Mortal by Ted Dekker & Tosca Lee

Author:Ted Dekker & Tosca Lee
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thrillers, Fiction / Thrillers, Suspense, Espionage, Fiction
ISBN: 9781455523115
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 2012-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ROLAND KNEW FROM THE SLIGHT but immediate tic beneath Saric’s eye that he’d struck the right chord in offering up Jonathan. He pressed his advantage while it was still his.

“And it’s not what you think,” he said.

“You presume to know what I think,” Saric said.

“You think I’m a man who would deceive you as I have. I would assume the same in your position.”

The man was a column in black, tall in the saddle, fingers like claws and arms all too obviously corded with muscle beneath his tunic sleeves. A powerful man, no pretender, and no fool.

A man of destiny like himself.

Despite the tic, he listened in silence—a sign of surety and resolve.

“What I have to say, you will want to hear,” Roland said. “All I ask is that you hear it alone.”

Still no reaction. Just that dark stare, so like a vulture’s on a fresh piece of carrion. This was not turning into the kind of confrontation Roland had anticipated.

“I have men in the trees above us. If I wanted to engage you, I would have without first exposing myself. I want no bloodshed. Only peace. But for that I must talk to you alone.”

“Who are you to speak to me alone?”

“Roland Akara. Prince of the Nomads.”

Saric seemed unaffected by his name.

“You see the man on my left?” Saric said. “His name is Brack. I am the kinder soul between us. I pity you if any harm were to come to me.”

Roland gave the man a curt nod. “You see the woman behind me? Her name is Michael. She is one of a thousand like her. I pity you if any of them led our people in a mission to strike, unseen, like serpents when you least expected it.”

Saric nodded slowly. “Brack, follow.”

Saric flipped his reins and guided his mount forward, toward the barren land rising to the west, away from the trees. Brack fell in behind, eyes on Roland.

He turned his horse and rode parallel to them until Saric pulled up and faced him, fifty paces from the others. Michael held her position, along with the entire Dark Blood army. The breeze had fallen off—they were no doubt stifling and sweating in their armor, but black granite would have moved more.

“You have your audience,” Saric said. “Speak.”

“You are aware of the Nomads.”

Saric didn’t respond.

“For generations we resisted Order. Our breeding runs deep and our purpose is simple. We would survive outside of this religion that holds the dead hostage to lies. We want one thing: freedom. And we want it without any harm to others.”

“What does this have to do with Jonathan?”

“We have no ambition for power. Our joining with Jonathan was only done in service to a Sovereign who promised to unveil the truth once he came into office. What that meant for us is that as a people we would no longer have to live out of Order. We would pursue life in peace. But that has changed. You changed it. Feyn is Sovereign, and because of that Jonathan can never be.

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