Mortal

SARIC DRILLED ROWAN’S ASHEN face with an uncompromising stare, fully aware that the Regent knew about Feyn already. That she’d been hidden deep in stasis, dead by law. That her body had not decomposed.

None of these disturbed Rowan as they did the rest of the senate, now bursting out in cries of alarm and horror. No, Rowan’s terror was in seeing Feyn’s body here, in the senate, rather than in the crypt that had housed her for the last nine years, her body fed by nutrients. Now the old pillar of Order wavered in his regal robe, threatening to collapse along with the power he’d protected for so long.

Saric ignored the uproar echoing through the great hall, his eyes lingering on the Regent as he savored the onset of crushing victory.

One voice roared above them all. “What is the meaning of this?”

He broke the gaze reluctantly. Turned to Dominic, who stood trembling to his right, hands balled to fists, face blanched with fear. The outrage settled on the floor, all eyes on the scene before them: Rowan on the right, standing like a dead man; Dominic on the left, possessed by terror. Two Legion coated in armor, each on one knee, their heads bowed, undisturbed by the chaos.

Feyn. Nude body supine on the altar of Saric’s making, dead to the world, veins dark with dormant blood beneath pale Brahmin flesh.

Saric, towering over them all, Maker of their destiny, seizing unmitigated power before their eyes.

“What sickness compels a man to exhume a body from the grave?” Dominic thundered. “She has passed to Bliss!”

Saric brushed a thumb over one of her cold eyelids. Saric himself had lovingly braided her hair, washed and perfumed her body, working gently around the long scar in her chest where the Keeper’s blade had cut her down. It had faded some, from what had to have been an angry and grotesque thing to a beautiful seam. The musky scent of her filled his nostrils with promise.

“Has she?” Saric asked softly.

“Yes! How dare you violate the sanctity of this chamber with the dead!”

“She’s no more dead than you who breathe and bleed and piss.”

“This is your purpose?” the man cried. “To use the dead as a lesson? To defile the Maker with profanity?”

He lowered his hand, glanced up at the speechless man, this defender of Order… who would now watch its demise. “And a powerful lesson indeed, wouldn’t you say?”

He turned, considered the senators, many of whom he knew by name. There, Nargus, from the Sumerian house, robed in blue as was their custom. And there, Colena, the aged bat with powdered skin to hide the deep wrinkles that whispered death. Stefan Marsana from northern Europa, Malchus Compalla from Russe, Clament Bishon from Abyssinia-all leaders who served in the senate when he himself had been their Sovereign for a few days. Only a handful were new to him.

Today he would be new to them all.

“Guard!” Dominic ordered. “Remove this body!”

Saric didn’t bother to acknowledge the demand. His Dark Bloods had already handled the Citadel guard.

He stepped to the front of the platform, aware of every eye upon him.

“Tell me, Rowan, Regent of Jonathan… Is Feyn, who was rightful Sovereign before her cruel and unwarranted death, in Bliss at this moment? Or is she here with us?”

The Regent’s mind was either too preoccupied with the tragedy unfolding before him or not occupied at all, having shut down.

“Answer. Now.”

The Regent’s eyes flicked to Dominic. “I… It is unknown.”

“Isn’t it appointed for all to live once? Once for them to die? Isn’t that what your book claims?”

“Yes.”

“And when you die that death, your soul goes either to Bliss or Hades, is that not written?”

“Yes.”

“And yet our own ancient texts record accounts of those brought back to life. Were they truly dead? Had they gone on to Bliss when their hearts stopped?”

“I… I don’t know,” Rowan said.

“No, you don’t. Because you don’t really know the powers that make life and death. Only the Maker can know these things, isn’t it so?”

“Yes.”

“Then Feyn might not be in either Bliss or Hades at this moment, but here with us. We cannot know. We can only know if she is dead or alive as we understand life and death. Tell me this is true.”

His brows relaxed slightly. “It is.”

“And so, according to your understanding, is Feyn now alive or dead?”

He hesitated, choosing his words. “Dead. By law.”

“Not by flesh?”

No response.

“Did you not aid the alchemists in keeping her body in stasis in a crypt below this very Citadel since the day she was slain?”

He blinked. He could not hide the truth etched on his face.

“Yes.”

Saric spoke before the floor could react. “And you did it in anticipation of the day when that boy, Jonathan, had safely risen to sovereignty and you might bring her back without compromising his reign.”

They all stared at Rowan-Dominic, the senate leaders, Corban, Saric-all but his two children, who bowed their heads in submission still.

“Rowan,” Dominic hissed. “Surely not!”

Rowan gave a shallow nod. “What he says is true.”

“Why?”

“The reason no longer matters,” Saric said. “The truth is this: that if Feyn were alive today, she would be Sovereign, as succession fell to her before Jonathan. Tell me, Lord Regent, is that not true?”

He nodded, his face a hollow mask.

“And you would not be Regent, because Jonathan would have no claim to Sovereign office.”

“None of this matters now!” Dominic said, stepping forward with sudden urgency. “Feyn’s fate is sealed. She is dead. Jonathan is Sovereign and will take his seat in eight days.”

Saric rounded on him.

“Only the Maker decides if Feyn is dead! And today you will see her Maker.”

His statement put the senate leader back on his heels.

Saric spun to Corban: “Bring it.”

The alchemist withdrew a black velvet pouch from beneath his gown and crossed the dais. Saric shrugged out of his cloak and draped it over Feyn’s lifeless legs. Without any explanation, he took his right sleeve cuff in his fingers and folded it back four times, exposing his forearm.

“Rise.”

The two Dark Bloods rose and stepped to one side, ominous. Out in the senate, no one moved.

To Corban: “Proceed.”

The alchemist set the pouch on the table beside Feyn’s head and pulled out a pair of black medical gloves. After slipping them on, he withdrew a clear rubber tube roughly two feet in length from the pouch, stainless steel needles on both ends.

Before him, Feyn’s lifeless body reclined not in death, he knew, but in defiance of it. The jugular there, just beneath her translucent skin, begged to pulse once again. For his absolute mastery over her. For the gift given him by Pravus, now perfected by him so that he could bestow it as he wished. As he did now. He could not suppress the slight tremble that spread through his torso at the thought. This was his destiny: to consume and give life as he alone chose.

Master and Maker.

His eyes closed. His mind raged with beautiful darkness.