Mortal

Rom paced away, frantic. He couldn’t allow her to slip away like this. They had come too far. He had seen the tears flow from her eyes!

He faced her, mind set.

“Then see him. For my sake, and your own, see him again.”

“Who?”

“Jonathan. The boy you gave your life for.”

“I have seen him. You brought him when you invaded my chamber. And now here you stand beyond the city with me as you did once so many years ago. This time history will not repeat itself. I will give you the statute you want, protecting the Nomads, but its all you can ask and expect to receive from me.”

“Face the one you’re refusing in person. The one who would be Sovereign if you permitted him to be. The one who carried the life now in my veins. If nothing else, see the Maker of the Mortals at such odds with the world you rule. See if he’s not the true source of life. Talk to him yourself, and then decide.”

“You ask too much.”

“I ask only for a few hours of your time.”

She glanced away. For a moment his heart stopped.

“When?”

“Tomorrow night, at our Gathering.”

She was silent a moment before she said: “Where is this gathering?”

“In our camp.” Roland would object, Rom was sure. But what was the alternative? They had little choice.

She gave him a long look. “Only to see the boy.”

“Yes, of course. And to see the life of Mortals in celebration. Nothing more.”

“Already you extend your request.”

He lifted his hands in halfhearted surrender. “No more. I swear it.”

“I will hold you to that promise.”

He expelled a breath, considering their course of action. They would take her blindfolded and hold her in a yurt outside the camp, not for her privacy, but because of her scent. No Mortal would tolerate the smell of death within the camp-especially at the Gathering, though in truth Rom no longer cared how it affected the Gathering, what sensibilities her presence offended, or what anyone else might say.

He only prayed that the boy did not disappoint.

He whistled at Telvin and the Dark Blood in the distance.

“Rom…”

“It will do you no harm to see our way of life. You have nothing to fear.”

“Rom.”

He glanced at her. “Yes.”

“You need to know something.”

“What is it?” Telvin was coming, bringing Rom’s horse, and Janus, leading both his and Feyn’s.

“I have to be back in two more days.”

He felt his brow wrinkle. “Of course.” But the timing of her return depended also on their course of action with Saric… which in turn depended entirely on Feyn’s interaction with Jonathan.

“I have to be back in two days or I’ll die.”

“Nonsense. Saric can’t reach you here. He doesn’t know the location of the camp.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I need his blood every three days. I’m dependent on it.”

He stopped. “What are you saying?”

“I can’t live without him. He’s engineered the blood in me so that I require more of his or I die. Physically. Permanently.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

READ IT,” Roland said. “I don’t want you to recite it. I want to know the exact words, translated from their original Latin.”

The Keeper held the ancient vellum in fingers that trembled due to his lack of sleep as much as from the weight of the words in his hands. He’d recited the passage from memory once already-they’d all heard it a hundred times, spoken around the celebration fires late at night. But now reality had conspired to challenge everything they’d assumed from those bold proclamations. They must now know the precise intent of Talus, the first Keeper, who’d written these words nearly five hundred years earlier.

The old man gazed at the others who’d joined Roland in the temple ruin’s inner sanctum.

Present: Roland, who’d demanded the meeting. Michael, his second. Seriph, whose views garnered more agreement among the zealots with each passing day. Anthony, a voice of reason and calculation to match Roland’s own.

At issue: the Keeper’s understanding of Talus’s prophecy. As both the last surviving Keeper and first among the new Keepers the Book’s role as sage remained undisputed. The only way Roland could see to avoid a crippling fracture between the Nomads and the new Keepers, those non-Nomadic Mortals, would be through common understanding and agreement of the first Keeper’s words.

And so they must turn to the man so appropriately known as “the Book.”

Torchlight played across the faces gathered around the altar. Outside, the final preparations for the Gathering sent intermittent laughter rolling through a camp punctuated by the tuning of instruments and the pounding of hammers. But to Roland, the din served only as a constant reminder of the false pretense that hung over them all.

Their greatest Gathering to date… in celebration of a diminishing Sovereign.

“Book,” Roland said. “We aren’t enemies here. But we need to know what the intent of the first Keeper was when he wrote these words. And we need to know your best interpretation now.”

The old man set the ancient vellum on the altar and opened the Book of Mortals. The leather-bound volume contained the names and details of every living Mortal, the last entry being the girl Kaya, whom Jonathan had brought back from the Authority of Passing. Only the latest indication of Jonathan’s failure to understand his role. In addition to their names, the basic precepts by which the Mortals celebrated and ordered their lives filled a dozen pages. In the back of the book: an exact translation of Talus’s vellum, which generations of Keepers had guarded for centuries in anticipation of Jonathan’s coming.

The wavering flame of a large white candle lit the page as the Keeper lay a weathered finger along the passage in question. He coughed once into his fist, then read aloud in a worn, gravely voice.

“Bloodlines should converge to produce a child, a male…” He skipped a few words, found the pertinent section, and then read: “Within his blood will be the means to overthrow Legion on the genetic level…” He cleared his throat. “In this child is our hope. It is he who will remember his humanity, who will have the capacity for compassion and love. And it is therefore he who must free us from Order, the very structures of which go up like a prison around the human heart. This boy will be humanity’s only hope.”

The old man’s eyes lifted. “The only hope,” he said.

“The question,” Seriph said, “is whether that hope is in the boy or in his blood. Within his blood will be the means to overthrow Legion, as you read. To free us from Order. Meaning his blood. Talus was a scientist, was he not? An alchemist?”

“He was more,” the old man said. “He is the one who prophesied-”

“You say he has prophesied only because what he predicted has come true. But his findings were made from calculations! There was no evidence of the Maker’s Hand, assuming such a thing exists.”

“Easy, Seriph,” Roland warned. “We only seek the truth here.”

“The Maker’s Hand is evident in the boy,” the Keeper said. “He was born in the year prophesied by Talus. Calculation, yes, but guided by the Maker’s Hand.”

“Either way,” Michael said, “I think Seriph makes a good point. The passage seems to mean that humanity’s only hope will come from the boy because of his blood.”