Page 113 of Embrace the Serpent

Anger heated my belly. The Serpent King was out there, and the divine peoples were fighting for their freedom, their lives. And the Emperor was sleeping. The lamp peeked out of the red sash at his waist.

I had hated Incarnadine for so long, and that had blinded me to my true enemy. But the truth had always been before me. TheImperialArmy had destroyed my home. I had been forced to become anImperialWard. Whose brand was on my chest, on every chest?The crown of the Empire.

He was a very old man. Without the regal robes, he looked like any one of Galen’s friends, the ones who drank and indulged until it showed on their faces.

The title of Emperor was like a veil that bestowed grandeur, presence, power. But behind it, he was nothing. A slaver and a glutton. The only difference between him and Galen was the degree of power that they wielded.

He was the true monster.

Mirandel crossed her arms, tapping her foot.

I scanned the room.

A medallion lay on the ground beside the settee, the Emperor’s slack hand almost brushing it as he slept. I crept closer. A pale lavender chalcedony was surrounded by smaller jewels. A setting of protection.

I knelt and observed it from a few steps away. I didn’t want to enter its radius of influence and trigger its power. The piece slowly revealed its secrets as I studied the pattern of gold and orichalcum. It created a sort of barrier around the wearer. If I stepped forward, I’d find that my movements would slow the closer I got to it, until I was frozen and vulnerable.

The chalcedony that was prominently set in the center was a decoy. There were fail-safes galore.

It was impressive work. The work of my old friend Darvald, I thought. I was beginning to think that Darvald had become a legend mostly because he gave powerful people the means to stay powerful.

A grunt came at my back.

Mirandel smacked a guard, and he staggered back. She hissed, “Hurry up, or give me the collar.”

I held the collar to my neck. “Sit,” I said to the guard. He slumped down, and I added, “Take a nap.”

Another guard came in on his heels, and with sweep of her foot and an elegant twist, Mirandel had him kneeling and disarmed. I spared a second to send him sleeping before I turned back to the medallion.

There. The weak point was the small spinel just right of the chalcedony.

“Mirandel,” I whispered. “We need to hit that spinel—the small gray one. But we need to do it from here—we can’t get any closer than this.”

She tilted her head and drew out a small knife. She weighed it, then judged the distance.

With a flick of her wrist, she hit the gem, knocking it so cleanly out of the setting that the medallion only twitched.

She smiled like a cat, proud and preening.

I tiptoed to the Emperor’s side, and pinched the lamp’s brass handle between my thumb and forefinger, and as slowly and carefully as I dared, I tugged it from the Emperor’s sash.

It was almost out when it snagged on something.

I held my breath and yanked it free.

The Emperor’s eyes opened. “Who dares—?”

“Sleep!” I hissed.

His eyes rolled back. Oh horsepiss. He’d seen my face.

Mirandel grabbed my arm. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

We fought our way through another three guards—well, Mirandel fought, and I sent people into their dreams. I pulled the collar away—my neck felt scalded from the heat it was giving off—and caught my breath. “When did you get good at fighting?”

She did a showy twirl of her blade. “It’s not so different from dancing.”

I hesitated for a second. “So it took you a long time.”