Rom pushed up from the table, food forgotten, already knowing he didn’t want to hear whatever Triphon had to say.
“He’s gone.”
“Jordin-”
“She’s gone, too.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?”
The bull of a man shook his head, braids brushing his shoulder. “They’re both gone. So are their horses.”
“I could have told you that,” Adah said, turning from the kettle.
“What do you mean?”
“They came for food early this morning-nothing much, just some dried meat and cheese. I told him I was making stew, but he said they wouldn’t be back in time to eat this evening.”
Rom blinked, glanced at Triphon, whose face had gone stark.
“This evening? Where’d they go?”
She shrugged. “Where does Jonathan go, you ask? Wherever he likes. He’s Sovereign.”
“Not if we can’t find him to put him on his seat!” To Triphon: “Where?”
“The Corpse outpost?”
“No. They’d be back by afternoon.” Rom raked a hand through his hair and strode out past Triphon, aware of the taller man on his heels.
He stormed through the camp, ignoring those who stopped to stare at him and a few who tried to hail him. He stopped at the Keeper’s yurt only long enough to duck his head inside and confirm that the old man wasn’t there.
“The temple,” Triphon said.
Then Rom was running toward the ruins, rushing up the steps and through the columns, back toward the inner sanctum.
He didn’t pause inside the back chamber, but made his way past the silk-draped altar with the Book of Mortals upon it. To the back wall of the chamber and the small door, fitted to cover the opening exactly. The lock was open.
He hurried down the stairs, into the limestone chamber below, Triphon’s heavy step behind him. Lantern light drifting up through the well.
The bottom of the stair opened into a small chamber-the dry store and work space of the old alchemist, safely out of the elements.
The Book sat at a metal table before an array of vials and metal racks of samples. His ledger was open, his pen in hand, an there was an array of crumpled papers on the floor. Rom took one look at his haggard appearance and knew he had worked here through the night.
“No matter what I do, I cannot for the life in me figure out what is happening to his blood. I cannot pinpoint it. I cannot reverse it. I cannot stop it!”
“We have another problem,” Rom said.
The old man sighed, as though there could be no other, let alone greater, problem.
“Jonathan’s gone.”
The old man glanced up, blinked. “Gone. Gone where?”
“I’m praying you know. You saw him last, when you took your latest sample from him. Did he say anything, that he meant to leave camp at all?”
The old Keeper shook his head vaguely, shadows playing about the winkles under his eyes.
“He said very little. He asked about Order, and about Byzantium. But what do I know of Byzantium-I have never lived there. He wanted to know about the dead…”
“The Corpses?”
“No, the to-be-dead. The ones with the defects, taken away to die.”
Rom exchanged a look with Triphon. “The Authority of Passing?”
“Yes, yes. The Authority of Passing. That was it. He wanted to know what happened to them and what it would take to save…” The old man paused. “He said he wished he could help them.”
In a beat, Rom was running up the stairs, striding out of the inner sanctum, through the columns of the ancient basilica, Triphon at his side, shouting ahead for their horses.
“No. Roland’s gone,” Rom said. “And half of his men are out as scouts. I need you here…”
“I’m not letting you go alone,” the taller man said. “The danger is out there-not here. Caleb is ranking warrior. He’ll take charge…” And then he was running toward the horse pens.
Jonathan had no idea of the ways of a city like Byzantium! He had no business doing what he was doing. He was naive, distracted by compassion, unaware of the danger to himself. Even with Jordin and Roland, they had barely escaped the city last time.
It took them only five minutes to reach the pens and secure what water and food they would need.
Rom slung canteens onto his saddle, pushed the young man preparing his horse aside, and cinched the girth himself.
“Triphon!” he shouted. “Now!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE CLEARING IN THE WESTERN FOREST was well known to Roland and his ranking Nomads. They had come here, far from the Mortal camp, numerous times over the last year to confer about the needs and priorities of the people under his direct care. Not that they differed so much from the needs of the Keepers, but as their prince, Roland’s first calling was to his own.
Today the situation in his mind was clear: the destiny of the Nomads must be fulfilled-even beyond the fulfillment of Jonathan’s. Only a year ago Roland had asked Jonathan about his future role. Their brief conversation had never left his mind.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question that might sound off-putting, Jonathan?”
The boy, then sixteen, had looked up wearing only a hint of a smile. “What could be off-putting to me, your servant?”
“Servant? No, Jonathan. It is I who serve you.”
The boy had looked off toward the cliffs, his tone distant as he said, “So they say.”
“I not only say it, I pledge it. I serve you, my Sovereign.”
The boy had offered a faint nod. “What was your question?”
“As prince, my duty is to protect my people. This is the covenant we have made between each other through the generations. Now that-”
“Did I ask for your loyalty in exchange for my blood?” Jonathan said, looking at him.
Roland had never considered the question. The understanding had been implicit. “Not expressly.”
“I’ve given my blood to serve you, not so that you can serve me. Your first responsibility is to those in your care. They are many. I’m only one.”
“Yes, but you’re the Giver of Life. And so I’d know your expectations.”
“Is my life more valuable than one of your children’s?”
Roland didn’t know what to say.
Jonathan spoke before he could form an answer. “If my safety is ever in conflict with your people’s, choose them. I’m only a vessel for blood they call the Sovereign. You’re the leader of a great tribe, now alive. Take from me what you need and serve them.”
Roland’s love and respect for Jonathan had been sealed that moment.
But today the boy’s words haunted him. Not because of any true conflict between his duty to Jonathan and his duty to his people, but because Jonathan’s directive made his own calling unmistakable:
Ensure the safety of Nomads at all costs. Regardless.
They haunted him, too, because he couldn’t help but wonder if the boy had known, even then, that this day would come.
