Read Online Forbidden by Ted Dekker - Free Book Online

sister?”
    “Of course not. That is not waste, my son,” Vorrin said, oblivious to Saric’s churning emotions. “The continents look to this family as they have for forty years and, by the grace of the Maker, will for forty more. You are the face of the passing Sovereign’s son, and the new Sovereign’s brother. You and your wife, Portia, are examples of Order to all the world. Of the purity and peace of our system. Of every blessing. My son…”
    He reached out and touched Saric’s cheek.
    Saric pulled away from the repulsive, papery touch.
    Vorrin looked down at the thin pads of his fingers and rubbed them together. “You are sweating. Are you ill?”
    “I am not ill. In fact, I am very, very well. So tell me, old man, where is the justice in power passing from my father to my younger sister, and skipping me altogether?”
    Vorrin blinked. “My son, I don’t understand.”
    Saric took a deep breath and pushed down his rage. “Forgive me, I’m tired.” He stepped close again and took his father’s cold, gray hand in his own. “Only listen to me. There can still be justice in the Order, Father. I beg you, in these last days before your office passes to Feyn, grant this small request to me. I’ve never asked you for anything. I’ll never ask for anything again.” The bones of his father’s hand felt very thin.
    “What are you saying? What is it you ask?” Vorrin tried to draw his hand away, but Saric held it tight, squeezing it.
    “I cannot lead the senate. It was wrong of me to ask. I will seek Rowan’s forgiveness and praise his judiciary responsibility in this matter. I will go tell him so myself. But you can rightfully step down from power.”
    “But—why would I do that?” The skin around his neck shook a little when he said it.
    “Because I am your son. And you would do it as a gift to me. You have had forty years. Feyn will have forty. Let me have five days. A pittance! Days to taste what my father has shouldered and what my sister will as well, so that I will know the true extent of her burden and her privilege. And so much greater will my loyalty be.”
    “But I…” The old man was too shocked to respond. Too weak to understand.
    “The law is clear,” Saric continued. “If any Sovereign should step down, his eldest child will finish the term. And I should tell you, Father, that I am concerned by the frailness of your hand, and by the thinness of your skin.” He squeezed the old man’s hand even tighter, idly wondering if at any moment he might feel one of the bones within it pop.
    “I see it, you grow feeble. No one else sees it. They don’t want to. They see what they’ve been told to see: their Sovereign. But I, I see truly.”
    Saric finally let go. The old man staggered backward.
    “What you ask is impossible! Utterly outside the Order. Outside the book.”
    “Damnation to the book!” Saric exploded.
    Vorrin stared at him.
    “What I’m saying, Father,” Saric said, more levelly, “is that it’s my duty to report the feebleness in you. That I can smell the decay in your cells. Of your own volition, you must step down. The Honor Code demands you turn yourself—”
    A gust passed through the chamber, seeming to pull the air from the balcony where they stood. Inside, the heavy doors had opened.
    They turned as one, father and son. And Saric saw then that the newcomer entering the room had drawn the very wind to herself. She had this effect, galvanizing the air so that all things must go to her like a magnet.
    His sister, soon to be Sovereign.
    Feyn.
    She walked to the center of the room. The dark hair falling down her back curled in the breeze of the open balcony as though it were a living thing. Her long hands were folded before her, pale against the deep blue of her robe. Her pale eyes, so very like ice, scanned the room, lighting at last on the balcony’s open doors, her father…
    And him.
    Although she went to her knee, there was no mistaking it: She commanded the