Mortal

CHAPTER TEN

THEY RODE ALL AFTERNOON. Rom, Roland, Jordin, and Jonathan. South from the limestone canyon lands of the Seyala, through rough terrain, sweeping three miles east of the most direct route, far from the train tracks and the primary road into the city.

South, to Byzantium.

Two miles outside the city they paused to water and rest their horses. Jonathan and Jordin ate a simple meal of cheese and dried meat in silence. Neither spoke much in the company of others-Roland had wondered aloud once whether they actually communicated with each other some other way. Did the boy see beyond normal Mortal perception? Could he, with a glance, discern another’s thoughts?

They were both uncanny, even for Mortals. Jordin, with her undemonstrative nature among a class of warriors from whom a certain amount of swagger was expected. Jonathan, with the burden of the world on his shoulders.

And then there was this new threat of Saric and his Dark Bloods.

The prisoner’s death confirmed one thing in Roland’s understanding: Dark Bloods were an abomination. A defiled race.

And yet, somehow, the Dark Blood’s death had disturbed the boy greatly.

“The boy.” It was funny how they all still thought of Jonathan that way despite all of the evidence to the contrary. He was as strong as most warriors his age and faster than all but a few among all Mortals.

Roland glanced at Rom, offered him a piece of dried jerky, and ate it himself when the man refused it. He knew there was only one thing other than Jonathan on their leader’s mind.

Feyn.

Rom had spoken less of her as the time for her waking had neared-clear indication that there was far more weltering beneath the surface. He spoke even less now.

Roland admitted his own concern about her potential ascension, but only insofar as it affected their mission to see Jonathan into power. To protect the Mortal bloodline. To see their superior race thrive. This was Jonathan’s true purpose-nothing else mattered. For the sake of the Nomads, he would die to serve that cause.

The sun was just nodding toward the horizon when they started the last miles into the city. Rom, riding in the front. Jordin, always at Jonathan’s side. Roland, flanking them all.

Within a half hour the muted lights of Byzantium appeared-not the bright orange Nomadic fires they were accustomed to, but a glow dimly reflected by the opaque sky. He watched Jonathan lean forward in his saddle as the spires of the city came into view.

That’s when it came to him, faint as smoke on the wind, but far less pleasant.

Corpse scent.

Rom stopped, hand up. It was coming from just west of them, too near to be the population of the city itself-not yet, at least. Too near, and too weak to be so many.

Roland nudged his mount forward, past Jordin and Jonathan.

“There,” Rom said, lifting his chin toward a copse of trees that hid a small lean-to, about a hundred and fifty yards off. It was barely more than a piece of siding propped against the gnarled trunks of two trees.

Scavengers, escapees of Order. Two, from the look of it-a woman, her arm bound in a heavy bandage, and a teenage girl, black-haired, perhaps fifteen, with a noticeable limp. Victims of an accident, then, fleeing the city and the wellness center with it, and with good cause. Many who went in as victims of sickness or accidents often did not return. The Order did not permit reminders of Mortality, of the thing all Corpses feared most: death.

It was said that those who left did so in secretive fear, knowing that spouses and family members were obligated under Order to report them to the authorities. Which they did, because there was only duty to the laws of Order.

These two didn’t stand a chance. They’d be found by the authorities that regularly roamed the city outskirts for just their kind within days.

Jonathan pulled up between Roland and Rom, rapt, staring from the saddle. Why the keen interest? A Corpse was a Corpse. Dead. Diseased. Worthy of Mortality only through council approval.

“They’ve fled the city,” Rom said to Jonathan. “In an effort to live.”

Roland glanced west. The sun was dropping below the horizon.

“We need to go.”

He threw one last look toward the lean-to and moved on. Jordin waited for Jonathan who, after a long moment, finally turned around.

Bringing him had been an unnecessary risk in Roland’s judgment. It was true, his blood was much more potent than their own and could not survive more than an hour outside his body. But their blood might just as easily be given to Feyn to turn her Mortal. Still, Jonathan was Sovereign.

Ignoring the Corpses completely, Roland rode after the three of them.

The Mortals had long ceased to enter Byzantium by conventional means. Nine years ago, Rowan had undertaken a new project in Jonathan’s name to fortify portions of Byzantium’s sewer system, beginning beneath the Citadel itself and extending to the northern edge of the city. The ancient sewers that had weathered millennia would have easily weathered a thousand years more, but thanks to Rowan, a portion of them had been conveniently connected to form an underground route into the city.

It was by this route that the Keeper would meet with Rowan regarding Feyn’s care. The same way that Rom’s spies had come and gone unseen from the capital.

They reached a hill just outside the city. There, a metal culvert the height of a man opened into a stony bed that had once been a shallow drainage river.

They dismounted in a sparse grove of trees, tying their horses, retrieving torches from saddles in the dark.

“Jordin,” Rom said. “You’ll bring yours and Roland’s horses to the back of the northeast basilica-the Basilica of Spires. Leave the other two here.”

Jordin gave him a sharp look and then glanced at Jonathan. Her skin appeared dusky in twilight, emanating its own kind of glow.

“We take no chances with Jonathan,” Rom said, seeing her reluctance. “We need two escape routes. Wait behind the basilica with the horses. If we’re not there in three hours, return and meet us here.”

Her gaze flicked from Jonathan to Rom. She nodded.

It was the right choice. She was the most likely to find her way out as swiftly and inconspicuously as possible.

Rom pulled up his hood. Roland had his up already and was tying a dark scarf over his nose and mouth. It wasn’t to mask the smell of the sewer, but something far more offensive: the reek of five hundred thousand Corpses walking, breathing, and dwelling in fear.

Jonathan glanced back at Jordin once without speaking, and then pulled his hood up over his head.

And then they crossed the rocky drainage bed to the culvert, lit the torches, and went in as darkness settled over the city.

Rom hadn’t entered these tunnels in six months-since the last time he’d met Rowan in Feyn’s stasis chamber as he had twice a year for nearly a decade.

He moved quickly through the culvert, pushing back the smell of rat feces, the refuse of the city, the rot and mildew seeping through the thick weave of the scarf over his mouth and nose. The image of Feyn’s body hung in his mind.

Still. Pale. Her lashes so distinctive in the fluid-filled tank that he expected her to open them. Her hand with nails so meticulously trimmed. The finger with the moonstone ring.

She’d been in stasis so long that the few days he’d once known her seemed less like a memory than some vestige of a dream.

A dream that had brought them to this moment, here. Now.

He picked up the pace, boots splashing through the sediment that had settled at the bottom of the culvert. He glanced back at Jonathan, who moved with all the stealth of the Nomads, head down, Roland a shadow behind him.

Just ahead, the culvert opened into the brick sewer tunnel. The opening was new, reinforced with rebar, but the brick was ancient. They stepped into the tunnel, which was slightly lower than the edge of the culvert and filled with half a foot of water.

The tunnels belled out beneath the edge of the city, near the northern underground terminus. A grate in the side of the tunnel emitted soft light-and then a distant squeal of brakes on wheels.

“Hold,” Rom said. “It’s just the underground. The public transport.”

A gust of air came through the grate after another distant squeal.

Stink of Corpse.

Rom heard the boy stop behind him. “Keep moving.”

Past the terminus, the squeal of wheel brakes faded as they made their way deeper into the city. After another ten minutes the tunnel opened into a vast chamber with thick columns that rose nearly two stories to a vaulted ceiling. An electrical box took up half the wall, wires running from it in all directions. It was covered with a padlocked metal cage and emitted a faint hum. Metal stairs led to a second-story transom that hugged the circumference of the upper level; four arched passageways opened out of it in the brick, each in a different direction.

“We go up,” Rom said, nodding to the stair spiraling up the side of the wall. The three of them ascended, boots ringing on metal steps, then moved across the transom above to the arch of the northern passage.

Rom could hear the breath of the boy behind him, the skitter of a rodent, the crumble of mortar, here, where the bricks were the most ancient of all. He tasted the stagnant air.

Place of secrets.

They emerged from the tunnel and approached a door, the stone frame of which looked as old as the history of the city itself except for the obvious new addition of electrical wires running along its edge. The lock in the door was also modern.

Only three people had a key to this door: Rowan, the Keeper, and the Corpse who tended to Feyn. Rom had retrieved the key before leaving camp, but now he saw that it would be entirely unnecessary-the door was not only unlocked, but slightly ajar.

Rom pushed past it and stepped inside, torch held aloft.

Dark niches, the size to cradle a body, were hollowed out in the walls like the eye sockets of a skull.

He strode through the first chamber to the bell-shaped crypt beyond. To the great sarcophagus in the middle of the room, with its ancient carvings and metal tubes worming through holes drilled straight through the stone.

The heavy lid had been pushed aside and onto its edge on the stone floor between the sarcophagus and the crypt wall.

Rom hurried forward, his torch throwing light into the glass lining.

Empty. Severed tubes dangled motionless in the fluid-filled chamber. So it was true. He’d held out a bare hope that the spy’s story had been wrong.

He turned to find Jonathan staring around the chamber with wide eyes.

“As expected,” Roland said.

Rom took a slow breath. “We’ll find her.”

“You’re sure you know the way? The Citadel is three square miles.”

He nodded. “Let’s hope so.”

He led them out of the room and down the underground passage. It had been nine years since he’d passed through these halls of death and prison cages. The majority of them had been sealed off immediately after the commencement of Rowan’s regency. Up, near the service entrance, with its back corridor…

A corridor he remembered from one surreal night when he had abducted Feyn herself. A lifetime ago.

If he had done it before, he could do it again.

“Where will this take us?” Roland said.

“To the Sovereign’s chamber.”

“You know the way to the Sovereign’s chamber?” the Nomad said in a strange tone. “I should have known.”

Rom didn’t respond.

It took them another fifteen minutes to reach the hidden passage that led into Feyn’s chambers.

He led them down the corridor, his free hand held up for silence, and then to the top of a narrow flight of darkened stairs. Faint light seeped past the edge of a heavy velvet curtain below. He signaled them to extinguish their torches and wait.

The scent of Corpse was unmistakable. With it, burning candles. The lingering scent of a meal-meat. Wine.

And a deeper odor.

Dark Bloods.

Rom’s pulse quickened. He padded down the stairs and eased aside the edge of the curtain.

Faint glow of candlelight throughout the dimly lit chamber. Faint strain of… violin? The meal was gone; the smell came from the front room, adjacent to her bedchamber here.

The smell of Corpse was stronger. Of Dark Blood.

Saric had to be nearby.

A figure near the expansive window. A woman, in a gown of blue velvet, a diamond clasp in her hair. She sat at a desk piled high with newspapers.

Feyn?

He willed his breath to calm, slipped past the curtain with only a whisper of a rustle, glanced to his left, toward the dressing area, and once up at the ceiling, noting the faint mismatched edge of plaster where it had been repaired.

His heart was hammering, too loud.

He took several steps to the middle of the chamber and stopped.

“Feyn.”

The woman at the desk paused, newspaper in hand. She lowered the paper, very slowly, and then turned in her chair.

It was Feyn, and she was alive.

It came back to him then, all at once: the day he had taken her out of the city, the way she had come to life when he had given her the blood. The ways she had laughed, and then kissed him. Had asked him to run away with her.

How different it all might have been then. But there had been Jonathan.

And Avra…

His last sight of Feyn had been on the day of her inauguration. She had fallen to her knees, arms out, a terrified scream coming from those lips so beautifully set together now. Her blood had spilled to the platform as she had crumpled, sliced open by the Keeper’s sword…

A horrible image that had haunted his sleep for years.

Now, with the light of the candelabra illuminating her hair like a halo, he felt his breathing still. He’d forgotten just how regal, and absolutely beautiful, she was.

“It’s Rom,” he said, when she said nothing.

She was the picture of composure, her hands folded in her lap. Blue gemstones dangled from her earlobes.

“Rom,” she said.

He took two steps and stopped, staring. She wasn’t rising. Or hurrying to meet him. Or crying out how Saric had taken her. He had expected anything but this calm self-possession. But of course he should have known. She was a Corpse again, schooled to carry herself as one without fear, no matter how acutely she felt it…

“It’s true then,” he said. “Saric took you.”

Nothing.

“How?”

She rose from her chair.

“Once again you invade my chambers, Rom Sebastian. History repeats itself, after all.”

She folded her hands, placing her left hand over her right. There was no mistaking the heavy ring of office on her finger. Sovereign.

He’d come expecting nothing less, but seeing it so vividly confirmed…

Nine years flashed before his eyes. The lives of Avra. Of his mother. His father. The old first Keeper he had met.

Every memory now at her mercy.

He strode to her, half-expecting her to take a startled step back. But she didn’t. Instead, she allowed him to drop to one knee and take her hand.

Rom had been so distracted by the sight of her alive that he’d pushed aside the scents in the room, but now so close to her they registered again, demanding to be noted.

Dark Blood. Heavy as tar in his nostrils.

He looked up at her eyes. Black.

For a moment he froze. Now he saw the black sprawl of vein up her cheek.

Her gaze held no fear. She seemed to be taking him in, as though his sudden proximity had ignited strange fascination. Memory, perhaps-a tumult of emotions passing through those eyes like a confused mosaic.

“Feyn,” Rom said, pushing down his panic. “We’ll find a way to fix this. Where’s Saric now?”

Her gaze flicked to his left, over his shoulder. Rom spun around, expecting to see Saric himself. Instead he found himself staring at Jonathan and Roland. Their hoods were off, their scarves pulled down from their faces.

“Who is this?” Feyn said. But something in her tone told him she already knew.

Rom stepped to the side.

“This is Jonathan. The boy you gave your life for.” He fell silent as the two considered one another in the dimly lit chamber.

“Jonathan…,” Feyn said faintly.

“Yes.”

She glanced at Rom and then walked past him, stopping just short of Jonathan who continued to take her in without a word.

“I remember you,” she said. “The boy on the horse. Coming to take the seat I gave up. And now here we are. What are we to do? Two Sovereigns. But only one now.” Her gaze left his eyes to trail over his braids. She reached out, took several of them between her fingers, thumb brushing over them thoughtfully. They were all tied with black cords for skill in the games and adorned with feathers-gifts from children.

“I remember you as well,” he said softly.

“They said you were crippled.”

“I was. But my leg healed.”

“It’s his blood,” Rom said. “Like the blood you tasted once, but much more. We’ve all taken it. We see differently now. We feel emotion, but we sense in ways that we never did before. There are many of us now. We call ourselves Mortals.”

“Indeed?”

“You died for me,” Jonathan said. “I owe my life to you.”

Feyn was silent. A tear slid out the corner of her eye. Jonathan lifted his hand, as though to touch it, but before he could she had dropped his braid and brushed it quickly away.

She turned to Roland.

“And who is this?”

“This is Roland.”

“A Nomad,” she said in a musing voice, seeming to take in not only his appearance but his very stature. She tilted her head. “Not just a Nomad, but a prince, I think. And so the stories are true. You still exist.”

“Indeed we do,” Roland said, inclining his head. He showed her respect, but Rom knew he would not bow before Order-or any other Corpse, for that matter. Only another Mortal would have noticed the barely perceptible way that he stiffened when she stepped toward him. The way his nostrils flared slightly at the smell of Dark Blood. And it was strong. Strong, but different from that of the Dark Blood that Roland had brought back to camp.

“I take it you’ve taken the office of your ring,” Roland said. “Before the senate?”

“Yes.”

He glanced at Rom. “We must hurry.”

Rom pushed aside the questions flooding his mind and nodded.

“Feyn… you remember why you gave your life for the boy?”

She looked at him, eyes dark, expressionless. “I remember.”

“Then you know how critical it is that he rule this world…”

He waited for her answer, breath stilled.

She gave none. But that was good enough for now.

“He must bring the world back to life from this office, either as Sovereign or through you.” He flipped his hand. “We can figure it all out later. For now we act on what we know, which is this: Saric wants to rule. How he managed to stay alive and find you, we don’t know, but he can only have one purpose. Surely you know his intentions.”

He couldn’t tell if she was at a loss or just allowing him to make his plea.

He continued, picking his words carefully. “Nine years ago as Sovereign, he changed the laws of succession. You do realize that if you were to die now, he would become Sovereign. Not Jonathan.”

She hesitated and then offered a single, shallow nod.

“At any moment he could reach out and kill you and rise to power.”

“Saric will not kill me,” she said.

“And what would stop him?”

“Love.”

“Love? Evil knows no love!”

“Then I am evil?” she asked with a raised brow. It was a soft-spoken challenge, not a question.

“No. But we can’t take any chances. You must remember Jonathan’s destiny to rule and save the world!”

She shifted her gaze to the boy who seemed to return her rapt interest.

“Is that how you feel?” she asked him.

“My blood brings life,” he said. “Not death. You died for me once… I don’t want you to die again.”

They faced off like two lost souls meeting for the first time. Two unsure Sovereigns at a critical crossing. Jonathan was only being crafty, he thought. Feyn…

The Sovereign was critically confused.

“How did Saric bring you back to life?” Rom asked.

“With his blood,” she said. “Isn’t that how you showed me life once? Through blood?”

“His?” How was it possible? “Saric’s?”

“This surprises you?”

“You’re saying blood from his body?”

“From his veins,” she said.

The revelation felt like a blow.

Roland moved closer, glancing at the door. “We don’t have time.”

Rom held up his hand. “There can be no comparison between whatever alchemy Saric has conjured up and Jonathan’s blood. Surely you know that.”

No response.

Roland was right. They had little time. “We need to reverse whatever Saric has done. You must take Jonathan’s blood.” Even as Rom said it, the image of the Dark Blood, slumped in the chair, tugged at the back of his mind.

He glanced at Jonathan. “Will it work?”

The boy nodded slowly. “It might.”

“It has to. We have to make her Mortal and figure out this problem of succession.”

“There’s something different about her,” Jonathan said quietly.

And it was true. She reeked of Dark Blood, but not in the same way as the Dark Blood earlier that morning. And Rom was suddenly certain he knew the source of the scent.

He turned to Jonathan, eyes wide with hope. “She drank the blood. The ancient blood. Not enough, but she tasted life once before.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Jonathan said, biting his lip.

“Roland.” He reached out to his second. “Stent.”

Roland withdrew the Keeper’s black bundle from under his cloak and handed it to Rom.

“Feyn-” Rom glanced up to find her looking through the great window at the dark sky outside. She turned at the sound of her name.

“We’ll begin with only a drop,” he said, laying the bundle on the bed. He released the ties and rolled it open, lifted out the gloves the Keeper insisted he use.

“You’ll need to sit still for a moment.”

“So much talk,” she said, folding her hands. “As though I weren’t truly here.”

“I’m sorry. Actually, you could take my blood-it has that property now. Any one of us can bring another to life.”

“Like Saric.”

“Yes. No. Not the same at all. There’s no blood as pure as Jonathan’s. If there’s one blood that can save you, it’s his. That’s why he insisted on coming.”

Feyn regarded Rom with a slight smile and a tilt of her head.

“Save your blood, Jonathan, for those who need saving.”

“You need saving!” Rom snapped.

“Do I? Do I look wounded to you? Like one who is sick? One near death in the Authority of Passing?”

“Authority of Passing?” Jonathan said.

She turned from Rom to Jonathan.

“Where the diseased and defective go to die, away from a fearful public. Where all who offend by their very Mortality are sent.”

Rom stared at her, struck by her choice of words. Mortality?

“Where is this center?” Jonathan said.

“You don’t know? On the southeast edge of the city outskirts. It’s where you would have been taken, born with a crooked leg as you were.”

“We didn’t come for them.” Rom fought a sudden surge of panic. “We came to help you.”

“Help me what, Rom? Give up my life again? I did that once.”

“This isn’t life you feel!”

“Isn’t it? I feel pain. I feel remorse. I feel pleasure…” She slid her gaze to Roland and back. “Ambition. Great purpose. And yes. Love. I’ve found a beautiful life, Rom Sebastian. How can you know that it is less than yours? That my love is less than the love you feel? The answer is: you can’t. I feel every bit as much beauty and joy to find myself alive now, tonight, as I ever felt once with you.”

“That can’t be,” he heard himself saying. “You’re confused. Nine years in stasis have left you weak.”

“But I’m not confused. I’m the Sovereign of the world. I am alive because of my Maker. I don’t need your help.”

“Your Maker?” Rom said, his voice rising.

She stared at him for a long time, expressing neither frustration nor hope. Perhaps her head was spinning in the pangs of rebirth.

And yet… she had experienced no rebirth. It couldn’t be.

“You should leave now,” Feyn said.

“Saric will kill you if you don’t let us help you, Feyn. You must see that. All hope will be lost!”

“You should leave. Now.”

“Please, Feyn!”

“Guard!”