Mortal

DOMINIC STRODE DOWN the grand hallway of the palace, boot heels clacking against the marble floor in time with the cudgeling of his heart.

A day had passed since the senate leader had witnessed the most horrific, profane act of his life in the slaughter of the Regent. And he’d heard the most unfathomable profanity from the man who had committed the act, right there on the senate dais, where Saric had effectively revived and then installed his sister as Sovereign.

That first night, he’d suffered nightmares. Nightmares of the Regent’s neck opening in that yawning gash. Of the naked Sovereign screaming from the great table, as if it were an altar and she the sacrifice. Nightmares of blood flowing from the stent in Saric’s arm into hers. Of the unmistakable scar that cut across her torso, clear evidence of the savage slash that had ended her life nine years earlier on the cusp of her own inauguration.

Of Feyn standing and speaking, not with her own voice, but with Saric’s.

You are dead. All of you. Dead.

He’d woken in a sweat. Paced his Citadel apartments. Come to stand at the window and look out at the dark night in the direction of the palace and the apartment of the Sovereign. Candlelight had burned there throughout the evening.

And then, the most terrible voice of all seeped into his mind.

His own.

You are dead.

Was it possible?

Chills had crept across his nape, had prickled the tips of his fingers and set his ears ringing. Fear, at its most visceral.

He’d passed the next day in sleep-deprived vigilance, his hands cold and numb, already anticipating more nightmares in the night to come. He had gone to evening basilica to settle his spirit. It wasn’t the customary day, but such services were performed throughout the week to allay the fears of those needing comfort, and to stave off dread of the eternal with one more proper act in deference to the only thing that would be reckoned at the end of one’s life.

Order.

We know the Maker exists within his Order.

It helped. That night he’d gone to sleep knowing two things: First, that the Maker was still the Maker, known within Order. To question Order was to question the Maker himself. This truth remained steadfast, a lone anchor in this sudden storm of events.

Second, that Feyn claimed the seat of office legitimately as Sovereign, no matter how stunning her resurrection from stasis or the blasphemous guardianship that she had been reborn under like a bloody moon.

There were no nightmares the second night. And Dominic had risen today newly collected. Newly resolved.

As he made his way to the outer atrium of the Office in the last hour of late afternoon, he glanced up, ignoring the dark cracks that snaked up the vaulted ceiling, focusing instead on the sheen of light reflected off its gilded surface. These ancient halls were hallowed since the days of Chaos, dedicated to the Maker when he had gone by a more arcane name: God.

He had only one objective now. He had to secure Feyn’s assurance that she would work to destroy her brother, who clearly stood against Order. Surely she saw that her own seat was in grave danger. Perhaps, even, her eternal destiny. They had to work together.

He nodded at the secretary whom he’d known so many years as Rowan’s man, Savore. How different, to see him keeping the desk of the office from which Saric held court, no doubt turning the resources of the world to his own dark purposes. Dominic all but imagined he could see shadows creeping from the great chamber beyond.

All of you… dead.

Savore rose to gesture him to the twelve-foot doors of the Office. The secretary wouldn’t touch them himself-it was for each man to bring his own weight into this space, to labor even in this way to attain an audience with the Sovereign, strong hand of the Maker on earth.

Dominic laid his palms against the intricately etched bronze door. It was usual for any prelate to pause and consider the symbols of each continental office: the alchemists of Russe, the educators of Asiana, the architects of Qin, the environmentalists of Nova Albion, the bankers of Abyssinia, the priests of Greater Europa and the artisans of Sumeria. Dominic himself had often done the same, going so far as to trace the Book of Orders beside the emblem of Europa, his own continent, with a fingertip.

But today he saw only the symbol presiding over them all: the great compass, the graded points of Sirin’s halo, by which they must all live and by which they would all be judged.

He pushed the doors open.

Inside, the heavy velvet curtains had been drawn shut against the obscure light of the waning day as a dozen candelabras sent shadows flitting and luring throughout the room.

That was the first thing he noticed.

The second was the two Dark Bloods on either side of his peripheral vision as the doors fell shut behind him with the ominous thud of a vault.

The third was the figure sitting at the desk. She was richly attired in velvet so dark blue as to appear the color of midnight. She was studying a report of some kind, as she sipped from a pewter goblet. Her nails were perfectly manicured.

She lifted her eyes with feline languor. They were dark and fathomless in the shadows.

Dominic went to a knee on the thick carpet, but for the first time in his life, he stared rather than lowered his gaze.

The figure behind the desk was indeed the Sovereign herself-fortunately, Saric was nowhere to be seen. But she was drastically changed.

She released the report with a flick of her fingers.

“My lord Dominic,” Feyn said, voice as smooth as a purr. It was the first time he had heard her since that first blood-chilling scream, and he found he could not reconcile the two sounds at all.

She rose from her chair, candlelight catching the obsidian of her chandelier earrings. Her hair was swept up completely off her neck and onto her head. The high, open collar of her dress accentuated her neck and her pale skin in a neckline that plunged to her sternum.

Again, he railed at the thought that this could possibly be the same woman. And yet there she was-Feyn as all had ever known her. And as she had never been known.

She came around the side of the desk, moving with unhurried grace. The light of the nearest candelabra swept up her face, revealing a shadow on one cheek, just discernable enough for him to wonder if it was a play of light.

No. A bruise, then?

She paused before him and he found himself dropping his gaze down to her booted foot. An open palm extended into the field of his vision. He took it and kissed the ring of office along the inside of her delicate fingers. They smelled like wine and musk and salt.

The hand withdrew, but not before he noted the mark on the inside of her elbow. A small puncture wound visible within the high split of her sleeve.

He started to lean forward with both hands on his knee but then he realized she hadn’t told him to rise. He blinked and shifted back, ignoring the pop of his kneecap in the carpet.

“Why do you come?” she said, moving back toward her desk and reclaiming the goblet.

He lifted his gaze, struck again by the regal tilt of her jaw, the very straightness of her nose, the set of her lips, moist after a sip from the wine. “To speak with you. I have concerns.”

“Everyone has concerns about something, Dominic.”

He glanced toward the doors and back. “May we speak in private, my lady?”

“We are in private.” The tone, though dispassionate, was strange, and again he thought that she reminded him less like the startled colt shaking on its own legs of just a day ago than a great panther.

“Please.”

She slid her gaze away in the direction of the guards. With a meaningful glance the two muscled forms dipped