Forbidden (27 page)

S
o all
is as it should be.” Pravus stood on the top of the Citadel tower overlooking Byzantium at midnight. A rare moon shone overhead. Saric wondered if he should kill him then. Sooner or later, the man who’d brought him the power of life would have to die.

But Pravus wasn’t a fool easily killed. Even now he likely had an assassin positioned to take down Saric at any sign of betrayal.

“My men failed to capture the boy or his protectors,” Saric said.

The master alchemist stared out at the calm night. “You think I don’t know? I don’t need to remind you that your own life hangs in the balance.”

“You’ve made that clear enough.”

“They’ll come tomorrow. You must be ready for them.”

“Let them come,” Saric said quietly. “We will be ready, and Feyn will be crowned Sovereign.”

“We can take no chances. Control your wild cravings for flesh.”

Did he know about Feyn? No, they were his thoughts alone.

“You underestimate me, old man.”

“How can I underestimate a man who’s failed to end the life of one boy?”

“Soon the world will gain its true Sovereign. And a new Age of Chaos will begin.” He looked directly at the master alchemist. “And you will learn never to question me again.”

Triphon’s heart hammered. Returning to the Citadel and finding Rowan, following Rom’s rather indifferent retelling of his own methods, had been a relatively easy task. But convincing the senate leader to listen had not. The man had paced and wrung his hands for half an hour.

Rowan was forbidden by Saric from any audience with Feyn, he kept saying. This business that Rom had opened his eyes to had haunted him with nightmares.

If Saric was the threat, then surely the keeper, Saric’s greatest enemy, stood with Feyn, not against her. In fact, the keeper might be Feyn’s
only
hope for surviving any conspiracy that Saric had hatched. If the evidence that both Rom and now Triphon had laid out for Rowan turned out to be true, and Saric intended on succeeding Feyn as Sovereign as the new law required, Feyn’s life was indeed in terrible danger.

Triphon thought he had done a good job with that.

From Rowan he learned of the senate leader’s efforts to present a motion in the senate to subvert a standing Sovereign. But it had not worked. It had been hard enough to delay the standing Sovereign’s command to kill all nine-year-old boys. Saric had raged when he learned of Rowan’s actions and threatened to execute him for treason. But there was hardly time for such a command before the inauguration. And so he’d accused Rowan of putting Feyn’s life in grave danger, then stormed out of his office.

“He doesn’t know that I am aware of all that he is doing,” Rowan said. “But now I live under a death sentence.”

“Then help me get the keeper out,” Triphon had said. “He poses no threat to you or to Feyn, only to Saric. You might be saving your own life, man. Help me!”

Rowan had finally given him what he needed, if only out of fear for the Order and, ultimately, his own life. This was the worst, and most selfish, side of death, Triphon thought.

Rowan would not—still did not dare—attend him directly. Luckily, five centuries without threat or incident allowed Triphon to make his way into the dungeon, wearing only a simple priest’s robe for disguise, without raising an alarm.

Following Rowan’s instructions, he’d made his way through the back entrance, which he knew all too well, and then down into the dungeons. It had taken him only a few minutes to locate the cavern that held the keeper.

A single torch lit the barred cell. Snores emanated from behind it.

“Hello?”

The old man snorted once in his sleep, then settled back into his dreams, oblivious.

“Wake up, old man.”

“Eh?” The man jerked his head up, and Triphon thought he looked like nothing so much as a giant rodent caught eating bread crumbs in the dark corner.

This was the keeper? First a frail, crippled boy to save the world, and now this ancient carcass to guide them? With Rom lost to his own anguish and Triphon himself the only one with his apparent wits about him…They were on a fool’s mission.

“You’re the one they call the keeper?”

The man cleared a hitch in his throat, then spoke in a scratchy voice. “Says who?”

“Says me. Triphon, friend of Rom Sebastian and the boy that he rides with.” He would see what kind of response that brought.

“The boy?”

“Yes, the boy.”

The man straightened, suddenly fully awake and fully engaged. “What boy?”

“You tell me.”

“You…You’ve found him?”

“I don’t know, have we?”

The old man grasped at the rough-hewn wall and pulled himself to his feet. He took a step forward and made a weak attempt to wipe drool from his bearded mouth with the back of a sleeve.

“Rom found the promised boy?”

“If by
promised boy
you mean Jonathan, a cripple who has dreams and—”

“I knew it!” The keeper flew at the bars and gripped them with white knuckles like a man possessed. “He’s alive?”

Alive?

“Of course. Did you think we dug up a corpse?”

“I mean alive!
Alive
, man! Is he
alive
?”

So then this was certainly the keeper.

“He was crying when I left him.”

The old man sucked in a breath.

“His mother is dead. So is Avra, killed by Saric’s guard. Rom’s lost out there with a broken heart. The boy told me that we need a keeper.”

“He did?” The man blinked, eyes round with wonder. “Did he say my name?”

“No. Are there any other keepers I should fetch instead?”

He shook the bars, rushed to the latch, and rattled his cage again. “Get me out, man! Get me out of the blasted prison. I have to go to my master.”

Triphon reached into his pocket, grasped the large key Rowan had given him, and stepped up to the latch. “He’s not what you might think. Certainly no master that—”

“Hurry, man!”

“Keep your voice down!”

The man’s hand reached through the bars and snagged Triphon’s collar. “Do you know what this means? Do you have the slightest clue how history has conspired to bring us to this single moment of hope once again?”

“If you don’t let go so I can spring you, you’re going to pass it unconscious.”

The man’s frantic eyes searched his as he let go of his cloak.

“Are you one of the five? Alive?”

Hearing it like that filled Triphon with a renewed sense of purpose. “I am.”

“And your name?”

“Triphon.”

“Then I am your greatest friend, Triphon. Now, get me out of here and take me to the boy.”

D
awn spilled
like a wound along the horizon, seeping crimson into the eastern sky.

They had failed. Avra lay dead, buried in a hilltop grave.

Rom passed the last hours of the night on the top of the cliffs, grateful for the darkness and drone of the wind, the two together like a shroud over the mind.

But the wind had faded with the darkness, and the pain had intensified with the light. He was exhausted, but sleep refused to offer him any peace.

From his vantage point he could see the embers of the fire below in the canyon. At a short distance from the camp, the shallow pool that had provided them with water reflected the russet of the rising sun.

The boy had told Triphon they needed a keeper. Evidently Rom was no longer qualified to lead them. Not that he disagreed. He was swallowed by resentment. The whole business of ushering the boy to power to bring life to the masses sat like a bitter pill in his throat. What good was life that brought such terrible pain? His thoughts were unfair, true enough, but Rom could not deny them.

He’d played his role in finding the boy, and he’d told Triphon how he might find the keeper, but he could not see past this day to the hope the boy might bring.

To his surprise, Triphon had returned with the keeper in the middle of the night.

When he’d arrived, the keeper had rushed up to the boy and fallen to his knees. Then he’d lifted his hands to the sky and cried out his approval. “My eyes have seen the hope to whom I’ve sworn my allegiance. Today all those who have kept this secret knowledge for generations find fulfillment in this lineage of the first keeper, as prophesied.” He’d kissed the boy’s feet.

The keeper looked over at Rom. “And now when Feyn sees us at the inauguration, all will be gained.”

Whatever that could mean, Rom didn’t know.

Jonathan had stood there, shaken by the keeper’s grandiosity. Then the keeper had taken the child’s hand and led him up the canyon, where they spent two hours alone. When they returned the boy’s tears were gone. Wonderment was in his eyes.

He’d stepped away from the fire and walked into the darkness.

“Let him go,” the keeper said.

Rom had listened to the keeper and Triphon through the wee hours, talking about the nomads.

“We knew them from the first days,” the keeper explained, pacing about the fire. “It was the keepers who confirmed what the nomads suspected of the Order’s deception, the keepers who taught them survival. They can go days without water and subsist off the most barren land. And their horses are bred to be as hardy as they are. They come and go like ghosts and move entire camps within an hour.”

“What happens if they find us here?” Triphon asked.

“They already know we’re here, boy. They’re probably watching us now, especially here, near the ruins, which are sacred to them. Every time I’ve ever set foot on these lands, one of them has come to meet me within a day of my arrival.”

“So you’ve been here before.”

“Of course. And now I learn that the boy lived among them for a time as well. I never knew it!”

While Triphon hung on the old man’s words, Rom stewed in his misery. None of it mattered. Not anymore. Soon enough, the keeper would be as much a relic as the knowledge he had sheltered all these years, and the boy would be just another orphan.

He had left them by the fire and come here to face the sunrise alone. The keeper was pacing and talking again, Triphon at his heels with questions. The boy was nowhere to be seen. The old man took a sword from Triphon’s pack and went through a series of motions, wielding it with surprising dexterity. Triphon was quick on his feet with a second weapon, trying to follow the man’s movements.

As though any of it mattered.

The sky to the west was still the dark azure of retreating night. But it was cloudless. The Day of Rebirth would dawn bright and clear in Byzantium. Those in the city would take the bright sky as an omen, unaware that Rebirth was merely an illusion. The priests would pray and believe the Maker had blessed them even as Feyn became Sovereign at the point of Saric’s sword.

Farther down the canyon lay the old ruins, perfectly camouflaged by the land, lost within the outcrops unless one approached up the narrow canyon or looked down on it directly. Rumored to have been a church carved directly into the rock by monks at the end of the Age of Chaos, it was thought to have been destroyed more than four centuries ago. Unknown to the Order, the keepers and nomads held the place as a refuge.

Rom stood on the ledge, warding off a passing notion to throw himself over the edge to the rocks below. He scanned the canyon.

Only then did he notice Jonathan sitting atop a rocky lip across the canyon, looking at him. Rom had believed in that boy, but what had that brought him? Nothing but the bloodied heart of the woman he loved, encased in a household jar.

He shifted his gaze and stared at the horizon. The first edge of the sun was spreading noxious light into the sky. Miles away in Byzantium, bells would soon be tolling.

He glanced back across the canyon. The boy was gone.

The wind lifted and struck a hollow note through the chasm. It was the sound that would keep company with Avra’s grave through the ages. She wouldn’t be there to hear it. Avra, who feared assembly, who feared death more than anything, had now found it.

The ache in Rom’s throat was so terrible that he could not swallow.

The keeper’s mission to protect life; the vellum that promised the day of that life; the boy who would bring that life…Avra’s destiny stood in mockery of it all.

“No.” Rom grunted the word through a clenched jaw. He faced the wind, fists tight now. “No.” Louder this time.

But what difference would any of his denial make? What attention would death pay to his pathetic voice? He was powerless without her.

His shoulders began to shake with unrelenting sobs. His tears blurred the sky. He hung his head and wept, wishing that death would swallow him as well. For the first time since the hour of Avra’s passing, Rom let his tears go. He lifted his chin into the wind, spread his arms, gaped at the sky, and groaned. The groan grew to a wail, ugly and loud, fueled by his hatred of death and its mockery of life.

He had lost them all—his father, his mother—for this. But they, at least, had never tasted the true hope of life. Avra had.

Had she been brought to life for this? Had he? Had his heart been awakened to love and joy and ecstasy only to be dashed by death? He’d been a fool to embrace life. A fool!

He wheeled and strode toward his horse, snapped open the saddlebag, and yanked out the jar holding Avra’s heart. Pulled it out, barely able to see. Unwrapped it from the bloody cloth.

He took the heart in his fist, cold and bloody, and strode to the edge of the cliff, jaw tight. Then he shoved his fist at the sky and screamed. Blood flowed from the heart and ran down his forearms. He gripped it tighter, shaking with rage.

I curse you.

I curse the day that I found life.

He trembled.

If this is the pain that comes with life, I curse that life. Let me join her!

Rom drew a long breath and whispered: “How dare you give me life only to take it. Make me dead. Make me dead once more!”

Only silence answered him.

He walked to his horse, withdrew the keeper’s vellum, and wrapped Avra’s heart in the text that had promised life once again.

It took Rom only fifteen minutes to reach the canyon floor. But it could have been an hour. He no longer cared.

He rode the horse into the camp where the keeper and Triphon were engaged in some kind of debate. The boy sat on a ledge fifty paces closer to the ruins. The keeper was coaxing Triphon toward him. Both held swords. The taller man lunged and Rom stared, sure for a moment that he was about to cleave the old man in two. But the wiry keeper spun away. Only the barest hiss of steel gave away the parry that had saved him.

Triphon saw him and stood straight. “Rom!”

They lowered their weapons as he approached.

Rom dismounted, withdrew the vellum folded around Avra’s lifeless heart, and walked to the keeper. He thrust the heart at the old man.

“If this is what your promise brings, I want none of it.”

The man clasped the bundle. “Come boy, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

Rom spat onto the dry ground at the old man’s feet. “Boy? My mother called me a boy. So did my father, once. They’re both dead. Your promise of life has brought nothing but
death
.”

The keeper returned his stare.

“You call this life?” Rom cried. “I want to die!” He threw his arms wide. “Kill me!”

“You don’t mean that.”

Rom wasn’t finished.

“You’ve deluded yourself into thinking the ancient words matter, but the truth is, it’s a promise of death. Better to leave them all dead than to give them life and then steal it away.”

The old man handed the bundle to Triphon. “The day will come, Rom, when you will see all of this differently. When the boy returns as a warrior dressed in a robe of red. White, dipped in blood. His own. I promise you this.”

It made no sense. That boy was no warrior—nor would he ever be. The only sense Rom knew was pain.

The keeper jabbed his finger at the vellum. “Let her heart be a sign of that promise. You will see, you who have life and aren’t grateful; you who speak to an old man who would give his head to see a single day of the life you now have.”

“Keep your words. This pain is no life.”

“You only feel pain because you’re alive, boy!” the keeper thundered. “This is the mystery of it. Life is lived on the ragged edge of that cliff. Fall off and you might die, but run from it and you are already dead!”

“Then I would rather be dead!”

“And Avra’s death will have been in vain. The world fled the precipice of life once. It stripped us all of humanity and established its Order of death. Now you speak like those who conspired to kill every living soul.”

“What do you know? Have you felt this pain?”

The keeper stalled. “No.”

Rom strode past them and headed for the outcrop of rocks that hid the pool on the far side.

“We need you, Rom,” the keeper said behind him. “Our mission is failed unless we go to the inauguration and Feyn looks into your eyes.”

“There
is
no mission,” Rom said, whirling around.

“I made my promise to her. It’s worthless without you. You yourself made a promise! You have to learn to control those emotions, boy!”

Rom spat on the ground and cast a glare over his shoulder. “I didn’t ask for these emotions! I’ve kept my promise. You have your precious vellum. The boy is alive.” He turned and strode on. “And Avra is dead.”