood. Was it possible that there could be a power greater than his own in that red vitae? The thought was intolerable, offensive. He tore his gaze away.

  “Where are your people?” he asked.

  This time the Mortal hesitated.

  “Any subject who hides demonstrates hostility. Should I assume you are an enemy of the Sovereign?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell me.”

  The Mortal’s eyes seemed to shift to Feyn and back within their broken sockets. “In the Seyala Valley.”

  “I’ve never heard of it. Where is it?”

  “A day’s ride northwest, where the Lucrine River meets the badlands.”

  Saric knew the valley by another name. These Mortals, then, moved by their own map?

  “How many are there. All of them?”

  “You’ll release me?”

  “I’ve given you my word.”

  The man hesitated again, then nodded.

  “Good.” Saric turned to Brack, captain of the elite guard. “Return word to Varus. Gather the army to march by nightfall.”

  The captain dipped his head. “Yes, my Lord. How many divisions should—”

  “All of them! Tell him I will lead and to wait for me.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  The Dark Blood spun on one heal and left at a brisk clip.

  Saric turned his attention to Feyn, who was still staring at the Mortal.

  “I want you to kill this man, my love. I want you to cut his chest open and pull out his heart.”

  Her dark eyes darted up, wide.

  Saric studied her. Loyalty could nearly always be seen in the eyes, but action always told the full truth.

  “Corban, give her the knife.”

  Corban withdrew a long serrated knife from a sheath beneath his robe, and pressed the handle into Feyn’s hand. She took it without wavering.

  “Please…” The Mortal was pleading now, chest heaving as he gasped for air, voice hoarse and too high. “I beg you… Send me as a warning, anything…”

  Feyn didn’t move.

  “Do you remember who gave you life on this altar? Tell me.”

  Her voice was faint. “You did. Master.”