Mortal Page 5

  Rowan stood frozen, eyes wide with recognition, face as white as the silk on the floor. The room was utterly still.

  And then that one name, whispered by Rowan for all to hear in the perfect silence.

  “Feyn!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JORDIN SIRANA PASSED THROUGH CAMP like One Who Is Not Seen. It was the name her companions had given her, growing up, for her uncanny ability to go practically unnoticed.

  She was smaller framed than the other fighters. In a camp full of ornately adorned Nomads, the eye did not notice the simple russet of her tunic and brown leggings… until they saw the braids bound with so much red as to appear dipped in blood.

  Her father had been a deserter of the Nomadic camp in northern Europa, one who left the wilderness for Order—a stigma passed on to her and her mother, who had died on a hunt less than a year later. The tribe no longer wanted the motherless child of a deserter and had offered her up at the Gathering that year. Had Roland not approved of her adoption, she would have been left to survive on her own or die. Thin chances for a child of six.

  What had once been seen as shortcomings made her who she was today: a fierce warrior recognized as such by all the elders, including Roland himself. A young woman of uncompromising character, whose many days hunting alone and sparring larger opponents had gained her a reputation for speed and deadly accuracy.

  She didn’t speak much. She didn’t tell stories about the hunt or show off her kill the way the others did. She wasn’t the first to challenge an opponent at the games, nor did she quickly raise her fists in victory.

  A warrior without pretension was unencumbered by distraction. Little escaped her observation. Like the fact that Roland’s and Michael’s horses were not only back before dawn, but lathered with sweat. Like the fact that four hours later, the smoke of the fire of Adah, who cooked for Rom, still coiled in wisps thin enough only to keep the fire alive before cooking the hot first meal of the day.

  Whatever news Roland had returned with in such a hurry had stolen Rom’s appetite.

  And now they were frantically calling for Jonathan. She could hear their voices sounding through the camp. They needed him urgently.

  Why?

  Triphon, meanwhile, had come directly to her instead.

  “Will you find him?”

  “Yes.”

  She was the unspoken guardian of his side, the one who knew, always, where to find the Sovereign of the world.

  Jordin strode on silent feet through the camp, past Rhoda the blacksmith’s yurt—the dwelling of the Nomad.

  Here, the broad Seyala Valley narrowed between the cliff and the rising foothills. She glanced up, just making out the familiar sight of the scout on the hill above the camp. From there, the watch could see any sign of movement in the valley below and the plateau beyond.

  She jogged down toward the smaller river branch that passed on the far side of camp. Several men and women were washing clothes, utensils, children, themselves—their songs carrying downstream like soapsuds. She waded across and hurried up the hill opposite the ruins, only pausing when she’d reached the top of the scrubby knoll. From here she had perfect vantage to make out the bullish form of Triphon passing through camp in his own search for the young Sovereign. Wasted effort, she thought, but then, you could never be absolutely certain with Jonathan.

  She knew this: Jonathan was rarely where many thought he was supposed to be. And where they assumed he would not be, he usually was.

  Beyond the rocky knoll there was a place where the hill leveled out against the rising cliff face, where children often went to play out of sight of their parents and lovers met far beyond the reach of campfires at night.

  Jordin crested the edge of the hill and saw them. Five children, playing knuckle-sticks. And with them was Jonathan, as she’d guessed, having overheard the children’s plans for the game earlier.

  He was sitting cross-legged on the scrubby grass, dust on his pants and boots. He had changed so much from the boy with the limp who had come to them nine years ago when Jordin herself was nearly ten, just after her mother had died. He was now a rangy young man two heads taller than she, with a strong neck and broadening shoulders, and hands that played the Nomadic lyre as easily as they wielded a sword. He had his knife out and was just blowing the dust off a new carved game piece when he saw her and smiled.

  She returned his smile with her own and quickened her stride, easily concealing her gladness at having found him. Again.

  Jonathan. The man who gazed at her differently than the way he looked at other women. The man who bowed his head when they came to tap his blood as if he was a well. She wanted to take him away every time the Keeper came looking for him.

  “Jordin, come play!” one of the children said. “Jonathan’s making a second set!”

  “Oh?” she said, dropping down to the ground beside them.

  “What do you think?” Jonathan said, handing her the piece. It was the length of a man’s hand, cylindrical in shape.

  “I think it looks like…” She paused, taking in the rough carving of the hair, pulled back. The figure was standing on a stone to make her the same height as the others. She glanced up at Jonathan. “Like me.”

  “It is you!” one of the children crowed. “And here are Michael and Roland!”

  She let out a soft laugh as she glanced at Jonathan, whose braids had fallen into his face.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t make Triphon.”

  “The piece would be too tall,” Jonathan said with a wry smile.

  “He’s calling for you. The council needs you. It seems to be urgent.”

  “Urgent? Isn’t it always?”

  “I think this is different.”

  Jonathan looked down at the knife in his hand, nodded once, and got to his feet, extending his hand to help her up.

  “Don’t go!” one of the boys said.

  “I’ll be back. Promise.”

  Jonathan took her hand and led her from the children, then released it and helped her down a short drop. He’d never been reserved about showing affection, but there was something more to the way his hand had held hers of late. She had wondered each time, afraid to ask his intentions, afraid that what she dared hope might be crushed with a simple word that he was only showing her friendship. Could he feel the surge of her pulse when he touched her fingers? Hear the shortening of her breath?

  They didn’t speak as they descended toward camp. There was no need to fill the comfortable silence between them; in this way they were much alike.

  Those bathing and washing clothes got to their feet as they crossed the river, several of them coming to greet him, reaching for his hand.

  “Jonathan,” they murmured, lowering their heads.

  He let them. He always let them, as they took his hand, their fingers touching the vein along his wrist—an acknowledgment of the life that flowed through it. A few, an older woman among them, reached up with aging fingers, to touch his neck.

  And then they went on, along the edge of camp—passing through it would take far too much time. They slowed again as those working out behind their yurts came to touch him, to murmur his name. Even then some, seeing him, hurried into their tents and came out with bits of meat, a cup of wine, mare’s milk. He took them all, drinking the milk, tearing into the meat with a gusto that made those watching nod approval, tossing back the wine as expected.

  It had never been a mystery to Jordin why he kept to the fringe of camp when he could. It wasn’t just for his sake—because he wouldn’t do anything other than accept each of their gifts with grace, no matter how tedious—but for their sake, because they could not see him without feeling compelled to thank him for the vast gifts of Mortal life. For the acute perception that served them so well in every hunt. For the wild existence they celebrated in everything they did from the riot of color in their clothes to the beat of their drums and strength of their wine at night. All of which they craved and consumed with abandon.

/>   All of which Jonathan—and Jordin, too—enjoyed as much outside camp as within it. More.

  They came to the temple ruins from the side. Above the stone stairs, the ancient pillars opened to the sky. The vaulted ceiling that had once covered them had long ago caved in and been carted away by scavengers. It had been a basilica at one time, before the time of Order, when men knew the Maker as another name: God.

  In the face of the lone stone beam that bridged the two columns at the front of the courtyard, Rom had chiseled the creed by which all Mortals lived: The Glory of the Maker is Man Fully Alive. They said it had first been spoken by an ancient saint named Irenaeus during the second century of Chaos, twenty-three hundred years ago.

  Today, the stone corners were broken away and tiny plants grew in the cracks between each step, but every time Jordin mounted these stairs her skin prickled. In the sanctum of this temple called Bahar—a name she was once told meant “Spring of Life”—she had come into Mortality on the high platform without mother or father to clasp her afterward.

  It had been Jonathan who’d kissed her and welcomed her to life with the stent still in his arm.

  They passed through the long corridor of pillars to the inner sanctum at the back, pulling open the double doors together and entering without a word.

  The smell assaulted her without warning and she jerked back. Jonathan, too, hesitated.

  Stench of Corpse.

  Of something more…

  Ten heads had turned, Roland, Michael, Rom, and the strange old Keeper among them. On the wide aisle before the altar, a large and very pale man slumped in a chair. Was that what she smelled? He looked like a Corpse. He was half again as tall as she, his tangled and unkempt hair hanging like ropes from his head. Her hackles raised at the sight of him.

  Rom hurried forward to meet them as the others got to their feet. Roland and Michael were already standing.

  “Jonathan,” Rom said. He lowered his head.

  “Who do I smell?” Jonathan said.

  “That’s the Corpse Roland and Michael brought back last night.” His jaw was tight. “We need a decision from you.”

  Jonathan stared at the Corpse, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing slightly as he swallowed.

  “Please.”

  Rom led Jonathan to the front of the chamber.

  Jordin faded back toward the last row of stone benches, to stand on the edge of a fringed rug. Something was wrong about the Corpse, obvious by the sidelong glance of Siphus, the dart of Zara’s eyes from Roland to Rom and back. The set of Roland’s jaw.

  Behind her, the doors opened and Triphon burst into the room. One of the doors slammed on the ancient hinges. The stained glass shuddered in the nearby window. The Corpse in the chair stirred at the commotion.

  “I can’t find h—” Triphon stopped. “Ah, Jonathan.” He wrinkled his nose, apparently readjusting to the smell in the chamber, and then strode down the aisle to the front, giving Jordin a slight nod as he passed and went to take his seat.

  “This… Corpse that Roland and Michael brought back,” Rom said, gesturing to the man stirring in the chair, “is new.”

  Jonathan nodded, gazing at the man. His tunic was still dusty from where he had been sitting on the knoll.

  “He claims to be alive. To have been given life…” Rom paused, as though unsure about what he would say next. “By Saric.”

  “Saric?” Jonathan said, more sharply than Jordin had ever heard him speak.

  “Yes. He claims Saric is alive. And that he has made three thousand other warriors—Dark Bloods, he calls them—like him. But there’s something else. This one…”

  “He feels,” Jonathan said.

  “Yes I think so.”

  “He feels emotion.”

  “That’s what we think.”

  “Impossible,” Seriph murmured.

  “Yes, impossible,” Rom said, his voice hard-edged. “But apparently the impossible has come to us here, today.”

  Jonathan looked quietly from Seriph, to Rom, and then at the Corpse.

  “He’s seen us here,” Roland said. “He’s heard too much. I would advise we kill him.”

  Jonathan seemed to consider Roland before slowly turning his gaze back to the Corpse in the chair. He had just lifted his head and was blinking at them, slowly working his jaw, a heavy bruise along the pale skin of his face—a fresher one near his temple.

  Jonathan walked past Roland, stopped just before the Corpse and reached out his hand.

  Roland stepped forward. “Jonathan…”

  Rom threw out his arm, staying the prince. The two of them stood back, posture taut, as Jonathan slowly touched the man’s head, his fingers coming to rest on the unruly dreads of his hair.

  It was one thing for a warrior to touch a Corpse, but the council had agreed no unclean thing should touch Jonathan unless it be to bring life to that Corpse—a rare occurrence this past year so close to his reign. The risk was simply too great. Jonathan had to be protected at all costs.

  The Corpse lifted his head to look at him, and Jordin shuddered at the cold glint of his black eyes.

  “My master will see all of you dead,” the Corpse said.

  “Silence!” Rom hissed. “That is your Sovereign you speak to!”

  “My Sovereign is my Maker. And my Maker is Saric,” the man said.

  Jonathan regarded him a moment longer and then slowly turned away.

  “What do you say in this, Jonathan?” Rom said, the line of his mouth tight. “Should he go free, stay our prisoner, or die?”

  “You’re asking for my advice or a decision?”

  Rom hesitated, glanced warily at Roland. Anyone close to Jonathan knew that he had never expressed an interest in exercising explicit authority to make specific decisions that affected the safety of Mortals.

  “Your decision,” Rom said.

  Jonathan looked from him to Roland. “None of those. Make him Mortal.”

  For a moment, no one could respond. Not a sound, not a movement.

  Then Triphon and Seriph were their feet. Roland’s glare fell on Rom, its meaning unmistakable. Make him understand. The old Keeper slowly got to his feet but said nothing.

  “Jonathan… are you sure?” Rom said.

  “Yes. Make him Mortal. Give him my blood.”

  “We can’t waste your blood on new Corpses,” the Book said, voice wavering. “We put a moratorium on it for a reason.”

  Rom lifted his hand. “Jonathan is our Sovereign. He has spoken. We do as he wishes.”

  The man in the chair was looking from one of them to the other in confusion. “I don’t want your blood.”

  “Because you don’t deserve it,” Seriph said, spitting at him.

  “Do it!” Rom snapped. “Now!”

  The Keeper moved to the altar, lifted up the edge of the silk draping it. There, in the altar, was a heavy iron ring. He pulled on it and an entire portion of the stone slid open with a grinding scrape. Reaching inside the stone drawer, he drew out several implements: a stent nearly eight inches long, hollow and tapered to needle sharpness on either end, and a piece of cloth. Brown, Jordin thought—but then she smelled it, even from here.

  No. Stained in blood. Jonathan’s blood.

  Jonathan knelt on one knee next to the Corpse, rolled up his sleeve, and propped his forearm on the chair arm as if it was just another day of bleeding. The Corpse in the chair looked wildly around.

  “What are you doing? You will kill me! Please, you can’t do this!”

  No one answered.

  The Keeper knelt down in front of them, took out his knife, and cut away the sleeve of the tunic the Corpse was wearing beneath his armored vest and quickly disinfected his arm and Jonathan’s wrist. Dropping the sleeve to the floor, he leaned over Jonathan first, blocking Jordin’s view, but she didn’t need to see to know what was happening now: one end of the stent sliding home into the short, permanent sleeve inserted into the vein in the crook of his arm. Jonathan turned slightl
y, as the old alchemist guided the other end into the vein in the Corpse’s arm. The Corpse grimaced.

  Silence in the chamber, except for the breathing of the Corpse. As it grew heavier and more labored, Jordin could not help but remember the day of her own rebirth—the fiery pain of it, like acid through her veins. The way it had subsided into a warmth like that of drink, but more languid, more exuberant, so that she could feel the drumming of her heart too loudly in her ears, as though it had begun to beat for the first time.

  The elation. The gratitude. The overwhelming sense of strange loss. Her sudden urge—need—to weep. The way she had collapsed in the old Keeper’s arms, her eyes unable to look away from Jonathan. To see anything but him. Her need to cling to some vision like an anchor against the wave that threatened to overtake her.

  The Corpse suddenly gasped. Strained against his bonds. The Keeper was swiftly removing the stent, first from him, and then from Jonathan, taking care to wipe the blood from his skin with the cloth. She could smell it, even from here, well beyond the reek of the Corpse, that was rapidly… changing.

  The Keeper stepped away, but Jonathan remained kneeling, looking at the man as he began to breathe deeply, and then to pant, as though in great pain. With a sudden grimace, he arched his back. And then his expression stretched and then fixed into wide-eyed horror.

  He stopped there, frozen.

  Jonathan looked quickly at the Keeper, who rushed forward, obscuring Jordin’s vision of that hideous face, as the Keeper slapped him, lightly at first, and then with a ringing blow. The man’s head fell to the side.

  The Keeper turned around. The look on his face was stunned.

  “He’s dead.”

  Jonathan was looking between them, at the man’s arm and then his own. The council members were getting to their feet, rising in slow shock.

  “Impossible,” Rom said faintly.

  “He’s dead,” the Keeper said again.

  “How can that be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jonathan staggered to his feet, pale.

  Jordin had just moved out of the row of seats to go to him when one of the double doors flew open.