Forbidden (24 page)

H
owever anxious
the others were to forge ahead, it would do Rom no good to arrive at the Citadel before morning. Avra convinced him to stay and sleep a few hours. Nothing could have suited Neah better.

The clouds broke that night. Moonlight filtered through the boarded windows, pooled on the dirty floor, and turned it beautiful. But the light evaporated like a dream.

Neah wept. Quietly, and alone.

It took her half an hour to gather herself. There lay Triphon, whose snores had helped ensure that she not fall asleep. Avra was curled up in Rom’s arms within her cloak.

Neah picked up her pack, slipped it out the window, and crawled out after it. The night air was cool. Clouds overhead. No more moonlight.

All night long they had talked of the boy, of the vellum, of life, of the beauty of emotion, and Neah had let them.

But all the while, she had wanted to scream. How could emotion be trusted when it came to such far-reaching consequences of the soul? In matters of eternity, the Maker?

It couldn’t.

Born once into life we are blessed.

She had never wanted this precarious existence outside the law, outside Order. There were things of this world that could be appreciated and respected without love.

Where did love ultimately lead but to fear? Fear of loss. Of death. Of pain.

Let us please the Maker through a life of diligent Order.

There was a comfort in her former life—even if Rom claimed it had been death—that did not exist in this new one. Fear was a familiar ally. By it she had abided by the strictures of Order. For that, she had been promised Bliss.

There was a reason Sirin’s halo bore measure-marks: so that each man could be judged by his works. There was a reason why his nimbus resembled a compass: so that each man might know the way. That was Order. No confusing feelings that tugged at the heart, that blurred the edges of simplicity or morality.

And no pain. Not like this.

And if we please, let us be born into the afterlife…

Only in Order was there a promise of something greater. Something too much to know here and now. But to be lived for, sacrificed for. Earned through obedience.

…into Bliss everlasting.

What she must now do she would do for them all, so that none of them would die, which was the course that Rom had set them on. His meeting with this boy, Jonathan, had robbed him of his senses. There would be no stopping him.

It was now up to her, for their sakes as well as her own.

It took her two hours to get to the Citadel. Nearly thirty more minutes to talk her way in. And now that she knelt before him, she did not see the beast that had brutalized Avra. Not at all.

Here was the gateway, the promise, Order’s dark messenger.

Kneeling on the carpet of Saric’s antechamber, Neah felt she could have kissed it. She would have prostrated herself if she could. They had put her in handcuffs, but it didn’t matter. This was the first peace she had known in days.

“Rise.”

It didn’t matter that her slacks were dirty, that her hair was unkempt.

She got to her feet.

“Speak.”

His skin was so translucent that she could see his veins reaching like a clawed hand up his neck and across his cheek. The change in him since she had passed him on a chance encounter in a corridor only a week ago was drastic.

“Avert your eyes.”

She looked at the floor. “Sire—my name is Neah.”

“I know who you are. What do you want?”

Emotion choked her off and she silently cursed it. She could only stand there before him, aware of her own pathetic trembling.

Be strong, Neah. For all of our sakes
.

“Take her away.”

“Please! I know where they are,” she said. “All of them. Including the boy.”

The room went quiet.

“Leave us.” Saric’s order to the guard was of a different tone this time.

The door bumped closed, and they were alone.

“You were saying.”

“I know everything,” she said but offered nothing more.

“And in exchange?”

“I want my former life. And absolution.”

“Death?”

She thought about that.

“If what I have is life, than I gladly forfeit it.”

“And yet you drank the blood,” he said. “You can feel.”

“I can feel pain. Longing. Suffering. I know fear. I have known that much and have lived with it before. Let me have it without this other torment.”

“Tell me where the boy is and I will have my alchemist return you to this so-called death.”

“I—I need assurances that you won’t hurt my friends.”

“I’ll need assurances that your information is true. If we don’t find them I’ll strip away much more than your emotion.”

Neah was unable to stop the trembling in her hands.

N
uala sent
for me,” Rom said from beneath the priest’s cowl. “It’s urgent.”

“Do I know you?” the priest asked.

“No. But Feyn does.”

“Our lady,” he said, correcting his familiar use of her name, “is sequestered.”

“I’m asking for Nuala. Are you deaf? Send the maid to the receiving hall to meet me or answer to the lady Feyn yourself.”

The priest hesitated.

“Do you really think I present a risk to a chambermaid?”

He nodded and left.

No more marveling at the architecture of the palace. The stone gardens that had once amazed him seemed nothing but a memorial to the life that no longer filled those flower beds. The Citadel was nothing to him now but the most elaborate of coffins.

They had awakened to find Neah gone. Triphon was crushed. Avra blamed herself. But all Rom could think about was the boy. The boy was all that mattered now. The boy, and getting to Feyn. He could think of no better way than through the maid Feyn had mentioned. Nuala.

She came to the receiving hall for him, approaching nervously.

“I don’t know you, do I?” she said as he drew her aside. The woman’s face was pinched in worry.

“No. But you know of me,” he said grimly, thinking of the newspapers. “I have an urgent message for your mistress. If you care for her life, I have to see her.”

She froze.

“She told me your name,” he said quietly. “You have to know I wouldn’t risk coming here otherwise. Please.”

“Not here,” she whispered. A little louder: “Come, Father.” She led him down the hall and up a small flight of stairs. The chamber she took him to was not Feyn’s, but a small, elegant suite. Perhaps her own.

She latched the door and turned toward him.

“Who are you?” she asked, her face a mask of anxiety. She couldn’t stop twisting her hands.

“I’m Rom Sebastian—”

She gave a short cry, but he said, “Even though they’re calling me an outlaw, I swear I’m a friend to your mistress. I have to see her immediately.”

“I thought so. Bliss, I thought so,” she said, pacing now. She wore the dark colors of the court, a simple black robe over the long skirt that just cleared her ankles when she walked.

She stopped and faced him, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I’d take you to her, but I’m telling you the truth when I say I haven’t been allowed to see her for two days. Saric has another maid attending her.”

“What?”

“I don’t think he trusts me, not since her disappearance. I will be attending her for the ceremony, but until then—”

“That’s too late!”

“Too late for what?”

He didn’t know how much he could trust the maid, but Feyn had sworn by her. And he wasn’t in a position to pick and choose the perfect accomplice.

“Listen to me.” He glanced at the sealed door. “You must believe me when I say that Saric is up to no good. If you can’t take me to Feyn, then I must speak to someone else in power, someone beyond Saric.”

“I never trusted Saric,” she said. “He brings out the fear in me. He’s not himself these past weeks.”

Because he’s inflamed with the blood
, Rom thought.

“Who can I trust here? Please!”

She shook her head, her eyes searching this way and that. “I can’t think—”

“You have to! Saric can’t have corrupted the whole government. There has to be someone you can approach.”

“Rowan,” she said. Her gaze locked on him.

“Who’s Rowan?”

“The senate leader.”

The elder statesman had the reputation of being fair.

“Take me to him.”

“I’m not sure—”

“We have no choice. If you value your mistress’s life, you must do this.”

She paced, judging him with wrinkled eyes.

“Wait here.”

“Hurry. Please.”

When she’d gone, Rom moved to the window, shoved back the hood of his robe. Feyn had loved him. And he had loved her as well. Not the same as Avra, but love, nonetheless, beyond the loyalty her office demanded of him, beyond the respect her sheer intelligence required of him. He had loved the woman on the knoll. The same woman now lost, swallowed up in death and the machinations of its Order once more.

The door flew open ten minutes later. Nuala stood in the narrow frame.

“This way.”

He pulled up the hood. “Where?”

“Follow me. Hurry!”

He did, down a long hall, head down, watching her heels as her robe brushed about them. They advanced through an ornate doorway into an unexpectedly simple office.

Despite the early afternoon, darkness crept along the edges of the plastered walls and flagstone floor. A stately man whom Rom assumed was Rowan stood in the center, watching their entry. With a last glance, Nuala stepped out, leaving them alone.

“I don’t know what this is about except that Nuala petitioned me in our lady’s name. Whatever it is, I’m busy. Please, make this quick.”

Rom drew back the hood and watched Rowan’s expression change.

“You?” The senate leader’s face narrowed.

Rom spoke before he could throw out his accusation. “The outlaw, Rom Sebastian, yes. I’m also the last person who saw Feyn alive before she returned.”

“You’re turning yourself in?”

“No. I’m here to save Feyn.”

“Don’t be absurd. She doesn’t need saving.”

“Are you so sure? I may be the only advocate Feyn has right now.”

“You’re outside Order!”

“And I’m telling you, I may be the only one who can save the Sovereign of that Order!” Rom snapped.

Rowan’s chin lifted a notch. “She’s sequestered until the day of her inauguration. Saric vouches for her safety.”

Saric. “Have you actually seen her yourself?”

“Yes.”

“And she gave no indication that Saric might present a threat to her?”

“No! He was out of his mind with fear when she went missing. If he says she’s safe—”

“Don’t you see that Saric is after her office?” Rom shouted.

“Impossible. She will become sovereign tomorrow according to the laws of succession.”

“And those laws of succession provide no way for Saric to take power?”

“No, not before she becomes Sovereign. The laws have been changed.”

Rom stood still, rooted.

“What do you mean, changed?”

“The Sovereign has changed it.”

“Vorrin changed the law?”

The head of the senate paused, as though deciding how much to say.

“Vorrin is dead. Saric is Sovereign until Feyn takes office.”

Saric?
Sovereign?
It was impossible!

“How?”

“Under the former law, the office passed to the oldest child. Saric took exception to that, but the senate insisted. He agreed to serve as Sovereign on the condition that the law change. The new law reads that if a seated Sovereign dies, power reverts to the previous…Sovereign.” Even as he said it, his face changed.

“So if Feyn comes to office and dies, her successor—”

“Would be…Saric.” The senate leader looked ill.

“You’re a pack of fools!” Rom cried.

“No. That can’t be,” Rowan whispered. “It’s too great an offense. Murder is against Order.”

“Then you don’t know Saric as well as you thought,” Rom said.

Fear darkened Rowan’s eyes as the implications settled in. “He wanted my seat. When that didn’t work…We have to stop this.”

Rom decided then that the senate leader could be trusted. “There’s a boy. He’s the seventh who must come to power. It’s too much to explain, but Feyn knows. What she doesn’t know is that I’ve found him. He exists. He’s alive. She must be told.”

Rowan lifted a hand to his brow. “What boy?”

“The next seventh in line. You have access to the archive. Check the royal birth record and see if there wasn’t a boy born who fits the description exactly. A cripple, born in the last eligible cycle.”

“Feyn said something…” The senate leader stiffened. “The last cycle…That would make him—”

“Nine.”

The senate leader turned away, grasped the edge of his desk. “Sirin, guide me. Maker, help us—”

“What is it?”

Rowan looked back. “Saric issued an order to kill the nine-year-old royals. All of them. To protect his own ascendancy.”

Rom felt the heat drain from his face. For a long beat they stared at each other. Had Saric outplayed them all?

“This order stands?”

“No, I’ve intercepted it.”

“Thank the Maker.”

“But surely none of this will come to pass,” Rowan said. “Feyn’s alive. She’ll succeed Saric.”

“If she does, she won’t live long, but not on any boy’s account. Saric will see to it. He’s possessed by a forbidden passion. But he needs her to come to power or else he loses it to a boy—or any of the other sevenths in line. Don’t you understand?”

Rom faltered. Saric needed Feyn in power, if only briefly. But as for the boy…Saric must know about the vellum. Rom couldn’t explain to Rowan the importance of the boy, the importance of his blood. Not yet. If, as the vellum said, the boy must come to power, then it was not Saric but Feyn who stood in the way.

Feyn
.

The keeper’s words whispered through his head:
All you believe. All you love. It will all be required of you.

“There’s a man in the dungeon called the Book,” Rom said. “Take me to him. In the meantime, tell Feyn everything. She’s safe until she becomes Sovereign, Saric will see to that. But now I need to see the prisoner called the Book. He needs to know about the boy. I have to see him now!”

The man dipped his head.

“I’ll have you escorted immediately.”

Rom barely registered their swift strides to the grotto, Rowan’s words to the guard. And then he was running down the corridor.

Toward Saric’s dungeons.