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it was true, then, that they had hidden themselves belowground.
    “Still unpredictable, after so many years,” she said.
    He stood still, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on hers. “You feel it still, don’t you? Faintly, perhaps, but it’s there, running in your veins.”
    She arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps not so unpredictable.” He had been beating this drum for fifteen years.
    “Why have you come here?”
    He was quiet.
    “His eyes, my liege,” Corban said, speaking of the brilliant green of Rom’s irises. “This is the first one we have taken alive—the dead ones don’t have such eyes. My alchemists would study his blood and his flesh to better know our enemy.”
    A strange scent wafted through the cell. The telltale stink of Rom’s kind. Where was it coming from, his clothing or his skin? Did the Sovereigns occupy themselves with the burning of incense at all hours, or was he slathered in it for some purpose?
    Rom lifted a hand and coughed into it. The scent became more acute. He was not wearing the scent, it came
from
him.
    She tilted her head. What strangeness was this?
    “Indeed you must. Study him.”
    “We would like to take one of his eyes.”
    “Of course you would.”
    “With this sample in custody, we may not only better understand the changes in his blood but glean information about the Nomads.”
    “They call themselves the Immortals,” Rom said quietly.
    Corban didn’t seem to have heard him. He was brimming with more life than he had in months at the excitement of this find. She stepped closer to the iron bars, cutting him off.
    “It was foolish of you to come here,” she said.
    “Only as foolish as saving your life.”
    She gave a crystalline laugh. “
My
life?”
    Silence.
    “I see.” She sighed, laced her fingers together. “We’ve played at these conversations too many times through the years. What is it you can possibly hope to accomplish in coming here? I have no interest in sparing those who subvert my Sovereignty by daring to call themselves by that same name. I will mercifully allow them to keep their delusions to the death. But death is inevitable—by my hand or by Roland’s. He seems to bear you no more love than I for whatever divided you. My alchemist is all but biting through his leashto dissect you. And I can assure you that my Dark Bloods will only benefit from anything we learn and find useful. So you see, you’ve come here in vain.”
    “In fact, my lady, I have accomplished half of my objective in coming here already.”
    She had not been called “my lady” in years—the words made her bristle. “And what objective is that? Ah, I forgot. To save my life.”
    “Yes.”
    “Indeed?”
    “And the sanctity of Jonathan’s legacy. But there’s another reason.”
    “There always is. And what might that reason be?”
    “The truth.”
    “And which truth is this?”
    “That I’ve come to make you Sovereign.”
    She gazed at him for a long moment. Beside her, even Corban’s breath had stilled to silence.
    “I
am
Sovereign.”
    “Are you?”
    She pursed her lips. Perhaps the strain of mere survival these last years had been too much. Was it possible his mind had broken at last? The thought disappointed her.
    “How many of your kind are left, Rom? We retrieved Triphon’s head. A pity for you, that loss.”
    “Few.”
    “And now you have foolishly left your remaining number leaderless.”
    “Jonathan is their leader.”
    “Then a dead man leads them. Tell me, is this the ‘salvation’ you sought? Having ranged so far and wide, only to end up here?”
    “I am not alone.”
    She flicked a glance at Corban.
    “No one else was found, my liege.”
    She looked at Rom. “Of course not. I forgot. You come with Jonathan. The man my brother killed.”
    “He didn’t die.”
    She’d left the scene of the battle before it had happened. Now, for the first time, doubt crept into her mind. But these were only words from a crafty man. There had been too many