Page 21 of Embrace the Serpent

I kicked a rock up the path. It rolled back down to my toes, and I gave it another kick.

The shopkeeper said I could take over one of the empty shops. They’d help me get on my feet, he’d said. They’d all love to

have me there.

I was a fool to turn him down. Especially now that the Serpent King had released me from my deal with Rane. I was free. I

could do whatever I wanted. I didn’t quite know what that was, but a jewelsmith in a little village sounded decent enough.

But my insides had twisted up, guilt wringing me like a washcloth.

I glared at the figure marching fast up the road. The Serpent King acted like he didn’t see me, but he gave himself away when

he turned his head the tiniest degree, just enough to show an ear and a bit of pointed cheekbone. He knew exactly where I

was, probably to the number of paces that separated us.

“I made a deal,” I called. “I’m not going back on it.”

Without turning or breaking stride, he said, “I’m afraid there is no deal.”

I quickened my pace. “Look, maybe I jumped to conclusions.”

“Please, take the bleating of your conscience elsewhere.”

Rude. Still, perhaps a different tactic would work. “Rane made it sound like you really needed a jewelsmith.”

He went silent, his jaw working. “We’ll manage.”

A memory came to me, of the conversation between the Serpent King and Rane in the dark tent. The Serpent King hadn’t been

sure about me then, and he still wasn’t. But Rane believed in me, and his face had been so earnest when he told me how important

the job was. I owed it to Rane, I felt, to make his case.

“I don’t think you will,” I said quietly, keeping my gaze on the pebbles lining the dirt road.

The Serpent King’s dark laced boots kicked up small dust clouds with each step. Fifteen dust clouds later, he spoke. “Fine.

Suit yourself.”

The knot in my stomach loosened.

The Serpent King fell silent, save for the occasional exasperated huff, the kind that belonged to beleaguered mothers waiting

for their kid to finish peeing. Grimney hung half out of my pocket, pointing at every tenth rock on the ground, each time

with the ecstatic enthusiasm of someone who’d never seen one. A bit of gravel got under my nails as I picked up the latest

specimen. Grimney tucked it into my pocket with the others. My dress gave a short rip as several stitches snapped. “That’s

your last one,” I hissed to him.

The Serpent King’s long legs ate up the distance, and I jogged to catch up.

He huffed as I neared.

I chewed my cheek. I shouldn’t ask. “We’re going to save the others, right?”

“You don’t even know them.”

“I know Rane.”

He breathed a laugh that sounded like pah !

“I do,” I said. “He’s been nice to me.”

“Rane is an idiot.”

I bit back the words that came to my lips. You’re not even half as clever as him.

The Serpent King shot me a withering look. “Listen, Saphira. I am going to rescue my people. You are going to stay out of my way.”

I glared at his elbow. And then, quietly, I asked, “But they’ll be all right, won’t they?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

My feet missed a step.

“Well, it’s not a tea party, is it?” he snapped. “They’re probably fine. They’re my best. There’s a chance that they’ll have

saved themselves by the time we get there.”

I didn’t believe him. I don’t know that he believed himself either.

We didn’t speak for some time, thankfully, because the road curved uphill and I needed every inch of my lungs to keep up with

him.

The tinkling of running water came from the side of the road, and the Serpent King veered off the path. “Finally, a river.

Thank the stars.”

I wondered at his enthusiasm. To call it a river was a stretch; at most it was a stream with mild ambition. Still, I took

the opportunity to gather my breath.

The Serpent King knelt by the bank and trailed his fingers through the water. He whistled, four clear notes that hung in the

air.

A warbling trill came from the stream, matching his tune.

The flow changed, catching, a snag in the current. The Serpent King unfolded himself by inches, like he was coaxing a rabbit

from a bush, but the bush was the stream and the rabbit was a column of water.

The Serpent King came to his full height, his fingers brushing the water, and inclined his head in a regal bow. The water

trembled, and then it solidified, first the long muzzle and pointed ears, then the neck and sea-foam mane, then legs tipped

with gleaming hooves. My eyes told me that the thing before me was a horse, if a slightly blue-green one, but the rest of

me felt my eyes were being rather hasty with their declarations.

The Serpent King patted its neck, and its pale hairs shifted under his hand. It certainly looked solid. “Let us hurry,” he

said. “Come. I’ll help you up.”

The horse whinnied, and its teeth seemed very real and very large. I inched back. “It’s okay, I’ll walk.”

He huffed, nearly rolling his eyes. “It’s just like any horse.”

“Except it came out of the water.”

“That’s perfectly natural. It’s one of the water horses. A divine beast.”

“How did it come here? I thought the divine peoples were bound to your land.”

“They are not bound. They have choice. Some chose to stay, and they live in the hidden corners of your world. In my land,

they live openly.”

He reached out a hand.

“Still,” I said, “I’d better walk.”

“It’s not a monster.”

“I didn’t say it was.” No more so than any other horse, at least.

“Then why—Ah.” He cut himself off with devilish delight. “Do you not know how to ride?”

“In theory,” I said. “I presume you sit on it.”

“Come. It’s simple. We’ll ride together, for now—we need to make haste.”

I inched closer. The horse’s nostrils flared, and I sensed a hidden malice in its big doleful eyes.

“But still, walking is healthy—” I yelped as hands gripped my waist and lifted me into the air.

I swung a leg over the horse’s back and wrapped my arms around its neck. Its muscles rippled under me like it wanted me to

know how much stronger than me it was.

The Serpent King took his seat behind me—how I don’t know, I didn’t dare twist to look, lest the beast throw me off—and he

was a sturdy weight pressed against my back. I shuffled forward to put some distance between us.

“Let’s go,” he said. His arms came around my body and his warmth pressed against me.

I shut my eyes, and the horse’s shoulders shifted under me as it picked up speed. I was thankful for the Serpent King keeping

me steady, for there was no saddle. Then again, I doubted I’d have known what to do even if the horse came with a saddle.

I opened my eyes once and found it to be a mistake, for one, because we were going so fast the world was a blur of color, and two, because I saw that there were no reins, nor any way at all to control the beast.

The monstrous water horse finally fell still. Hands gripped my waist again, and the Serpent King pulled me off the beast’s

back. On trembling legs, I waddled over to a nice boulder, plopped down, and rubbed the feeling back into my thighs.

I blinked the wind from my eyes. We were on a hill, shielded from the road by a thicket of trees, with a grand view of a town

below.

The Serpent King pulled the hood low over his head. “Things are more dangerous, now that they know who you are. The story

has changed. They say I stole you from the Imperial City.”

He stood like kings in paintings, one leg up on a fallen tree, peering down at the town. All the roofs were a mottled pale

turquoise-green.

“Copperton,” the Serpent King said.

Oh. Of course it was green. The picture in my head was of a town all pinkish-orange, like clean polished copper. But any piece

of copper turns that distinct blue-green in about seven years, if left unlacquered or unwaxed. It takes a lot of elbow grease

to polish the green away—a lesson I learned when I was nine, when Galen had to take just about any job, including restoring

old pieces. I could still conjure up the sweet and earthy scent of the wax.

“You have never been here?” he asked.

“No,” I admitted. “Have you?”

“No. I have read that it is famously built on a spoke and wheel design,” he said.

I squinted. Just barely, in the heart of the town, I could make out a cluster of buildings that might fit that description, but streets wandered aimlessly after that point, buildings crowding each other and climbing up a hill in the distance.

“And,” he continued, “that in the fourth age, Prince Adi the Watchful, built a small palace and lined the walls of his banquet

hall in lead. He was deeply paranoid, deeply hateful of the power of jewels, and he insisted all his visitors meet him there,

including when he met his bride, so he could be assured that her intelligence and beauty were not unduly enhanced. If I remember

correctly, it was in that very same banquet hall that he was poisoned, on the eve of his thirty-ninth birthday.”

He had the demeanor of a boy reciting his lessons, and for a brief heartbeat, an image of a small, scowling boy-sized Serpent

King flashed before my eyes. I shook my head. “That’s, uh, very interesting.”

He stalked off, an irritated set to his lips.

It was a very old book he had read all this from. But of course, how would they have records of recent history in the Serpent

Kingdom?

I followed after him. He was standing with his eyes closed.

A transformation fell upon him, his skin turning smooth, his cheekbones widening, his shoulders slimming and torso thickening.

A lantern-jawed man in an Imperial Guard uniform stood before me.

I clapped hands over my mouth.

He startled, eyelids flying open. “What is it?”

“I didn’t know you could—I thought only Rane could do that.”

He gave me a withering look. “Do not think so highly of Rane and so lowly of me.”

“His illusions are better.” Rane’s had a bit of reality to them. There was something waxy about the Serpent King’s. Rane was like me, working for someone who didn’t really appreciate what we could do and yet was jealous of what we did.