Sovereign Read online

  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.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE 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.r />
  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.

  She took all of this in at first glance in a way that only an Immortal could, with unrestrained sensory awareness. But it was Roland, the prince, who captivated her attention.

  Four stone steps covered in burgundy carpet rose to a platform on which sat a great iron chair draped in a silver pelt. Wolf. He lounged more than sat in the chair, his right elbow propped on the arm, chin cupped in his palm. His legs were encased in black leather, booted to the knee. He wore no shirt. Dark tribal tattoos of the Nomads sprawled across his thick shoulders and halfway down his arms, made stark by the paleness of his skin.

  His black hair hung devoid of braid or beads to pale shoulders strapped with the corded muscle of a warrior. Thick leather bands edged in gold wound around both wrists; three heavy chains joined at his sternum to carry a single large silver pendant embossed with a crescent moon that shone in the candlelight.

  To a Corpse he would have been fearfully magnificent. But to Immortal eyes, he was nothing less than supreme. Maker and ruler. The giver and taker of Immortality.

  He returned her rapt interest with mild boredom.

  The woman who’d passed through the main chamber lounged on a low sofa nearby, her legs folded back to one side. With one hand she stroked the lion Jordin had seen last night, laying on the carpet just below her. Rings glinted on her hand, pale quartz the color of the sky. She was adorned all in white, the only one in Roland’s Lair who seemed to wear anything other than black.

  The lion lifted its head the moment Jordin stepped in, watching her with far keener interest than either Roland or his queen. Its dull gold collar glinted in the candlelight.

  The only other person in the room was a servant, standing at the end of the side table, hands folded, her pale arms in sharp contrast to the simple black silk of her gown, so like Jordin’s own. Behind her, a thick wooden door led ostensibly deeper into the lair.

  “This is the one?” Roland said, chin in hand, dark nails as stark as his burgundy lips against that pale flesh.

  Rislon bowed his head. “Yes, my prince.”

  “The woman with no name who claims I sent her on a mission I know nothing about?”

  Jordin felt herself inexplicably drawn to the voice. To the man who’d once rescued her from destitution and trained her as a champion. Who’d chosen Immortality and by all appearances had come into his full power.

  But there was also an air of discontent about him. He had the look of a man no longer interested in his own world, driven to conquer a more significant one.

  The one Feyn controlled.

  Access to Feyn was the only advantage Jordin held, and that advantage was a slivered hope at best.

  “Do you not recognize the girl you once brought to your tribe?” she said. “I served alongside your best warriors once.”

  The words brought a wave of memory with them. Roland, her prince, as a newly made Mortal a decade ago, riding into camp, color high in his cheeks, the sky in his eyes. Dancing around the late-night fire, his braids wild down his back, a stallion of a prince among the other warriors. He had been the desire of every young Nomad girl. Roland, who happened upon her outside of camp one day in her late girlhood and asked if she was happy among his people. She had been flustered and flattered that he’d even remembered her name—what was she but an orphan girl he’d taken in as a castoff from a neighboring tribe? But then he’d noticed the sling in her hand, the pile of nearby stones, the tracks of frustrated tears on her face. He’d taught her how to fling them properly that day—no one else had thought an orphan worth the time. A year later, he set her first sword in her hand.

  She’d adored him once. But staring at him now, she could not reconcile this brooding leader with that man. The prince she’d known was gone…. and soon the Immortal he’d become would be as well.

  He stared at her. Recognition came slowly, but when it did, his entire demeanor shifted.

  He slowly lowered his arm and stood. For several beats he stared, face drawn, cautious.

  “I remember a girl I once made one of my own—only to lay down her loyalty and become Sovereign,” he said, eyes as hard as onyx set in gold.

  “Now Immortal,” she said. And then, before he could voice judgment, she added, “It was either Immortality or death. My allegiance to the one we once both served runs deep, but I see no purpose in dying for him.”

  “And yet you come to me. The one who brings death to all Sovereigns.”

  “Do I look like a Sovereign to you? I’m surprised you would use that name to describe anyone but yourself. Or Feyn, who now holds that office.”

  He ran an appraising gaze down her body. Again, she felt like little more than a slave to be inspected for worthiness. But didn’t he have the right? Roland wasn’t only prince, but her prince now.

  The thought should have repelled her. It did not.

  A finger of fear traced her spine. He was Roland, the one she’d come to kill. Yet standing before him now, the very notion felt treasonous. Insane. She could no more kill him than kill herself.

  And then it struck her: all of the Rippers had surely come to life through Roland�
��s blood, not directly through Jonathan’s blood as Roland himself had. And by extension, so had she now.

  “Come closer,” he said.

  She took a stiff step toward the center of the room.

  “Closer.”

  She hesitated and then took three more steps, forced now to look up at his face.

  Roland descended the steps with muscular fluidity. She’d known Roland in his former state as an exceedingly ruthless warrior, able to best ten men in hand-to-hand battle, perfect in his use of Mortal sense. She harbored no illusions that he was now any less ruthless or skilled. On the contrary, those arms and hands that moved with such deceptive ease would be more deadly than ever. If he drew his sword now, she might not even realize that he’d struck her until his blade was halfway through her neck.

  The thought sent her blood racing, but not out of fear.

  “If I didn’t know your kind was so opposed to killing, I might think you were here in a vain attempt to assassinate me,” he said.

  “As you see for yourself, I am Immortal. I have no compunction against killing Dark Bloods or Sovereigns, who have no hope for redemption. But I do not kill my own kind.”

  He crossed his arms and paced a step to his right. Whatever boredom had possessed him earlier was gone. The queen, Talia, watched Jordin through the veil of her elsewhere gaze, idly stroking the fur of her young lion.

  “Why have you come, beautiful girl?” she said in a soft tone that sounded more like a purr than a voice. “If not to make an attempt on the life of my prince?”

  “To give him the keys to the kingdom he desires,” Jordin said.

  “And what are these keys?”

  Jordin looked Roland squarely in the eye. “I can show him a way into the Citadel where he can take Feyn’s head from her shoulders and the ring from her hand.”

  He smiled slightly. It was not warm. “Such a bold claim.”

  “And yet you know that I, the one you yourself trained, have never lied to her prince.”

  “If you knew a way to approach Feyn, you would have used it already.”

  “Sovereigns do not possess the same skills as Immortals. Nor do they have the numbers. They are three dozen elderly and young, hiding, hungry, and hunted by both Feyn and your Rippers. Sovereign blood will soon be extinct.”