The leader held his stare, steady. “That is correct.”
The man was strong. Unwavering. Good.
“You serve Order. You serve it faithfully as a way of sustaining life, given as the gift of Sirin after the Age of Chaos. Tell me if this is true.”
“We have pledged our lives to it.”
“Indeed. Your lives.” He turned back to the assembly and spoke the words with clear, perfect authority.
“It was Sirin who first preached the denial of emotions in a new philosophy designed to prevent the great passions that led to the wars five centuries ago. And so humanity learned to control its passion and baser sentiments. Old things passed away and we became new, evolving beyond those baser instincts that once guided us only to death and destruction.”
He twisted his head and addressed the senate leader. “This, too, is true, is it not?”
“Yes,” Dominic agreed. A murmur of assent from the chamber.
Saric nodded and smiled. “Yes.” He paced to his right, scanning the auditorium, holding them in silence for an extended moment.
“Unfortunately, it’s
Glances between the senators. In his periphery, Rowan sat forward. Saric stayed him with a glance.
“You have been fed a lie. You are the products not of philosophy, but of treason… and Alchemy.”
A confused ripple of voices throughout the chamber.
“The truth is, you are not evolved. You have, rather, been stripped of those emotions not required for control. Namely, every emotion but fear. All through a virus called Legion.”
“Madness!” Dominic said, leaping up from his chair, face white.
“The truth is, Megas assassinated Sirin when he refused to infect the world with Legion, knowing it would strip mankind of its humanity. The truth is that after killing Sirin, Megas released Legion on the world, killing it to all but the fear required to create puppets of Order. The truth is, you have not evolved-you have, in fact, devolved.”
“Preposterous! Absolute heresy!”
“Is it? Ask yourself: is it loyalty that compels you to your feet in this instant? Love, for Order?”
“Yes,” Dominic said, straightening.
“Are you so certain? Or is it only that you fear losing Bliss in the next life if you do not leap to your feet and defend the way of Order? Just as you function from day to day caring only that you’re not caught in transgression and that your offenses do not multiply so that on the day when life arbitrarily cuts you off from the world, you do not end up in fear eternal?”
The senate leader stood absolutely still-not angry, as Corpses were incapable of such emotion-but terrified. Rowan had risen to his feet as well.
“Fear guides us as it should,” Dominic said.
“Should? The truth is, you are incapable of anything
They stared at him as if he were a madman. By these words he’d just killed all credibility in their eyes, naturally. But this was expected. Who, being told they were dead, could possibly believe the bearer of such news sane?
Saric waited for a moment, briefly considering the gavel in his hands, before laying it aside on the marble tabletop, just so, and moving again to the edge of the dais, where he faced Rowan.
“Am I not your former Sovereign? The last acting Sovereign to stand in this chamber?”
“Yes,” the Regent said, “but-”
“Have I not had access to every archive in the chambers beneath this very one?” He glanced toward the door beyond the dais. It was quite obviously sealed around the edges, without doorknob or handle. But anyone who knew the Citadel had at least heard rumors of its subterranean maze of secrets.
“Yes.”
“Do I not come from the royal line of alchemists?”
“Yes,” Rowan said, his mouth a flat line.
“And am I dead, as you and everyone else here, once presumed?”
He hesitated. “Clearly not.”
“Tell me,” Saric said, pacing along the dais, pulling wide the top of his robe where it fastened at the neck. He turned to face the assembled senate.
They stared at the black treelike skeleton of veins beneath his pale skin, far darker than the coveted blue of royal Brahmin veins-so praised that royals had for years highlighted their color with blue powder. His body was chorded with muscle, stronger than any other body they could have possibly seen.
“This is life! I know so because I was once dead.” He released his robe. “Tell me, when is the last time you wept at the sight of the sky? At the devotion of your constituents? That you looked forward to a meal with anything more than duty to your body… when you did not crave every experience if only for the sake of taking each ounce of life into yourself?”
They stared, unfathoming. That, too, was expected.
“But you cannot possibly do any of these things. Do you know why? Because you lack the capacity for any of it!”
This time there was the beginning of an outcry, but he threw up his hand for silence.
“Nine years ago, the Master Alchemist Pravus injected me with a serum that fired my veins with emotion the likes of which you have never even imagined. Anger. Lust! Jealousy. I was a thing turned feral. Chaos ruled my heart. Yes, I know it is blasphemy against Order. But I tell you today, your Order is a blasphemy against life itself!”
Off to the side, Rowan was staring at him strangely, as though with a new revelation of his own.
“Those days…,” Rowan said quietly. “Before the inauguration… when you wanted to become senate leader…”
“Yes. And so now you know. I could not contain such virulent emotion, and Pravus reclaimed me. Eight years I spent in stasis. Until the day that he drew me out as one reemerging from the womb. This time, perfected. He spent months with me, teaching me. Schooling me in this new, reclaimed humanity.” His voice broke. “I was his child. He was my father.”
“This is… this is abomination,” Rowan whispered.
For that, the man would die.
Saric ignored him and spread his arms as if he were their father. “Today there is only one living man in this chamber. See now and know that I am he!”
For an extended moment, no one spoke. The dead could not stoop to challenge such an absurd claim. So it had been, and so it would be…
At least for a few minutes more. And then their entire world would change before their very eyes.
“My Lord,” Dominic said, in a practiced, conciliatory tone. “We will most certainly investigate the veracity of all that you claim. This is quite a… revelation.”
It was not the word he wanted to use. It was blasphemy to him, Saric knew. As Order was blasphemy to him.
“We revere you for your service to the world-in such a time as your father’s abrupt passing, no less. And while Order is given by the Maker, law is not the Maker. It is not perfect. But we must follow the dictates of the law until it is changed. These are serious claims, and to make them known would throw the world into nothing short of raw panic. We cannot afford such uproar, and if such claims are proven true, we must proceed with utmost care.”
Rage rose up within Saric like bile. Did the man really believe he would be placated by such patronizing foolishness?
Dominic continued: “Until such a day that your claims are proven and the senate dictates otherwise, Order must be upheld. Our Book of Orders is infallible, created not by Sirin or by Megas who wrote that holy book, but by the Maker who inspired its writing. And until such a day it may be proven wrong, we serve Order and the Maker both by obedience to its statutes.”
Murmurs of assent.
Saric inclined his head. So very predictable. Somehow he had hoped for more from this one.
