Sovereign by Ted Dekker

understood the widening of their eyes, the haunting look of fear: if Rom were taken, death would follow fast for them all.
    “Trust him,” Jordin had assured each of them. “Trust Rom to know Jonathan’s heart. Even if Rom becomes a Dark Blood, he’ll find a way.”
    In the space of an hour their whispers carried through the caverns with hallowed awe.
Rom has gone to save us. Jonathan will come again; Rom will make a way
.
    Standing before Mattius now, she understood his rage because she had felt it herself—along with a grim respect for Rom’s genius; in one move, he had outmaneuvered the alchemist.
    And where did it leave her? With Rom or with Mattius? Both of them had made their play.
    It was time to make hers.
    Gamil strode to the high-backed chair at the end of the long table they reserved for the monthly feast and sat heavily. They celebrated Jonathan’s passing at the new moon each month by eating the finest foods they could marshal for the occasion. Ancient wines from a makeshift cellar they’d found below the main chamber, meats and cheeses when they were available. It had been rice and beef stock as of late, though the previous month Jordin had brought a clutch of rabbits she’d borrowed from a small farm south of the city.
    “So be it,” Mattius snapped. “He’s thrown his life away.”
    “Thrown his life away?” Jordin said. “Feyn won’t kill him. Will you prove worse than her?”
    His face hardened. “His fate is in his hands, not mine.”
    “We must assume Feyn will turn him,” Adah said.
    “His Sovereign blood won’t have it,” Gamil said.
    “Do we know that?”
    “No. But the virus will kill him,” Jordin said, her stare fixed on Mattius.
    “His decision.”
    “So you don’t deny that the virus—this Reaper of yours—may kill Rom if he’s forced to Dark Blood?”
    His silence was answer enough.
    “Then all Sovereigns will know that Mattius the alchemist—no, Mattius the
traitor
—killed the holiest among us. Rom Sebastian, the very man who found Jonathan when he was a boy and saved him from certain death so he could give us the blood that now flows in our veins. They will know, and I will make sure of it.”
    Mattius showed no sign her words had affected him. “Far better to bring death to one if it means the salvation of Jonathan’s blood.”
    “Far better to trust the leaders Jonathan put over you,” Jordin said.
    He leaned in toward her. “Rom brought him to maturity, you let him die, but I will see his legacy live forever.”
    Jordin trembled with the effort not to shove him against the wall by the neck.
    Adah, too wise by far, stepped between them. “What does a resurrected Corpse know of Jonathan’s legacy? I was caring for Jonathan’s scraped knees when you were still dead. I will
not
see his blood defiled, and I won’t stand by while you kill Rom.”
    Mattius said with deadly calm, “Seven days—six now. It’s already done, with or without me. Rom knew the stakes. I have done what I must, not to defile Jonathan’s blood but to
preserve
it.”
    “So you hope,” Gamil said from the end of the table, shaking his head. “You said we might lose some of our emotions. Your plan to preserve Jonathan’s blood may in fact only reenact the very event that made it necessary!”
    “Better muted emotion than the annihilation of our kind.”
    “As the alchemists no doubt said then!”
    “And if you remember, I said that we may suffer no effects at all.”
    “Then take it yourself and show us,” Adah said.
    “We don’t have time for the madness of old women or the antics of children! Call me a traitor if you must, but I will stand by what is right.”
    He strode to the door.
    “I have another way,” Jordin said.
    Mattius grasped the door handle. “There is no other way.” He swung the door wide.
    “I will kill Feyn. Without her, the Dark Bloods are a serpent with no head.”
    Mattius hesitated and then cast a condescending look over his shoulder.