Page 11 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

Yet no attack came. There was only the storm inside. She’d tried to pretend the thunder was just rolling in, but she was already a shipwreck. She’d been clinging to broken scraps of hull to stay afloat, and all she could feel now was a grasping current, dragging her down.

Then Silas heaved a sigh.

With a disgruntled whump, he sat beside her.

Eliza jerked her head up, looking at him through bleary eyes as he flicked a handkerchief onto her face. She swatted it free, irritation slowing her tears.

If he’d given her a handkerchief the day before, she would have thought him half a gentleman. Now she wondered if it was some kind of trick. He didn’t say anything, so after a moment’s hesitation, she wiped her face. The tears still trickled, her breath coming in hiccups.

Silas pulled a book from the shelf behind them and started reading.

Eliza stared at the strangeness, and eventually, the pressing force on her chest eased, allowing her to breathe without a catch in her throat. She didn’t know how long it had been, only that Silas had turned more than a few pages.

“Come on,” he finally said. “Stand up. We’ll get someone to reverse the Cast.”

After returning the book to its shelf, he climbed to his feet, clearly waiting for her to follow.

Eliza swallowed. “You can—can do that?”

“I know a revered Stone Caster. She’s a professor here. Helped build the Great Eastern Wall.”

Eliza pressed her hands to her cheeks, which were dry now but raw from the tears.

No doubt her nose was red and her eyes much worse, but she’d never been much of a pristine princess.

Her father had scolded her for that many times, but her mother had told Eliza to be her own person, no matter her station.

She’d gotten herself into this, and if there was a way out, she would take it. One step at a time. That tiny sense of control gave her enough strength to stand, even if her knees still wobbled.

Silas watched her with dark, unreadable eyes. Then he nodded toward the library exit. He kept his hands in his pockets as they walked, like he was as afraid to touch her as she was to touch him.

Like they were both monsters to each other.

The princess’s breakdown had been a blessing; it had given Silas a chance to gather his own emotions, to view things with a level head once more. Clearly, neither he nor Eliza wanted this arrangement, so the easiest thing to do was fix it. He knew just the person for that.

Iyl Yvette had her office door open, and Silas knocked as he crossed the threshold. He expected a warm greeting, maybe even a hug, but instead he received the fiercest of scowls, enough to stop him in his tracks.

“Silas Bennett!” she snapped, rising from behind her desk. “You dare show your fanged face in this office?”

Silas blinked. “What did I ever do to you, Yvette?”

Yvette was barely taller than Eliza, and her demeanor was suited to being a Stone Caster—between her stoic expression and stocky frame, she often gave the impression of being a statue herself.

While many Pravish women wore scarves as head wraps, Yvette wrapped hers around her throat.

No matter what else she wore, that scarf was always the same, inherited from her mother, red as wine and striking against her beaded black hair.

“That’s Iyl to you. I expect sufficient groveling before you earn back your first-name privileges.” She stomped over and jabbed him in the chest, making him hiss.

“Grovel for what?” Silas demanded.

“You left without saying goodbye.”

He shifted his weight to the other leg, and not just because it drew him one step back from the threat. “You knew I’d finished my studies.”

“Yes, and every time I saw you in the library, you said, ‘Any day now,’ ‘Just a few loose ends,’ and what did I say to you, Silas, aptal?”

He rubbed his chest; she’d poked quite hard. One of the books on her shelf had a skull carved on the front leather, its gaze offering an empty-eyed condemnation.

“What did I say?”

Begrudgingly, Silas admitted, “You said, ‘Don’t leave without—’”

“Don’t leave without saying goodbye. Oh, so you do have human ears in that snake skull!”

“I saw your husband in the market,” he said, as if that made it better.

From her expression, it did not. “You spoke to Baris but not to me?” She loosed a string of colorful curses. Yvette was the source of Silas’s most delightful Pravish expressions. “What did I waste all my time on you for? Ungrateful student!”

She threw her hands in the air, and, beside him, Eliza flinched as if the professor had threatened a strike.

Yvette turned, finally noticing Silas wasn’t alone. “Who’s this one? Your wife? Is that why you’re gone and back so soon—your father arranged a marriage?”

“I’m not his wife!” Eliza squeaked out, face reddening like a tomato.

It was Silas’s turn to blink. Yvette knew Loegrian, but she hadn’t spoken any in this conversation, so Eliza shouldn’t have been able to understand anything.

Addressing the princess, he asked, “Since when did you learn Pravish?”

“She’s speaking Loegrian,” Yvette said.

“Yes, I—” Silas huffed. He raised his wrist, shoving the golden band into Yvette’s view. “It’s this cursed thing. This is why we’re here.”

Yvette’s ranting demeanor vanished, replaced by the intrigued professor hooked on a mystery. She took Silas’s wrist and turned it this way and that, rubbing her thumb across the flattened stone. Where her touch passed, a faint golden glow trailed, quickly fading.

“Oh,” she murmured. “Oh.” Anything left of the statue softened, and she looked up at Silas with concern, reaching out to grip his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

He frowned but nodded. “I just want it gone. Can you read the Cast?”

“As clearly as any book. You won’t like what it says.”

Before he could ask, Yvette moved to stand in front of Eliza and crossed her arms like a chastising parent.

Eliza shifted from one foot to the other, head bowed before the stony professor.

In Loegrian, Yvette said, “Eyes forward, girl, and give me your name.”

To her credit, Eliza followed the instruction without bluster. Then she grew nervous and stumbled into the rest of the story—Henry Wycliff and the shipwreck.

Yvette studied the girl’s bracelet just as she had Silas’s before she prompted, “Dear Eliza, what have you done?”

Eliza looked at the floor, whispering, “I just wanted . . . I needed to speak Pravish.”

“And the Caster you hired to help—you told her you needed a leash for this boy who slithers out of everything?”

“Excuse me?” Silas spat.

Eliza’s face turned red once more, and she sputtered.

Yvette lifted the girl’s arm calmly, gesturing at her bracelet.

“This Cast binds you together. I’d estimate you can’t go more than twenty feet apart without one bracelet pulling the other.

This is a wrist-to-jaw Cast, a common bone pairing, so the magic is rooted in the jawbone and worn against this prominent carpal on the wrist. It’s surprisingly strong.

You found a good Caster, or one who was particularly enthusiastic about your request.”

Silas seethed more with every word. “What exactly did you request?” he demanded of the princess.

Eliza shrank. “I—I just said I needed to speak Pravish! Then she started talking about a boy, and I didn’t realize—”

“And you made this request in Pravish? Which you don’t speak?” Silas groaned, imagining the vast multitude of malapropisms she might have performed in that single request. “How did you refer to me? Erkal?” He gave the most common, age-neutral male identifier, already knowing it would be wrong.

Eliza huffed. “Well, I thought we were speaking of Henry. Besides, she’s the one who mentioned it first, so I only mimicked her phrasing. Erkek.”

Yvette busted out laughing. Silas gave her a flat stare.

“Erkek is a drippingly affectionate term for males,” he said. “Either you’re hopelessly in love with me, or I’m your darling little son you never want to leave home.”

Yvette gave a conspiratorial grin, releasing Eliza’s arm. “I don’t think your Stone Caster interpreted it as the second.”

“If you’d just helped me!” Eliza exploded. “None of this—”

“Don’t you dare blame me! Entitled royal—meddling with magic you don’t understand. Did you even consider if we’re bound for life?”

“We’re not!”

“You were so certain of the terms before you purchased? You didn’t even know the right words to use!”

He pried at the bracelet again, but it did not release. He let out a string of curses revolving around people who never deserved to see a snake in their lives.

“Well, I . . . We can’t be.” Eliza swallowed. “That’s not the way it should work.”

“You seem to have this belief that you can warp reality to suit your own wants. I have news for you, apta—truth is objective. And reality does not care what you want it to be.”

“Don’t call me that,” she growled.

“I’ll call you whatever I please, considering what you called me—and where we stand as a result.”

“Enough,” said Yvette, cutting her hand through the air as if she could sever the conversation. Her expression still held enough enjoyment to make Silas’s skin bristle with gray scales.

“Jawbone,” she said, gesturing to her own.

“Symbolic of language, among other things. My best guess is that you found this Stone Caster in the market, you told her something about a darling boy and Pravish, and she took that to mean you’d fallen in love with some Pravish boy but couldn’t tell him because of a language barrier.

As long as you’re both wearing the bands, you’ll understand any language the other can speak, and it should assist with learning it as well. ”

“Why limit how far we can go?” Silas asked, glaring at the princess. “Did you throw that detail in too?”

“I didn’t say anything about distance!” Eliza protested.

“A side effect only,” said Yvette. “A language Cast like this needs stability, which can be offered through proximity. Since she assumed you wanted an intimate conversation anyway, why not have it in the same room? Not a problem.”

Silas could have given a few choice thoughts about problems and the princess causing them.

“How do we break it?” he asked. Unless it was a curse, the Cast would come with an inherent unraveling feature.

“Ah . . .” Yvette pressed her lips together, separating them with a small pop. “Well, presumably, after your romantic intentions could be made clear and understood, this Stone Caster had faith you’d be a love story for the ages.”

Silas tasted something sour. “How do we break it, Yvette?”

“You kiss, Silas. And don’t look at me like that—I didn’t Cast it.”