Sovereign Page 3

  She turned away.

  Beyond the ill-fitted door at the narrow chamber opening, the passage widened into a series of rooms that led eventually to the great chamber itself. There, Rom, the Keeper, and Jordin herself had often recited the teachings of Jonathan and the history of the blood, speaking in impassioned tones and sometimes with tears until the forms of those sitting in the subterranean theater’s stone seats blurred before them. They did it for the sake of the surviving seroconverts—those who had taken the Sovereign blood and joined them—with increasing urgency as their numbers had dwindled. But they also did it to remember and cling to hope.

  They called the labyrinth of these caverns that had become their home in the last year the Sanctuary. A place of refuge and relative safety. Little of the electrical wiring had survived the centuries, though many of its heavy tapestries and a few relics, including the random weapon and a small collection of books, had. It had been a crypt in ancient times—one expanded and fortified into a hideout during the Zealot Wars that had nearly decimated the world’s population five hundred years earlier—a history attested to when the Keeper found a cache of ancient records in one of the smaller chambers. In similar fashion, the remaining Sovereigns had come here to protect and reaffirm the life within them, in these ancient arched passages. And yet, Jordin could not help but remember that it had once been a house of the dead. Could not help but notice the abandoned personal effects of the newly deceased—a cloak, a pair of shoes, the wall of amulets. Or the fact that the shelves they were relegated to, like the altar Rom paced before now, had once been the final bed of a true corpse.

  But if the thought wore on her, it wore more on Rom.

  Though only thirty-nine years of age, the stress of living under oppression these last six years had reduced Rom to a shadow of his former self. He was haggard, with unshaven stubble on his cheeks and chin, graying hair swept back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He wore moccasins and soft leather breeches that rarely required cleaning—water was too precious to waste on such niceties. His stained tan tunic hung on a frame more wiry and less broad than it had once been. As the elder between them, Rom had assumed the position of primary spiritual leader, leaving Jordin to contend with the Herculean task of keeping their dwindling race alive beneath the city.

  An undertaking that would now prove nearly impossible.

  Triphon had played an invaluable role—other than Jordin and Rom, he was the last of twenty trained fighters who had served the Sovereigns over the last six years. All the others had been pedestrian Corpses seroconverted through the injection of Sovereign blood. Enlightened, yes. But not fighters.

  Watching Rom now, Jordin held her tongue, but her mind was not silent. She knew that bitterness gnawed at the edge of her heart, but she couldn’t afford to demonstrate any emotion raging in it. How Rom could be so stoic in such desperate times, she didn’t know. His passivity would end in death. It was only a matter of time.

  Rom stopped before the altar, reached out, and touched Triphon’s amulet.

  “He made a way for you,” Rom said. “It’s a sign.”

  “He’s dead,” Jordin corrected him. “As I would be if not for dumb chance.” She moved toward the altar, her eyes misted as much in frustration as grief. “And the Dark Bloods wouldn’t have killed me without ripping me to shreds first. Or worse.”

  “I’m not speaking about Triphon.”

  “Then who? The Immortals?” Jordin spat to the side. “They’re as much our enemies as Feyn’s monsters.”

  “Jonathan,” Rom said.

  A year ago, when the Sovereigns still numbered three hundred, Jordin would have readily agreed. She too had once attributed every turn of fortune to Jonathan’s ever-watchful eye from beyond the grave.

  But surety had evaporated with the passing of each Sovereign life—and all but abandoned her a month ago with the passing of the old Keeper whom they had called “the Book.”

  “This wasn’t the Maker’s hand,” she said. “We were on the edge of the city—the Immortals could smell a kill and came in for it. If not for the Dark Bloods, they would have slaughtered me as well.”

  Rom drew the tips of his fingers along the altar’s edge and lifted his eyes to meet hers. “And yet here you stand. Alive.”

  “And Triphon is dead.” She turned her head away, blinking at the torch flame on the wall.

  “Then honor his death. As you did Jonathan’s. You were the first to take his blood. Do I hear regret in your voice?”

  She hesitated. Too long. There was no hiding from Rom. With the Book’s passing Rom had taken his place as Keeper—the last in a line of unyielding believers who’d given their lives over the centuries to see the day of salvation and life finally come. How could he remain so unshaken?

  “No,” she said, turning to him. “Not even you can pretend our end isn’t near. We haven’t seen a single sign of Jonathan’s purpose. He gave us this Sovereign life—why? Only to see us die? What are we now but a cloistered relic of Jonathan’s blood? We’re facing extinction! The few left are mostly old and children. I can’t hold the Dark Bloods off by myself for long. Open your eyes, Rom. It’s only a matter of time—”

  “Enough!” The echo of his voice ricocheted off the walls. Rom stood like stone, his emerald eyes blazing. “You loved him once. And now you doubt?”

  “How dare you question my loyalty?”

  “Then demonstrate it. Hold fast. The morale of the others depends on it. I was with Jonathan when he was a child. I watched him grow into a warrior. I heard him speak and saw him love before you knew he existed. You weren’t the only one who wept when he died. I’ll never deny the awakening I found by taking his blood.”

  Rom’s gaze remained unflinching, but his voice softened. “He’ll show us a way, Jordin. However mysterious, however yet unknown, Jonathan isn’t finished. And by the Maker, he’s not dead.”

  “No, he lives in our blood. But that too may soon be wasted on the ground.”

  Without a word, he took her elbow and guided her over to the far side of the chamber. There, on a carved shelf eerily sized just right for a child, stood a small, potted tree. Above it, a fissure through the bedrock allowed a sliver of light to reach the cavern during the day.

  “What do you see?”

  “Your tree,” she said.

  “Life where there should be none. Was there a tree at the head of Jonathan’s grave when we planted him in the ground?”

  She knew where he was going. “No,” she said quietly.

  “No. And yet you saw the large acacia tree at the head of Jonathan’s grave when we last visited, two years ago. You fell down by its roots and wept. It was the tree of life, you said.”

  She recalled the day clearly. There were no other acacia trees on the bluff—just the one. Seeing the tree over his grave, she’d suddenly been sure: Jonathan was alive. Not only in their blood, but in person. Somehow he lived and was soon to show himself and finally give them the abundant life that would allow them to crush the Dark Bloods and put the Immortals to shame.

  How much her sentiments had changed in the last year.

  “Two years ago,” she said. “We numbered in the hundreds then. Now we are only thirty-six.”

  “And we may only be one before we know the path, but that doesn’t mean there is no path. Jonathan didn’t die in vain—you, the one he loved the most, should know that. See to it that you don’t mock the blood in your own veins, Jordin. He chose you. Have you forgotten so easily?”

  “He chose us all….”

  Rom’s voice held a slight tremor. “I found him, I chose him, I served him and fought for him. But he chose you. And one day Jonathan will come to you and reveal himself in a way only you will understand.”

  His words washed over Jordin like warm water, quieting her heart…. and then filled her with shame and regret for her doubt.

  And yet, even now she couldn’t dismiss that doubt entirely. Third-hand rumors of strange happenings had filtered in
from the wastelands for years. Storms where there should be none; a mysterious figure wandering the desert like a ghost, bringing food and water to starving Corpses. If such a ghost existed, it seemed to have no interest in the cause of saving Sovereigns.

  Jonathan, my love, where have you gone? Tears filled her eyes. Why did you leave us?

  There was an urgent knock on the ancient door. Word had no doubt reached the rest of the council—or what remained of it. A month ago they’d been seven. With the Book’s passing, only six. Now, absent Triphon, only three remained alongside Rom and Jordin, and only two of those had known Jonathan before his death.

  Gamil, made Sovereign in the days immediately following Jonathan’s death, had once been a Nomad like Jordin, living under Roland’s authority. He was one of the precious few Nomads who’d chosen this new life over loyalty to the Immortal Prince. Though not an alchemist, he was well trained in the ways of patching wounds and addressing illness, and so he had acted these years as their physician.

  Adah had once been Rom’s servant and cook. She now oversaw all matters related to their food and housing. She ruled the underground like a mother hen, with wisdom that extended far beyond her domestic duties.

  And then there was Mattius, an alchemist recruited and turned Sovereign by the Book himself two years earlier. The eldest among them at fifty-nine, he was the only council member to not have known Jonathan. But his ardent loyalty to the blood that had brought him life along with his deep alchemy—in ways that surpassed even the Book, the Keeper had claimed—had made him a valuable addition to the leadership.

  “Come,” Rom said.

  They entered like three ships making harbor, gliding in long robes that had once been white, stoic in the way of Sovereign leaders, their expressions quieted of whatever emotion stirred beneath. Having faced so much death, there would be no display of grief or anguish, even over Triphon.

  She had accepted—even adopted, to an extent—the detached demeanor of their ways. Of this new, contemplative life as it should have been. But more often of late, it had only served to remind her of her own dead life before Jonathan’s blood had awakened them to the full, rampant emotion of Mortality. Tonight, would Roland’s Immortals celebrate as they all had once with Jonathan, dancing and chanting into the night around their fires? While intuition told her she had something more now than in those wild days, a part of her wondered if she had not also lost something.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly,” Rom said, stepping past her.

  Adah glanced around the chamber. “Where’s Triphon?” Her gaze came to rest on Jordin. “Please tell me you brought the rice.”

  They didn’t know.

  She found herself glancing in the direction of the altar but didn’t allow herself to look at the bloody amulet on it. “We ran into Dark Bloods,” she said, turning back. “Triphon is dead. If not for Jonathan’s intervention, I would be as well.” She could feel Rom’s eyes on her, though she did not meet them.

  For several breaths no one spoke. Scant years ago, the news might have caused them to fall to their knees and weep. But now…. what was death, but the order of another day? They stared, fighting, she knew, the same bitterness that had taken deep root in her own mind.

  Gamil finally approached the altar. He touched the amulet gingerly, followed by Adah, then Mattius. In hours to come, the door to the chamber would be laid open to the others, who would come to express their sorrow. But for now they must decide what to say to those who had placed trust in their leaders.

  “He died quickly,” Jordin said. “A single blow.”

  “You call this Jonathan’s intervention?” Gamil said.

  I don’t know what to call any of this.

  “No. I call it his doing that I’m still alive.”

  Adah turned, robe swirling. “We’ll be out of food in two days. We can’t go on like this, Rom. The children need protein and starch. They’re starving in their beds, under orders not to get up and expend unnecessary energy. And the older ones—Celinda, Rojert, Mekar—I have more than ten aged souls who will be too weak to walk if we delay any longer. This Sanctuary will become our grave.”

  “Ironic,” Jordin heard herself murmur.

  “Make the food stretch,” Rom said, ignoring her. “Jordin and I will get the rice.”

  “When? These missions are clearly far too dangerous now.”

  “Tonight,” Jordin said. “The Dark Bloods around the warehouse are most likely dead at the hands of the Immortals who saved me. Either way, they won’t expect us to return tonight.”

  “Immortals?” Gamil said. “Why would they save you? These are the same hosts of hell who slaughtered so many of us a year ago and now keep us trapped in the city.”

  “They didn’t mean to save me. But I can guarantee you they made quick work of the Bloods that had me surrounded.” She gave a curt nod.

  “We can’t afford to lose both of you.”

  “Then Rom stays and you come with me. You heard Adah. We need the rice.”

  “We need to get out of the city while the elderly can still walk,” Adah objected.

  Rom said in an even tone, “We’ve been over this before. The Immortals hold the wastelands to the north, south, east, and west. They’ll smell us from miles away and hunt us down in the open. We have no choice but to stay deep, where our scent is masked by the city above us. Leaving isn’t an option.”

  “I say we stand a better chance begging for mercy than being starved out here.” Adah pointed a finger toward the chamber door and the chambers beyond. “Have you seen the state of those who remain? Please, we can’t sit here and allow what’s left of our kind to die. We do nothing here but waste away.”

  “I understand your concern, Adah. But we have done what we as a council agreed to be Jonathan’s will since his passing. He will make a way; we have no choice but to stand fast.”

  “Adah’s right,” Gamil said. “We have fewer than ten able bodies who might hold a sword, none of them with any fighting skills. If we stay, we will die. We’ve done as we thought Jonathan willed, but now it’s only a matter of time before the Dark Bloods snuff us out. We have to protect the blood that runs in our veins. Jonathan came to us for a purpose, and that blood is his legacy.”

  Rom looked at Jordin for support.

  She studied them, noting Mattius’s silence. The older man with graying hair in his neatly trimmed beard wore an unyielding stare. Before the Book’s passing, the pair of alchemists had been inseparable, at work day and night with their acolytes. They would bring life to all Corpses in one fell swoop, they had said. Jordin had placed no faith in such a drastic measure—nor did she want anything to do with involuntary conversions between the species. Sovereigns converted through choice, not force. But she had held her tongue in the face of desperation and missing answers.

  “Rom’s right. We stand no chance of survival in the wastelands—Roland’s set on ridding the world of us, we all know that much. We’re hunted through the city and out of hiding places. Our only option is to stay the course.”

  “To what end? Death? That isn’t the worst of our fate. If we’re found out—”

  “Then we appeal to Feyn,” Rom said.

  Their calmness, so tenaciously held in place, visibly slipped. Gamil openly blanched.

  But of course he did. How Rom could place any hope on the ruler who’d issued an edict condemning their kind was a mystery to Jordin. They had argued about it before, and the outcome was always the same. Rom had tricked her into drinking a portion of the ancient blood fifteen years earlier; she’d tasted true life for but a day, but that ancient blood still ran somewhere in her veins. There was not only hope for her, he insisted—she might very well be the key to their survival.

  Jonathan had made a pact with her, Rom said. Was that not a sign? He wanted her to be Sovereign of the world, even as a Dark Blood. Never mind that the same pact had ended in Jonathan’s death at the end of Saric’s sword.

  Feyn, Saric—they had bee
n Jonathan’s greatest enemies and were, by extension, theirs as well. Jordin would kill either of them without a second thought if ever given the opportunity, no matter what Rom said.

  Adah sighed, shook her head. “From six hundred to thirty-six, and you still speak the same words. You’re an obstinate fool, Rom.”

  He nodded. “Perhaps. But I am Jonathan’s fool. I always have been and always will be.”

  “Soon to be a dead fool.” Adah alone had the right to speak in such terms to Rom, and no one made any attempt to correct her.

  Silence settled over them. There was little more to be said in such desperate straits. Triphon’s amulet lay bloody on the altar, a portent of what awaited them all. There was never an end to discussions like these, both in the council and among the surviving body. In the end, they always ended the same…. in silence.

  “Jordin, your precognition didn’t lend any assistance?” Rom suddenly asked.

  “No.”

  The gift they’d presumably been given by Jonathan and expected to strengthen had only weakened with each passing year. In the beginning they might have been able to anticipate an opponent’s move moments before it happened, allowing them to sidestep the swipe of a sword or duck out of sight before being seen. But these days the uncanny ability presented itself sporadically, as if it had a will of its own. What they had first heralded as a great advantage now made a mockery of them.

  Was Jonathan abandoning the very blood in their veins? Rom had called out her doubt, told her to hold fast—to what?

  If only she could do something, take matters into her own hands. But reduced to such numbers, hungry, trapped, the only options before any of them were insane.

  “There is another way.”

  As one, they looked at Mattius the alchemist, as much for the fact that he had finally spoken as for the quiet in his voice.

  “A way to preserve Sovereign blood as Jonathan intended without danger to our kind.”