Mortal

Jordin scrambled to her knees and spun to Rom. His body was improbably arched, shaking with violent tremors like a leaf in a storm.

She threw herself back against the Keeper, who flung a protective arm out in front of her.

What is darkness? What is light when there is only darkness? How does the mind process life when there is only death?

These were the underpinnings of Rom’s impossible quandary when light came out of the vacant darkness that was his nonexistence as he lay dead and unaware.

The light did not seep into his consciousness or grow from a first spark; it exploded with a hot white flash. It didn’t change his world; it created a new one. Let there be life. There was nothing and then there was everything.

Every fiber of his being was suddenly screaming with life, flooded with warmth, smothered by mind-bending love, shaking with more pleasure than his mind could contain.

He was only vaguely aware that he had a body that was reacting to the eruption within him, distorted beyond what occurred naturally, because in the moment nothing was natural. All was new.

The very air was raw pleasure, and he was breathing it like a drug that strained his synapses to the breaking point. A sensation exhilarating and beautiful, too powerful to resist.

“Do you feel my life, Rom?”

Jonathan’s whisper echoed through his new world, soft but laden with as much power as the light.

“Do you see now how great my love is?”

And with those whispered words a distant scream. His own, without words but with singular meaning.

Yes… Yes!

“Crush the darkness with my life, Rom. Live…”

He was shaking violently, weeping unrestrained with mouth spread wide, mind erupting with bliss. He wanted to say, I will. I will crush the darkness. I will live. But he could only scream.

He didn’t know how long that first explosion lasted-a moment. An hour. A lifetime-of weeping with gratitude. Begging for forgiveness for doubt. Vowing unending love.

And then the light faded into his mind’s horizon, leaving him fully alive. Released, he felt his body drop heavily to the stone surface beneath him.

He was new.

Alive.

Rom opened his eyes.

Jordin watched Rom’s body remain impossibly bent for several long beats before it dropped back to the altar’s stone surface and go limp. His scream had shattered the chamber’s silence, but it barely occurred to her that those in the camp might hear. Now his mouth snapped shut and he lay with tears running down past his temples.

Breathe, she had to remind herself, as utter quiet settled into the sanctuary. Far away, a rooster crowed.

Rom’s eyelids suddenly sprang open. He jerked upright and sucked in a long, desperate gasp that reverberated through the chamber.

She watched in stunned silence as he stared around, lost for a moment, as though acquainting himself to the world for the first time. He lifted his hands to look at them, laid a palm against his chest to feel his own breath, blinked to clear his vision.

She watched all this with trembling desire, desperate envy.

Rom turned his head and stared at them-first the Keeper, then Jordin. His eyes lingered on her.

“Jordin,” he rasped.

“You… you’re alive.”

“I died?” he asked. Then answered his own question. “I died…”

“You’re alive!” she cried.

“Alive,” he said, as she threw herself forward, flinging her arms around his body, weeping.

“You’re alive,” she sobbed.

“More alive than you can imagine,” he said.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

ROM STOOD ON THE COURTYARD STEPS with Jordin and the Keeper, facing a thousand Mortals who’d rushed to the ruins as word spread that Jonathan lived. Three hours had passed since first Rom, then Jordin, then the Book had taken Jonathan’s blood and entered the overwhelming light of the new Sovereign realm.

Mother and fathers, sons and daughters, Nomads and Keepers alike had listened with riveted attention for thirty minutes as Rom had made his impassioned plea for them all to die and rise again to find a new life they had never known. The Council stood abreast at the bottom of the steps watching with a blend of curiosity, hope, and skepticism. But it was Roland’s flat expression that drew Rom’s consideration.

The prince had heard Rom’s fervent call to life with interest, but as Rom tried to explain what this new life felt like, a shadow had descended over the prince’s eyes.

How did one express the certainty of life with evidence of things not seen to a people who’d embraced the Mortal hope? He had no new skills that he knew of, at least not yet. Surely they would come, as they had before, in stunning display that would render their former lives banal. But for now, neither Rom, Jordin, nor the Keeper could summon a storm as Jonathan had or snap their fingers and split the ruin’s marble steps.

Regardless, he could not mistake the overwhelming urgency of life that had pulled him from the darkness and filled him with explosive light and knowledge. A new power had risen in his mind and heart, unsurpassed by any he’d yet understood.

He knew.

Like a master who saw the workings of all he had made, he knew.

The Mortals staring up at him with blank faces, however, did not. Could not.

“I see you, not as I did yesterday, but in a new way. I see your love and your doubt. Your minds and your hearts.”

He paced to his right and looked out at the crowd.

“The first Keeper knew that a boy would bring new life into the world, and his words proved true. But Talus could not know how that life would change us. He said nothing of our Mortal sense or for how many years we would live. He assumed that change would come through political means-by force, if necessary. But Jonathan claimed he would bring a new kingdom through his death. A rule of Sovereigns.”

The words he would speak next would not be so welcome, but it hardly mattered now. Each Mortal, like him, would make their own decision: to die and live, or to live and die.

“We who have taken Jonathan’s blood stand before you as the first three Mortals who are Sovereign.”

Glances and whispers. Roland stood like stone.

“As Mortals of the Sovereign realm, filled with life greater than any yet tasted.”

“Greater?” the zealot Seriph said. “And yet you appear the same.”

“Greater,” Rom replied to the cynical Nomad.

“Show us.”

“Are we alive?” Jordin demanded of him, stepping out. “Do I look dead to you?”

“Does a Corpse appear dead?” Seriph returned.

“How dare you question what Jonathan has given?” she cried. “You, who would subdue the world with your sword and live a thousand years without knowing true life-is it yours to question his authority?”

Seriph spread his arms and looked around. He stepped out of line and faced the assembly with a questioning gaze. “Whose authority? Jonathan’s? If he lives, let him speak. Let him tell us that we must die and become tiny Sovereigns without purpose.”

“He lives!” Jordin said. She slapped her breast, face red. “In here!” She jabbed at her head. “In here!” She thrust her finger back toward the inner sanctum. “Take his blood and know, yourself.”

“Easy,” Rom muttered under his breath. “They don’t understand.”