The Immortal City Read online

  Sometimes you just have to jump.

  The second book in The Sacred Dark series, a lush fantasy romance by acclaimed author May Peterson.

  I don’t remember you...

  Reborn as an immortal with miraculous healing powers, Ari remembers nothing of his past life. His entire world now consists of the cold mountainside city of Serenity. Ruled with an iron fist. Violent.

  Lonely.

  I may never remember you...

  Regaining the memories of who he once was seems an impossible dream, until Ari encounters Hei, a mortal come to Serenity for his own mysterious purposes. From the moment Hei literally falls into his arms, Ari is drawn to him in ways he cannot understand. Every word, every look, every touch pulls them closer together.

  But I’m with you now...

  As their bond deepens, so does the need to learn the truth of their past. Together they journey to find an ancient immortal who can give them what they both want: a history more entwined than Ari could have ever imagined, but which Hei has always known.

  It’s the reason they will risk the world as they know it to reclaim who they used to be—and what they could be once again.

  And don’t miss May Peterson’s Lord of the Last Heartbeat, available now!

  In a world teeming with mages, ghosts and dark secrets, love blooms between an unlikely pair...

  Also available from May Peterson

  and Carina Press

  Lord of the Last Heartbeat (The Sacred Dark #1)

  The Immortal City contains themes of death, amnesia, depression, traumatic loss and disconnection from one’s past. Depictions or descriptions of events some readers may find difficult include discussion of sexual assault, depictions of violence and gore, murder, and discussion of emotional abuse.

  THE IMMORTAL CITY

  May Peterson

  For every forgotten thing that nonetheless remains.

  I’d like to talk a little about the use of names and language in this book. Earlier in the series, I used mostly names that exist in our own world, in part because I was restraining one of my true passions, conlang. But especially when using languages that are marginalized by colonialism, this can have the effect of superficially mapping real-world culture onto an entirely fictional world that may not be adequately representing those marginalized cultures. I’ve decided to not try to map existing cultures directly onto the setting, and so to use more invented names and language to distinguish the fantasy world from the real one.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Sacred Dark Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Lord of the Last Heartbeat by May Peterson

  Chapter One

  Holy shit—this boy was going to jump.

  He was pacing back and forth to the edge of the stone, as if testing how much control he’d have over his descent. He looked about eighteen, reckless, hungry—hungry for whatever would meet him at the bottom of the fall. I’d seen this look enough to know it. His motions were paint-blurs of loose clothing, soft black hair, open desperation: a tender portrait study of the moment before death. Just like so many pilgrims before him, he’d trekked to Serenity to trade in his mortal life for the chance that he’d get an immortal one in return.

  I crouched and waited. I was the only one here today to count how many bodies there’d be, to see if any would actually get back up. The living trickled here to the arc of the stones, solitary or in clusters of pilgrims. I didn’t know where they all came from, but each season brought more. They appeared to either be seeking the many wonders and opportunities Serenity had to offer, or a way to bargain with death. Something moved them to brave the ice waste around the city. To Ancestor Rock, the mountain face of Serenity, the city where the immortal and eternal came to rest. The sun fell free on these stones, statues commemorating whatever fragile souls had once dared make this a home.

  Many of them came to jump. From statues shaped like saints’ hands, like gods and demons and the wreckage of the last thousand years. Here was where immortals dwelled forever, immune to the cold. The idea—it seemed—was that if a mortal died here, the immortal city might look on their death and grant them resurrection. Make them into a living-again, returned from death and infused with immorality. Then they’d rise up with wings of doves, or with tails of cats, blessed by the moon to never suffer again.

  I’d hate to be the one to break the news to them about the “never suffer again” part.

  The pilgrimages seemed to always be trickling in, though any given month had a meager flow of fresh faces, and I only saw a portion of them come to the rocks. Yesterday, there had only been a woman in a red robe, and she hadn’t jumped. Just sat in meditation, singing and weeping as the arctic wind drowned out her grief. She had to be a pilgrim of a different kind, one I happened on even less: those that traveled here to find their dead loved ones, people who might now be ghosts or living-again, drowned in Serenity’s peaceful swath of amnesia.

  But today there was this boy, smiling like a child about to dive into a pond.

  Strangely enough, I could bear the sight of the sad ones dying. The ones who wailed the whole drop down, like they were trying to purge out as much pain as they could before the impact. The ones who went quiet as soon as they hit. There was a tidy, animal logic to that. They would be in pain and then it would stop. I would feel relief for them, praying that if they rose again, their afterlives would be kinder.

  But one smiling, brave, almost joyful—fuck. To think a tumble off the rocks would be the highlight of his life.

  Then his slim neck turned up. His eyes met mine.

  And that smile widened like a sunrise.

  I stiffened. Could he really see me that clearly? I knelt far above him, on the stone lip of Solemnity, the gates around Serenity. It was a gate built into the mountain, indistinct except for the age-worn surface of green and blue rock. It was a wall made to endure time. And it towered over the icy plain, over Ancestor Rock, where winged forms like mine floated in the snow. Only the nakedness of the mountain face, and my supernaturally keen sight, let me make him out as well as I did.

  And yet he looked almost like he’d expected an audience.

  His hands waved in an arc. Through the air came his cry, small against the wind. “Hey! You there!”

  An astonished laugh escaped my throat. Please, please tell me that he didn’t want someone to watch his final moments. I was the wrong guardian angel for that.

  He was hopping up and down now, arms circling wider and gesturing at his own back. “Hey!”

  Ah. He’d seen my wings. And he was motioning in a way as if to signal that he liked this. Well, that was a bit more in the realm of the usual. I relaxed. Perhaps I had gotten too used to solitude; being admired felt rather spicy.

  May as well put on a show. I began to preen my wings, stretching out my broad feathers. Spotted with gray and tan like smooth beach stones, catching the starlight. “You like?” I called back. I couldn’t restrain the amusement in my tone.

  He clapped. He fucking clapped, like I’d made his goddamn day. A clawing image came to me, of this boy in his deat
h-pilgrim’s ecstasy, aching to see angelic wings over him as he fell. But then, he shouted: “Catch me!”

  His meaning snapped into place, all but stopping my heart—he wasn’t after some ritual death.

  “Are you drunk?”

  Delicate, unfettered laughter rose from him. He clapped once more, then skittered to the lip of the statue. If he was drunk, that precipice would surely murder his balance. But for a second he teetered on one foot, acrobatically, arms spread at his sides like he played at having wings himself.

  And then he hurtled off the ledge, head first. Twisting once in the gale as he fell.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It was like a string being pulled, ripping me down with him. In the next instant I was in the air, gathering speed under me to snatch him back from death.

  A second passed in which I was just straightforwardly falling. Then I seized the wind again with my wings, and he crashed into me with unceremonious grace. A sudden, almost impossibly light weight. Laughter streamed from him, sweet and childlike in its vigor. And his arms clenched me tight, face burying in my chest. The heat of his body was like a knife cutting through me.

  And for a moment the earth spun, the night air a spiral paring Serenity away. We fell into the clear air, the sky lit up with sparks. He laughed until I was laughing with him, and I caught myself breathing in the warm human scent of his hair and clothes.

  Next I was settling down on the rocks at the foot of Solemnity, bracing against the sliding dirt. The boy’s breaths came fast, unspeakably loud, sucking in the entire night. I held him to me long enough to be sure he was safe, and placed him on his feet.

  “Let’s try the path with actual soil.” My voice rasped in my own ears. I had one hand steadying his shaking frame. “Not putting you where you can do that again.”

  Vapor plumed over his face, uneven with residual laughter. The biggest smile lingered on his features. Up close like this, he looked older than I had guessed, probably around twenty. Bright black eyes, blackest black hair that fell straight above his ears. Soft mouth, faint dusting of freckles. A dark brown coat was sashed over him, trimmed with pale fur. He was garbed as I had come to expect pilgrims to dress, in hardy travel robes and trousers. At the collar, a bit of naked shoulder showed where the garment had tugged down. The bag hanging from him looked hefty, but I’d hardly felt it.

  A story flashed into being between the gaps. He was definitely no death-seeker. A simple thrill-chaser. Or someone who simply wasn’t afraid of his joy.

  “That—” He paused, gulped, started waving his hands again. Flakes of snow caught on the robe, made him blend into the backdrop of the night. “That was amazing.”

  I sighed, chuckling, at the person gelling into shape in front of me. “Fuck me. And you just expected a dove-soul or crow-soul to be lingering about to play with you? Please tell me you didn’t trek across the whole damned tundra just for that.”

  His slender hand brushed hair away from his brow. God dammit. He was flushed, and I couldn’t help but notice. I’d never seen anyone so unshaken by such danger—not anyone mortal, anyway. His smile tilted suggestively into a grin. “Well. I have always wanted to be caught by an angel in flight.”

  My amusement escalated, became a belly laugh. “You cannot be serious.” An angel in flight my ass. I was doubling over laughing now.

  But his energy seemed to be fading, as if satisfied. “No. I’m Hei.” That hand slipped back from under the sleeve, extended toward me. “My name is Hei.”

  I stared at him. What the hell was he? This wasn’t how people who came to Serenity acted, whether living or living-again. “Well. Hei. You are absurd, if you don’t mind my saying so.” I cleared my throat. And took his hand. Warm and small in mine. Definitely mortal. And still shaking.

  One pretty eyebrow shot up. “You’re not going to tell me your name? Oh my. A man of enigma.”

  I coughed. “No. It’s Ari.” I had to gather something up in me, courage or care or resolution. I didn’t know why. Except that giving my name always made me feel so naked. Because it was the only thing I had. The one piece left of the person I’d been before I died. It was all I had to say for myself, whether my life had been great or small. Because none of it was left. For one reason or another, I had given it all away to the merchant of amnesia.

  “Ari.” My name took on heat in his mouth, shivered like a flame. He seemed to toy with it, taste it. “It’s a good name.”

  I almost couldn’t bare that strange, glittering, thrill-hungry gaze on me—so I looked away. “You don’t look loaded down to cross the ice just for a holiday. You realize there are other places where winged moon-souls frequent to toss you about like a ball?”

  Past the wrinkle of the mountain’s feet, the waste became flat—so flat, more smooth and dimensionless than anything else seemed able to be. Sometimes its white, featureless surface was all I could look at.

  “You’re right.” Hei’s voice was gentle now, low enough that I may not have caught it had I not been so close.

  When I peered to the side, it hit me that I hadn’t let go of his hand. And he hadn’t let go either. He was looking out over the tundra with me, and the reckless joy was gone. A tired, dim, but still smiling shadow was left.

  Without warning, this boy who’d jumped seemed to become two. First, there was the one who had asked to be caught. And then the boy I’d thought he was, the one who craved a clean death more than anything. And I wanted, desperately, to be able to talk just then to the one who’d planned to die. That was the only one of the two I would have any idea how to speak to.

  And just like that, I didn’t want to know why he’d come here.

  I released his hand. Whether he noticed or cared or not, he did nothing.

  My wings disturbed the snow as I whirled toward the gate. The stone gleamed like a huge lapis lazuli. “Are you trying to enter?”

  Hei seemed to consider it a moment. “I already have a place to stay inside. I was planning to stay out a bit, but I’ll go back in since you are. They don’t seem to approve of opening the gates for only one person, so best not to trouble them.”

  I sniffed, then sketched a theatrical bow. “I shall walk you inside, then. Don’t even ask me to fly you over. I don’t trust you not to break your own neck.”

  He blushed and grinned again. We walked up the slope together.

  And at the mouth of the gate, the wide, frozen trail became Bare-Sky Road. The path was exposed to the sun, transmuting to diamonds in the smiting glare of day. Sunlight wouldn’t kill moon-souls like me, and it didn’t seem to bother the ghosts. But it did hurt, made even the air feel like smoke. I would endure it, though, sometimes. Long enough to stand above the city and watch the tundra pretend to burn.

  As we approached, the gate began to crawl open, its panes of celestial blue turning outward. The gate had to be the one edifice that received the most care in the city, because its groan of motion remained musical even after centuries. Its custodians came into view. Shapes spun out of mist, out of snow, of moon-glow and clouds of perfume. Human shapes, clad in the favored symbols of their afterlives. The ghosts bound to Solemnity. They opened it for anyone who drew near, whether living, dead, or living-again. I had once felt so bad for those ghosts, chained by their spiritual fetters to this gravid place. But the spirits seemed to shine with a kind of joy each time they carried out their task. Or, if nothing else, purpose. They kept watch as perhaps no one else did.

  Hei shifted nearer to me as our path focused; the gate wouldn’t be opened wide, but more than that, the sight of all this had to be overwhelming even to those who’d passed through a few times. It probably would have been for me, had I not been able to fly from the beginning of my stay here. The gate-ghosts clamored with their chorus of sounds—speech, laughter, songs, muted strains of weeping. It was like passing through a river, bathing us in the essence of Serenity.

  Then we were
on the other side. The chorus dwindled as the ghosts completed their task, went back to however they spent their idleness. Moonlight stained Bare-Sky Road a dreamy blue. Hei was shivering next to me.

  I spun so I was facing him, making eye contact again. “You all right?”

  I shouldn’t be acting so familiar with him. His playful impulses had enchanted me, distracted me, and I should have seen that for what it was. He was just a traveler, and I was just a stranger on the road. But I had already made him a person in my head. Attached him to things I cared about. To the gaps where my memories might once have been.

  “Just feeling the cold, finally.” His smile was back in force. “Ari. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

  I thought of how he’d felt in my arms, how light he’d been. About how long it had been since I’d been touched, or touched someone, in a way that didn’t feel as cold as the Road. That didn’t sting to remember.

  And how if I did see him again, it would probably be in the bowels of the city, where an attractive young mortal new to the city would be a favored target of some of the most cutthroat lurkers of the night-streets.

  “I hope not,” I said, regretting it and not, at once.

  That seemed to bring his lightness to ground, made his face solemn. His eyes flicked down, and after a moment, he nodded. “Thank you for catching me.”

  “Of course.”

  He began down the Road. Away from me, from the bareness of the sky. I tucked my wings over my shoulders, and watched him walk away.

  * * *

  I let the city swallow me up. But unlike Hei, my road was the wind.

  Serenity was a greedy place. The lip of the mountain cropped over the city, drawing shade across the expanse like a sundial. The sunlight at its height only ever touched half the city, leaving the rest permanently in shadow. Everything was organized around that half-night, how long the sun would actually touch each region of the city. Only the outer ring, along Bare-Sky Road, caught the day’s full gaze. At the occult depths, the night-streets, the darkness was never spoiled, never touched even by moonlight. And anything that wandered into Serenity, especially its shadowy core, tended to stay there.