by Ted Dekker
“Please don’t cry.” He drew her hair away from her face with a trembling hand. There was just enough light to see that her cheeks were scratched, that one of her lips had bled, that her eyes were swollen from weeping. How long had she been like this?
“Avra. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” It was a phrase normally spoken from fear after a mistake, but now he felt something else. He felt regret.
He had never seen her like this, without her spine straight, shored up against whatever fear gripped her.
He laid his cheek against her head. She no longer smelled like soap and the clean-lint scent of the laundry, but like skin and the musk of sweat, like something sweet and heady. He turned his face into her hair, breathed deeply.
Sweet Maker. How had he never noticed it before?
He drew her hands away from her face again, kissed her eyes. He touched her lip where she had bitten it. But there was blood, too, at the corner of her mouth.
A chill crept over the back of his neck.
He glanced around the room.
“Avra? Where’s the box?”
Then he saw it on the floor by one of the table’s legs. It was open, the vellum inside it. The vial lay on the floor nearby where it had apparently rolled to a stop.
Even from here he could see that it was nearly half empty.
His heart pulled through a hard beat, pushing thick blood through his veins as if they had suddenly collapsed, then opened to accept a rush of new life.
He turned back to Avra, mind awash in horror. But there was no terror in her eyes. She was staring up at him with soft, round eyes, swimming in something he hadn’t seen before. The glint of fear was gone, replaced by a need that mirrored his own longing.
Neither spoke. Rom wanted to. He wanted to cry his outrage over the danger she’d put herself in. He wanted to beg her forgiveness and weep with her.
And then he suddenly didn’t want to. The urge to correct what was wrong here faded, smothered by a desperation to love this woman.
She began to shake in his arms, but not from fear. Her eyes pulled at him with the same desire he felt, he was sure of it, and this realization thrust him into a place so foreign that he wasn’t sure he hadn’t been sucked into Bliss itself.
Avra was no longer the young girl he had protected through life, but the woman he needed as he needed air. She was rising, eyes fired. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth with a fierce passion that inflamed him and made his mind rage with hunger.
Breathing hard, they fed on each other, two starving souls who’d found each other near death before finding the only food that could sustain them.
Avra pushed him back, straddling him as he dropped to the floor. Her fingers clawed through his hair. Her lips smothered his. She was breathing through her nose in short, desperate snatches of air.
His hands roamed the firmness of her back, her small shoulders, the drape of her hair as she pressed him down, devouring him. Ecstasy defied the torment that had ravaged his mind. It was physical, yes, but so much more.
His heart was alive. Screaming with pleasure. Eager to love and be loved, awakened to a dizzying and forbidden world of love and passion.
Avra suddenly jerked back an inch. Her eyes were wide and her breath washed over his mouth. They stared at each other, frozen for a moment.
And then she pushed herself off him, rolled to her knees, and blinked.
“What’s happening to us?” Her voice sounded lost.
Rom scrambled to his feet, head spinning. He didn’t know. Was this life or was this death? An hour earlier he had sworn death, but if what he felt now was death, then he would take his life without hesitation if only to feel its embrace.
She swallowed. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
She kept her eyes on him, making no attempt to further discount her feelings.
Rom settled to his knees beside her. “We both did.”
He took her in his arms and held her gently. She hesitated, then pulled her legs to one side and rested her head against his chest.
“Are you all right?”
“I drank the blood, Rom,” she said, shaking again. “I heard you leaving and tried to call you but you’d gone. I thought you’d left me.”
“Never! Do you hear me? Never.” He hugged her and buried his face in her hair. The thought of leaving her horrified him, but he couldn’t summon the words to convey his feelings. So he held her close, aware of her warmth. The pain he’d felt at finding his mother dead was no less, but now a desperation for the emotions Avra had awakened flooded him with a gratitude that he could not comprehend.
However the blood worked, he was now sure it could not be something as simple as the gateway to Hades. Something far more profound had happened to them both. They were changed. Fugitives. Poisoned, alive, dying—whatever it was.
But above all, they were together.
“Are we dying?” Avra whispered.
“No. I don’t think so. Maybe we’re more alive.”
He wanted to tell her how he felt, to unravel what was happening to them, but there was a more urgent matter now. He knew that the priests would soon come to prepare for first assembly. They had to gather themselves and find someplace safe to hide.
“We have to go soon.”
He took her hand and slid his fingers through hers, marveling at the smallness of them, at the delicacy of her littlest finger.
“Do you feel any pain?” he asked.
“My mind hurts.”
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you.”
“Where did you go?”
He looked at the burning candles. “Home. I had to see my…”
“Your mother.” Fresh tears spilled from her eyes. “Oh, Anna—poor Anna! Rom, I’m so sorry!”
She clasped him and they wept together, clinging to each other. The wound would not seem to close, and Rom wondered if it was possible for hearts to actually break apart.
“Look at me,” he whispered, after the tears had stopped again.
She turned her head toward him, her lashes still wet. Had she ever been so beautiful?
He lowered his head to hers, touched a kiss to her cheek.
“Rom…”
What we call love, Rom, is the shadow of something lost. How had his father known that?
“I love you, Avra.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “With love as it once was. The blood has turned us back in time. You feel it as much as I do.”
Her eyes searched his, understanding. And then she reached up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him toward her. He kissed her again, gently this time, but when she fell away she was breathing heavily again, trembling.
“Is this madness?” she whispered.
“No.” He kissed her neck, the top of her shoulder.
“Don’t.”
Her scars.
“I never cared about them before and I don’t now. I wouldn’t have you without them. I swear if I had the power to heal them, I would only do it to please you. You are whole to me.” He kissed her neck again.
A soft thump sounded over their heads and Rom jerked his head up. The priests.
“Quick.” He scrambled to his feet and pulled her up. He collected the box, rewrapped the vial in the vellum, and then carefully set the bundle inside and latched it closed.
“Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” But she was steadier on her feet than he had been.
She fastened her cloak as he blew out the three remaining candles. In the dark, he reached for her hand. Pressed the box into it.
“Can you carry this?”
He heard the rustle of her sliding it into the pocket of her cloak.
They moved toward the door.
“Will you be able to run?”
“Yes.”
Rom opened the door enough to peer out and listen. Footsteps echoed down the stairwell farther down the corridor, coming their way. He eased the door back into pl
ace and led her across the storeroom to the second door, laid his hand on the knob and turned it.
He waited until the footsteps stopped just outside the first door. As soon as it opened, he whisked Avra out, and they fled down the dark corridor in the opposite direction from the stairwell they had descended the night before.
The sound of their steps changed to an echo as they entered the old crypt tunnel. It was pitch dark and noticeably colder as the smooth floor beneath them transitioned to the unmatched edges of roughly hewn stone. Avra stumbled. His hand tightened on hers.
They kept to the wall, inching past the carved sarcophagi that erratically lined the corridor, the intermittent stone walls that jutted out between chambers.
He had avoided this part of the lower level last night, thinking fear might incapacitate them both. But now, even though he recoiled every time his fingers touched one of these homes of the dead, he found himself driven by something even greater than fear of death.
The desire to live.
More than that, to keep Avra safe.
“Almost there,” he whispered. He felt for the rail of the winding staircase, the cold curve of it along the landing. A cool but stagnant draft wafted up from below.
“What’s down there?”
“More of the same.”
He led her up the staircase, their footsteps seeming to echo too loudly on each step. It seemed impossibly long and high, as though they’d climbed forever before the rail finally flattened out onto a landing illuminated by a sliver of light from beneath a door.
He felt for the handle, but then hesitated.
Avra whispered, “What are you doing?”
For a moment, he was unsure how to share what he was thinking.
“Once we leave…”
She finished the thought for him. “We won’t be able to stop running.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I can’t live without you.”
His heart soared. He kissed her fingers.
“Where will we go?” she asked.
He drew a breath. “Right now the only person I can think of is Neah.”
“Neah! She’s as Order-bound as they come! She’ll report us in an instant!”
“It’s her or Triphon.” Their two closest friends from university. Rom had already run through all the possibilities. For the last six years, Avra had kept personal company with no one but him, and Rom had systematically ruled out every relation, neighbor, or other artisan he knew.
“There’s no one else.”
“Neah works in the Citadel. She could help us find this man called the Book, whoever he is.”
“You actually mean to try to find him? We’ll be caught for sure! No, Rom. We have to leave the city. We have to run.”
“We’ll eventually get caught. This Book may be the only one alive who knows what’s really happened to us. Or how we can fix things. Or if we even can.”
“Too dangerous. We all know the Honor Code.” Those who infringed on the Order were responsible for reporting not only others, but themselves. Anyone who didn’t was at risk of being reported for their failure to report.
In a system ruled by fear, the code rarely failed.
“I don’t like it.”
“Can you think of an alternative?”
When she didn’t answer, he tightened his grip on the door handle and opened it enough to peer out. The altar stood at the opposite corner of the sanctum. Farther down, near the narthex, early arrivals filed in from the main entrance. No guardsmen that he could see.
“Stay close.”
He opened the door, stepped out with Avra, and hurried to a side door, which he opened.
A voice near the altar: “Rom?”
They both turned. A priest stood on the dais, censers dangling from each hand. “Rom? There was someone here just a few minutes ago looking for you. I think he might still be here, I’ll see if—”
Rom grabbed Avra’s hand and bolted into the daylight. The door fell shut with a heavy bang.
“Run!” Avra cried, pulling her hand free.
“This way!” He veered toward the entrance to the underground, a block away.
A truck sped by on the street. On the walk, foot traffic was noticeably heavier than yesterday.
Rom glanced over his shoulder. “Walk, walk!” he breathed. “We don’t want to attract attention. Pull your hood up.”
Together they joined the human stream flowing into the underground station.
A new banner had gone up over the entrance in the last day, bearing the image of Feyn Cerelia and the date of her inauguration, just four days away now. Rom felt her eyes follow them into the subterranean space.
He had to wonder if they would live to see the event at all.
Chapter Eleven
Is she in there? Do you see her?” Avra whispered.
Rom leaned out from the wall just far enough to look through the window. “Not yet.”
They were wedged against the wall between the front door and a small window on the private landing of Neah’s second-story apartment. The stair that led to Neah’s entrance had been built in the narrow gap between two buildings. From here they could loiter without attracting notice.
A long time ago, the window must have overlooked the greenery of a backyard. At least, that’s how Rom imagined it. Now, however, it looked out only on the cracked concrete of the stair and the stone of the neighboring building. Its sheer curtain had been drawn aside to let in whatever eastern light it could.
In the distance, basilica bells sounded the hour: eight o’clock. Across Byzantium, assemblies began and would continue throughout the day. It was rest day, set aside for the purpose of rejuvenation and assembly at the workweek’s end. How different those bells sounded today, ominous and more lyrical at once.
Rom sank back against the wall and glanced up at the churning sky. For the first time in his life, the mere sight of it sparked wonder in his heart. Even the bells struck their own chord of awe and hollow longing.
Everything was different.
As the last of the bells subsided, voices sounded from within the apartment—a man’s and a woman’s. Rom glanced at Avra.
She whispered, “She’s not alone?”
Rom peered through the window again, his mouth in a tight line. “I guess not.”
“Who would be here at this hour?”
He could see into the corner of Neah’s well-appointed living room, her cream-colored chair and reading lamp. He had to lean out farther to see into the main part of the space but didn’t want to risk staring straight in, not until they knew who was with her.
The voices rose again in such apparent discord that Rom began to worry less about being noticed. He leaned in a little more.
“What do you see?”
“A man, sitting in one of the living room chairs.”
“A man? Since when does Neah have a man—any man—around? She didn’t get married, did she?”
“Not that I know of. I didn’t even think she was promised.”
Inside, Neah paced through her living room. A man seated in one of the overstuffed chairs stood up into Rom’s line of sight.
Was that—?
He felt a chuckle rise up from his chest and worked to stifle the sound and the odd levity that had caused it. He hadn’t known that emotion was associated with laughter, a social nicety. But the humor he felt was far more than a polite response. It was fueled by a hilarity that made him question again if he might be mad. Hadn’t his mother just died? Hadn’t his life as he knew it just ceased, possibly forever? And yet—
“You’ll never guess who’s in there.”
Avra stared blankly at him.
“Triphon!”
She blinked. “Triphon?”
“Triphon.”
It wasn’t merriment that flooded her face, but fear. “He’s with the guard! We have to go.” She pushed away from the wall, but Rom caught her by the wrist.
“Wait. He’s only i
n training. He isn’t part of the guard yet officially.”
“What’s the difference?” she hissed.
Rom leaned toward the window. Triphon’s shirt strained across the broad width of his muscled shoulders as he sat forward in the chair and picked up a distinctive-looking paper from the low coffee table in front of him.
Rom felt his pulse spike. “Hades.”
Avra’s eyebrows shot up. She pushed around him and looked through the window. “What—oh. Maker.”
“I think…” He glanced at her. “Are those papers…?” But they had to be. He had seen the same lettering on his own betrothal, several years prior.
Triphon was proposing a marriage contract.
Neah’s muffled voice rose inside.
Avra shrank back. “We should go.”
“Go where? We don’t have anywhere else.”
“Training or not, Triphon’s with the Citadel Guard. It’s bad enough that Neah will turn us in the minute we tell her, but Triphon might kill us!”
“Do you really think a trainee has any idea about missions having to do with old vials of blood, and chasing and killing ancient keepers of secrets?”
She paused.
“Come on.”
“We’re just going to interrupt them?”
“Why not? Neah will reject him. This is the business of parents. I don’t know what he’s thinking.”
Not that rejection would mean anything to the dauntless Triphon. If Rom knew little of fear, Triphon knew even less.
It took Rom a belated moment to realize that the voices inside had gone silent. He and Avra glanced at each other just as Neah’s front door flew open.
Triphon stepped out on the threshold, all six-foot-six of him—seven, counting the stiff inch of his athletic haircut—filling the doorway. “Who’s there?”
“Triphon,” Rom said, nodding.
“Hey, Rom.”
Neah stepped up behind Triphon and crossed her arms. Her blond hair was pulled back in its characteristic braid. Her beige sweater and pants looked more ready for the office—or assembly—than a day at home.
“Well, if it isn’t Rom. And Avra. I hardly recognize you, it’s been so long. And don’t you look a fright. What are you doing here? Spying on us? Tell me you didn’t just attend assembly looking that disheveled.”