still smelled of earth, fresh as upturned grass and rain over the flesh decaying beneath. A sacred monument of death for those who lived to remember life.
And now they were about to desecrate the monument cherished most of all. For a moment he gave in to misgiving.
“We’re doing this based on pure conjecture,” he said.
“We’re doing this because I saw it in his eyes.”
“The eyes are easily misread, Jordin.”
“His eyes promised me love. Does love kill hope?”
Rom looked up at the round moon, a bright beacon in the star-speckled heavens. They had remained cloudless in the days since Jonathan’s death-rare, though not unheard of. The storm that had accompanied his death, on the other hand, had been singular.
The Maker’s Hand. If it was true-if it was possible-that it had bent toward earth in that moment, did its touch linger still?
Rom considered Jordin, looking so expectantly at him, her last question lingering in the air. And then he picked up the shovel and pressed it into the earth. A few seconds later, he tossed the first heap of soil aside.
They took turns at the shovel, heaping the dirt carefully to one side so it could be easily replaced as the grave slowly yawned opened beneath them.
There. The first glimpse of a dirty shroud.
Sweating from the work, hands raw as his emotions, Rom dropped the shovel behind him. He dropped into the grave and carefully scooped the remaining earth away from the top of the body, unable to staunch the image of that sword impossibly flashing beneath the darkened sky. Twice, he turned his face into his arm, seemingly at the smell of the corpse, already decomposing, but mostly against the memory of Jonathan falling forward on the temple steps.
And then he carefully continued clearing the dirt away from the three ceramic vessels set around his head. Red. The color of ochre and earth and blood.
He glanced up at Jordin, who looked as pale as a ghost in the moonlight, her eyes struck wide, fixed on the body. Tears shone in her eyes, broke down her cheek. But she did not turn away.
She dropped to her knees, reached down for each container as he handed it to her, handling it as gingerly as though it were made of eggshell.
“Cover him,” she said. It sounded almost like a plea.
Rom hauled himself up out of the grave, grabbed the shovel, and began filling it back in. Twenty minutes later they had returned the grave to a semblance of its original shape and strewn field flowers over the dirt. But even a Corpse would know that the earth had been freshly disturbed. And any Mortal with their keen perceptive sense would know immediately without doubt.
He could hear the outrage already.
It no longer mattered. Jordin’s reasoning had grown in him as he’d dug, pushing him to steely resolve. If she was right… Maker. The whole world would change.
Jonathan’s other statements, cried like a madman at the Gathering, mushroomed in his mind.
But he could just as easily have been speaking of his own.
Jordin bundled the vessels in her coat, carefully placed them in her saddled bag, and threw herself on her horse.
They rode down from the plateau side by side, speaking only as they approached the camp.
“Take the blood to the inner sanctum,” Rom said. They’d already agreed that they would perform the ritual with the Keeper’s instrument, and for this they had little choice but to involve him. “I’ll wake Book.”
The inner sanctum was lit by three candles hastily gathered by the Keeper. In less than half an hour, morning light would filter into the valley, and Roland and his band would rise early to prepare for their journey north. They had to hurry; Rom had no desire to explain himself to any Mortal who might find their actions outrageous in the least and profane at worst.
Rom had pulled the old Keeper from sleep, insisting they’d discovered something that could prove all of his predictions true. Not until the old man had rushed into the ruins and stopped cold, eyes on the three ceramic jars, had they told him just what.
“What have you done?” the Keeper had cried. “He’s dead!”
“And we mean to follow him in his death,” Rom said, hearing the absurdity in the echo of his own words.
The old man spun to stare at him. “You mean to die?”
“No, I mean to follow. The blood in those containers. Will it kill me?”
The Keeper hesitated. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On what’s in the blood.”
“Can you tell?”
“I don’t know what I’m looking for…”
Rom saw the wheels begin their slow turn in the man’s head.
Within minutes, he had laid the stent on a simple white cloth and announced that the seal on all the jars was intact; the blood hadn’t congealed. But then he seemed to hesitate.
“This could be blasphemy,” the Keeper said, pushing his white hair back from his head in a way that only made it seem more disheveled than before. “Centuries of guarding the secret of this blood, and now to open the sacred vessels…”
Rom had already rolled up his sleeve. “Then you owe it to the centuries and to those who came before you to learn the truth.”
“You’re quite sure you’re willing to risk this?” the Keeper said.
“When did following Jonathan not involve risk?”
Jordin’s hand came to rest on his forearm. “No. I go first.”
“It was I who was destined to find Jonathan as a boy,” Rom said.
She frowned. “Yes, but-”
“Who brought Jonathan to this valley?”
“You did.”
“And who did Jonathan embrace as leader of the Keepers?”
“Fine. But know that whether you live or die, I
There was something wild in her eyes and he knew with certainty she would sooner be dead than without Jonathan, that the prospect of death to her now was, in itself, a gain. He couldn’t blame her.
He nodded. And then he pulled his sleeve up over the crook of his right arm, perched on the edge of the altar, and lay back.
“You’re sure about this?” the Keeper asked, picking up the steel stent.
“Would you do this?”
The old Keeper considered the question for only a moment, then dipped his head. “I would.”
“Then do.”
“How much?”
“As much as it takes.”
Rom closed his eyes and waited for the swab of cool disinfectant on his skin. The sting of the needle. A chill passed down his neck when it came, like the bite of a scorpion, cold in his veins. His heart rate surged, expectant.
Then nothing but the steady draw and push of his own breath.
He didn’t know what he had anticipated-perhaps a bolt of energy or gut-wrenching cramps similar to the first time he’d taken the ancient blood so many years ago.
“Anything?” Jordin whispered.
He kept his eyes shut and shook his head.
“Stay still,” the old Keeper said.
Rom lay unmoving, waiting for some unexpected sign that the blood flowing into his veins held power.
