She gave a soft chuckle. “Here,” she said, moving the bowl toward him. “If you’re going to make me Sovereign, you’ll need your energy.”
“I am not the one who makes Sovereigns. Jonathan is.”
“His blood, you mean.”
“Yes. But him as well.”
“I wonder what possessed you to take the blood of a dead man into your veins. I’ve heard the stories, and my sources are reliable.” She sat back and regarded him. Strawberries were her favorite normally, but her appetite was ruined by Rom’s heavy odor.
He set the fruit down. “A vision,” he said. “A dream. Jordin’s, the girl who loved him.”
“And now he’s dead.”
“Jonathan isn’t dead.”
“Is his body not in the grave?”
“Yes. But he lives.”
“What a paradox. Explain it to me.”
“I can’t. I just know it to be true.”
There was something in his eyes….
“You truly want me to be as you are, don’t you?” she said with some wonder.
“Not as I am. As Jonathan meant you to be.”
“A Sovereign, which I am. Not your dead blood kind of Sovereign…. ruler. I was born to it. And yet here you are, once again asking me to embrace another life. Will you never tire of this game?”
“No.” There it was, the fervor of a zealot in his eyes.
“What
did
Jonathan come to bring you, exactly?”
“Life.”
“You say this over and over, and yet you live like a rat in hiding. You’re half starved. You’re hunted, not just by my own Dark Bloods, but by Roland’s Immortals. Didn’t he have the same blood as you once? And now you’re at each other’s throats? This is what you hoped for?”
The zeal left his eyes. “No.”
“And so I ask you again: What has the blood brought you? Ease? Meaning?”
“I don’t know the answers. I only know that this is what I am meant to be. And that this is where I’m meant to be now. Here, with you.”
“And if I follow your way…. what will I gain? Has this life even brought you peace?”
He stared at her, silent.
“No peace, then.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet. Clearly. Look at you.”
“Has yours? You own the world. Has it brought you peace?”
She gave a brittle laugh. “There’s little peace for me. The humblest artisan sleeps better than I do.” She tilted her head, studied her own hands. “You must remember something of that. You were a humble artisan once.”
He gave a nod. “Yes. Once.”
“No longer?”
He shifted his eyes and stared at a tapestry on the wall. “I have little time now.”
“No. You’re too busy trying to stay alive. Please, eat more. You’re not hungry?”
He returned his eyes to her. “I can eat later.”
Rom, the ever-focused one.
She picked up a strawberry, considered eating it, then set it on her plate. “Do you ever wonder if we might have been together, had things been different?”
He blinked, and again she was startled by the color of his eyes. She had to work to reconcile the grizzled man before her with the boy of fifteen years ago, but there—she saw him in flashes, in the turn of his lip.
His gaze slid to her hand.
“Perhaps.”
“I demanded a poem from you once. Do you remember? That day, in the meadow. You were a poet then, so young. But clever already. You had tricked me, giving me the blood. And I’d come to life. You were the first thing I saw, and I was in love. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“ ‘We rode together through the night, chasing love, chasing light….,’ ” she said softly, reciting his words.
He glanced up, eyes startled.
“ ‘All has changed for you and I….’ ”
His lips parted, he had begun to voice the words before the sound even came out of his mouth. Now, his eyes locked on hers, he said quietly, “ ‘You’re a queen, and what am I? Let us live before we die.’ ”
The air seemed to still between them; the table, the food, forgotten.
“If only we could have had that moment forever,” she said. “If we could have held it and forgotten the world.”
He broke her gaze, his own falling to her simple silk gown. Amber and black threads woven together, so it shimmered both dark and light.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
His words surprised her.
He glanced up. “I should have given you that life. I wanted to. I couldn’t, I didn’t have enough blood.” As he said it, the man he was today fell away, and there he was, the impetuous twenty-four-year-old she’d met so many years ago.
“If I could, I’d have kept you from death—from returning to it. You’d have come with us. You’d never have had to give up your
life. If I could have saved you then, I would have. But I didn’t have enough blood.”
It wasn’t often that she was surprised. But now with his admission, and his apparent anguish over it, she found herself staring at him.
“I was preparing to come for you while you slept in stasis,” he continued. “My face would have been the first thing you saw when you awakened. And Maker, how I prayed that you would love me again!”
She looked away.
“But then Saric found you first and converted you to Dark Blood. You don’t know how many times I regretted it. What he did to you…. it ate me alive.”
“And yet,” she said with forced lightness, “here you are again.”
“Yes,” he said, more evenly. “History’s brought us here, to the place where I can bring you life, finally. Not my own, and not through trickery. You aren’t lost to the Dark Blood. The ancient blood is still in your veins.”
“And so you’ve come to save me at last.”
“Jonathan’s blood will.”
Jonathan! Jonathan! Always Jonathan!
She drew in a slow breath through her nostrils. Willed it to remain even.
“Then…. if what you say is true, give me a show of faith. Surely you owe me that.”
“What do you want? I’m here of my own volition, knowing you could easily have me killed. Your alchemist would dismember me, given the opportunity, and I would let him. What more proof do you need?”
“Perhaps if you told me where the rest of your people are, I would see your kind as less than rebels in hiding.”
He went still. “They don’t know you as I do. They know you as the one who betrayed Jonathan.”
“I gave my life for Jonathan.”
“That was a different you.”
“Yes. It was a different me,” she said. “I’m Sovereign now. I gave my life for your cause once. Don’t assume I am so different.”
“I’m here, at your mercy. Isn’t that enough to earn your trust?”
She nodded. “Perhaps. But don’t you see, Rom? All is as Jonathan would have had it. He believed he was fulfilling something. He believed that he needed to die. If he didn’t want me to rule as a Dark Blood, he wouldn’t have made the way for me. But here I am. Perhaps this is the way it was always meant to be, and the way your Jonathan always wanted it. Ask yourself who has honored him better. You, who wished him on this throne, or me, whom he wished on it?”
He stared, at a loss.
“He made me Sovereign of this world. Now you subvert my authority by refusing my rule?”
He still made no reply.
She had accomplished enough for now—seen him soften and shift as far as he might in such a short time. Her argument had been carefully calculated, and his response was what she had hoped. But in the end, his heart, not her arguments, would be his downfall.
Rom still loved her.
She pitied him. Perhaps more, another reason to leave him now. She had no interest in being swayed by him.
“Help me and I will help you, Rom. I’m Sovereign, you see? I must know where my subjects live. I promise to think on what you’ve said; I trust you’ll do the same. We will see each other again soon.”
She rose and left the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
And his heart.
T
HE VOICE was a mere whisper, spoken from beyond, calling to Jordin in her dream like a distant memory that she couldn’t quite recall. Like something on the wind, unseen and not quite heard. But more than the wind. Someone…. it was someone….
The whisper died. A dense black fog settled into her mind.
No one.
Jordin opened her eyes, aware only that she was lost. Her heart was hollow, but she couldn’t remember what might fill it. Deep might call to deep, but in that moment the deep felt only like absence.
She could feel the straw mat beneath her, surprisingly soft. Where was she? In a dark womb, carved from the rock. Not in Byzantium….
Roland’s Lair.
Jordin’s pulse surged, and she blinked as the events of the night filed into memory, pressing form and identity into her being. Capture by the four Immortals. Entering the lair. Cain’s inviting eyes. The feast, too heavy with wine….
Cain’s lover had abruptly taken him away, which had come as a relief to Jordin, not only because she had no desire to be with him, but also because she could see the possessiveness in his lover’s eyes.
Shortly after, Rislon had collected her from the table. He’d led
her up the stairs, through a labyrinth of passages, to this room, where she’d closed her eyes and let the world fall away.
Jordin sat up and stared into the darkness around her. Was she alone? She could hear no breathing in the small space. Yes, she was alone. Strangely lost. And yet home.
She was Immortal, reborn into a state of belonging she had not felt in years. She couldn’t at first remember why she’d been reborn, only that the conversion had taken her body quickly. Her mind had soon followed. Now would it consume her heart? In becoming Immortal she’d been grafted into a brood that felt like her own.
But more pricked her mind—a thorn of realization that made her cringe. She had become Immortal to save Rom.
Mattius. The virus.
Her deep sleep had momentarily stolen her memory, but now it came back with alarm.
She only had four days.
But she suddenly wasn’t clear about how she would save Rom and kill Feyn. She was going to lead Roland where? Into the Citadel through a virtual maze of underground tunnels that she and Rom had once drawn out with the Keeper. Yes. But she couldn’t quite recall the way through the labyrinth. Her mind was in a fugue state, clouded by her seroconversion.
Jordin rolled from the mat and pushed herself to her feet. She had to think! If she couldn’t remember the passage, all would be lost.
How long had she slept?
Across the room she saw the faint outline of a heavy door in the darkness, set into the stone.
The handle refused to yield. They had locked her in.
She turned back, took in the shallow cave without need for light. Nothing but the single mat on the floor. The place was a prison cell.
Where was Kaya? Had Cain taken her after all?
The idea was at once natural and deeply offensive. Unpracticed in warding off the advances of men and blossoming with Immortal
sensory passions, she would be easily wooed. But Kaya was Sovereign at her core.
With a simple faith even to surpass Jordin’s.
The thought settled over her like a dead weight. She too was loyal to Jonathan. He had loved her, and she him, in ways that few would ever know. But that love had felt more foreign with each passing day. And today….
She was cut loose of her moorings, adrift in a sea of darkness. Sovereign. Immortal. And now she was forgetting why life as a Sovereign held any appeal.
Jonathan….
The sound of a key in the lock jerked her back into the present and she spun around. A moment later, amber light filled the frame as the door swung wide to the tunnel beyond. Rislon stood in the doorway.
He tossed her a bundle of clothing. “Get dressed.”
“What time is it?”
“Midday.”
So late! “Where’s Kaya?”
“Hurry.” Any friendliness or amusement he’d shown in the wasteland had evaporated. Here in the lair, unseen tension held them in thrall. “It’s not wise to keep him waiting.”
Him
. Roland.
She stepped to one side and quickly stripped bare of her clothes, mindful of Rislon’s watchful eye. The clothing consisted of nothing more than a short black gown that hung to mid-thigh and a golden tie—to hold it closed around the waist. No shoes.
But of course Roland would be more interested in inspecting a new slave than the absurd tale of how he might win a war—from a stranger who refused to give her name, no less.
That would change the moment he recognized her.
“This way.” Rislon stepped aside so she’d have to walk ahead of him. The long tunnel was lit by a single torch. Water dripped somewhere behind them. The musky scent of wet earth filled her
nostrils. No scent of Immortals. Did they live at night and sleep during the day?
“How many live here?” she asked
No response.
The tunnel intersected another.
“To the right,” he said.
At the end of the passage was a door, which Rislon ushered her through.
She stopped, struck by the change. The larger hallway they’d entered was lit by six torches, three to each side. Unlike the arcane tunnel behind them, the stone here was covered ceiling to floor with tapestries and velvet hangings. Carpet runners, five feet wide, ran the entire length of the tunnel, ending at a majestic arched door lit by two candelabras, each holding a dozen white candles.
Jordin didn’t need to be told that the prince was beyond that door.
Her predicament suddenly struck her as impossibly surreal. How many times in the last twenty-four hours had she left one world and entered another?
Jordin took a calming breath, pulse heavy as Rislon grasped the large iron handle and pushed the door wide. And then she stepped inside the large chamber and immediately felt the air still.
Lit by a dozen candelabras, the room was filled with haunting amber, revealing every detail to her expanded sight as clearly as in the light of day. Thick purple velvet draped the walls, accented by tapestries bearing images of wolves and hawks. Old chests bound with brass bands were stacked along the back wall. Silk carpets obscured every inch of the floor, laying two and even three thick in some places, their gilt tassels flung out like the ringed fingers of trampled hands. On a side table stood a jug of wine and a plate of rare fresh fruit.