Mortal

CHAPTER FORTY

SARIC’S MIND SPUN WITH THE MEANING of Feyn’s sudden arrival, aware all the while that his children’s eyes were fixed on him riding behind her like a leader who had taken second seat to true royalty. Aware that his skin was clammy with sweat. That his heart pounded. Aware that Jonathan’s jaw was set, his eyes fixed, his hips rolling naturally with his mount’s gait, his hands light on the reins as one at ease with his place as supreme ruler of all that life could offer, despite the falsity of that notion.

Aware, too, that the Mortals were cut off from any attempt at saving the boy.

The battle had stalled completely, drawn to the sudden appearance of the pair. His children watched him, waiting for his direction. He left them standing. The battle was now in his hands.

He studied the side of Feyn’s face, the line of her jaw bared by her simple plaits, the pale gray mantle, the pearls sewn at the cuffs of her sleeves. She had fulfilled her promise to bring the boy to him.

And yet, she showed none of the reverence he expected from a loyal servant. The submission that had occupied her very posture before turning full Dark Blood only last evening was gone.

He considered the line of Dark Bloods to his right. They watched him mostly, but some of their eyes had turned to Jonathan.

A chill flashed down his back. He could hardly blame them-the object of their full fury had been delivered into the hands of their Master. But curiosity, not anger, occupied their eyes.

He kicked his horse and trotted up next to Feyn as they approached the steps.

“I was beginning to question your loyalty, my love.”

Her eyes remained steadfast on the dead Mortal hanging before the temple. As did Jonathan’s.

Didn’t she know he could draw his sword and summarily cut her down now, where she sat? For a brief moment he considered showing his supremacy in such a way for all to see. But then, he had no evidence that she’d betrayed him.

“You have done well,” he said quietly. “For this I will reward you.”

She made no effort to acknowledge him.

Had she lost her mind? Did the boy have such power to steal her heart? But no… They were both under his heel, their fates in his hands.

Beside her, Jonathan rode as though alone, seemingly oblivious to the thousands who looked on. He looked strangely majestic in his worn black tunic. Even his mount seemed to be aware of nothing but its rider’s supremacy, as though to say: Here is one born of true life, the final remnant of Chaos, fully alive by birthright.

A man brimming with more life than Saric could possibly know without taking his blood himself.

No. He was imagining things.

And what if it’s true, Saric? What if you rid the world of the only vessel that might bring you the supreme life and power you so desperately crave?

“Is there anything you would say to your Maker?” he demanded of Feyn.

Her horse stopped ten paces from the ruin steps, just beyond Triphon’s lifeless form. Without a glance at Saric she dismounted, walked around to Jonathan, and offered him a hand.

Jonathan took her hand, gave Triphon’s body a last look, and dismounted. She led him to the steps, lifted his fingers, and lightly kissed his knuckles. Gave him a parting look. Only then did she turn to face Saric.

“I give you your Sovereign, my Lord. My debt is repaid.”

Without another word, Feyn crossed to her mount, swung into the saddle, reined her horse around, and rode directly toward the line of Dark Bloods at the valley mouth. They parted like a black sea as she approached, wind gusting through their corridor.

He could have stopped her, but she had played her role. If her loyalty to him had been undermined, he would deal with her easily enough later-she commanded no army. No force could offer her protection.

Feyn rode through his ranks, past the Mortals beyond, and headed out of the valley at a full run.

When Saric turned back to the temple ruins, Jonathan had already climbed the steps. He stood, looking out at Dark Blood and Mortal alike. His feet were parted and firmly planted, young jaw tight, his hands clenched in fists by his side as gusts tore at his clothing and hair.

So then, nine years had finally brought them to a place of righting the past, of all that had gone wrong. Their roles, this time, were reversed. Today it was Jonathan’s turn to surrender.

Life…

The word swept through Saric’s mind as if carried by the raging wind.

“Jonathan!” Rom Sebastian’s voice carried over the lines, stretched thin by desperation. “Jonathan!”

Saric was about to dismount when the boy’s voice cut through the rising storm, drawing the ear of every breathing soul in the valley.

“In an age of Chaos the first to walk this earth lived in full abandonment!” he cried. “They embraced the full pleasure of all that was given. They laughed and filled their bellies with the offerings of the land. They danced beneath sun and moon, and celebrated unreserved passion. Do any of you dare say it was not good?”

His challenge rang out with an authority that brought a tremble to Saric’s fingers.

He speaks of life as one who knows it too well…

The wind moaned through the ruins. Above, the dark sky churned. Dark Blood and Mortal alike stared on in silence.

Jonathan walked to his right, tendons taut along his neck beneath bulging veins. Veins flowing with the first blood of life.

“Before there was war, there was peace! Before hate, love. Before selfish ambition, selfless service. There was beauty without end, never meant to fade.”

He was pacing now, hands clenched in the air.

“But those who lived also courted sick ambition and selfish greed. They longed for power. To consume more than they were given. They waged war. Human killed human, enraged, jealous, filled with the need to possess the service of others. Love was crushed by the need to protect what could not be owned. Man ignored the call to embrace the way of a Maker whose banner is love given freely, not controlled by force or demanded by allegiance or loyalty!”

How dare this man stand before his children and speak of love divorced from obedience, loyalty, or possession?

And then, as his rage gathered like the storm overhead, he realized it wasn’t rage at all… but jealousy.

“This was the failing of man!” Jonathan cried. “And so a man named Megas stripped humankind of all sentiment but fear. Jealous for humanity, determined to possess it, zealous for control! Until the day that life was reborn five centuries later in one child. A boy to be raised for his blood to feed all those thirsty to drink!”

Far to Saric’s left, one of the Mortals cried out: “He speaks the truth! Mortals rise with life!”

Jonathan’s finger shot out in the direction of the voice. “No!” he screamed. “I tell you today, true life is not found in blood that wakens only the passions. As in the days of Chaos, only love given freely inhabits the Maker’s design. Those who claim love dependent on allegiance are imposters who know nothing of the Sovereign realm. They will die the same as those who walk without life already!”

A jagged knife of lightning split the sky. Thunder crashed overhead as the wind gained intensity, whipping Jonathan’s braids about his face.

But the heavens were not the only thing on the verge of cracking open.

Saric felt his mind tilt even as he sat tall in his saddle. The boy’s words cut, severing every tether to all that he’d died and lived for. Slowly the world around him began to fade, leaving only the accusing form atop the ruined temple steps. Was it possible? Was Jonathan’s life more true than his own?

Even if it was, he could not bow. Not to this Maker, no matter how much greater his life might be.

He knew one thing now: the boy must die.

One hand on the pommel of his saddle, Saric pushed himself up, eased his right leg over his horse’s hind quarters and slipped to the ground. The true battle wasn’t between Dark Blood and Mortal with sword and ax. It was here, to be decided between two rulers. One would live to rule.

The other would die.

“Jonathan!” The sound of pounding hooves joined the howling wind. Rom Sebastian, desperate, blocked by the line. “Run! Run, Jonathan!” A commotion rose up from the north. The crash of clashing steel; shouts of outrage and bitter curses.

The sounds were distant in Saric’s mind, from a dimension that no longer mattered. He gripped the hilt of his sword and deliberately pulled it from its scabbard with a loud scrape.

“Some would bring a new kingdom that flows with alchemy, intent on ruling the world for their own pleasure and gain,” Jonathan cried, his eyes on Saric as he approached and then mounted the steps.

“Others would rule as Mortals over lesser life.” He lifted his head, pointed in the direction of the Nomadic Prince and his men. “But today a new kingdom is among you. A kingdom where I am Sovereign, where I will reign with those who follow me. The deceiver comes to take what he cannot possess, but I offer my life freely to all who would live.”

Saric glared up at the boy spouting his nonsense.

Terrified by his words.

Uncaring because they meant nothing.

Infuriated by his accusations.

Trembling.

Jonathan seemed to have said his last. He stood in front of the poles from which the remains of a leather bowl hung, watching Saric.

The fighting beyond the line grew to a cacophony, now south as well as north. The Mortals were once again in full attack. A pointless battle of a lesser kind.

Saric stepped onto the raised floor of the ruins and stalked toward the boy, tip of his sword trailing on the stone behind him. Another peel of thunder shook the sky.

“Hello, Saric.” The boy’s voice was soft, for him alone. His eyes were limpid in the oncoming storm. “Do you see nature’s rage?”

Saric shot a quick glance at the black sky. Saw that it was rotating as if to drain the world.

“The Maker’s Hand,” Jonathan said.

Maker’s Hand.

He’d heard the lore. Surely he wasn’t claiming to be more than a man born of blood. The boy had lost his mind.

Or have you lost yours?

“I know you long for life, Saric.” The boy said, too quietly for anyone else to hear in the rising gale. “Your heart is black but you can’t ignore the cry of truth that my blood would bring you something beyond your imagination.”

All of Saric’s fears coalesced into one deafening question: what if it was true? What if the object of his search stood before him now, a pure vessel of beauty, truth, and love?

For a moment the notion drowned his hatred. The body before him became a vessel of unsurpassed, raw life to be consumed, not crushed. To be tasted, not destroyed.

To be worshipped.

Without thinking, Saric lifted a trembling hand. Hesitated. When the boy didn’t move, he touched his fingertips to his cheek. A ripple of power rode up his arm and into his body.

Saric shuddered.

“Look in my eyes,” the boy said.

As though of its own accord, his gaze traveled from the boy’s cheek to his eyes. Light flashed like sunlight through the boy’s storming hazel irises. Saric felt his body go rigid.

But there was more… A great and terrible sadness.

Empathy.

Tears.

“I am the life you long for. My light will imprison you always. I make it so.”

At the boy’s last words Saric’s world flashed with a brilliant light, blinding him to everything but the singular truth: he was dark as the pitch in his veins. The boy was infused with light. He, not the boy, had been deceived. Here was life-not in his veins, but flooding those of the one before him. Life he had never known. Life.

Saric’s legs buckled. He dropped to one knee, a great wail rising up from the pit of his gut, a heavy sob that was horror and grief and outrage all. It stole his breath, washing reason and purpose away.

Somewhere below, the Mortals were making a last, hopeless attempt to break through his lines-he could hear the sound of it far away.

He wept, only distantly aware that his children could see him-their Maker, kneeling before this boy. This Sovereign of a realm he did not-could not-comprehend.

“You spawn only death,” Jonathan said. “I, not you, hold power over life. See and know, dark Lord.”

Saric felt his sword wrenched from his hand. He jerked his head around to see Jonathan flying down the steps, no longer a boy but a warrior streaking toward the nearest line of Dark Bloods.

With a scream that turned Saric’s blood cold, Jonathan tore into the closest of them, easily sidestepping a frantic thrust of the warrior’s spear. The boy’s blade flashed and severed head from body.

Jonathan spun, screaming still, narrowly missed by another thrusting blade. He was too fast. Twisting with beautiful grace and power, Jonathan slashed into another warrior, cutting him nearly in two at the midsection. He sliced into another, separating arms from shoulders before plunging his sword through the man’s chest.

Saric watched, frozen in horrific wonder, as Jonathan summarily slaughtered six of his children without allowing a single blade to touch him.

Orders rang out. His ranks surged around the boy. Before they could close the circle, Jonathan cut down a seventh and sprang away into open ground. As if executing a carefully choreographed dance, he swept to the pole that held Triphon’s dead body.

He dropped to one knee and bowed his head in respect to his fallen friend. Long trails of blood from the wound in the Mortal’s gut streaked his belly and legs.

Jonathan stood and gazed up at the man, face wrenched with sorrow. He reached for one of the bloodied feet, leaned slowly forward, and kissed it. His sob of anguish echoed through the valley, cut short by a plea for all Mortals to hear.

“He will see life!” Jonathan cried, facing the line of Mortals where their leaders were mounted. “For the sacrifice he paid to save me, I give him life! Leave his body. He will not be buried with the others. As you find life, Triphon will find life.”

Jonathan spun and pointed the sword at Saric, eyes aflame. He held his position for an extended beat, then ran toward him, hunched low like a sprinter off the blocks.

Only then did it occur to Saric that the warrior who so easily killed seven of his children might as easily take their Maker who still knelt, immobilized and unarmed.

Panic flooded his veins. He started to push himself up, but the world around him was spinning.

And then Jonathan was at the base of the ruins. He took the steps in three long bounds and whirled to face the valley, bloody sword raised.

“Is there no end to death?” he cried.

He tossed the sword, sent it clattering to the stones just beyond Saric’s knee.

He masters not only life, but death.

Saric turned and stared at the sword, red beneath the darkening sky. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jonathan seize the two poles that held the broken leather bowl. Torment, anguish on his face. He was mad. He was magnificent. Arms spread wide, the boy flung his words at the world.

“Is there no song without the sword? Is there no love without jealousy? Is there no end to rage?”

His body began to shake. He rocked back and forth like a man possessed, beyond himself. The clash of battle had stopped, replaced only by the wind, the thunder, and the boy’s broken shouts.

“Will the children all die? Will the sun be turned red? Will you drain my blood to feed your own ambition? Do I die so you can live?”

His braids flew back in the face of the storm. Tears streamed from his eyes, blown back toward his temples before they could mar his cheek.

“Find love!” he screamed. “Find beauty! Find life and know that the realm of Sovereigns is upon you!”

A lone voice of objection pierced the valley from far and high. Saric turned his head and saw a lone figure up on the western cliff, arms spread wide. A woman crying out in horror at the scene beneath her.

“No!” She fell to her knees. “Jonathan!”

She lifted her chin, drew a deep breath, and hurled a great wail at the sky.

A helpless sob erupted from the boy, dangling from the poles as though they held him and not the other way around. He stared up at the lone woman, his face twisted with anguish. “For love…” He sucked at the air, a horrible, lurching gasp. “For you, Jordin!”

Saric felt his mind fracture, broken by the war in his soul.

These were surely the words of a love saturated with power far greater than any he knew. He could not kill the one destined to bring such life.

These were surely the words of a power that would render his impotent. He was compelled to destroy the one destined to crush his lesser life.

Jonathan suddenly grasped his tunic at the neckline with both hands and ripped it wide to bare his chest. His eyes lowered to Saric.

“Take it!” he screamed, face red and drawn.

He grabbed the poles again, arms spread wide, his chest bare.

“Take my life for all of them. Spill my blood and drain it for this world. Take what you have come to take and be forever changed!”

Saric remained frozen.

“Obey me,” the boy said in a lower voice that reached into Saric’s mind and shattered the last of his confusion.

Darkness flooded his vision. He grabbed his sword by the hilt, shoved himself to his feet, and with a full-throated scream, lunged for the boy.

The blade slashed down across Jonathan’s body, severing his torso nearly in two.

Jonathan’s eyes went wide. His mouth was parted, midgasp. He stood motionless for a suspended instant before sinking to his knees. Cries from the Mortals drowned out the high keening on the cliff.

The boy collapsed into a pool of his own blood, a broken heap at Saric’s feet.

Saric staggered back a step. The sword fell from his hands and with it, the world.

The ruins began to shake beneath his feet. Wind roared through the valley, threatening to push him to the ground.

He staggered, struggling to keep his footing beneath the blackened sky. Before his very eyes the valley floor buckled. Large slabs of the far cliff began to slide into the valley. Unrelenting peels of thunder crashed through the heavens, shaking his bones to the core.

A full half of his children hugged the earth for safety, the other half tried to run, staggering and pitching like a drunken mob. The Mortals’ horses reared and threw their riders to the churning ground.

Then, as quickly as the quake came, it quieted. The earth rumbled to stillness. Unnatural calm settled over the valley, punctuated only by the rattle of falling stone and whinnying horses.

With a final whoosh, the vortex in the sky sucked up the dark clouds, returning them to an overcast gray pushed by a gentle breeze.

Silence.

What have you done?

It occurred to Saric that he was still on his feet. Alive. But the moment the thought entered his mind he knew that he was not the same man who’d considered himself alive only moments earlier.

His thoughts were no longer those he’d entertained before. He’d seen a light in the boy’s eyes. He’d obeyed his commands. He’d submitted to a power that left him crushed for all the world to see.

Nothing was the same.

Nothing could ever be the same.

Shaking badly, Saric walked to the edge of the steps, descended them one at a time, and crossed to a horse whose flesh still quivered with terror. He unsteadily mounted, only vaguely aware that Dark Blood on all sides were rising, some of them taking an unsteady knee at sight of him.

Varus rode up, face white. “My Lord?”

Saric avoided his gaze, the questions in his eyes, and pulled his mount around, only vaguely aware of the myriad gazes upon him.

“What is your command?” Varus said.

His command? He could not summon the resolve to lead. The boy had cursed him and robbed him of that power. Something had happened to him. The light in the boy’s eyes…

“My Lord, your orders?”

“Leave this place,” he said. “No more death.”

He turned the horse and rode out from the valley under the gazes of his children.

Behind him a wail rose to the sky. The Mortals were mourning the death of their Sovereign.