Mortal

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.”

“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.