Page 88 of Embrace the Serpent

Her hand moved to her scar, a reflexive gesture. “The Serpent King found me. He offered refuge to those who survived. I didn’t know... It was a month before I woke, months again before I could see. I didn’t know you had been taken. I thought you had been k—” She stopped, composed herself. “When he called me today and told me that someone had survived, I hoped it was you. I’ve thought of you every single day.”

I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

Her hand gripped mine. She found the ring. “My old ring.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s broken. B-but it helped me survive.”

“Then it has done everything I hoped.”

It hurt to look at her. It felt like she was a phantasm, a gift that would disappear upon waking. I wanted desperately to make her stay with me, to never let her go, but another part of me felt like the sun was growing in my chest, a warmth that threatened to burn, and I had better protect myself and squash it now. That part didn’t trust that she wouldn’t disappear again. It didn’t trust that I would survive if she did.

I met her eyes. “I want to know you,” I said.

Her fingers tightened around mine in a silent promise. “We have time,” she said softly. “We’re safe now.”

17

My mother and I... We were everything to each other, and we were strangers. Like a game, we volleyed the wordsDo you remember?back and forth, and each time I answered yes. They were only half lies—I wanted to remember, and I was sure somewhere deep in me, the memories existed.

I didn’t know how to share myself with her. The girl she remembered, the one who climbed trees and played mischief on the cook, was like a fairy tale. She was adventurous and brave. And I? I was something else.

She offered for me to come and stay with her in town. But it was a formality. She thought I was Rane’s bride, and I didn’t correct her.

She kissed my cheek before she left.

I watched her go and then sat alone until my legs protested from the hardness of the stone bench.

The party was over when I trudged back, attendants pointing the way.

I found Rane in his rooms, wearing his dark-haired illusion. He was resting on the divan, his robes loose at his throat, hand pressed lightly into the skin over his wound.

His eyelids rose as I stepped closer.

My voice came in a whisper. “How did you know?” I hadn’t said I was from Marehold. I hadn’t told him who I was, who my mother was.

His voice was scratchy with sleep. “It went well?”

“Tell me how you knew.”

He raised three fingers. “One, you asked the water horse to take ushome. It didn’t take us to my home, so it follows that perhaps, it took us to yours. Two, you were an Imperial Ward, which made it likely that you had come from a family noble enough or important enough for the Emperor and Incarnadine to take you as one of their pawns.”

“And three?”

“And I saw the look in your eyes, there in Marehold.”

“The look in my eyes?”

“Your eyes tell me quite a lot.”

I dropped my gaze, alarmed.

His clothes rustled as he stood. “It’s all right. I can keep a secret.” He moved closer and exhaled softly. “You are pleased, aren’t you? Or are you angry with me?”

“Angry? No. The opposite.”

“What is the opposite?”

He was so close I could count each of his dark lashes. He had added a tiny little beauty spot under one eye, or perhaps it was always there.