Page 77 of Embrace the Serpent

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 jasmineoil. 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 probablyrevolting, 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?”