Page 87 of Embrace the Serpent

I said, “I’m perfectly fine.”

Rane took that as an invitation to delve through the crowd, greeting people and taking their well-wishes. I was happy to nod and smile, until a voice addressed me directly. “My lady.”

Rane was midconversation with a bear in elegant silks and didn’t notice.

I turned to the voice. A tall figure with feathers, an eagle-like curve to his nose and lips. Ancient. Scarred, burns along one wing. “Tell me, do you know of the Cloud-Head Mountains?”

I shook my head.

“They are the most beautiful mountains, above the cloud layer. My ancestors had an eyrie perched on the highest tip of the eastern one, the one that first greets the sun. You should go, if you can. You would blend in with the invaders.”

I took a swig of wine in lieu of responding.

“I can never return. My children, my grandchildren... none of us can.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He inclined his head.

Rane pulled me away before I could say anything else. “There’s someone else I’d like you to meet.”

We moved through the garden, and I watched the party with different eyes. A small, well-wrinkled fellow floated by on a levitating carpet, bundled up as if the mild temperature was the iciest of chills. A well-muscled man with the head of a crane stood alone, looking out over the water, goblet clutched in his hand. There was what appeared to be a very large rat standing on its hind legs, who was garbed in robes tied in an elaborate fashion and topped with a headpiece that would be the envy of any noble in the Imperial City. He was in conversation with a tigress who slunk ever closer to him, with a rather hungry look in her eye.

However beautiful this kingdom was, however they danced and made merry, there was an undercurrent of tension, of loss. Somehow, it made me like them better.

The sounds of merriment faded the deeper we moved through the gardens. Rane paused before a bridge that led to a small island. He looked nervous.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Someone who came to us from Marehold.” He paused. “If you don’t want to meet her—”

“No,” I said. “I do.”

He hung back as I crossed the bridge and stepped through a trellis-covered arch. My heart began to pound.

She sat alone, her fingers tracing patterns in the dust on the bench, her back straight but not tense. There was a scar on hertemple, a pale, jagged line that stretched over her ear. She wore it neither proudly nor shamefully; her hair did not grow where the scar marked her, but she didn’t hide it.

She turned when she sensed my presence, her eyes meeting mine. They were the same eyes I remembered from my childhood, the ones I had seen in my dreams for twelve years, the ones I thought I had lost forever.

She opened her mouth, and I knew what would come, her lips would shape the words:Hide. Don’t let them find you.

She said, “My little Aria.”

I swallowed, trying to find words that wouldn’t betray the wild hope inside me. “Mother?”

Her smile was small, hesitant. “You remember me?”

I looked away, out at the gardens. The flowers were beginning to open, their colors vivid against the green. “I never forgot you,” I said, my voice steady but quiet.

She rose from her seat, leaning heavily on a cane and crossing the room with slow, deliberate steps. She stopped a few paces away, close enough to touch but far enough to respect the distance I needed. “You’ve grown so much.” she said, and wiped her eyes.

I moved to her, but I didn’t know how to do this, how to embrace her, and my arms were wooden. All at once, she wrapped her arms around my stiff body and pulled me close. She was so soft, and smelled like I remembered, and suddenly the thing I’d been bottling up for my whole life spilled over, and I wept and wept, loud and ungraceful, as she murmured into my hair, running her hands up and down my back.

I calmed after some time. “I’m sorry,” I said, sniffling.

“Oh, my dear.” Her eyes shone, and I felt guilty for her tears. “Life has been difficult for you, hasn’t it?”

I swallowed again, but the knot in my throat wouldn’t go. “How did you survive?”