Page 35 of Embrace the Serpent

The palace was as silent and still as a held breath. We moved through it without speaking, his hand in mine. When we were

in his rooms, we stayed like that, hands clasped as if it were the most natural thing.

I drank in the way moonlight crowned him in silver.

I whispered, “Everyone else in this world is selfish. Why do you have to be noble?”

He laughed, low and rumbly. “If I were noble, I would’ve plucked my heart out the moment you told me the old heartstone couldn’t

be fixed.”

“You won’t have to. I’ll find another way.”

“I know you will. You’re brilliant.”

“I’d do it even if you—even if we—even if I didn’t feel—”

He reached and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and said, like a secret, “That’s very noble of you.”

I ducked my head, and the air filled with the distant sound of the lake lapping at the palace walls.

“I have to tell you something,” I whispered, pulling back.

“When I first saw jewelsmiths at work... it seemed wondrous. It felt like the world had opened up, become endless. It felt like a promise, that there was beauty in the world, that you could make beauty exist in the world, just through the work of your own hands. And when I say beauty, I mean—I mean all the good things. Joy, and being nice for no reason at all. Not being afraid. Taking care of other people instead of taking from them. I’m not explaining it right.

What I mean is that it was a revelation, because, until then, it seemed the world had been trying to teach me that if I wanted to survive, I had to be cruel.

“I don’t know when I lost that feeling. Over the years, with Galen, it became about survival again. About doing what needed

to be done, and I didn’t fight when Galen chased fame, when he brought me petty little jobs that showed me all the ways people

felt not good enough. I did them.... I didn’t want to lose what little I had.

“These past few weeks... it feels like I remember what art could be. What it could do, what it could mean. Who I could

be.”

It was the most I had ever spoken at once. My cheeks heated.

I covered my face. It was embarrassing. I hadn’t even said it right, and still, it felt like my insides were flayed open,

like he could look right into the deepest, darkest parts of me.

He touched the backs of my hands. “Can I come in?”

I lowered them.

His eyes twinkled down at me. “I have a secret, too. I knew you, long before I met you. When I first held your work, I could feel the kindness behind it. It was there in the little ways you protected people, like the serpent-head clasp that made people feel safe. I collected stories of your pieces, chased every rumor about Galen’s work.

People said that the effects were so natural that sometimes people didn’t even notice the jewels.

Yours were so perfectly tailored to the wearer.

You saw them. You listened.” He said intently, “I don’t think I could trust my heart to anyone else. ”

“I mean it, I’ll find another way—”

“I know you will. But even still. My heart is yours.”

I felt lightheaded, my skin burning, my chest aflutter. I was embarrassed and something else. I wanted to run; I wanted to

press closer to him.

“That’s right.” He smiled. “You don’t need to hide from me.”

His arms wrapped around me, and I remembered a dream I used to have.

It came to me often, back in those early days of being a ward in the Rose Palace. I’d sneak away and find old, abandoned rooms

to sleep in, away from everyone else. Drafty rooms in the ancient part of the palace, where the wind whistled through gaps

in stone and the nights grew cold enough to see my breath.

Those nights, I had the dream. Of warmth sinking into my bones, into the dark corners of my heart where I’d tucked away all

the things I didn’t dare hope for.

Inside me, like a ghost, was the girl I had once been. I felt her marvel at him, at the softness in his eyes, at the good

fortune that was too incredible, too inconceivable. It couldn’t be real, she felt.

After all, the dream was my mind tricking me, hiding the cold from me, giving me a way to ignore the numbness that had set

into my bones.

Wasn’t this the same? With every brush of his lips at my temple, at my cheeks, at the bite mark on my wrist, he was driving

away the numbness that had become part of me.

I pulled back. His eyes were alight with wonder. This is real , I told the ghost inside.

It was real because I could already taste the pain of losing him.

I kissed him.

It was the softest brush of my lips on his, but it sent vibrations through every inch of my body. I was coming alive. He opened

to me, his head tilting into my touch. I pressed my lips against his, and this time his answered, moving against me like he

was speaking silent words in a secret language. But my skin understood.

I was rising beyond myself.

I shivered as he drew my hair over my shoulder, as he unclasped my dress. Our clothes pooled at our feet. I didn’t hide from

him.

He wore no illusion. And he shivered at my touch.

This is real.

My body whispered it each time his skin grazed mine, each time I tasted his lips.

Until even the ghost in me was convinced.

Sunlight seeped in through my eyelids, chasing away the last of my dream. It slipped through the cracks in my thoughts and

sank back to wherever it was that dreams hid from the waking world.

My cheek was pressed against soft fabric, but it was warm, and it rose and fell in time with the sound of soft breathing.

I froze, coming awake all at once.

I looked up into Rane’s true face, all aglow in the light of day. Locks of silver hair splayed across his shoulders, his brow was smooth and untroubled, his lips soft and just barely parted. The tips of his fangs were just visible. He was, I realized with no small surprise, rather cute.

I shifted, and the arm around me tightened, tucking me against his side. My face was warm, and I pressed it back into his

chest, feeling the fabric of his shirt, and beneath, the firm, reassuring solidity of his body. I lowered my ear to his chest,

listening for a heart that would never beat.

I felt a strange new peace. I had always been running, always trying to survive. I had never before had someone to protect,

and it made me feel different. Stronger.

Golden light filtered through the windows, catching on dust particles. The lake glittered with sunlight, and trembling reflections

danced across the ceiling and walls.

Movement at the door caught my eye. Grimney, sneaking in on tiptoes. He climbed up the woodwork and perched on the foot of

the bed.

He glanced meaningfully between Rane and me, then wiggled his stone eyebrows.

I shut my eyes and pretended I hadn’t seen him. When I peeked to see if he had gone, he met my gaze, grinning delightedly,

and mimed rocking a baby in his arms.

I groaned and threw a pillow in his direction.

Rane shifted under me, his eyes opening. The gentleness in his expression stole my breath, and then I saw the change as he

remembered the cracked heartstone.

“Give me some time,” I said.

“You said it could not be fixed.”

“And you said I’m the best jewelsmith in the Empire,” I said. “I’ll find another way.”

His gaze softened as he chose to put his trust in me.

It felt not like a burden, but like a soft, glimmering thing, something to light the way. It buoyed me as I scarfed down a

breakfast and gathered tools, as we descended down into the submerged levels of the palace.

I was prepared with several lanterns, a pad to make drawings, my jewelsmith’s spectacles and tools. Grimney had come along,

to keep me company or to tease me, I wasn’t sure.

Rane hovered as I set up. “Are you sure you don’t need me?”

Over breakfast, his huntsmen had whispered reports into his ear, and a half dozen people had quite nearly begged for his time.

I said, “Not for this.”

“I can cancel my meetings,” he said. “This is more important.”

“Go on,” I insisted. “I’ll be fine.”

He murmured something else, but the world had already faded for me, the way it did when my work drew me in.

The heartstone glimmered in the light of three lanterns, its fractures unmissable. Could I build something, a cage of sorts,

to keep the jewel from shattering and falling apart? I talked it over with Grimney, who mostly shrugged, but hearing my thoughts

out loud helped. I drew a dozen designs for the cage, and as I did, a flaw in the idea became apparent. The heartstone was

under so much pressure, that asking anything more of it—even asking it not to shatter—would only shatter it more quickly.

The only thing was to lessen the pressure, somehow.

For hours, I studied the heartstone, drawing every fragment of an idea that came to me.

When my hand started shaking, when I started fearing I’d never find a way, I turned my attention away from the central stone

to the rest of it.

Maybe that was the key. What would it take to replace the heartstone? It was a singular jewel with a drive to protect, which

Darvald had sculpted into the kingdom’s enchantments. But it wasn’t a single effect; there were dozens. The way the paths

into the kingdom were hidden, the illness that fell upon those who crossed without permission, the way the kingdom was concealed

from view... There were a dozen effects. I needed to map them all.

For the concealment, perhaps, if I had a hundred jewels like the one in my mother’s ring. It was so rare that I hadn’t come

across another with that same property in all my years jewelsmithing. But perhaps, with Rane’s resources, more could be found.

I had firsthand experience with the ill effects of crossing the border, and I could mimic that—there was a pinkish beryl from

one particular mine, that some folks in the city used to shrink their appetites, which could easily become intense nausea.

Faintly, the design began to materialize in my mind. With many, many jewels, all working together, it was possible. It would