by Ted Dekker
“And he who gives life can also take it. This man serves the Mortal who would take your seat and offer life in my stead. Do you serve him or do you serve me?”
“I serve you.”
“Then do as I say, my love.”
Feyn’s chest was rising and falling quickly. Sweat beaded her brow. A tremor shook the hems of her white sleeves.
“Kill him?” she said.
“For me, my love.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
She gave a faint nod. Stepped up to the table, lifted the blade high over her head. Eyes fixed upon Saric, she screamed and plunged the knife down with both hands into the chest of the Mortal beneath her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IN TWO DAYS’ TIME, the great bonfires before the temple would burn as high as the ancient columns standing above it. The growing piles of wood were already the size of a small yurt and would be even larger by the time the fires were lit on the night of the annual Gathering. Hunters had gone out in search of boar, hare—as much game as they could bring back. The roasting pit had been dug on the edge of camp and lined with coals—soon the smell of roasting meat would send every stomach in camp growling.
Wine had been retrieved from the deep crevasse in the cliff face where it was stored, carried off from the last northern transport Roland’s cadre had raided before the entire camp had relocated to the Seyala Valley. It had been stored here, untouched, in anticipation of the Gathering. For centuries the annual event had drawn Nomadic factions scattered throughout the continents together for trade, marriage, and, most important of all, the remembrance of Chaos. In this way Nomads celebrated life as it was known in Chaos, by rote, void of emotion, as best as Corpses could celebrate life.
These last years the Gathering had taken on a decidedly more frenzied pace. The small bands of a hundred or two hundred Nomads each that had come together the year Jonathan had joined Roland’s tribe had never separated again. Nine hundred Nomads in total who no longer needed to travel long distances to gather, who no longer gathered in remembrance of Chaos but in celebration of life.
Mortal life through Jonathan’s blood.
A life that Rom had just a day and a half ago learned was rapidly slipping away.
Rom paused in midcamp, staring vacantly at the smoldering remains of last night’s bonfire. It had burned lower than usual—and would burn lower yet, tonight, in preparation for the great fire to come the night after. The celebration promised to be the most hedonistic and frenzied Gathering yet for the anticipation of Jonathan’s succession to the Sovereign throne—of the kingdom to come. New life to invade the dead world.
But looking at the embers now, Rom felt only dread.
Roland was gone on his wild gamble of a mission to acquire Feyn. A hundred fighters had been sent out as scouts, leaving those within the camp vulnerable. All this for Jonathan’s sake.
Rom needed to see him. To lay eyes on the boy with the uncanny nature who was both naïve and too wise at once. To see him and remember the day he’d first found him in secret as a boy. To remind himself that this was the boy predicted by Talus. Surely, the prophecy would come true.
But of course it would. Jonathan’s very existence was proof that all Rom had lived and fought for these nine years would somehow still come to pass.
He strode for Adah’s yurt, impatient for Triphon, who’d gone to find the boy an hour ago. What was taking him so long?
Ten minutes later, he was seated at Adah’s table at her insistence, a bowl of rabbit stew and a cup of fermented mare’s milk in front of him.
Watching as the older Nomad hurried out to check on something cooking in her outdoor oven, Rom could not help but think of Anna, his mother. She’d never known life—he could only hope that she now knew Bliss. The thought should have comforted him but instead brought him new anxiety. So many had died… Anna. Jonathan’s mother. The first old Keeper who had given him the vial of blood on that day nine years ago…
Avra.
Too many, and yet he couldn’t shake the fear that they might be few compared to the cost that awaited them in the days to come.
Appetite gone, he forced himself to eat—the first time he had done so since early yesterday morning, before the debacle with the Corpse and Jonathan’s increasingly erratic behavior.
Adah ducked back into the tent and he forced a slight smile and a wink. “Delicious as always, Adah.”
She grinned and started to refill his bowl. Rom held out his hand. “Please, I’ve had enough.”
“Nonsense, dear. Eat. You’ll wither up and blow away.” She ladled steaming stew into his bowl.
There was no denying Adah. Rom obediently nodded, dipped his spoon into the hot stew and was about to take a bite when the door flew wide.
There stood Triphon. Forehead wrinkled.
Rom pushed up from the table, food forgotten, already knowing he didn’t want to hear whatever Triphon had to say.
“He’s gone.”
“Jordin—”
“She’s gone, too.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?”
The bull of a man shook his head, braids brushing his shoulder. “They’re both gone. So are their horses.”
“I could have told you that,” Adah said, turning from the kettle.
“What do you mean?”
“They came for food early this morning—nothing much, just some dried meat and cheese. I told him I was making stew, but he said they wouldn’t be back in time to eat this evening.”
Rom blinked, glanced at Triphon, whose face had gone stark.
“This evening? Where’d they go?”
She shrugged. “Where does Jonathan go, you ask? Wherever he likes. He’s Sovereign.”
“Not if we can’t find him to put him on his seat!” To Triphon: “Where?”
“The Corpse outpost?”
“No. They’d be back by afternoon.” Rom raked a hand through his hair and strode out past Triphon, aware of the taller man on his heels.
He stormed through the camp, ignoring those who stopped to stare at him and a few who tried to hail him. He stopped at the Keeper’s yurt only long enough to duck his head inside and confirm that the old man wasn’t there.
“The temple,” Triphon said.
Then Rom was running toward the ruins, rushing up the steps and through the columns, back toward the inner sanctum.
He didn’t pause inside the back chamber, but made his way past the silk-draped altar with the Book of Mortals upon it. To the back wall of the chamber and the small door, fitted to cover the opening exactly. The lock was open.
He hurried down the stairs, into the limestone chamber below, Triphon’s heavy step behind him. Lantern light drifting up through the well.
The bottom of the stair opened into a small chamber—the dry store and work space of the old alchemist, safely out of the elements.
The Book sat at a metal table before an array of vials and metal racks of samples. His ledger was open, his pen in hand, an there was an array of crumpled papers on the floor. Rom took one look at his haggard appearance and knew he had worked here through the night.
“No matter what I do, I cannot for the life in me figure out what is happening to his blood. I cannot pinpoint it. I cannot reverse it. I cannot stop it!”
“We have another problem,” Rom said.
The old man sighed, as though there could be no other, let alone greater, problem.
“Jonathan’s gone.”
The old man glanced up, blinked. “Gone. Gone where?”
“I’m praying you know. You saw him last, when you took your latest sample from him. Did he say anything, that he meant to leave camp at all?”
The old Keeper shook his head vaguely, shadows playing about the winkles under his eyes.
“He said very little. He asked about Order, and about Byzantium. But what do I know of Byzantium—I have never lived there. He wanted to know about the dead…”
“The Corpses?”
“No, the to-be-dead. The ones with the defects, taken away to die.”
Rom exchanged a look with Triphon. “The Authority of Passing?”
“Yes, yes. The Authority of Passing. That was it. He wanted to know what happened to them and what it would take to save…” The old man paused. “He said he wished he could help them.”
In a beat, Rom was running up the stairs, striding out of the inner sanctum, through the columns of the ancient basilica, Triphon at his side, shouting ahead for their horses.
“No. Roland’s gone,” Rom said. “And half of his men are out as scouts. I need you here…”
“I’m not letting you go alone,” the taller man said. “The danger is out there—not here. Caleb is ranking warrior. He’ll take charge…” And then he was running toward the horse pens.
Jonathan had no idea of the ways of a city like Byzantium! He had no business doing what he was doing. He was naïve, distracted by compassion, unaware of the danger to himself. Even with Jordin and Roland, they had barely escaped the city last time.
It took them only five minutes to reach the pens and secure what water and food they would need.
Rom slung canteens onto his saddle, pushed the young man preparing his horse aside, and cinched the girth himself.
“Triphon!” he shouted. “Now!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE CLEARING IN THE WESTERN FOREST was well known to Roland and his ranking Nomads. They had come here, far from the Mortal camp, numerous times over the last year to confer about the needs and priorities of the people under his direct care. Not that they differed so much from the needs of the Keepers, but as their prince, Roland’s first calling was to his own.
Today the situation in his mind was clear: the destiny of the Nomads must be fulfilled—even beyond the fulfillment of Jonathan’s. Only a year ago Roland had asked Jonathan about his future role. Their brief conversation had never left his mind.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question that might sound off-putting, Jonathan?”
The boy, then sixteen, had looked up wearing only a hint of a smile. “What could be off-putting to me, your servant?”
“Servant? No, Jonathan. It is I who serve you.”
The boy had looked off toward the cliffs, his tone distant as he said, “So they say.”
“I not only say it, I pledge it. I serve you, my Sovereign.”
The boy had offered a faint nod. “What was your question?”
“As prince, my duty is to protect my people. This is the covenant we have made between each other through the generations. Now that—”
“Did I ask for your loyalty in exchange for my blood?” Jonathan said, looking at him.
Roland had never considered the question. The understanding had been implicit. “Not expressly.”
“I’ve given my blood to serve you, not so that you can serve me. Your first responsibility is to those in your care. They are many. I’m only one.”
“Yes, but you’re the Giver of Life. And so I’d know your expectations.”
“Is my life more valuable than one of your children’s?”
Roland didn’t know what to say.
Jonathan spoke before he could form an answer. “If my safety is ever in conflict with your people’s, choose them. I’m only a vessel for blood they call the Sovereign. You’re the leader of a great tribe, now alive. Take from me what you need and serve them.”
Roland’s love and respect for Jonathan had been sealed that moment.
But today the boy’s words haunted him. Not because of any true conflict between his duty to Jonathan and his duty to his people, but because Jonathan’s directive made his own calling unmistakable:
Ensure the safety of Nomads at all costs. Regardless.
They haunted him, too, because he couldn’t help but wonder if the boy had known, even then, that this day would come.
Now he stood before the three leaders he’d placed directly under him after his call for all Nomads to join as one tribe four years ago.
There had been thirteen tribes before Jonathan had come to them, nine of them in Europa. It had taken some negotiation and political maneuvering to satisfy the tribal leaders—they were all accustomed to a seat of power. And so Roland had given it to them by dividing domestic responsibilities between them: food, training of the warriors, the games, art and trade, the business of marrying and settling disputes, and so on. In truth, coming up with thirteen equally weighted realms of responsibility hadn’t been the easiest task.
But when it came to the overall protection and guidance of the Nomadic bloodline, only these three advised him directly: Michael, who was his highest-ranking warrior; Seriph the zealot, who ranked politically in the highest favor; and Anthony, his leader of domestic affairs. Though any chief was welcome to visit Roland’s quarters and voice any grievance to him personally, matters affecting the whole tribe, present or future, always came before his council.
Michael sat on a stump, arms crossed, staring in the direction of the valley just west of them. Seriph paced nearby, frowning. Anthony, the eldest at nearly fifty, took a long pull from a canteen. Known for keeping his words to a minimum, for never speaking quickly, he was viewed throughout the camp as something of a father figure—a man as kind as he was, by Nomadic standards, rotund.
Roland had quickly briefed them, saying nothing about the reversal in Jonathan’s blood. Everything else, they now knew:
Jonathan could not be Sovereign unless Feyn handed the office over to him.
If Feyn died, Saric would be Sovereign.
That Jonathan had become, of late, obsessed with the plight of Corpses without demonstrating any plan for his dominion over them.
That Saric had raised an army of Dark Bloods to crush any enemy to Feyn’s rule—namely Jonathan and those Jonathan had brought to life.
Mortals.
Nomads.
Now, in the last three days, the entire future of the Nomadic bloodline had come under direct threat.
“How many?” Anthony asked.
“Three thousand,” Michael said. “If the one we took was telling the truth.”
“Until we know better we assume he was,” Roland said.
“Can we take them?”
“We could take twice that number,” Seriph said.
Roland nodded. “Yes. But their reflexes and strength are surprising. He’s bred them for war.”
Seriph paused his pacing. “Our only sure course of action is to go after Saric directly.”
“And invite a war?” Anthony settled to a stump.
“Yes. On our terms,” Seriph said. “Better that than waiting for him to flush us out and attack with the advantage.”
“You’re assuming war of any kind is prudent.”
“If it saves us, it’s prudent,” Michael said. “We’ve skirmished for years with earlier clandestine guard without ever learning their origin. Now we know they were some precursor to these Dark Bloods. We handled them easily enough, but now we face a more dangerous enemy. As long as they exist they threaten our kind. We can’t give them the chance to wipe us out!”
“Agreed,” Seriph said. “It’s clear.”
“Nothing is clear!” Anthony thundered, getting to his feet. Even Roland blinked at the sound. He so rarely raised his voice—but then again, rarely were they confronted with such stark choices. “Going against a superior enemy is fraught with danger, regardless of the situation.”
“We either go against the enemy or wait for them to root us out.”
“Not necessarily. There is another way,” Anthony said, his gaze settling on Roland.
“What way is that?” Seriph said.
“We go into hiding. Deep. Far from here, where we may live in peace. We have all that we need—including lives that have been extended far beyond those of any Corpse. Saric will die one day, but we will still be alive.”
“You’re suggesting we just wait them out?” Seriph said. “As we have for five hundred years? No. Th
is is the time for our kind to rise! It’s what we’ve waited for. What we’ve anticipated—all of us. And now you say, ‘Run and hide’?”
And so in two minutes the basic tension felt by all Nomads was laid bare. Fight or hide.
Anthony eyed him again. “What say you, Roland?”
Roland sighed and stared off toward the horses tied at the edge of the clearing.
“That each of you is right. That time will dictate which course we take.”
“We don’t have time!” Seriph hissed.
Roland glared at him. “Time. Will. Tell.”
The man fell silent.
“The more immediate question is that of Jonathan’s sovereignty. If he can take his seat, our course will be very different.”
“And if he can’t?” Michael said. “You’ve always said that the time for our people to rise and rule has come.”
“Through Jonathan.”
“Yes, of course. But his seat is taken! If he can’t reclaim it—”
“Then we will see!”
He was surprised at the edge in his own voice. Crossing his arms, he inhaled deeply through his nostrils, exhaled, and then said, “For now we have a delicate play in motion. We must let it unfold as planned.”
“No news since Pasha went missing?” Anthony said.
“Only that he was taken the day before yesterday.”
Michael’s face darkened. “If they kill him I will personally cut Saric’s throat—”
“Yes. But until then, you will do exactly as I say. We fight for Jonathan’s ascension. We play our hand as directed by Rom. We give him Feyn if we can, and we let him spin his magic. She’s still our best option until proven otherwise.”
“You’re sure you want to deal with Saric alone?” Michael said, her brows drawing together. “I would be by your side, brother.”
What a warrior she was! A fearless soul with royal blood in her veins. “If you insist, sister. But let your passions get the better of you and I will send you away. Is this clear?”
“I only wish to serve.”
“Then serve me with your trust.”
She dipped her head.
“You risk too much for him,” Seriph said.