Mortal Read online

  Talus, the man who had created Legion, the virus that had stripped the world of its humanity five centuries ago, who had sworn to undo his grave offense.

  Talus, the geneticist who’d calculated the coming of a child in whose blood that same virus would revert.

  Talus, the prophet who’d established the order of Keepers to protect a single vial of blood—enough for five to wake from death and protect the boy from those forces that would seek to kill him.

  Talus, who had penned the ancient vellum by which Rom had found the boy.

  Rom glanced up once at the gathered council. Jonathan was conspicuously absent, as always, preferring to be with the people rather than deciding protocol. No amount of persuasion had changed that in him. And so the Council of Twelve was truly a council of eleven—seven Nomads, including Roland and Michael, who refused to sit, and four Keepers, including the first Corpse convert, a woman named Resia, and those two who had first joined Rom nine years ago: Triphon and the Book.

  The Book, as the aging Keeper was called, kept his long white beard unbound in ways that mystified the Nomads, who braided everything, including the manes and tails of their horses. He had, however, adopted the long, dark leathers of the Nomads, which leant him a surprising air of youth despite the snowy white of every hair on his head and chin. In fact, the man had seemed to thrive in the wilderness, though Rom knew it had less to do with the Nomadic lifestyle and more to do with the new blood flowing through his veins since having experienced, at last, the thing he had hoped for all his life: the true life of Jonathan’s blood.

  Triphon, sitting next to him, had grown his beard in recent years along with his hair. Both were braided, tied with the threads of the warrior. Red, for the Corpse kill. Black, for prowess in the games. He rarely wore the long coats of the Nomads, having never learned the patience for the elaborate beading and time-consuming needle and leatherwork with which each fighter distinguished him- or herself, but had adopted the simple leggings and hooded tunics that served all Nomads well—particularly in a fight.

  Michael bore signs of fatigue, if only in the scowl that curled the corner of her mouth. Council proceedings were well known to try Michael’s patience. As did Triphon’s stares.

  Rom turned his attention to Roland. The Nomad stood, arms crossed, beside his sister. No one would have guessed by the set of his jaw that he had gone nearly three days on so little sleep. Or that the prince with the wealth of beads in his hair and such an eye for artistry was as brutal a warrior as any Rom had ever seen.

  The Nomadic Prince slid him an unwavering gaze.

  “You say there were four of them?” Rom said.

  “Five.”

  “All as strong?”

  “Except for the one behind the bar.”

  “And they’re now dead.”

  “They were always dead. Now they’re ash.”

  So he’d burned them in Nomadic custom. If the Nomads had their way, every Corpse on earth would be better turned to ash than turned to life—a sentiment Rom could only barely understand.

  “Weapons?”

  “Swords, axes, knives. Heavy steel.” Roland withdrew a twelve-inch bowie knife from behind his back and tossed it at Rom, who deftly plucked it from the air. The butt was black steel, as was the blade, polished so that it glistened like oil in the torchlight.

  He ran his finger along the razor edge. It was a beautiful weapon. “Have you ever seen a knife like this?”

  “I’ve seen too many blades to count. But never one like this.”

  Rom studied the Corpse. It glared back with coal-dark eyes, unflinching. Armor covered his torso, thighs, and arms with overlapping flaps that allowed for movement. Black leather, a quarter-inch thick, crafted to stop a blade. His boots rose to his knees, steel tipped with soles an inch thick. His hair was long and course, twisted in dreadlocks; his jaw was obviously swollen, but otherwise his features were quite refined despite his size. This was no mere thug.

  Mortals had encountered elite guard before—splinter groups whose roots they’d never been able to properly trace to a single source. They’d known that forces would rise against them to challenge Jonathan’s sovereignty. But while the warrior before them was obviously battle trained and as fine a specimen of power and strength as any Rom had seen, Roland had only encountered five of them. Where were the rest?

  And then there was the question of what the warrior was. The strange scent the man emitted brought a slight shudder to Rom’s nerves.

  “What do you make of it?” Rom asked, glancing at Roland.

  They all knew what he was talking about.

  “I can’t be sure.”

  “It’s emotion,” Triphon said.

  “Impossible,” one of the ranking Nomads, named Seriph, said. “If he were Mortal, we wouldn’t be able to smell him.”

  “He may not be Mortal, but he doesn’t smell like any Corpse I’ve met,” Triphon said. “How can he be Corpse with that scent?”

  “He’s either Corpse or Mortal. There’s nothing between.”

  “We know what Corpses smell like. We don’t know what Mortals smell like.”

  “You’re suggesting that we smell like that? Death and these other odors mixed into that… nasty bouquet?”

  “I’m saying we don’t know.”

  Rom lifted his hand. “Enough.” He turned to Roland. “What’s your best guess, Roland?”

  “Ask the alchemist. This is a wizard’s doing.”

  Roland had never been keen on alchemy, preferring instead nature’s way of distilling purity through the generations. Nomads, once homogenous by necessity, considered themselves especially pure-blooded now that they were bound by Jonathan’s blood. This in contrast to the Keepers, who were all of varied descent except for the one thing they had in common: that they were changed from Corpse to Mortal by the same blood.

  “I’m asking you,” Rom pressed. “You saw them, fought them, killed them. You have the sharpest instincts here.”

  Roland turned an icy gaze on the prisoner and said in a low tone: “This is what I know. He is an enemy who took one of my men. His stench of death is far deeper than any Corpse. If this new scent is life, then it’s the work of an alchemist wizard. The real question is how many of them exist and under what authority.”

  Rom nodded. “What do you say, Book?”

  The ancient Keeper turned his eyes from the prisoner to Roland. He dipped his head. “I would say you are right. Roland has good instincts.”

  The man had grown quite stoic this past year as Jonathan approached his maturity, keeping mostly to the task of monitoring the steady change in the boy’s blood and advising the council like a father of few words. All that mattered to him was that Jonathan fulfill the promise of the Keepers who came before him. That his blood change the world. It was the boy’s destiny, and seeing it fulfilled was his.

  Rom shared the old Keeper’s resolve to the end.

  He nodded at Roland. “Remove his gag.”

  The Nomad stepped behind the prisoner, slid the knotted cloth up, and jerked the gag free.

  The Corpse spat blood onto the ground, not in apparent disgust so much as to clear his mouth. A tooth skittered across the dusty stone, landing near Triphon’s foot.

  His friend glanced at Rom, then bent and picked it up. Sniffed it. Flipped it back toward the prisoner with a flick of his thumb.

  “Vanilla,” he said.

  “Vanilla?”

  Triphon shrugged. “That’s what it smells like to me. Vanilla pudding. There’s plenty of death mixed in there, but I’m thinking vanilla.”

  Rom suppressed the slight turn of a smile. Triphon, the man of bold words and no guile, loved by all. Except maybe Michael.

  “It’s from a vanilla plug,” the prisoner said.

  His words robbed the room of sound. It was amazing the man could speak so well past his swollen jaw—obviously broken. Rom wasn’t sure how to follow such a statement. Vanilla plugs were common in these parts, chewed to clean
teeth and freshen stale breath. But to hear a Corpse with dark eyes who carried a knife the length of Rom’s forearm make this his first confession struck him as strange.

  “What’s your name?” he said.

  The prisoner stared without answering.

  Mortals could be quite persuasive and seductive, a trait that had grown with their abilities to perceive others in unique ways. Seduction began with understanding the needs, fears, and longings of another. Jonathan’s blood had afforded them heightened perception of all of these.

  New scents drifted off the prisoner, mitigated by one far more familiar: fear. Respect motivated by fear. Honor, bound to that same fear. The prisoner was obviously loyal. Breaking him would be difficult.

  “You’re in a tough position,” Rom said gently. “I recognize that there are many things you’re not free to tell me. But some things you are, and I would know them. You should know that we have no intention of torturing you because we already know you won’t break.”

  Immediately the thin scent of fear began to ebb. The stench of death did not.

  “We know you are dead. Do you know that, my friend?”

  The man swallowed once, opened his mouth as if to speak, closed it, and then did speak.

  “Corpses are dead,” he said. “I am not a Corpse.”

  Rom paused. “Are you saying you’re Mortal? Because you smell like death.”

  “I’m not Mortal. And I’m not a Corpse.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “I’m human, made by my master. Alive.”

  “Really. And who is your master?”

  “Saric.”

  The name hung in the air.

  “Saric’s dead,” Triphon said, his voice hard.

  “Saric… is alive,” the Corpse said. “A Dark Blood. My maker. Fully alive, as I am fully alive.”

  Cold prickled along Rom’s arms. Impossible. He glanced at the old Keeper, whose eyes had widened in shock.

  He rounded on the Corpse. “Saric made you? No. You mean he changed you with his alchemy.”

  “Wizards,” Roland muttered.

  “Saric gave me life, as he has given all Dark Bloods life.”

  “Dark Bloods.”

  “Those made in his image, resurrected from death to know full life.”

  “Sacrilege!” Zara, one of the Nomadic elders, cried. “Only Jonathan can give life.”

  Even Mortals who brought Corpses to life with the blood from their veins—a discovery of the last six months—could do so only because their own blood came from Jonathan. Unless Saric had taken Jonathan’s blood… But that wasn’t possible. This was a different kind of life entirely.

  “How many has Saric given ‘life’ to?” Rom said carefully.

  The Dark Blood nodded once, eyes steady. “Three thousand.”

  A faint but distinct collective gasp filled the ruined chamber.

  “Three thousand?” Triphon said. “All like him?”

  “Roughly,” the Dark Blood said. “And others who are not warriors like me.”

  Triphon was on his feet. “He’s lying!”

  “Sit!” Rom ordered. Roland’s hand fell on Michael’s wrist where it had reached toward her sword.

  Triphon slowly lowered back down to his seat.

  So the threat they had always feared had finally surfaced. But Rom refused to allow fear to gain a foothold among his council. For nine years they had protected Jonathan with regular communication from Rowan, Jonathan’s Regent and acting Sovereign. Never once had Rowan spoken of any true threat. And Rom would not abide any threat to him now. In eight days, Jonathan would claim the Sovereign office.

  Anything else was unthinkable.

  He turned to Roland. “Three thousand. Is that a problem?”

  The Nomadic Prince answered deliberately. “It would be far less of a problem if we had known and acted sooner.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “If you’re asking if we can handle three thousand of these in direct confrontation, the answer is yes. But it would be foolish of us to think the threat doesn’t go deeper into the Order.”

  “If there was a threat in the Order, Rowan would know.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Rom let it go. To the Dark Blood, he said: “Where is Saric now?”

  “Where he can’t be found.”

  “What is your name?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Do you feel fear?”

  The Corpse shrugged.

  “And hatred?”

  “All men hate their enemies.”

  And yet Corpses did not feel hatred, only fear.

  “Sorrow?”

  “When it is fitting.”

  “Is it fitting now?”

  The man slowly dipped his head. “My mate will weep when I fail to return.”

  Rom felt a strange prick of pity for the man. Hatred and sorrow, then. These were two of the new scents they smelled. Which was which, he wasn’t sure.

  “Joy?” the Book said from across the room.

  “None today.”

  “It’s a lie,” Seriph said. “Only Mortals feel these emotions he’s mimicking.”

  “Hold your tongue, Seriph.”

  Could it be possible Saric brought these emotions to life?

  “What are your orders?”

  “To seek any who threaten our Maker.”

  “To what end?”

  “To destroy,” the Dark Blood said.

  “And now that you’ve seen us in action, do you think you can?”

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “Do you know how many we are?”

  “No.”

  “And yet you believe you can destroy us. Why?”

  “Because only Saric can prevail.”

  “Jonathan has already prevailed!” Zara snapped.

  Without warning, Roland strode to the prisoner and slammed his fist into the man’s temple. The Dark Blood slumped in his seat, unconscious.

  Silence.

  He shot Zara an angry glare and turned to face Rom. “He’s heard far too much.”

  “Removing him from the room might have been easier,” Rom said.

  “Killing him would have been easier.”

  “We don’t kill Corpses out of hand.”

  “We kill any enemy who stand in Jonathan’s way. And this enemy has given us all the information he can.”

  “I haven’t agreed to kill him.”

  “He’s unclean, full of death. We have no choice but to kill him rather than risk any harm to Jonathan. No unclean thing among us, isn’t that your own edict?”

  “It is, but that doesn’t mean we just kill him!”

  “And what would you propose? That we keep him in chains forever?”

  Rom had already considered the issue and not landed on an answer. They had never allowed a Corpse to dwell among them except those who came to be brought to life. Separation from Corpses at all costs was a hard and fast law that he himself had argued for as the time of Jonathan’s ascension drew near.

  “Kill him or not,” Triphon said, standing, “we have to acknowledge that if Saric’s really alive and managed to make three thousand of these, we have a problem.”

  Rom turned away, picked up the wineskin sitting upon the altar step, uncorked it, drank deep.

  Saric… alive. Was it even possible? And if it was, could he have fashioned a force of Corpses to some kind of life—and enough of them to take the Citadel by force?

  Eight days. He would not be pulled into direct conflict with Saric with the end so close.

  He handed the skin to Triphon and faced the council.

  “This changes nothing. We do not alter course. We remain sequestered here and deliver Jonathan to the Citadel on the day of his inauguration. If we are challenged we will accept that challenge, but we won’t go seeking it. We can’t risk exposure before Jonathan assumes power.”

  “What about after?”

  “Then he’ll decide how to deal with
Saric.”

  “Jonathan decide?” Seriph muttered. “The boy’s a carrier of life and rightful Sovereign, but let’s make no mistake. He’s not a leader.”

  “Silence!” Rom thundered. His voice echoed through the chamber. “Speak one more word and I will personally put you in chains for a week!”

  Seriph shifted his gaze away in deference.

  “Seriph misspoke,” Roland said, pacing to his right. “But we can’t ignore the popular call for a more proactive way to bring Jonathan—and Mortals—to power.”

  “If you mean your zealots, I want nothing of it,” Rom said.

  “You need to know their number is growing. And they grow more convinced.”

  “Of what?”

  “That Jonathan was always meant as a figurehead, not a leader. That he will begin the new kingdom as foretold, but that he need not necessarily rule it.”

  “He will be Sovereign,” Rom gritted out. “And Sovereigns rule.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Don’t tell me you give them any credence.”

  “I serve the Mortal life with my own, and Jonathan with the life of every Nomad. But to dismiss the sentiments of other Mortals who have sworn to protect Jonathan is dangerous. Jonathan has brought us life and we must protect it at all costs.”

  “We will protect him. As our Sovereign.”

  “Yes, of course. Meanwhile, a more proactive approach to eliminating any threat presented by Saric and these Dark Bloods”—he jutted his chin in the direction of the slumped prisoner—“might be the best way to ensure that he does become Sovereign. We should at least consider the option now, while we have it.”

  “What? Ride into Byzantium and take the Citadel by force?”

  Roland shrugged. “Whatever is required to ensure Jonathan’s ascension.”

  “We will not bathe his rise to power in blood unless our hand is forced,” Rom said.

  “No, of course not,” Roland said with a slight dip of his head. Ever the warrior, ever the statesman. “In the meantime, I expect that we kill this Dark Blood.”

  Rom considered him, then glanced at each of the council members in turn, landing, at last, on his truest friend.

  “Triphon,” he said. “Find Jonathan. He’s our Sovereign. Let him decide.”