Ted Dekker - Mortal

As he made his way to the outer atrium of the Office in the last hour of late afternoon, he glanced up, ignoring the dark cracks that snaked up the vaulted ceiling, focusing instead on the sheen of light reflected off its gilded surface. These ancient halls were hallowed since the days of Chaos, dedicated to the Maker when he had gone by a more arcane name: God.

He had only one objective now. He had to secure Feyn’s assurance that she would work to destroy her brother, who clearly stood against Order. Surely she saw that her own seat was in grave danger. Perhaps, even, her eternal destiny. They had to work together.

He nodded at the secretary whom he’d known so many years as Rowan’s man, Savore. How different, to see him keeping the desk of the office from which Saric held court, no doubt turning the resources of the world to his own dark purposes. Dominic all but imagined he could see shadows creeping from the great chamber beyond.

All of you… dead.

Savore rose to gesture him to the twelve-foot doors of the Office. The secretary wouldn’t touch them himself-it was for each man to bring his own weight into this space, to labor even in this way to attain an audience with the Sovereign, strong hand of the Maker on earth.

Dominic laid his palms against the intricately etched bronze door. It was usual for any prelate to pause and consider the symbols of each continental office: the alchemists of Russe, the educators of Asiana, the architects of Qin, the environmentalists of Nova Albion, the bankers of Abyssinia, the priests of Greater Europa and the artisans of Sumeria. Dominic himself had often done the same, going so far as to trace the Book of Orders beside the emblem of Europa, his own continent, with a fingertip.

But today he saw only the symbol presiding over them all: the great compass, the graded points of Sirin’s halo, by which they must all live and by which they would all be judged.

He pushed the doors open.

Inside, the heavy velvet curtains had been drawn shut against the obscure light of the waning day as a dozen candelabras sent shadows flitting and luring throughout the room.

That was the first thing he noticed.

The second was the two Dark Bloods on either side of his peripheral vision as the doors fell shut behind him with the ominous thud of a vault.

The third was the figure sitting at the desk. She was richly attired in velvet so dark blue as to appear the color of midnight. She was studying a report of some kind, as she sipped from a pewter goblet. Her nails were perfectly manicured.

She lifted her eyes with feline languor. They were dark and fathomless in the shadows.

Dominic went to a knee on the thick carpet, but for the first time in his life, he stared rather than lowered his gaze.

The figure behind the desk was indeed the Sovereign herself-fortunately, Saric was nowhere to be seen. But she was drastically changed.

She released the report with a flick of her fingers.

“My lord Dominic,” Feyn said, voice as smooth as a purr. It was the first time he had heard her since that first blood-chilling scream, and he found he could not reconcile the two sounds at all.

She rose from her chair, candlelight catching the obsidian of her chandelier earrings. Her hair was swept up completely off her neck and onto her head. The high, open collar of her dress accentuated her neck and her pale skin in a neckline that plunged to her sternum.

Again, he railed at the thought that this could possibly be the same woman. And yet there she was-Feyn as all had ever known her. And as she had never been known.

She came around the side of the desk, moving with unhurried grace. The light of the nearest candelabra swept up her face, revealing a shadow on one cheek, just discernable enough for him to wonder if it was a play of light.

No. A bruise, then?

She paused before him and he found himself dropping his gaze down to her booted foot. An open palm extended into the field of his vision. He took it and kissed the ring of office along the inside of her delicate fingers. They smelled like wine and musk and salt.

The hand withdrew, but not before he noted the mark on the inside of her elbow. A small puncture wound visible within the high split of her sleeve.

He started to lean forward with both hands on his knee but then he realized she hadn’t told him to rise. He blinked and shifted back, ignoring the pop of his kneecap in the carpet.

“Why do you come?” she said, moving back toward her desk and reclaiming the goblet.

He lifted his gaze, struck again by the regal tilt of her jaw, the very straightness of her nose, the set of her lips, moist after a sip from the wine. “To speak with you. I have concerns.”

“Everyone has concerns about something, Dominic.”

He glanced toward the doors and back. “May we speak in private, my lady?”

“We are in private.” The tone, though dispassionate, was strange, and again he thought that she reminded him less like the startled colt shaking on its own legs of just a day ago than a great panther.

“Please.”

She slid her gaze away in the direction of the guards. With a meaningful glance the two muscled forms dipped their heads and filed out through the great double doors, which fell heavily back into place.

And then they were alone.

Feyn moved toward a wingbacked chair off to the side of the curtained window. “Come, Dominic.”

He rose stiffly and then stood before her, uncertain. Rowan had always invited him to sit beside him in the chair’s companion seat. But Feyn only sat back and merely waited for him to speak.

He folded his hands. “Please understand the nature of my concern. You came back to us in… a most unusual manner. And while I’m certain you could not know the nature of the things your brother said before that moment, I must inform you that they were entirely disturbing.”

“Were they?” Her forearm extended along the arm of the chair, fingers holding the rim of her goblet.

“Yes. And I feel compelled to inquire as to your own… beliefs in these matters. Your loyalties.”

“You ask the Sovereign where her loyalties lay?”

“Indeed, my lady. I fear your brother has hinted at thoughts that no good man of Order should ever think. He has spoken highest blasphemy. And this is saying nothing of the fact that he murdered the Regent in cold blood before our very eyes.”

She glanced down, cradled her cup on her lap, and slowly traced the rim of it with a fingertip. Her eyes lifted. “And your point?”

“I must ask you, my lady, with all respect. Do you follow the Order? Will you serve it? Would you die for it?”

A strange turn of a smile formed at the corners of her mouth. “It would not be the first time I have died for this office, would it?”

“Yes, forgive me. And yet-”

“I will die for this office,” she interrupted. “And serve it.”

“Would you die also for the truth, lady-of the Maker, and of the Order that is his hand?”

“The truth? What is the truth, Dominic?”

He said what was said by all, learned in early childhood. “We know the Maker through his Order.”

“I see. Then I must ask you, Dominic, what is a Maker?”

“But of course, the one who gives life, my lady.”

“And do you have life?”

“Yes. Though your brother doesn’t seem to think so.”

“And I? Do I have life?”

He glanced at her hands, then her eyes. “Clearly.”

“How do you know?”

“You see, you breathe.” How could he not shudder at the memory of her first, ragged gasp of air as her chest had arched up off that altarlike stone table?

“And how do you know that you have life?” she asked.

“Because I stand here before you.”