Forbidden by Ted Dekker Page A

they waged in his mind. He relished and loathed them at once.
    But he had no intention of betraying himself.
    He curled his fingers to still their trembling. The right cuff of his silk shirt had pulled away from his wrist and he could see clearly the veins beneath, so dark now that they seemed black. They were beautiful, he had decided. Still, he kept the neckline and high collar of his robe carefully fastened so that the edge of it brushed his jaw.
    He walked past the desk of the secretary and strode to the double bronze doors beyond. Twelve feet tall, as thick as a wall, they were emblazoned with the symbols of the offices of the seven continental houses. On the right, the alchemists of Russe, the educators of Asiana, the architects of Qin, the environmentalists of Nova Albion. On the left, the bankers of Abyssinia, the priests of Greater Europa, and the artisans of Sumeria. The great compass, symbol of the Sovereign office, was framed in the upper-middle panel. Its graded points were the same as those etched upon Sirin’s halo.
    Sirin…Megas…Order. But Saric knew that nothing was as it had once seemed. Even the great doors of this office no longer shut him out as they once had. Rather, they beckoned him in.
    He laid his hand against the compass, fingers outstretched, and pushed his way inside.
    Vorrin stood before the full window, his back to the room. Rowan, the senate leader, stood near him as always. The man was never more than three steps away.
    Lapdog.
    The heads of both men turned. Saric went to his knee, the long hem of his robe collapsing on the lush Abyssinian rug. His own apartments contained nothing so rich as this floor covering. He must rectify that.
    Vorrin did not acknowledge him right away. After several moments, Saric glanced up.
    Rowan was studying him too frankly for Saric’s tastes.
    Finally, Vorrin spoke from across the room, his gaze fixed somewhere outside the window. “Son.”
    Saric rose and went to join him. It was the first time he had attended to his father in weeks. As Vorrin turned to face him, he was surprised by the image.
    Though the Sovereign wore the deep purple mantle of his office, Saric had never seen his father look quite so old. The flesh of his hands, of his neck, and even of his face seemed sunken against the bone. Veins and sinew showed through skin thinned with age. Liver spots dotted the backs of his hands and the sides of his high, shaven cheeks. His gray hair was combed back and gathered at his nape, but it had thinned so much that portions of his scalp showed through.
    Though he stood four inches taller than his son at a stately six-foot-seven, he seemed to Saric dried as a husk.
    Saric, by contrast, had never been more aware of the vitality in his own veins. He had never felt so strong, so absolutely virile. Next to his father’s ghostly gray skin, his own was the color of pale marble—beautiful by every standard.
    Saric leaned in and touched his lips to the papery skin of Vorrin’s cheek. The act disgusted him. At this close vantage, the faint light through the immense windows only highlighted the translucent fragility of the wrinkles along Vorrin’s mouth, the spidery purple veins beneath his eyes.
    The man appeared dead.
    How had he never noticed his father’s frail state? How was it that Vorrin had always seemed as virile as a man thirty years younger, as charismatic as a god to him, until today?
    Vorrin regarded him as dispassionately as ever before returning his gaze to the city beyond the window. “I have asked Rowan to issue the court’s decision on your request.”
    “Thank you, Father.” Saric’s heart accelerated. He turned to face the senate leader. “Well?”
    Rowan, in contrast with the Sovereign, never seemed to age. His smooth, dusky skin and small ears, the opacity of his eyes and lean stature, even the way he tied his hair back at his nape, all seemed to lend him the sleekness of a cat.
    “We have reviewed your request to fill the senate