Sovereign

by Ted Dekker

  For how many years since had she played the fool, speaking of a power that failed to prove itself no matter how persistently she confessed it?

  Too many.

  She closed her eyes. Felt tears swell behind her lids and snake down her temple. Her mouth curled into a silent cry of self-pity. A single sob choked her throat. Then another, and another, until her body jerked like a sputtering motor, void of thought, fueled only by shame.

  “Jonathan…. Please, I beg you….”

  They were her first words in hours, a whimper carried away with the breeze.

  “Please….” But she’d called to him so many times, only to be rewarded with silence. “Please. Come to me.” Save me. And then the mantra faded from whisper to memory and was gone.

  There was no Jonathan to save her.

  The heat of the valley floor rose up at her back, a gentle dervish lifting the hair not matted to her face. Memory of faded dreams murmured through her mind. A time not so long ago when she’d dreamt of raw energy coursing through her body, borne on the pure tones of a child’s song, calling to her.

  Absurd, that memory. Distant, vacant. Mocking.

  She blinked, drew a slow breath through her nose, and arthritically pushed herself up to her elbow. A wave of warm nausea washed over her as she pushed up farther so her palms pressed into the hard earth.

  She peered at the valley’s wide mouth, open to the south like a funnel, the ground sloping up on both sides of an expansive floor. The air shimmered with rising heat, distorting her view.

  She reached toward one of the canteens, her hand hovering just above its brown-cloth covering. A single leather tie had been strung through the top and tied off on the neck to keep the cork from falling to the ground when unplugged. The end of the leather tie stuck an inch into the air beyond the hole in the cork.

  At first she thought its movement was another distortion of fatigue, dehydration. Her mind wasn’t working properly. It seemed to quiver.

  As did the ground beneath her palm.

  So this was what it was to die.

  But then a slight vibration rose up her arm. The kind one might feel at the approach of an army, pounding earth underfoot in the distance. Had the Rippers returned? She turned her face toward the sun, still mid-climb into the sky. No.

  She glanced at the horizon again and, seeing nothing, lowered her ear to the ground. The hum she heard was faint enough to be mistaken for the rattle of her own breath. But it was there, beyond her held breath, the cumbersome pulse of her heart.

  Jordin sat up and twisted around and looked north, deeper into the valley.

  But she did not see the valley. Her sight was arrested by a vision not twenty paces from where she sat. A hooded man, arms at his sides in a tattered garment. She blinked, squinted again to find him staring at her with pale blue eyes from a deeply tanned face.

  She tried to scramble to her feet but fell back. She pushed slowly up again, hands held to the unsteady earth. Her head was pounding.

  “Hello, Jordin,” the man said.

  He reached for his hood and lowered it to reveal long, tousled gray hair. He was walking toward her.

  Her mind scrambled for recognition. She saw only a ghost from another life before her but something in her knew him.

  “Don’t be afraid, child. I’m not here to harm but to help you.”

  He stopped three paces away. His smile was gentle.

  “It hurts, doesn’t it?” he said.

  She wanted to ask him who he was. What he meant. But her tongue, too dry, refused to form the words.

  “My own journey was as painful, I can assure you.”

  “Who are you?” she croaked. She cleared her throat. “What journey?”

  “The journey from Dark Blood to true Sovereign.”

  “Dark Blood?”

  He walked toward her, and she instinctively backed away. Hands lifted to assure her, palm out as he stepped around her. And then he bent for one of the canteens, plucked out the cork, and took a long drink. Satisfied, he sighed and offered her the flask.

  “You look like you could use this.”

  She took the canteen with an unsteady hand but didn’t lift it to her lips.

  “Who are you?”

  “I realize I don’t look the same. You never knew me before I turned dark.”

  Only then did his name come to her like a whisper through the canyon.

  Saric.

  Her lungs tightened, and she backed up a step.

  Saric, who had slain Jonathan, severing him nearly in two with flashing blade. Saric, the one man she despised more than any other. The epitome of evil materialized like a mirage in the desert.

  “So you see me now,” he said. “Not as who I once was, but the one to whom Jonathan granted a life not even you yet know.”

  She was hallucinating. She had to be. His eyes weren’t green but light blue. He was no Sovereign but a Corpse once more.

  She opened her mouth to laugh at him. The sound was dry and filled with scorn.

  “You lie,” she said. “Dark Bloods cannot be brought to life!”

  “And yet here I stand. In the flesh.” He held out his hands, baring his forearms. His fingers were worn, his nails filled with dirt. His veins, blue beneath sun-darkened flesh without the telltale ink of the poison within them.

  “I spent years in the desert, living among outcasts, mind lost to my misery, knowing that the blood in my veins bound me to death. Then he came to me and opened my eyes in a way I had never thought possible. You see?” He took a step closer. “He made a way for me before his death and for you in his death.”

  Her eyes darted to his face. “You have the eyes of a Corpse.”

  “They were green like yours when I first became Sovereign. Then I was transformed.”

  “You could never become Sovereign.”

  “For a year after killing Jonathan I wandered the wilderness, fleeing Feyn’s Dark Bloods, destitute, scraping survival from whatever I could find. I lost all hope; even ambition abandoned me. And then the will to live. I climbed to the top of a cliff, and it was there that Jonathan came to me. Soon after, I entered the Sovereign Realm. There, I was transformed. I’ve been living among Corpses, refugees from the city, ever since, waiting for this day and the final task before me. So you see, it is I, not you, who have found salvation.”

  “You lie! There is no salvation for one like you!”

  “No? Were you saved a moment ago, as you wept on the ground? Show me your love, your joy. Your peace. These are the fruits of Jonathan’s kingdom.” His smile was gentle. “Not green eyes.”

  There was a deeply settling tone in his voice, one she couldn’t comprehend. But she knew Saric as a man who knew no end of trickery and manipulation.

  “He calls for you,” he said, holding his hand out to her. “Have you heard him?”

  Memory of her dreams flooded her mind.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “It was I who warned Feyn,” he said.

  She stood perfectly still, drawing breath evenly now, managing to swallow though her throat was dry and her mind rejected the notion that Saric might stand before her now, like this. She’d sworn to kill this man if she ever laid eyes on him again.

  And yet here she was, weak and at his mercy, devoid of the peace that seemed to flow from him with his very breath.

  His last words belatedly bloomed in her mind. He’d betrayed them to Feyn?

  “What?”

  “You had to be turned back for your own sake,” he said. “For you to come here and meet me in this hour. Even the deaths of Michael and the other have worked for your good. You will see, as Jonathan helped me see. I have waited and prepared for this time.”

  For a moment she held the familiar grip of her anger, her hatred, but the weight of her suffering was too great to hold for long, and she felt herself slipping even as she stared into his eyes.

  The instant she let go, the air seemed to spark. The ground beneath her feet felt alive
with unseen power. She grappled for understanding, to comprehend. This was Saric—the killer of Jonathan, speaking of life to her, Jonathan’s lover! What divine joke, what great injustice was this?

  And yet he stood here more drastically changed than any Sovereign she had ever seen. Not in his eyes or his skin, but in something that radiated from him that she had never seen in any one of the Sovereigns before.

  He smiled and tilted his head down, spread his arms in invitation. “Do you want to see, Jordin?”

  See?

  Her mind began to fall away, unable any longer to sustain even her desire for understanding. Yes.

  Let me see. She tried to speak it. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

  “Do you want to see the kingdom within you where true peace and love call to be joined?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Say it and mean it, dear Jordin. Many are called, few choose.”

  “Yes!” she cried as her own wretchedness erupted within her. All the pain, the disappointment and sorrow, the anger, rushing into her mind at once. “Yes,” she sobbed. “I want…. to see.”

  “Then you must open your eyes,” he said. “The ones closed in slumber.”

  “Help me,” she said. Then, very quietly because her breath was gone and her throat constricted, she added, “I beg you.”

  Saric lowered his arms as he moved toward her. His hand lifted, and as it neared her face, she let her final resistance slip away and surrendered to whatever might come, offering up all the suffering and confusion that had lived with her for so many years. Too many.

  “I’ll wait for you on the other side, my dear.”

  His hand covered her eyes a moment, and then he slapped her on the cheek, as if to wake her with a firm hand.

  “See,” he said.

  Her world blinked to black, and she felt herself falling.

  Then she felt nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  JORDIN REGAINED awareness before she opened her eyes. She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious—only that a new consciousness had awakened her. A certainty that what was, was meant to be.

  When she opened her eyes, it was still light. Lighter even than it had been before. The ground was bleached nearly white as before but somehow it seemed purer. Not brighter, but more than what it had been.

  She jerked up and looked around, searching for Saric. The hills still rose up around her, the valley still spread wide to the south where a dark storm gathered on the horizon.

  Over Byzantium.

  But here in the desert, the sun still shone above, having barely moved. The canteens still lay on the ground, one where it had been dropped, the other near the place where Saric had offered a drink she’d not taken.

  Nothing had changed.

  And yet, somehow it was different.

  She became aware of the faint hum again, more definite now, tingling her flesh; speaking to her bones.

  Pushing up onto her right arm, she twisted around and looked up the valley—and then caught her breath, gripped by the sight before her.

  A translucent veneer seemed to rise from the ground just fifty paces away. A shimmering wall that bisected the valley and distorted her view of what lay beyond. The hum was coming from something beyond it, or from the wall itself.

  Jordin lifted her eyes and saw that it went as high as she could see, that it ran in either direction past the hills, from east to west. It seemed to ripple, to reflect the sun like water.

  She scrambled to her feet, breathing hard, eyes wide, knowing somehow that beyond the veil lay the world of dreams. The world of Saric….

  The world of Jonathan.

  Wake up from your dream, Jordin.

  The words whispered through her mind, as if carried in the hum.

  She was dreaming?

  Come to me. Wake from your dream of flesh and blood.

  “I’m dreaming?” Her voice sounded like that of a younger woman, innocent and curious.

  Faint laughter beckoned her. And then a voice she could not mistake. “Come, Jordin. Run! Wake up!”

  Jonathan!

  Reason lost to the four corners, desire flooding her in its place, Jordin tore toward the veil.

  “Jordin!”

  She pulled up hard at the unmistakable cry of Roland’s voice behind her.

  Roland…. he’d returned for her? There was no way he could be back so soon.

  Slowly, she turned in time to see Roland plunging down the slope on his stallion, dressed for battle in the same shirt and boots he’d been wearing earlier. The breeze lifted his hair as he rode. His eyes were intent on her.

  He reined in beside her and dropped from his mount. “Jordin….” He searched her face, appearing conciliatory, almost regretful. Dropped to one knee.

  “Forgive me.” A tear broke from his eye and edged down his cheek. “I had no right to leave you. Forgive me.”

  She didn’t know what to think. Only that here knelt her prince, begging her forgiveness.

  “I sent the rest on to gather the army while I came back. I won’t die denying the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “That there would be no queen among the Immortals but you. You’ve taken the throne of my heart.”

  She stared into his eyes, knowing in that moment that she loved the prince before her far more than she ever could have had Saric not opened her eyes to receive him.

  Tears swelled in her eyes.

  At that, Roland rose and closed the distance between them in two strides and gathered her into his arms. He buried his face in her neck.

  “Forgive me, my love. Accept my confession and absolve me.” He lifted his head, ran his hand over her hair, then drew back and gently kissed her.

  “Make me Sovereign,” he whispered.

  She looked up and saw past the eclipse in his eyes to the love kneeling before her heart.

  “You would become Sovereign?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now?”

  “Now,” he said, and lightly touched his lips to hers again.

  Come to me. Wake up from your dream of flesh and blood.

  Jonathan was calling….

  “Come with me,” Roland said. “Ride by my side. Make me Sovereign and let us live out our days as one.”

  She twisted her head and saw that the glimmering fissure still cut the valley in two. It had brought her Roland. Somehow, the world had righted itself. Jonathan had delivered her….

  Roland took her chin and turned her face to him. “Jordin. We must hurry. My Rippers are riding for the city with revenge and death on their minds. We have to stop them!”

  “I don’t have a stent,” she said.

  “Seriph has a stent. Ride with me.”

  Roland seemed oblivious to the anomaly behind her. She glanced once more over her shoulder.

  Wake up, Jordin. Hurry!

  “Do you see it?” She looked back at him. “Do you hear it?”

  His eyes lifted to look beyond her and settled back on her face.

  “I see only my savior, standing before me in the flesh. Flowing with life-giving blood.” He began to turn, pulling her arm with him. “There’s no time. We have to ride!”

  “Wait!”

  Confusion spun through her mind. She’d come to find Jonathan, not to save Roland. How could she ignore the call of Jonathan’s voice?

  “Jonathan’s here!” she said.

  He glanced about. “Jonathan? What do you mean? In your blood, you mean? Come with me before your blood fails you and Jonathan is no more. Hurry!”

  He started again, pulling her toward his mount. She followed him four steps before pulling back. She couldn’t leave now—not when Jonathan was calling to her!

  “Roland, wait.” His hand slipped off her arm.

  “There’s no time!”

  “Jonathan!”

  “There is no Jonathan!”

  Come to me, Jordin.

  With those words humming through her mind, she knew that
she could never leave with Roland—not until she grasped the truth of what lay beyond the veil.

  Without another moment’s hesitation, Jordin twisted around and began to run toward the distortion.

  “Jordin!”

  No. Roland must be an apparition.

  She’d taken only three long strides before awareness of the changing landscape struck her. The earth darkened under her feet, sprouting lethal blades. They snaked up like shrill tongues, filling the air with screams of protest and accusation, even as her boots crushed them underfoot.

  She ran faster, glancing to her right.

  The hill, the same slope Roland had descended, was rising up like an angry black wave. She pulled up hard, suddenly terrified. The world had become a nightmare. She was dreaming!

  And yet, this felt like no dream.

  Above, storm clouds gathered with frightening speed. As she watched, they spawned four and then ten and then a dozen twisting tendrils, each of them descending toward her, pointing like accusing fingers.

  “Look at me, Sovereign!”

  She whirled toward the guttural voice behind her. Roland had vanished. Saric strode toward her, not twenty paces distant, dressed in a long black robe. He was Dark Blood again, and death was in his eyes.

  “Your life is that of a pathetic rat digging in the sewer for rotting refuse.”

  Earsplitting thunder crashed overhead. Saric came on, marching with long strides. Panicked, she tried to turn back for the veil, but found the blades from the earth had coiled up around her ankles.

  “You deserve only what you choose, and you have chosen only misery,” Saric snarled.

  One of the fingers from the sky shot down at her, a narrow funnel of hot air that slammed into her chest, jarring her very heart.

  But it wasn’t just air. Visceral guilt and condemnation slammed through her gut. She screamed—until horror cut off her breath.

  You’re waking, Jordin! Now run to me. Leave your fears and see what is real. Come to my arms.

  Jordin screamed again, this time with a fury she didn’t know she possessed. She jerked around with enough force to free her legs from the black vines. They sliced through her legs like razors. Gasping for air, she ran pell-mell toward the rift that divided the valley and threw herself into it.