by AD Starrling
‘Hence Strabo Corp.,’ murmured Conrad.
‘Although Mustafa was the favorite to take the throne after his father, it was one of his step-brothers who eventually succeeded Suleiman,’ Victor continued. ‘Mustafa was executed by order of the Sultan himself as a result of a political intrigue that had dominated the Ottoman court for years.’
‘Was he married?’ asked Laura. ‘Did he leave behind any heirs?
‘No,’ said Victor. ‘That’s the strangest thing.’ The Bastian leader’s puzzlement was obvious from the lines that creased his brow. ‘Although he had lovers, Mustafa was not known to have fathered a child, nor did he have a favorite concubine that was ever documented. I’ve asked the Bastian Immortal Culture & History Section to go over the information we have on the Ottoman Empire.’
‘So, hang on a minute. Let me get this straight,’ said Connelly, disbelief raising the pitch of her voice. ‘Are you really suggesting that there might be someone out there who thinks he’s the next ruler of a defunct world superpower? Someone who may incidentally also be a descendant of,’ she leaned toward the camera and lowered her voice to a hiss, ‘an immortal?’
Victor did not answer the question directly. He rested his elbows on the desk, propped his chin on his interlaced fingers, and watched them broodingly for some time.
‘Consider this theory,’ he said quietly. ‘Suppose you were the last remaining scion of a dead empire. Imagine you wanted to restore the kingdom of your ancestors to its former glory.’ He paused. ‘What would you need to achieve that goal?’
‘An army,’ Anatole replied promptly.
‘Weapons of power,’ said Laura.
A chilly smile danced on Victor’s lips as he observed understanding dawn on their faces. ‘And what would you have to do to ensure your success?’ His forceful gaze focused on Conrad’s face once more.
Part of the enigma unraveled inside the immortal’s head. An icy conviction formed in his heart. ‘You’d have to take out the opposition,’ Conrad stated grimly.
The color drained from Connelly’s face. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered.
‘I think we’re starting to see a structure to their plans,’ said Victor. ‘The question is, what will they do next?’
Chapter Twenty-Three
The red vase sailed through the air and crashed against the wall of the yacht’s main salon. Sharp fragments scratched the expensive wood as they exploded outward from the point of impact. Nadica’s guttural cry of rage underscored the echo of the explosion.
‘I will kill that man with my own hands!’ She bit her lip so hard she drew blood.
Ariana frowned from where she sat in a chair. ‘Calm down, child.’
‘Ama is right, sister,’ said Zoran Rajkovic. His gray eyes glittered darkly. ‘Now, tell us exactly what happened.’
Nadica took a shuddering breath and described the events that had taken place in Paris. Ariana grew still when the young woman related her physical encounter with the man the US president had put in charge of the investigation into the FedEx Field assassination attempt.
‘Are you certain of what you saw?’ she asked sharply.
Nadica hesitated. ‘Yes, Ama.’
Ariana gazed at her blindly before sinking back against the silk cushions. ‘Then he must be an immortal,’ she murmured.
Zoran froze. ‘Are you sure?’
‘That’s the only explanation.’ A flicker of unease flashed through Ariana’s subconscious.
Although she knew of the Crovirs and the Bastians, she had deliberately kept herself beneath their radar since she first became aware of their existence more than four centuries ago.
Immortality had come as a shock to Ariana.
Her earliest memories were of living in a cage in the Ukrainian city of Kefe, which was home to one of the largest slave markets of sixteenth-century Europe. After years of abuse at the hands of the Crimean traders who had stolen her from her home when she was a baby, she was eventually sold to a rich merchant in Istanbul when she was nine years old.
Her new masters were more tolerant of their pretty child slave. In the years that followed, Ariana got a glimpse of a freedom that she had never before known in her short life. But all too soon, her burgeoning beauty made her a subject of desire to the youngest master of the house. When her mistress came upon her son raping Ariana, his hand choking the air from her throat to stifle her screams, the woman whipped the young girl to the point of unconsciousness and sold her to a passing tradesman.
That man turned out to be a principal provider of slaves to the Imperial Harem. Taking pity on the bruised and battered girl, he asked a palace chambermaid to take her into service. When she awoke from her beating a day later, Ariana found herself on her way to the fortified city of Amasya, as a servant to one of Mahidevran Sultan’s ladies in waiting. Her wounds had almost healed, an observation that seemed irrelevant at the time, but would prove to be shockingly significant in the future.
She met Prince Mustafa more than a year after she settled into life at the Imperial Palace, upon his return from a long and arduous military campaign. Ariana had been sitting in the gardens that hugged the cliffs overlooking the moonlit Yesilirmak River at the time, lost in her thoughts while she enjoyed a brief moment of peace. At the sound of forceful footsteps, she turned and beheld a tall, handsome man dressed in a tired Janissary uniform striding toward her. It wasn’t until she saw the palace guards bowing and heard their happy greetings that she realized she was in the presence of Suleiman’s heir.
Although tales of his kindness had reached her ears, Ariana was still unprepared for the warmth and affection the Prince so readily showed her from the moment they met. Mustafa was twenty-one years her senior and the first man she ever willingly lay with. Conscious of the political plot being hatched against her son, Mahidevran Sultan took the young concubine under her wing and begged the two lovers to keep their relationship a secret.
Mahidevran’s fears were proved correct all too soon. Mustafa was assassinated a year later. Ariana was two months pregnant at the time.
Heartbroken and bereft of the one person she had ever pledged her life to, Ariana eventually agreed to Mahidevran’s desperate plans to keep her existence and that of Mustafa’s potential heir hidden from the eyes of the greater Ottoman Empire.
A fortnight after the fateful day when they received the news of Mustafa’s death, Mahidevran took her to the Janissary barracks in the city to meet with Branimir Rajkovic, the young captain who had brought them tidings of the Prince’s execution at the hands of his own father.
Ariana recalled hearing about Rajkovic from Mustafa and knew the captain to be as good a man as her lover had been. When Mahidevran expounded her idea on how they should proceed with regards to Ariana’s pregnancy, Branimir was shocked and stammered out an immediate refusal. Mahidevran instructed him to think carefully over the matter.
A week later, Branimir Rajkovic climbed the steep road to the palace and came to deliver his answer to the Sultan. The following day, Ariana became his wife in everything but the law, as Janissaries were not permitted to marry at the time.
Although they never consummated their relationship in the months that followed their union, Ariana was aware of how deeply Branimir had fallen in love with her while her belly still grew with Mustafa’s child.
Her labor came four weeks earlier than expected. As the hours of the day dwindled into night, Ariana knew something was terribly wrong. Mahidevran and Branimir stayed at her side the whole time, their lips full of encouraging words while their hands comforted her during the spasms of unbearable agony that tore through her bloated body and made her scream until her voice grew hoarse.
At long last, when night turned into day once more, Ariana heard her child’s faint cry for the first time. She lifted her head weakly from the sweat-soaked bed and tried to
peer through the veil of blackness falling across her vision at the pink, squirming bundle in Branimir’s hands.
But fate had other plans for her. With blood pouring uncontrollably from her hemorrhaging womb, Ariana’s heart soon slowed to dull, weak thuds. She pressed her lips to her son’s head and wheezed out her last breath minutes after giving birth. As she slipped into a yawning, cold darkness, Ariana had but a single prayer in her thoughts: that she would see her beloved Prince once more.
An hour later, she awoke with a gasp, the white shroud enveloping her freshly cleaned body slipping from her face.
At the other end of the room, Branimir sat with Mustafa’s son in his arms, sobs shuddering through his body and his tears shimmering in the candlelight as they fell on the newborn baby’s sleeping face. He looked up at the sound of her voice and almost fainted when he saw her.
It took them days to come to terms with the fact that she had survived her death. Mahidevran swore the female attendant who had helped during the childbirth to secrecy and had Branimir’s new family moved to a Janissary posting outside Amasya.
They decided to call the boy Kader, which meant “Fate” in Ottoman Turkish. Shortly after her son turned one, Ariana finally accepted Branimir into her bed and allowed herself to love the man who had been like a brother to Mustafa. More than a decade later, she finally became Branimir’s wife in the eyes of the law and God, when the new Sultan lifted the ban that forbade Janissaries to marry. By then, she had given birth to two more sons and a daughter.
The years passed. Although the core of her still belonged to her Prince, Ariana tended happily to her family, her days full of love and laughter. Branimir progressed rapidly in his career, and they lived comfortably on his earnings.
But by the time Kader turned nineteen, Ariana still looked the same as she did the day she gave birth to him. The evidence of her agelessness horrified her; viewing it as a curse from the heavens, she tried to kill herself. She was successful.
She survived that death as well.
It was Mahidevran who finally allayed her fears and put her on the path to discovering the existence of the immortals. After receiving news of Ariana’s suicide and seeing the physical proof of the young woman’s enduring youth, Mustafa’s mother cautiously related a tale Suleiman once told her one evening when they were in bed.
The story was of two races of powerful, supernatural beings who had walked the Earth as long as man himself had existed. According to Suleiman, they were the greatest threat humanity would ever face, for not only were their fighting skills and stamina in battle truly terrifying, they did not seem to age like ordinary men and possessed the capacity to defy Death himself.
Although the Sultan’s voice trembled as he talked about these “fearful immortal creatures,” Mahidevran had taken the tale for what it appeared to be—the fanciful imagination of a great man who wished to see enemies everywhere.
Ariana waited until Branimir retired from the Janissary army a few months later before traveling secretly to Europe in the company of her husband and her first-born son, on the trail of these legendary beings. By then, Branimir’s status had grown considerably in the army, and he had become a significantly wealthy man in his own right, able to open doors in societies that would normally have shunned them. Because of her youthful appearance, Ariana posed as Branimir’s daughter, with Kader acting as her brother.
It was almost three years before they uncovered evidence of the existence of the immortals, in one of the greatest cities in the world. As she gazed at the small group of elegantly dressed figures circulating through the ballroom of a magnificent palace, their intimidating presence easily commanding the respect and awe of the noblemen and women around them, Ariana felt a rapport she had never experienced before.
The knowledge that she had found her true kinsmen was carved into her very bones that day. Although she wished to make herself known to them that same night, Branimir and Kader held her back, cautious of these powerful strangers they knew nothing about. In hindsight, she was grateful for their instincts.
They returned from their travels half a decade after they had left, thoughtful and fearful of all they had learned about the immortals in the two years since they first encountered them, including the rumor that the Crovirs and Bastians could survive up to sixteen deaths.
During their absence, yet another Sultan had taken to the throne of the Ottoman Empire. As they passed through the port of Istanbul, Ariana observed the glimmering fortress of Topkapi Palace overlooking the resplendent city and felt the first seed of anger germinate in her heart. Here was the capital of the empire that rightfully belonged to her long-dead Prince and their son.
She did not speak to Branimir of her increasing resentment after they reached their home in Bursa, although she suspected her husband knew the truth of her feelings from the anxious way he often looked at her. While Branimir had been outraged for a long time about the way Suleiman Sultan had treated Mustafa, the passage of time had eased his ire. Knowing that he would not approve of the scheme blossoming in the core of her soul, Ariana approached Mahidevran and requested her counsel.
The former concubine of Suleiman the Magnificent listened attentively to the outrageous idea that had preoccupied Ariana’s every waking moment since her return from Europe. The older woman studied her in silence for some time before asking her to leave and come back the next day. Ariana departed Mahidevran’s residence uncertain of the older woman’s intentions, and spent a restless night wondering whether the dream growing inside her would ever come true.
She returned as requested the morning after, her heart full of trepidation. After closing the doors of her chamber to watchful eyes and curious ears, Mahidevran went to her writing table and produced several sheets of paper from a drawer. On them were written the names of everyone Mahidevran knew would be faithful to Mustafa’s heir and Ariana’s cause. Half were former members of Mahidevran’s court from Amasya. The rest were officers of the Janissary army.
In the year that preceded Mahidevran’s death, the former Sultan accompanied Ariana and Kader on their campaign across the Ottoman Empire, where they secured the allegiance of more than four hundred men and women.
Though it was not enough to lead a campaign against the ruling Sultan, Ariana was not disappointed by the size of the devoted following they had gained. For it was only the beginning of her plans.
By the time Branimir passed away, it was evident that two of his children and Kader had inherited traits of her immortal bloodline; all three had outstanding fighting skills, accelerated powers of healing, and delayed aging. Although a strong fighter, Branimir’s second son recovered from his injuries and aged like other humans. All had married and had offsprings of their own.
Over the next eighty years, Ariana secretly tested the mettle of her growing troops against the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, beginning with her support of the Janissary uprising of the 1620s, in which the ruling emperor was captured and killed.
Other Sultans rapidly took the throne in the decades that followed, and Ariana could only watch in growing frustration as the beloved empire of the two loves of her life started to crumble around the edges under the increasingly ineffective and weak rule of the Ottoman government. By the time the Great Turkish War ended at the dawn of the eighteen century, large territories previously seized during long and bloody battles had been reclaimed by their European enemies.
Kader died in 1710, after falling from a horse and breaking his neck. When Ariana realized he would not wake again, as she so easily could, she wept for weeks; the realization that she had fifteen lives remaining and would likely be walking the Earth well after the deaths of all her children felt like purgatory. But Kader left behind a son and a daughter, and one grandchild. Two of them inherited the powers of her immortal ancestry.
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Ariana sat down with the p
rogeny of Mustafa’s and Branimir’s bloodlines, as well as the generals of her flourishing army, all of whom were descendants of those who had pledged their loyalty to her and Mustafa’s heir almost one and a half centuries previously. They spent months analyzing the changing landscape of power, politics, and economics across Europe, Asia, North Africa, and the Americas before finally deciding on a master strategy.
The next hundred years saw her lineage and that of their faithful followers expand their reach across six continents and gradually accumulate the wealth, knowledge, and influence they would one day need to take back the lands that had been lost, and build a greater and more formidable Ottoman Empire—one that would have the world quaking in fear.
But it wasn’t until the technological and scientific advances of the latter half of the twentieth century that the last pieces of their battle plan could be finalized. By then, they had enough assets to buy off several African countries, and their army counted almost a quarter of a million in number.
At the birth of the twenty-first century, only Zoran and Nadica remained of Mustafa’s bloodline. Though they were cousins, they had been raised as siblings from an early age. They were the seventh generation to be born after Kader, and their thirst for power and justice more than matched Ariana’s.
She looked up from her silent contemplation when Zoran spoke.
‘If the immortals are helping the Americans, then they are likely to become a problem,’ he observed.
‘That’s why we have a contingency plan,’ Ariana said in a deadly voice. She had not come this close to achieving her dreams to have them snatched by the immortals. ‘If they will not listen to reason when the time comes, then I will bury them so deep into the ground it will take them months to climb out of the hole.’
