by Ted Dekker
“And Rom”—he said it as one voices a name not spoken in years—“does he know of your plot to infiltrate my lair?”
“He’s being held captive in Feyn’s dungeons. But yes, he knows it’s the only way.”
Roland lifted a brow.
He studied her for a moment and then circled around her, his gaze traveling over her again. The hardness was gone from his face, replaced by curiosity. She’d offered him direct access to his only true enemy, but he had no reason to take her seriously.
“So my enemy comes to give me Feyn’s head on a platter,” he said. “Knowing full well that if I take the throne there will be nothing to stop me from exterminating the Sovereigns. I can’t imagine Rom would like that.” His fingers touched her hair as he crossed behind her. “My queen is right. You’re more beautiful than I remember.”
“You don’t know Rom,” she said, her throat suddenly dry. “He speaks only well of you.”
“Of course he does. He’s at my mercy.” He rounded her, dark eyes glittering with the hardness of one who knows no fear. “As are you.”
“As am I,” she said softly.
“I have your unquestioned loyalty, is that it? We aren’t Dark Bloods, you know. Immortals are fully capable of treachery.”
“I’ve seen nothing but loyalty here,” she said.
“I’ve earned their loyalty. And they’ve earned mine. But you have not.”
Her heart was hammering against her ribs. Surely he could hear it. “How would you have me prove it?”
“You will tell me the way to Feyn now.”
Jordin hesitated, knowing that the truth could end her life. Now. This moment.
“I can’t,” she said at last.
“No? Why not.”
“Because I can’t remember.”
“You can’t remember.” He gave a wry smirk. “Did you hear that, my queen? She says she can’t remember what she came to tell us.”
His face darkened, the smirk gone.
“Don’t toy with me.”
Jordin blinked, surprised by the hardness of his tone. The absolute bitterness in it. And she saw that beneath his veneer of power and passion, Roland lived in misery. He was surrounded in luxury, by beauty, and for as much as he possessed, he could not enjoy the Immortality he clung to with iron claws. For all the apparent loyalty of his Rippers, could he believe the love of a single one?
In that moment she knew that he held no advantage. The man before her had no more found abundant life since Jonathan’s passing than she.
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Jordin said. “Having so much life and still feeling so powerless to grasp what you seek.”
The muscles along his jaw bunched. “I have more life than you can possibly imagine.”
“What is life if you can’t find peace in it?”
His eyes narrowed. “Only Corpses rest in peace.”
“So we once said. It must be a terrible thing to live a thousand years in misery. Maybe Immortality is better called Hades.”
Roland held her in a dark stare, and she considered the possibility that he might fly into a rage and rip her to shreds.
“You have everything this world has to offer,” she said. “Everything except the throne. And when you have that, you’ll still be as miserable because in reality you seek true life and peace. Power won’t give you either.”
“The kind of peace you’ve known?” he demanded. “Cowering in hiding while those of your kind are picked off one by one? Is this Jonathan’s rule of love in your hearts?”
Jordin didn’t know what to say. His words rang as true as her own. So she said the only thing she knew: the truth.
“Sovereigns are as miserable as you seem to be.”
Her confession seemed to cut him off at the knees. She continued quickly. “Which is why I’m here. We once shared food at the same fire and fought a common enemy to save the life Jonathan brought to us. I’ve done everything I believed was right, and what has it brought me? A wretched existence, surrounded by death. I have nothing more to lose. So now I come to the same prince who once saved me from the wasteland.”
“To ask for something in exchange for a promise you can’t deliver.”
“But I can deliver.”
“How?”
“By becoming Sovereign again.”
Maker, she hoped it was true.
Just then the door behind her opened and she heard the footfall of two entering the chamber. She didn’t turn. Her eyes remained fixed on Roland.
His eyes flicked over her shoulder. He turned toward the side table, calmly took the goblet from the servant, who had apparently already made sure it was full, and took a long drink with his back still turned to them. The two arrivals walked toward him at the table with only an offhanded glance her way.
“No sign,” one of them said—a woman. Jordin knew that voice, tried to place it….
“Whoever they were, they must have escaped into the city,” the woman continued. A warrior in the customary black of the Ripper, there was something about the posture of her stance, the ease with which she carried herself that was both more regal and casual around Roland than the others.
The man beside her was older, with long gray hair and a beard as white as his skin, dressed in a black robe rather than battle dress. Someone with authority. When he spoke, Jordin recognized his gravelly voice immediately.
“If the heretics have taken to open attacks on us, we must eliminate them. We don’t need this thorn in our side. We should have cut them all down a year ago when we had them in our grasp.”
This was Seriph, the council member Jordin had once served under when they had all been Mortal.
“Seriph has a point, my prince,” the woman said. “I would send Cain and his twenty to hunt them down. One by one if we must.”
“That won’t be necessary, sister,” Roland said. “The Sovereigns are no longer a problem.”
Jordin started. Michael. Roland’s sister.
“As you said when you demanded we spare some last time,” Michael said. “And now they’ve killed Jalarod. His sister is furious with grief.”
Jalarod. The name of the Immortal Jordin had killed. A moment’s horror passed through her—perhaps because she now shared Jalarod’s blood. The faceless Immortal had a name and family. They mourned their dead as Dark Bloods could not.
They’d always wondered why the Immortals had pulled back before killing them all. Now Jordin knew: Roland had ordered they spare some. He wanted them crippled and immobilized, not vanquished.
Roland turned and offered Jordin a halfhearted gaze. “I already have Jalarod’s killer. She’s one of us.” There was no mistaking the irony in his words.
Michael and Seriph turned as one to stare at her. Michael went very still as recognition filled her face.
“Jordin.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Seriph demanded.
“Jordin has defected,” Roland said. “And, being the warrior I taught her to be, she did what was necessary to acquire our blood. Unfortunate, but rather ingenious. More important, she can lead us to the others. Her loyalty now rests with me. Isn’t that right?”
She’d always known that Roland might test her in this way. And so she would play her only trump now and let fate take its course.
“It’s good to see you, Michael. I can’t say the same for you, Seriph. You were always the most mistrusting of us. I’m amazed Roland hasn’t put you down by now.”
A hint of a smile crossed Roland’s mouth. It was all she cared to see.
Jordin spoke quickly, taking advantage of the moment. “You know Sovereigns don’t take the lives of Immortals, so you have to ask yourself why I felt obligated to kill one of you. Simply to become Immortal?” She lifted a hand and watched her fingers move. “I admit, I like the skin. Feeling and seeing the way you do shows me how much I’ve missed.” She lowered her hand.
“But what none of you know is that unless I succeed in my mission, you’ll all b
e dead in four days. The survival of every Immortal is entirely in my hands. Bow to your petty pride, Seriph. Kill me now and take the life of every living Immortal with it.”
She let the statement stand.
“You believe you can deceive us with this ridiculous threat?” Seriph hissed, his face now closer to the color of his lips than his beard.
Roland lifted a hand to silence him. He studied her for several long moments. For perhaps the first time he found truth in her face. And how could he not? She was speaking it without reservation.
“Go on.”
“One of our alchemists has created an airborne virus that will swiftly infect the entire world population. He will release it unless I kill Feyn and return Rom to him in four days’ time.” She paced, feeling at last the liberty to move, to breathe. She, not Roland, was now in command of the room.
“It will bypass all Corpses and kill both Dark Bloods and Immortals within days. So you see…. I had good reason to do whatever was necessary to place myself here. If you weren’t so eager to cut down every Sovereign that crosses your path, I could’ve come in peace. Jalarod’s death is the result of your hatred, not my own.”
“And Sovereigns?” Roland said.
“They will survive,” Jordin said. “After all, it was one of our alchemists who created the virus. It may mute Sovereign emotion. But they will survive.”
“Which is why you would become Sovereign again,” he said darkly. “Better to exist in peace, stripped of the emotion that drives us all to our insanity than to be fully alive. Isn’t that what Megas once said before he turned the world into a graveyard filled with walking Corpses? And so history comes full circle.”
Seriph pointed a crooked, accusing finger at her. “Heresy! This is what drinking Jonathan’s dead blood has brought to our door. Heresy and death.”
For an instant, his words struck her as nothing but true. The very notion of muting any aspect of life seemed profane. Giving up Immortality itself seemed like madness. Who would forsake the gift of expanded life as she felt it now?
And yet, Immortals were no less miserable than Sovereigns. So then where was Jonathan’s abundant life?
“Why would you return to Sovereign blood?” Michael asked. “You’ve only just regained full life.”
“Because it’s the only way I can lead you to Feyn.”
“What is this?”
“She claims that she can’t remember what she came to tell us,” Roland said, disbelief etched on his face once more. “Evidently, if she becomes Sovereign, she’ll remember.”
“More lies,” Seriph scoffed.
Was she lying—even to herself? Her mind was being pulled back into an abyss of forgetfulness, hardly remembering why she should become Sovereign again. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? She had to become Sovereign again, and soon, before she was hopelessly lost.
And she had to give them more or she’d never have the chance of finding her way back.
“You have to ask yourself why I’m here to warn you. What else would I have to gain by coming to you? I needed you to hear me, so I became Immortal. Now I need to lead you, and for that, I have to become Sovereign.” She was groping in the darkness now.
“Sovereignty might not gift me with the expanded senses you know so well, but there’s more than simple memory at stake. As Sovereigns, we know more. Which is probably why I can’t remember the way into the Citadel now. These heightened senses seem to rob the mind of other capacities.”
“You think us stupid?” Michael said with an incredulous laugh.
“No. But Sovereigns have a different kind of sight. We can sometimes see glimpses of the future. It could be of great value on a mission to kill Feyn.”
The gift had never been predictable, and claiming it might only set up an expectation that would later damage her credibility—or get them all killed—but she needed every means to persuade them now.
She had to become Sovereign again, or all would be lost. The Immortals would all die, and she along with them.
“More insanity,” Seriph said with a deep frown. “If such a gift were remotely valuable, they would have used it to stay alive. She’s leading us into foul play.”
“Everything I’ve told you is true,” Jordin said.
Roland was watching her carefully.
“Then I’ll give you the opportunity to show me how true it is,” he said, crossing to the steps that rose to his throne. He ascended, calmly took his seat, and leaned forward, elbows on the arms of the chair.
“Tell me where the rest of the Sovereigns are hiding. Prove your loyalty, and I’ll allow you to become Sovereign. Refuse and you will die with us, assuming there’s any truth to your claim.”
She hadn’t anticipated the ultimatum. Hearing it now, Jordin felt her blood run cold. Revealing the location of the Sanctuary to Roland’s Immortals was as good as sentencing the Sovereigns to death.
“Or have you forgotten that as well?”
“I’m loyal, my prince. But—but my final loyalty rests with Jonathan.”
“Jonathan is dead.”
“He lives in the blood of Sovereigns!”
“Who are miserable and demonstrate far lesser life than Jonathan ever did. If you refuse and this virus of yours actually exists, then we all die, including you. Feyn will be dead. If Feyn turns Rom to Dark Blood, which she undoubtedly will, he too will die. And then what is left? A handful of heretics who call themselves Sovereign, perpetuating their own kind of misery.”
Jordin felt herself spiraling toward a full-fledged panic.
“If I tell you, you’ll only kill me and slaughter them all! Mattius has taken the necessary precautions—he’ll release the virus before you can stop him.”
“I won’t slaughter them all. Not now.”
“And me?”
His lips twisted into a menacing grin. “Your fate will be tied to mine. It’s the only choice I’m giving you.”
Jordin stood still, appearing calm, she hoped, but her mind screamed treachery and despondency, pushed to such a terrible choice.
The only choice, and yet hardly a choice at all.
“I need some time,” she said.
“Of which you claim we have none.” He paused, studying her. “You have until the sun goes down.”
“I may not need that much time.”
“Are you the keeper of time in my world?” He waited only a moment. “No, I thought not.” His eyes lifted to Rislon. “Take her back to her cell. Leave her in darkness.”
“Yes, my prince.”
His eyes were back on Jordin.
“And bring me the other one.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
STRINGED MUSIC filled the Sovereign office. Tense with poignant longing, the concerto was a study in Chaos and genius, as ancient as the old human emotions that had once ruined the world. Her father, once-Sovereign, would have condemned any who possessed or listened to such music. Her half brother had brought it to his fortress for his personal enjoyment. She now listened to nothing else—the staid music of Corpse composers felt rote and dead by comparison.
Because they were dead.
She’d donned the amber-and-onyx earrings. Fifteen faceted stones hung from each ear, set in gold, shimmering like dark fire nearly to her shoulders, framed by the dark fall of her hair. The velvet gown was her customary black, the sleeves glovelike past her wrists, ending in a tapered point over her fingers. It pooled on the floor behind her, an inky spill shot through with gold beading, the hem edged in gilt thread from the ancient Indus Valley.
For the first time in years, she stood before the great window, not looking out but at her own reflection.
Am I beautiful?
She’d never cared because it had never mattered. Beauty could not win her more than she already had: the loyalty of the world, the tribute of the continental treasuries, the unending devotion of the population to the Maker’s hand on earth.
It no longer mattered to them that she’d disbanded t
he senate and abandoned the Book of Orders along with her weekly visits to the basilica. The Book, basilica…. they were the undergirding of lives that required structure—an unbending roadmap to Bliss, or at least the hope of it.
Feyn knew better than to hope for the next life. No one knew what would become of one’s soul after this existence. There were no guarantees even for the most devout. They lived in fear until their dying breath, and what had it ever gained them but the misery of uncertainty?
She’d seen things she couldn’t explain—most recently six years ago, at the hand of Jonathan himself when he’d darkened her eyes and revealed her soul. But what had come of his little lesson?
Nothing.
It saddened her a little. She’d found herself wishing, almost, that there was something more to him than the strangeness of his blood and the mutation it brought. The death in his blood had only returned Rom and his kind to a lesser experience of life, and still they claimed to be superior. A delusion as dangerous as it was fascinating.
She tilted her head. Her former maid, Nuala, had never adapted to the heavier cosmetics Feyn preferred of late. Unfortunately, the maid had experienced an accident during her seroconversion, an error that resulted in an infection grievous enough to send her to the Authority of Passing. Feyn had held a quiet private dinner alone in her chamber in her honor. Caviar, if she remembered correctly.
She smoothed the edge of the dark liner around her eyes with the tip of a finger. She attended to these matters herself now. Far preferable to allowing the direct gaze of another, which she only found offensive. In any case, beauty had become far less interesting to her.
Until now.
How strange, to not feel like a caricature of oneself. To actually feel seen.
She studied the splay of dark veins up her neck and onto her cheek. The smudge of her lashes, the dark stain of her lips.
Am I beautiful?
Beautiful enough to win the heart and trust of a man with the will to deny her? A man and a heretic at odds with all that she was?