Forbidden (11 page)

Her smile faded. It had never held any warmth. He continued before she could speak.

“That there’s more to this life.” His heart accelerated as he spoke; the words alone sent adrenaline thrumming through his veins.

“Saric—”

“I’ll show you that there is far more power to be had than the power any Sovereign has yet seen.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can give you a life overflowing with desire, rich with new sensibility, dear sister.”

“Stop this.” She stepped away. “I don’t know what’s happened to you or what you’re talking about. But we stopped playing games when we became adults.”

He stiffened. “I can assure you, I’m not playing games. On the contrary, I’ve learned something that you have to know. The question is whether you have the stomach for the truth.”

She eyed him, obviously uncertain, disturbed by fear.

“What truth?” she asked.

“That in our so-called evolution, humanity’s loss of the baser sentiments wasn’t advancement at all, but the casualty of a virus called Legion. It was let loose on the world four hundred and eighty years ago at Null Year by the alchemists. Alchemy—not the Maker—has defined our fate, and it will again.”

Saric paced to his left, leading her stare. “You’ve been taught that we exist in the only Order. But there’s another order. There is an anti-Order. There are the vestiges of Chaos living among us today.”

“What you’re saying is sacrilege!”

“It is. It’s also the truth. This very moment the alchemists have in their custody the last surviving member of the Order of Keepers—a man, a historian they call the Book, who carries in his memory every known fact of these keepers. His anti-Order would bring back every emotional vice that led to the zealotry that nearly destroyed humanity.”

She blinked. “The keepers.”

“Yes.”

“You’re saying they’ve lived among us all this time?”

“They have. And if this last one has his way, the world will be thrown back into a second Age of Chaos.”

“You say your gift is new sensibility. And yet you speak against Order and for Chaos?”

Saric stepped closer. “There is so much you don’t know, sister. I can teach you. Bring me into the senate to stand at your side. We’ll be like Rowan and Father. Together. You will never be afraid to be alone, because you will have me. Entrust me with this duty. For the sake of your rule. For the sake of the people.”

For an impossibly long moment, she searched his eyes. The beat of his heart struck a single and unfamiliar note.

“Don’t be absurd. Even if all of this is true, you know it doesn’t work that way. I could never just turn the senate over to you, not without their full support.”

“Are you so naive? The law gives you the power to appoint whomever you wish. To do whatever you wish. The senate exists only for the comfort of the people and the symbolic participation of the continental nations. But you and I know the truth. Sign the decree and it would be done.”

“For that reason—for the comfort of the people—it must always be done properly. I will uphold my commitment to Order. I won’t have it any other way.”

Her words cut deeply. It surprised him how much.

“As for this so-called keeper, you can be sure that I’ll look into it. From what you’re saying, one could assume that you yourself have practiced his dark alchemy. You must stop immediately. If you haven’t given it up and reported your every association to it by the time I’m Sovereign, you’ll answer for it. To me.”

He stood as though struck. And then rage filled him with such force that he wondered if he would lose all restraint.

“You’re a fool! I’ve offered you everything! I’ve offered you the world as you will never possess it, for one paltry price!”

There. Fear. It flitted before her face, like a shadow over those brilliant eyes.

But the satisfaction of seeing it was gone as quickly as it came. She was denying him. The desire he’d felt at the sight of her fled, leaving him feeling only pathetic.

What was he doing?

He knew. It was the emotion. It held him in thrall. And because of it, she held
him
in thrall. He couldn’t afford that. Ever. Struggling before Corban was one thing. But getting carried away by his intense desire for Feyn was too dangerous.

He had said far too much. He dare not leave her harboring suspicion toward him. She must believe he had her best interest at heart.

Saric took a deep breath and dipped his head. “Forgive me, sister. My fear has gotten the better of me.”

She didn’t respond.

“It seems those monsters you once saved me from chase me still.”

“Then I suggest you send them away,” Feyn said.

“Please forgive me,” he said.

“Of course.”

“Thank you. I’ll think on what you’ve said. Meanwhile, please at least search out the truth in these matters.”

“Be certain: I will,” she said. “I’ll have further questions for you in days ahead.”

He knew that she would, and on the surface her inquiries might seem to betray his purpose. But at least he had her trust, despite the fact that he had nearly betrayed himself.

Never again. By the time she ferreted out the truth and turned against him, it would be far too late for any of them, including her.

T
here’s another
way, Rom.”

Avra sat before Neah’s coffee table, where she’d been studying the vellum for the last hour. Next to it lay the newspaper, which Rom had ventured out and retrieved two hours earlier. His own face dominated the front page with the caption
FUGITIVE
in bold letters below it.

“What way?” he asked.

“We could still flee Byzantium.”

Rom had been pacing for what seemed hours, unable to sit down. He glanced at Neah, who was curled into a corner of the sofa. She’d come out of her blackout uncharacteristically quiet except for periodic stifled sobs. Her subdued state unnerved Rom, especially in light of Triphon’s manic extremes. They had been doing the best they could to ignore his outbursts throughout the day.

A
thump
sounded in the back room. Triphon cried out and started laughing, only to devolve moments later into giant bullish sobs. He had been fighting demons in there for hours.

Rom shook his head. “We’ve already discussed that. No. We have to get into the Citadel. I have to find this man called the Book, this keeper.”

“What if they’ve killed him, too?”

Rom raked his fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry, Rom. But we have to consider it.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. But right now he’s all we’ve got.”

He knew what Avra was thinking. In his wild tangents—and he had chased them all throughout the day—he imagined their escape to a place where they might be safely together. A place where the Citadel Guard had no jurisdiction. A part of him longed for that more than any other thing. To be alone with her, to simply live and discover the far reaches of love.

But he needed answers. They both did. And he needed to know about his father; it wasn’t just them at issue here.

“You realize the Citadel is the most dangerous place you could possibly go right now,” Avra said.

“It’s for the truth.”

“How much truth do we need?”

“It isn’t just us. What about the responsibility we have now? What about the rest of the world? Do we just hide this from them?”

“We don’t owe the world anything!” She looked away. A moment later she said, “You’re right. I know it. I just wish there was another way. There have to be others who have experienced this or at least know about it. Somewhere. Anywhere else but the Citadel.”

“That’s why I need to ask the Book.”

He sat down beside Avra. Neah had gone near catatonic; he wasn’t sure if she was even conscious. Here was another reason they couldn’t simply flee: Triphon and Neah were only now emerging from the throes of their conversion.

He picked up the newspaper.

The fact that they hadn’t listed Avra as missing or with him had at first seemed like a good sign. Now he wasn’t sure. Surely the guard knew by now she was gone, but they’d kept that knowledge to themselves. And that worried him.

He stared at the picture: his identification photo from the Office of the Census. His likeness smiled slightly, politely, but what had he known about smiling? What had he understood of life, of anything but going to basilica to sing when he was summoned, of returning to the comforts of the workshop and his mother’s house? The philosophical talks that he and his mother had shared around the large hurricane lamp on the living room table…

Had been only a shell.

Avra joined him in staring at his image. “Even then you had a way about you that made me believe there could be meaning in everything. You were right.”

“My mother called it naïveté.” Grief swept over him.

“Rom, think of it. She died without regret, without sadness, without even anger at her attackers. And now she’s in Bliss.”

Rom was quiet for a moment before he said, “She died without love. And so did my father.”

Worse yet, his father had somehow known it.

And for that, Rom felt crushing sadness. For that, he wondered if he could ever forgive his father’s killers. For that alone, he had to know exactly what he had found in this vial, and what it meant to this life, to this world.

He had been so accepting of Order. He had taken it all at face value. He had not been naive. He had been a fool.

Rom tossed the paper aside.

A thud sounded from the direction of Neah’s bedroom.

Triphon came bursting out into the living room, executed a flying side kick, and crashed into the wall. Rom had tried to engage him earlier, but the man had gone off in a rant. He’d taken more than one portion of the blood and seemed to be suffering all the effects.

Or was Triphon just coming fully into his own?

Rom hoped his reason would catch up with his emotions soon. For all he knew the guard were on the stair outside Neah’s apartment now.

Neah broke her silence from the sofa. “You’re destroying my apartment.” Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, and she began to poke at a patch of darkening bruises on her upper arm.

She faced Rom. “So what happens now that you’ve dragged me into this mess? Not that it matters. We’re going to get hauled off. You hear me? They’re going to come for us!”

It was the most she had said all at once in hours.

“No,” Rom said, standing. “We have to get into the Citadel.” He turned toward Triphon, shadowboxing against the wall. “Triphon, are you with us?”

Triphon stopped and stared at his hands. “This is incredible. I would fight to the death for any of you right now. You know that?”

“What you feel is a drug,” Neah snapped.

“Are you listening?” Rom demanded. “We have to get into the Citadel!”

“I’m here,” Triphon announced with a raised fist. “We need to get into the Citadel?
I’ll
get us into the Citadel.”

“Such an idiot,” Neah said.

“Tell me you aren’t glad to finally feel something besides fear.” Rom said. “Tell me that you aren’t the least bit glad to feel anything but that thing that drives you to create your perfect world here, with your soothing cushions and your soft colors. Tell me that you aren’t glad.”

Earlier that morning, Triphon had knocked over a bowl of glass balls in the foyer. Neah had gathered the larger pieces and then dropped them all to lift the largest one toward the window. The light had fallen on her face, and she’d turned the glass over with infinite wonder in her eyes. Rom had thought she was beautiful earlier, but she was positively radiant then.

“My mother gave these to me,” she’d said before her face crumpled.

Now he said to her: “Or are you still too afraid?”

Avra touched his hand. “Rom.”

Neah was looking at him with the same impetuousness that she had always worn, but then the expression slipped away like an ill-fitting mask that would not stay on. It took a moment for him to realize that he had wounded her with his words. So easily?

“I’m sorry, Neah.”

She looked away.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“You were talking about the Citadel,” Triphon said.

“Right. We have to get the vellum to the keeper,” Rom said. “He might be the only one who can tell us what all this writing means. We have to learn more if we hope to survive. The whole world is against us right now.”

“Finally, a note of truth,” Neah said. “The world is against us. What if you get into the Citadel, which, by the way, is near impossible, and it turns out this keeper of yours is dead as Avra said? Do you really think they care about an old man? You’ll only be taken captive yourself. You know what I think? That you’ll be dead before tomorrow!”

“Neah!” Avra cried.

“It’s all right,” Rom said. He probably deserved it.

“Think about it! But no, you can’t. All these feelings interfere. I can hardly think…while…” Neah’s chin quivered.

“They have to keep the keeper alive,” Avra said. “What he knows is too important.”

Triphon picked the newspaper off the floor and studied the front page for a long moment.

“Dung hills,” he said quietly.

They were all silent; Triphon had said it eloquently enough.

He dropped the paper on the coffee table. Outside, the bells had begun to toll for evening assembly. Triphon said, “I can get us into the Citadel. I’m in the guard.”

“You’re in
training
,” Neah said.

“Is
anything
ever good enough for you?” Triphon snapped.

Neah blinked.

“Damnation.” Triphon hauled in a breath. After a minute, he said, “I can get into the barracks. And from there, I just need to know where to go. Neah?”

She looked away.

“Never mind. I’ll ask around. There are only so many places they can keep a guy like that.”

“All right,” Rom said, “Triphon will get me in—”

Neah said quietly, “There is only one place they’d keep him.”

He glanced at her.

“In the old dungeons. There’s a rumor about a labyrinth of corridors and chambers beneath the Citadel. And that they keep prisoners down there.” When the severity was gone from her face, she looked years younger. Her gaze flicked toward Triphon, but Triphon was pacing again.

“No one knows for sure?” Rom said.

“No. And no one asks. We have jobs to protect. Do you know how easy it is for one person to say that you’re insubordinate, just because they’re afraid something you did might reflect poorly on them?”

“So the keeper has to be in the dungeons somewhere,” Triphon said.

“If he’s a real person and if he’s still alive…that’s where he’d be.”

Triphon walked to a high transom window along the living room wall and peered out. Only Rom saw the way Neah’s gaze followed him.

“They say the dungeons are in the control of Saric,” she said.

“Saric?” Rom said.

“Feyn’s brother.”

“Feyn, as in…
Feyn
?”

“The Sovereign-to-be,” Neah said.

“Saric,” Triphon muttered and turned from the window.

“Any idea where the dungeons are located?” Rom added.

“You’re really serious about this?” Neah said quietly.

“If you’re right and I’m going to die by tomorrow, then I want to know what it was for.”

The room fell silent.

“Maybe there is a way I could get us in,” Neah finally said. “But it won’t be easy.”

Rom’s pulse surged. “How?”

“I don’t know yet. But the whole city knows your face now. You can’t possibly go.”

“I’ll go,” Triphon said. “I can get as far as the barracks without a problem.”

“No, it has to be me,” Rom said. “I was the one the old man told to find the keeper.” He wouldn’t entrust the vellum to anyone. But even more, he had to find out about his father.

“Don’t be thick!” Triphon said. “I’m the trained fighter here. If trouble comes, I’m the only one who stands a chance.”

“Which is why you have to stay here and protect Avra. They have to know by now that she’s with me. And you need to get Neah out if anything happens to me.”

Rom turned back to Neah. “How would you get me in?”

She chewed her lip. “The three other people in my office are all women. Maybe you could go as a woman.”

“Well that rules me out,” Triphon said.

“Let me see what I have.” Neah went into the bedroom to find Rom something to wear.

“I don’t like it,” Avra whispered, stepping to his side.

He stroked her hair. It was soft and fine, waving in auburn tendrils against his fingers.

“It’s not going to get any safer. If anything, they won’t expect such a bold move.”

Neah appeared with two dresses over her arm. “They’re the ones with the most room in the shoulders.”

“There is no way I’m going to pass for a woman in one of those!” Rom ran a hand over his face. His head hurt.

“Wait. I might have something else.” Neah tossed the dresses over a chair and hurried to the closet. She pulled out several long robes on hangers.

“Some of the priests come to the Citadel to conduct private assembly. The Citadel keeps their robes for them. I have them laundered.”

“I thought royals were supposed to attend basilica with the public, that that was why there was no basilica within the Citadel itself—”

“One of the Brahmin is afraid of public spaces and refuses to leave the Citadel gates. Another has a near-paralyzing fear of catching a common virus and ending up at the asylum. They bring the priests to the Citadel and have them change into their robes there, so that no one knows they’re breaching Order.”

Rom took one of the robes from Neah, pulled it over his shoulders, and fastened it at his neck and chest. “Is there a back way out of here?”

“The bedroom window. There’s an escape stair on that side of the building.”

Rom glanced at Triphon. “If there’s any sign of trouble, you and Avra leave. Go north, out of the city.”

“Easier said than done. It’s harsh land.”

“You’re a trained guard, as you like to point out. Aren’t you all trained to ride horses?”

“For ceremony, but—”

“Promise me.”

“If there’s a way, I’ll find it.”

“Rom.” Avra was watching him. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

She drew him aside into the small kitchen and faced him, ashen.

“I don’t like this.” Her whisper was shallow.

“Triphon won’t let anything happen.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about.”

He took both of her hands, lifted them, kissed the knuckles of one, then the other. “I’ll be all right,” he said, against the backs of her fingers. He pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around her. “I promise I’ll be safe.”

“I don’t think I can live without you. My heart would break.”

He gave a soft laugh, eager to calm her. “Your heart’s stronger than you know.”

“Rom?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me you love me. With the new kind of love.”

“I love you.” The words were a sigh and a prayer. Words wild and sacred at once. “With the new kind of love. More than either of us could know.”

Outside, the bells tolled the end of evening assembly and the close of rest day. Avra straightened the neck of his robe, then pulled his hood up over his head. She stood on her tiptoes and touched her lips to his.