Forbidden (17 page)

T
he great
torch blazed above the senate dais. Though it cast light well past the ringed rows of hallowed seats, it gave off no real heat, this flame lit by many flames gathered from all corners of the world.

All but two of the one hundred senators had filed in through the great arch in the last hour, the last hour of three, just as Rowan had promised.

They had come robed in anxious decorum, taking their distinguished seats in the hall’s tiered semicircle, which surrounded a dais that projected into the middle of the room. In front of the dais, a lesser circle on the floor marked the place where the senators could stand and be heard.

Anxiety had given way to alarm at the sight of the guard, twenty strong, who shut fast the chamber doors as soon as all were seated. The posture of the robed senate body had gone silent in the space of an instant.

When Rowan stood and delivered the terrible news, the hall filled with the cacophony of fear.

“My peers in this senate, I dread to report that Vorrin Cerelia, the Sovereign of our world, is dead.”

It was into the coils of this fear, reaching up to the vaulted ceiling of the hall like smoke, that Saric delivered his subsequent argument.

He made his speech from the dais. He made it with eloquence and boldness to white-eyed, nervous glances that flicked with collective unrest.

Now he drew them into his conclusion.

“So it is with great respect, unwavering devotion to the Order, and dread—not for myself, but for the world—that I tell you today I will not become figurehead of a system that did not elect me, nor assume a fate not appointed to me by the Maker at my birth. To do so would constitute sacrilege. The Maker, after all, makes no mistakes. It is for these reasons that I must refuse. I beg you, find another to serve you for the next three days.”

Saric dipped his head and withdrew from the podium.

The distress came first as a rustle, the shifting of ninety-eight bodies uncomfortable upon their velvet seats, and then as a whisper, shared between two and then fifty, until the hiss became an outcry.

Rowan’s gavel sounded. Twice, three times, hard upon the podium where the senate leader had gone to stand.

“Silence! Silence!”

A wizened, graying man stood from his seat on the floor.

“Senator Dio of Europa would speak.” The man was one of the senate’s most tenured figures. A member of the old guard, he might have been the right arm of Megas himself—he certainly looked old enough for it. He had served nearly fifty years as a prelate before his appointment to the senate, and there was no man here, Rowan included, who knew the Book of Orders as thoroughly or who had studied it as deeply as he.

Rowan nodded and stepped back.

The senator rose and came to stand in the round below the dais. He moved with surprising ease, given his age. The sleeve of his robes revealed thick forearms gnarled by ropy blue veins beneath his pallid skin.

“My lord Saric,” he said. His voice was thick and slightly hoarse, as though he spoke from the back of his throat. “I should be addressing you as
sire
, but as you say, the mantle is one that must be assumed willingly and purposefully. But have you forgotten that it must also be assumed obediently? Let us remember the great design of the Order, the infallibility of law. You say that there is a flaw in the system. You say that it is not logical, that the Sovereign’s eldest should not succeed him when another, experienced Sovereign still lives. Or that your sister, groomed to the office, should succeed you if Sovereign Miran cannot or will not.

“But you must remember that four hundred and eighty years of Order make a case of their own. The Maker has created Order and created it infallible. For that reason, it serves as the foundation of the law. How do we best serve the law? By willful—and purposeful—obedience. Our fears, our experience, even our logic are subject to obedience. And upon this premise, I must speak for the body when I recommend you without hesitation to the office. Let the world have her Sovereign.”

Voices raised in concurrence to the backdrop of concurring applause. Saric glanced at Rowan, who gestured him back to the podium. The old senator stayed on the floor. Though Rowan held leadership of the senate, this senator, Dio, held no small amount of power himself. A good thing to keep in mind.

Saric bowed his head and clasped his hands in respect.

“Senator Dio. I cannot prevail against your experience. But I must take exception with your logic. You say that following Order is an act of obedience. But obedience is not done mindlessly. To be human is to think. Feyn, as my father before her, has prepared for this role for years—since the announcement of her appointment. The world looks to her inauguration with great comfort. She is known to them. Her image is seen on every street corner around the world. The day of her inauguration will be one of celebration. Families will go to their beds in serenity knowing they are in the hands of one familiar to them who has prepared the better part of her life for the role. Would you grant me that much?”

The old man dipped his head. “I will.”

“I, on the other hand—what does the world know of me? What comfort will the world find in me or in the news that Vorrin is dead? Fear will reign. That creature will be loosed on the world. We combat fear with logic and Order. My ascension to the office might fulfill one, but not the other. And where is the peace in that? Today, logic must prevail over fear for the sake of Order. The law must be set aside.”

Cries from the senate floor. A few robed senators—one of them a younger man, another a woman with white hair—rose swiftly to their feet. Senator Dio spoke, finger raised to the air, but was drowned out by the cries of those around him. Rowan’s gavel crashed down again and again on the podium.

Saric raised his hand for calm. The room gradually fell silent.

“Senators, yes, it is only for a few days. You are right. The world, even if it is overrun by fear for a few days, may surely be put to rights by the auspices of Feyn’s rule. I myself have great peace and belief in her upcoming tenure. But let me remind you that it was this body that, only two days ago, rejected my request to serve as senate leader.”

Murmurs from the senators.

“How can you reject me in this lower office and yet recommend me to the highest one? Both in the name of Order? Yes, yes, I understand, the laws are clear. And yet the logic is flawed!”

For a moment there was nothing but the gentle crackling of the senate torch.

Then the arguments started again, and Saric retreated to his seat on the dais. He gave them time, listened to the cacophony, which was like so much melody, really, with a cadence of its own.

Above them, he could just make out the paintings on the vaults of the ceiling. They were nearly obscured by time and the faint smoke of the eternal senate flame. Someone had told him once that it was a vision of the Maker reaching down to man, that painting. A vision of Chaos obscured by the smoke of Order. He thought, looking at it, that he could just barely make out the line of a hand. But to his eye it wasn’t the hand of the Maker at all, but of a man, reaching for the heavens.

“Order! Order!” Rowan’s gavel cracked. The room quieted.

“Sire, I implore you…”

Saric stopped Rowan with a lifted palm. He stood and approached the podium again. His power was already palpable.

He took a deep breath. “I see that my decision has already cast great fear upon this body. And observing this here, among us, I am disquieted for the world.”

The senate leaned forward. And Saric relished the taste of triumph.

“My lord Saric,” Senator Dio said. “What would you propose?”

Here it was then.

“Senator Dio, my father lies dead. You are right. This body needs the comfort of its Sovereign. Let us agree to a compromise.”

He waited. He could practically hear the machine-like movement of their eyes shifting from him, to Rowan, to Senator Dio.

“I will agree to serve as your Sovereign on one condition. The law of Order is given by the Maker. But the law is not the Maker; it is not perfect. It is in constant state of betterment and refinement. Your role here is proof of that. Refine this law. Fix the flaw in it. Let this situation, should it happen in years or centuries to come, never lead to this impasse again. Give comfort to the people and to those confronted with filling the office.

“Let the law be changed. Let it now read that should a seated Sovereign die before his or her tenure is fulfilled, then the former Sovereign should step into office once more. Let us have and give the world the reassurance of their experience.”

Quiet.

“If you could see your way to this,” Saric announced, “then I will do your bidding in this matter and assume office. I give you my word.”

A tussle at one of the doors interrupted them. A guardsman there was trying to block the way in for someone Saric now recognized as Camille, his father’s secretary. She was insistent, her voice raised, though the guard would not let her by.

She broke past them and then stopped short when the body of senators turned to her.

Something was not right here. She would never barge in. Unless…

“My lord, Feyn has been taken!” Her voice was high-pitched and unsteady. “She never showed up at her estate. There’s been a breach in her room. She’s gone.”

Chaos erupted on the floor as Saric’s blood turned to ice.

T
he Americas.
Is that Asiana?” Rom said, pacing next to Feyn, who was propped up on her elbows in the grass, further deciphering the vellum. He watched as an army of characters aligned itself beneath her pen in neat rank and file, in rightful order for the first time in centuries.

“No, the Americas are Nova Albion,” she murmured. “They were once two separate continents. A major city in each was destroyed in the Zealot War. In Megas’s geographic restructuring, they were combined into one, along with the hinterlands to the north. As for Asiana, it barely emerged from Chaos. It was a great continent known as Asia that once housed the world’s most populated cities. Hard to imagine—it’s such a scattered region now.”

She paused and glanced sidelong at him. Her brow smoothed from its frown.

“What is it?”

“You, Rom. It’s so strange to me that yesterday I didn’t know you at all. And today…” She smiled and in that instant looked like a girl. She dropped her head, her finger still on the vellum, the pen still in her other hand, but she made a soft and marveling sound.

“I, who would gain the world…would lose it in an instant to have this. All over again. Only this. Well…” The pale gray gaze slid to him, as if to say,
Well, maybe a little more
.

“You’re saying you’re glad I kidnapped you?”

“Yes. No. I’m saying more. That I’m thankful to the Maker for it.” Her gaze fell to his mouth. “Remind me to tell you something when we’re done with this.”

“I will,” he said. She nodded slightly, as though to herself, and returned to the vellum.

Rom looked away. Somewhere beyond them a bird sang. It was like a dream. There was little about his life that he recognized from even two days ago. He’d lived a simple, predictable existence, one of basilica, his workshop, his home. He sang for his supper—literally—and completed odd workman’s jobs when he could find them.

Today he was beyond the city for the first time in his life with the future Sovereign, whom he had kidnapped after learning about a secret blood. A blood that had awakened in him feelings long lost to the rest of humanity. A blood he had given to the Sovereign-to-be, a woman who emanated a gravity all her own.

In the space of hours the world had become more dangerous, more beautiful, and more vast than he could have dreamed possible.

Stay focused. Decipher the vellum.
It was all that mattered. That, and getting back. His stomach knotted, and he wondered again where the others had gone.

Feyn pushed up, having finished transcribing a large section onto the fabric.

“Rom, listen.” She pointed to the character with which she had left off, slid her finger forward on the grid, and began to read again:

Feyn stopped reading.

“Great evil?” Rom glanced at Feyn. She stared off into the grass in front of her but seemed to see nothing of the earth before her.

“I don’t think I could give up these feelings for anything. Not knowing what I know now,” she murmured.

All he could say was, “I know.”

She looked back down at the writing. “I’m reluctant to keep reading,” she whispered. But a moment later, she did:

Feyn stopped.

“What?” Rom said. “What does it say?”

She whispered the word:

A chill passed along Rom’s arms on the warm day.

Feyn touched the vellum. “Are we sure this isn’t a forgery?”

“I’m sure.”

She began to decipher more.

Rom paced, fighting the urge to watch over her shoulder. He’d done that once already and she’d shooed him off, promising she wouldn’t read for herself until the words were sufficiently translated, and that she would read them aloud.

Finally, when Feyn had finished a large portion, he could hold back no longer.

“What does it say?”

“I’m almost finished.”

After risking so much to know what was on this ancient vellum, he could hardly just stand by. So he went to the top of the knoll and watched the clouds gather over the city.

He felt the empty vial in his pocket. The blood was gone, the last of it given to Feyn. The blood was connected, somehow, to an undiscovered, unnamed boy.

And the key to the boy was surely in the vellum.

Feyn was still on her knees bent over the vellum when Rom returned.

“That’s it,” she said, rocking back. “It’s done.”

She followed her finger along the line, recapturing where she had left off.

Rom let out a slow breath. Feyn was staring again, this time at the rows of characters. “This…this can’t be real.” She was shaking her head. “How can it be?”

“We have to know,” he said.

She stood, eyes wide with wonder. “What a strange day. I’ll remember it forever.”

He gazed at the intensity, the earnestness, the innocence in the eyes of this most powerful person on earth.

“I will too.”

“If it weren’t for the blood, I’d say we were mad. That it’s no wonder these secrets were guarded so closely. Have we gone insane?”

“I don’t think so. On the other hand, only a madman would kidnap the Sovereign.”

She laughed, and the sound was like water running over pebbles in a brook. Its own music.

“Mad or not, everything is different,” Rom said. Was it only a day ago that he and Avra had left the basilica together, running for the subway beneath one of the banners bearing the image of this very woman?

“Read the rest,” he said.

Feyn sat down before the fabric, found her place again, and read:

“Megas!” Rom breathed.

“Wait. Listen.”

Rom was staring, first at the vellum, then at Feyn’s translation, and then at Feyn herself. She shook her head faintly. “This can’t be.”

But a moment later she read on:

“Dead?” Rom said into their ensuing silence. He could not move. “He’s claiming that the world is actually dead?”

She lifted her eyes. “I don’t feel dead.”

Was it possible? He looked at his hands. But they were the hands of the living, weren’t they?

“You don’t feel dead because you
feel
. The blood brought us back from the dead,” he said, embracing the idea. “That’s it, don’t you see? We were dead and now this blood has brought us back to life!”

“Dead…” Sweat beaded Feyn’s brow. “The whole world, dead? And it’s been that way…”

“For four hundred and eighty years,” Rom finished.

“You’re saying that there are only five living people on this planet.”

“I’m not saying it—the vellum says it.”

“And that I would be…a dead Sovereign…ruling a dead Order.”

Feyn turned back to the deciphered account.

Rom blinked.

Only for a time?

“Keep going,” he said, less steadily. She read again:

“The boy,” Rom said.

Feyn hesitated as though remembering something, but before he could ask, she hurried on: