THE TABLE had been set in the old hexagonal chamber. Tucked two stories beneath the Senate Hall, the chamber had once been a repository of sorts—of ancient artifacts like the weapons forgotten for a time by the world. Books, written for their sordid emotional journeys, goblets even, from a time when the ancient basilicas of Byzantium called the Maker by a far more arcane name: God.
They had been Saric’s playthings. Feyn’s brother had come here in the first days of his dark reawakening, drawn to the artifacts of Chaos after finding emotion through alchemy.
Feyn had stripped the room of its relics and moldy tapestries. But though the walls had been scrubbed and covered with fine Abyssinian linen, nothing could staunch the sweat of the stones, as though they harbored secrets too terrible for even the earth to bear.
Here, Order had been conceived. Here, its founder had been martyred by the first world Sovereign.
The table was set in the middle of the room, attended by two chairs. Two settings lay perfectly placed on its top; fruit, nuts, and thin slices of cold meats arranged on each of them.
She stepped to the large candelabra, leaned close enough to feel the heat of the nearest flame practically on her cheek, and inhaled deeply. Jasmine. A tribute of Asiana.
The heavy wooden door opened. A clank of iron chains. The shuffle of feet—one pair booted, the other near silent.
“Remove his chains,” she said, leaning in toward the candelabra again as one does a fragrant bush. She could smell the offensive odor. Him.
“My liege—”
“Now.”
The clink of a metal key, of the chains collected. She glanced over her shoulder and slowly turned.
Seth kneeled beside Rom on the thick Abyssinian carpet she’d ordered brought down earlier. The head of the handsome Dark Blood was lowered. She was accustomed to the play of shadows along his chiseled cheek at that angle, among others. Beside him knelt Rom, head erect, eyes on her.
But of course. He’d never observed her station from the first night he’d broken into her chamber to recruit her for his desperate mission so many years ago. And in her waking years since, he’d never failed to push her toward his own purpose.
The time for that had come to an end. She was no longer the naïve young woman she had once been; she too could play at these games.
She slipped out of her brocade shoes and walked on silent feet past the table to stand before Rom.
His eyes were remarkable, not only for their vibrant color, but also for their lack of fear. She saw no gratitude in them for the saving of his eye, nor anger for his severed finger, now bandaged. He appeared sure. But there was something new. Was it arrogance? No. Something else.
“Please. Get up. We’re past the time for that. We were a long time ago.”
He leaned forward, hand on one knee, and rose without a sound, albeit stiffly. Seth, beside him, did not move. Did not so much as twitch a muscle. He would stay there all day if she let him. What a contrast, these two men!
“Seth, wait outside.”
The Dark Blood did not glance upward so much as forward, along the carpet. She was both touched and irritated by his hesitation. She knew he didn’t want to leave her alone with the Sovereign. Out of protectiveness, certainly. Out of jealousy, perhaps. But after a beat he rose, fixed his gaze meaningfully on Rom, and then stepped out, quietly closing the door.
Feyn had no doubt he would be standing there in that very posture, listening intently, ready to seize Rom by the throat if she but lifted her voice.
“Come, sit with me. You must be famished,” she said, moving to the table and pulling out a chair. When was the last time she’d ever done that?
“Feyn—”
“Please.”
Every other man she knew would have quickly sat.
“I didn’t come to you for food.”
“Then indulge me. I’m hungry.”
He acquiesced with a slight dip of his head and gestured her to the seat instead.
She slipped into it. “That’s better,” she said with a smile, as he took the chair adjacent to her. But rather than eat, he turned toward her, elbows on his knees. Now she could see the signs of fatigue across his shoulders. In the straggle of his hair… the shadows beneath his eyes. She’d ordered them not to allow him sleep.
“I’ll arrange a bath for you. Clean clothing. But for now, you must eat something. And as we do, you can tell me plainly what you’ve come for.” She crossed one leg over the other, the long slit in her gown opening to her thigh.
His gaze dropped toward her lap.
She plucked a rare fresh strawberry from her plate, held it out toward him.
“I already told you what I’ve come for,” he said. After a moment’s hesitation, he took the strawberry.
“Ah, that’s right. To make me Sovereign.”
He bit into the strawberry, and she tilted her head, watching him. His chewing slowed and his eyes closed—few were accustomed to fresh fare of this quality. His gaunt frame spoke the truth: the Sovereigns were barely surviving. She wondered when he had last had anything fresh to eat.
She gave a soft chuckle. “Here,” she said, moving the bowl toward him. “If you’re going to make me Sovereign, you’ll need your energy.”
“I am not the one who makes Sovereigns. Jonathan is.”
“His blood, you mean.”
“Yes. But him as well.”
“I wonder what possessed you to take the blood of a dead man into your veins. I’ve heard the stories, and my sources are reliable.” She sat back and regarded him. Strawberries were her favorite normally, but her appetite was ruined by Rom’s heavy odor.
He set the fruit down. “A vision,” he said. “A dream. Jordin’s, the girl who loved him.”
“And now he’s dead.”
“Jonathan isn’t dead.”
“Is his body not in the grave?”
“Yes. But he lives.”
“What a paradox. Explain it to me.”
“I can’t. I just know it to be true.”
There was something in his eyes…
“You truly want me to be as you are, don’t you?” she said with some wonder.
“Not as I am. As Jonathan meant you to be.”
“A Sovereign, which I am. Not your dead blood kind of Sovereign… ruler. I was born to it. And yet here you are, once again asking me to embrace another life. Will you never tire of this game?”
“No.” There it was, the fervor of a zealot in his eyes.
“What did Jonathan come to bring you, exactly?”
“You say this over and over, and yet you live like a rat in hiding. You’re half starved. You’re hunted, not just by my own Dark Bloods, but by Roland’s Immortals. Didn’t he have the same blood as you once? And now you’re at each other’s throats? This is what you hoped for?”
The zeal left his eyes. “No.”
“And so I ask you again: What has the blood brought you? Ease? Meaning?”
“I don’t know the answers. I only know that this is what I am meant to be. And that this is where I’m meant to be now. Here, with you.”
“And if I follow your way… what will I gain? Has this life even brought you peace?”
He stared at her, silent.
“No peace, then.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet. Clearly. Look at you.”
“Has yours? You own the world. Has it brought you peace?”
She gave a brittle laugh. “There’s little peace for me. The humblest artisan sleeps better than I do.” She tilted her head, studied her own hands. “You must remember something of that. You were a humble artisan once.”
He gave a nod. “Yes. Once.”
“No longer?”
He shifted his eyes and stared at a tapestry on the wall. “I have little time now.”
“No. You’re too busy trying to stay alive. Please, eat more. You’re not hungry?”
He returned his eyes to her. “I can eat later.”
Rom, the ever-focused one.
She picked up a strawberry, considered eating it, then set it on her plate. “Do you ever wonder if we might have been together, had things been different?”
He blinked, and again she was startled by the color of his eyes. She had to work to reconcile the grizzled man before her with the boy of fifteen years ago, but there—she saw him in flashes, in the turn of his lip.
His gaze slid to her hand.
“Perhaps.”
“I demanded a poem from you once. Do you remember? That day, in the meadow. You were a poet then, so young. But clever already. You had tricked me, giving me the blood. And I’d come to life. You were the first thing I saw, and I was in love. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“ ‘We rode together through the night, chasing love, chasing light…,’ ” she said softly, reciting his words.
He glanced up, eyes startled.
“ ‘All has changed for you and I…’ ”
His lips parted, he had begun to voice the words before the sound even came out of his mouth. Now, his eyes locked on hers, he said quietly, “ ‘You’re a queen, and what am I? Let us live before we die.’ ”
The air seemed to still between them; the table, the food, forgotten.
“If only we could have had that moment forever,” she said. “If we could have held it and forgotten the world.”
He broke her gaze, his own falling to her simple silk gown. Amber and black threads woven together, so it shimmered both dark and light.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
His words surprised her.
He glanced up. “I should have given you that life. I wanted to. I couldn’t, I didn’t have enough blood.” As he said it, the man he was today fell away, and there he was, the impetuous twenty-four-year-old she’d met so many years ago.
“If I could, I’d have kept you from death—from returning to it. You’d have come with us. You’d never have had to give up your life. If I could have saved you then, I would have. But I didn’t have enough blood.”
It wasn’t often that she was surprised. But now with his admission, and his apparent anguish over it, she found herself staring at him.
“I was preparing to come for you while you slept in stasis,” he continued. “My face would have been the first thing you saw when you awakened. And Maker, how I prayed that you would love me again!”
She looked away.
“But then Saric found you first and converted you to Dark Blood. You don’t know how many times I regretted it. What he did to you… it ate me alive.”
“And yet,” she said with forced lightness, “here you are again.”
“Yes,” he said, more evenly. “History’s brought us here, to the place where I can bring you life, finally. Not my own, and not through trickery. You aren’t lost to the Dark Blood. The ancient blood is still in your veins.”
“And so you’ve come to save me at last.”
“Jonathan’s blood will.”
Jonathan! Jonathan! Always Jonathan!
She drew in a slow breath through her nostrils. Willed it to remain even.
“Then… if what you say is true, give me a show of faith. Surely you owe me that.”
“What do you want? I’m here of my own volition, knowing you could easily have me killed. Your alchemist would dismember me, given the opportunity, and I would let him. What more proof do you need?”
“Perhaps if you told me where the rest of your people are, I would see your kind as less than rebels in hiding.”
He went still. “They don’t know you as I do. They know you as the one who betrayed Jonathan.”
“I gave my life for Jonathan.”
“That was a different you.”
“Yes. It was a different me,” she said. “I’m Sovereign now. I gave my life for your cause once. Don’t assume I am so different.”
“I’m here, at your mercy. Isn’t that enough to earn your trust?”
She nodded. “Perhaps. But don’t you see, Rom? All is as Jonathan would have had it. He believed he was fulfilling something. He believed that he needed to die. If he didn’t want me to rule as a Dark Blood, he wouldn’t have made the way for me. But here I am. Perhaps this is the way it was always meant to be, and the way your Jonathan always wanted it. Ask yourself who has honored him better. You, who wished him on this throne, or me, whom he wished on it?”
He stared, at a loss.
“He made me Sovereign of this world. Now you subvert my authority by refusing my rule?”
He still made no reply.
She had accomplished enough for now—seen him soften and shift as far as he might in such a short time. Her argument had been carefully calculated, and his response was what she had hoped. But in the end, his heart, not her arguments, would be his downfall.
Rom still loved her.
She pitied him. Perhaps more, another reason to leave him now. She had no interest in being swayed by him.
“Help me and I will help you, Rom. I’m Sovereign, you see? I must know where my subjects live. I promise to think on what you’ve said; I trust you’ll do the same. We will see each other again soon.”
She rose and left the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
And his heart.