Page 28 of Embrace the Serpent

In the space of a heartbeat, he had changed. The tension between his brows eased, as if he had let go of his last burden.

I had half risen, my arm shielding my face, and when it seemed that the changes were done, I lowered myself, and with a quick

glance behind me, I leaned in.

It felt like gazing upon a secret.

Tiny silver scales covered the backs of his hands and cascaded down his long fingers, making delicate patterns around his knuckles. They glinted in the firelight like diamonds. A jolt of recognition went through me. A memory came, of the Serpent King, on our wedding day, his hand reaching for mine.

But his face wasn’t the Serpent King’s. Neither was it Rane’s.

And yet it was familiar. Each individual feature was familiar; the long eyes were the Serpent King’s, the strong, straight

nose was Rane’s. The coloring was the Serpent King’s, but the slenderness of his face, the way his lips curled at the corner

as he dreamed, those were Rane’s.

But who was he?

I waited hours at his bedside, filling with hope at every twitch of his lashes, every change in his breath. He didn’t wake,

but he had no fever. If he just woke for a moment, if I could figure out how to get to his kingdom....

I got to my feet. Grimney sat on the edge of the bed, watching the sleeping figure like a loyal bodyguard.

I couldn’t bring myself to think of him as Rane. Needling me, at the back of my mind, was the feeling that I didn’t know him.

I mean, we were just strangers making a deal, so it wasn’t like I expected to know his favorite color or anything. But that

I hadn’t known his true face?

My mind was drawing connections, making leaps that I didn’t want to face. So what if he looked like the Serpent King? Maybe

all serpent people did. Maybe any serpent person could call up an army of snakes with a drop of blood.

I needed space to think.

The hallway had filled with dappled sunlight from the holes in the roof. Tattered tapestries hung limply, too faded to make

out, but an image flashed in my mind of them whole and vibrant, depicting tales of divine peoples, the whole story captured

in a single panel. I imagined being small, lying on the floor and looking up at the tapestries. The image faded.

The moss squelched underfoot nauseatingly, so I leapt from patch to patch of bare tile, like a child, skipping along.

I followed the roar of the sea, to a set of double doors standing ajar. I slipped through without touching them. Dust motes

danced in the slanting rays of sunlight, and all was bathed in a golden haze.

The far wall was all arches and simple columns, open to the sea. The shutters had long rotted away, and scraggly rags whipped

in the wind.

They had been pale silk once, dancing in the wind.

I crossed to them, stepping over the rotted cushions that were strewn across the once-beautiful carpet. Even now, faded by

sunlight, the thread work was astonishing. It had been soft, I remembered—

I came to a large, dark stain. My thoughts stuttered to a halt.

My gaze was drawn by inches, my breathing coming fast, my ears ringing.

Directly opposite the stain, leaning against the wall, was a wardrobe. The inlaid wood was now a mottled gray and riddled

with cracks. It was so small, only as tall as I was.

I touched it and the wardrobe doors creaked open.

A cloud of scent rose, of sea salt and age and faintly, of jasmine oil. It took thousands of flowers for a single tiny bottle of oil. I knew this because my mother had told me, as she dabbed it on her wrists.

Clothes hung inside, faded but I knew that red silk, and that pink beadwork shawl. I had once crouched between them, holding

my breath, clutching my mother’s ring.

I had watched, as, as my mother fell, and—

An eye had appeared in the gap. Incarnadine had taken me.

She had taken everything from me. Then, and again, with Galen and her task. She was coming for me even now.

Mirandel wasn’t wrong. No ordinary person could stand up to Incarnadine. And I wasn’t even that. I was a coward, and I was

running out of places to hide.

Only the Serpent King had thwarted her. He had kept his kingdom safe.

At least, that was what I’d been told. Was it true? Or was it an illusion, as real as Rane’s face?

When I returned, Rane was awake and newly illusioned. I searched his features and the dark of his hair for any hint of the

secret face and found none.

“How do you feel?” I asked. “Are you all right?”

He grumbled, “Please don’t fuss so much over a mere scratch.”

A scratch? “It was an arrow to the chest.”

“Let’s not be dramatic.”

“Eat this,” I said, and handed him the bowl I’d filled with multiple feasts for tiny people. Tiny flatbreads and date cakes swam in a sea of several dozen mixed soups and curries. It was probably revolting, but it was sustenance.

“It’s delicious,” he said, and downed it quickly. He set it aside and leaned back.

I took note of each time Rane grimaced and clenched his fists. There was little I could do for the pain.

“It doesn’t hurt at all,” Rane said. “My heart stopped it, if you must know.”

I gave him a blank look. That wasn’t reassuring.

“My heart is a jewel,” he said confidentially.

“I’m sure it’s very precious to you.”

“That’s not what I mean. My heart is, truly and quite literally, a gemstone. It runs in my family.”

The thought percolated through my mind, until all of it sank in. That explained the nicked arrow, but not much else.

“So,” Rane was saying, “if you would kindly stop looking at me with that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“It’s rather nurse-like. Like you think I’m an invalid. It’s bruising my pride.”

I rolled my eyes. “And however can an arrow to the chest possibly compare to the devastating pain of a bruised ego?”

His chest rumbled with a laugh. “You do understand me.”

That was the thing. “Why did you do it?”

He looked away. “When I saw the arrow would hit you... I didn’t have a better idea. Honestly, I still think it was a good

idea.”

“What about... the serpents?”

His breath hitched.

I went on. “And when you were asleep... your illusion fell.”

“I’ve been able to keep an illusion in my sleep since I was six.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself. You did take an arrow to the chest.”

He gave me a wry look. “Now it feels like you’re enjoying it.”

“Do all serpent people look like you? The silver hair, the silver skin?”

“No,” he breathed. And then, pleadingly, “Saphira...”

“Can all serpent people cast illusions? Or is it just you and the Serpent King?”

“It’s just me.”

His words hung in the air, and slowly registered. Deep down, some part of me knew, had known from the moment the serpents

had come.

Rane met my gaze, waiting.

“You’re the Serpent King.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you lie to me?”

“I... wanted to be Rane. I couldn’t move openly in the city, so... and then it was never a good time to tell you. You

thought I was a monster. I didn’t want to scare you. It was selfish, too. I didn’t want you to run. I wanted...” He sighed.

“I wasn’t supposed to be king, did you know?”

I shook my head.

“My brother was. He was the eldest, and he was made for it. He was noble, right. A swordsman and a scholar. I spent all that time sneaking away and getting into trouble. But then... eventually I had to become what they wanted me to be. I owed it to him. So I crafted the Serpent King. He’s perfect.

And there’s Rane. He’s what... I might have been, if the crown had spared me. ”

Rane was how he saw himself. The Serpent King was what he needed everyone to see him as. But the glimpse I’d had of his true

face was handsomer than Rane’s, more human than the inhumanly sharp cheekbones the Serpent King sported. I was comparing the

two. But the person I had all these feelings for—he didn’t exist.

“Are you very furious?” he asked mildly.

“I just... I liked Rane.”

“Ah. But you can’t feel the same about the monster.” The way his lips twisted at monster , and the way his wry smile didn’t reach his eyes—there I saw the Serpent King. “You do not condone what I have done, and

I understand. I will say this: I have finished every fight that has come to me, but I have never struck first.”

My voice was very quiet. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth now?”

“I swear, on my heart, on my kingdom. I will never lie to you.”

I looked into his illusioned eyes and I wondered.