Sovereign by Ted Dekker Read Free Book Online

samples where they can’t be found. It will only take one to save Sovereigns from annihilation. And more than one of us knows how to release the virus. Even if you kill me, it will gain you nothing.”
    Realization crept across Rom’s face even as it blossomed in Jordin’s mind: Mattius hadn’t come to propose his solution, but to inform them of a decision he’d already made. It was as good as done. For the first time, she faltered.
    Rom drew a slow breath in through his nose. He glanced at each one of them in turn and finally at her.
    “Does this ring a bell in your thick skulls?” he asked. “The irony of it? Five hundred years ago another alchemist named Talus created a virus. It was deployed by Megas, the first tyrant to rule the world unchallenged as Sovereign. Now you would release another virus as Megas’s reincarnation? Talus gave his life to
bring
, not take, life. As has every Keeper since, including Book.”
    “A small price to pay to preserve Jonathan’s life,” Mattius said. “For us and for all Corpses. We need a true Sovereign on the throne.A
Sovereign
—not that Dark Blood imposter, Feyn.” His lips curled as he said it.
    “This isn’t just about survival. You mean to kill her.”
    “With any fortune, Feyn will be the
first
to die.”
    Rom turned to Jordin, his expression devoid of color. “You lived with Roland when he was only Mortal. They took you in when you were a child before any of this. They saved you. And now you would stand by while Mattius slaughters them all?”
    She knew he was pleading for the life of that Dark Blood witch.
    “No one has seen the face of an Immortal since they left us,” she said, her voice sounding cold even to her own ear. “For all we know they’re mindless. Beasts that do nothing but kill.”
    But Mattius had acted without agreement or consultation, ready to decide for them all. Was she ready to accept such a decision? The Dark Bloods should die. The Immortals deserved to die. In her mind, they had betrayed Jonathan as much as Saric and Feyn. And yet…. was this truly Jonathan’s way?
    Jonathan, where are you?
    “The matter deserves further consideration,” she said, sure of nothing anymore.
    “Jonathan will show a better way!” Cords stood out on Rom’s neck as he spoke. “You think they’re only rumors, or that he lives only in your blood. He’s alive; I know it to be true. Somehow—out there. He lives!”
    “Then he’d better hurry,” Mattius snapped. “If he hasn’t shown himself within seven days, I will release Reaper to keep alive the hope of salvation. And if I’m wrong, Jonathan himself can take pity on my soul.”

C HAPTER F OUR
    J ONATHAN, WHAT
have I done? I followed you. I did everything you asked.
    Be still, Jordin, and know.
    What is there to know? You left me!
    I never left, my love. See me.
    I don’t see anything.
    Open your eyes. See me. Find me….
    Jordin’s eyes fluttered open in the darkness. She’d had the recurring dream for two weeks now, always the same, always the voice…. always without him. She was no stranger to vivid dreams over the last six years. Some said that their dreams, like the unpredictable precognition and their emerald eyes, had been Jonathan’s last mysterious gifts to all Sovereigns. What the dreams meant, she had no idea. The meaning of
any
of their dreams was beyond them. Perhaps they were nothing more than lifelike experiences devoid of the suffering they’d found beneath the city. Snippets of familiar faces, of things that might be and that sometimes did manifest. But mostly she dreamed of Jonathan. Perhaps because she’d loved him in a way none of the others ever had, as a woman loves a man. And perhaps because Jonathan had loved her as well.
    But that love now left her heartsick and alone. What was love ifthere was nobody to love…. no lover beyond the figments of imagination or the fabric of dreams?
    The events of the previous night had interrupted her sleep. Mattius’s