Page 15 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

Silas woke aching and tense. The first thing his eyes did was locate the reckless princess, who, sure enough, had not popped out of existence to make his life easier. She was writing something at his desk.

“It’s a bit early for poetic composition,” he grumbled, sitting up in bed. He covered a yawn and swept one hand through his disheveled bangs, shoving them out of his eyes.

“Early?” Eliza scoffed without turning. “You’ve slept through a dozen earthquakes and half the morning. Are you certain you’re a snake and not a hibernating bear?”

He was surprised to hear a joke about his magic. Did that mean she was beginning to reevaluate her prejudices, or was she simply mocking?

Unfortunately, he found her impossible to read.

“Gunadin,” he said, testing something.

She frowned at him over her shoulder.

He waited.

“Good morning?” she finally said.

“Does the Cast make everything sound like Loegrian, or does it give you meanings while still letting you hear the language?”

“I can tell you’re speaking Pravish.”

Interesting. As irritating as the situation was, at least he was still learning new things. Warlockry was a difficult thing to study when so much of it changed in specific application.

“Gunadin,” Eliza repeated hesitantly.

Despite himself, he smirked. “You’re using a Loegrian ‘uh’ sound, but in Pravish, the u is a diphthong. Your vowel needs to glide at the end.”

“What does that mean?”

Scooting to the edge of the bed, he leaned forward with his elbows braced against his knees. “It means move your lips. Watch mine.”

Slowly, he repeated the first syllable a few times, then the word as a whole. Eliza dutifully watched his lips, but she must have grown disheartened with the pronunciation because an embarrassed red stained her cheeks.

“Just try,” he said. “From a linguistic standpoint, Loegrian and Pravish are actually—”

With a clear scowl, she cut him off. “You do realize I’m a woman, don’t you?”

Silas blinked. “I hadn’t questioned it until now.”

“Well, you sleep quite easily with a woman in your bed. Is that a common occurrence for you?”

He stared at her flatly. “If you’re referring to earlier this morning, Your Highness, I’ll remind you that you’re the one who climbed in. Is that a common occurrence for you?”

Her blush spread to her collar.

“No!” She buried her face in her hands. “Forget it. Forget I said anything.”

He snorted. While she remained in hiding, he stood and used the top of his dresser as a work surface to cut open two papayas for breakfast. Eliza finally peeked, no doubt enticed by the scent of fresh fruit.

Without a word, Silas set a bowl of papaya pieces on the desk before resettling on his bed.

Since he had only one bowl, he scooped his fruit directly from the peel.

As he ate, he stole a glance at the princess. It had been startling to share a bed with her, especially without warning, and though he’d forced a calm demeanor, he’d been certain she would hear the pounding of his heart.

Retreating into sleep had seemed the safest way to deal with a reckless apta.

After finishing his breakfast, Silas wiped his hands and mouth on a handkerchief and set the peel aside. He drew in a deep breath.

“Since your boundaries are clearly lax,” he said, “we should just kiss.”

Eliza choked on her papaya. She turned away, hacking and coughing. Silas found his inner response to be mostly the same, but that didn’t change the straightest path forward.

For clarity, he added, “Yvette said the Cast will break with a kiss.”

It took another few moments for the princess to get control of herself, and her eyes were still watering when she glared at him with near-physical force. “Absolutely not. How could you even—we can’t just kiss!”

“Why not?” he challenged with a glare of his own.

It wasn’t very academic of him to ask a question he already knew the answer to. In her eyes, he wasn’t a person. Just a monster. Funny how that hadn’t deterred her when she was fearing for her life in an earthquake.

“Because I don’t love you, that’s why not!”

Silas opened his mouth and then closed it. His mind had to catch up with the answer.

“That’s all?” he finally managed.

She stood, apparently trying to emphasize her argument with height. But even sitting on the edge of his bed, Silas was nearly as tall as she was.

“That’s all?” Eliza repeated. She planted her hands on her hips. “Does love mean so little to you?”

It would be more accurate to say love meant nothing to him.

People declared love for selfish reasons or with the intention to manipulate.

For example, his father’s love had been brandished like a flag to other nobles whenever Silas performed admirably in what his father expected of him—his academic excellence at Fairfax, his performance of estate duties, even his table manners.

But that love had been withheld whenever Silas’s feet slipped from that path.

“I’ve been kissed twice,” Silas said. “Neither one related to love. And to answer your question more specifically, love is an excuse people give to justify their actions.”

Eliza sputtered. Slowly, her hands dropped from her waist, and she stared at him as if he’d made a funeral announcement.

“You’re wrong,” she finally whispered. “You’re so very wrong. Love is all that gives life meaning.”

Before he could dispute that, she whipped around, snatching a small book from his desk.

It wasn’t one of his; judging by its worn cover and rippled page edges, it had seen more use than any of his books, and that was saying something.

She flipped to a page near the beginning and shoved the book under his nose, forcing him to lean back before it clipped him in the face. He took it on instinct.

“There,” she said, as if she’d offered the grandest proof in the world.

He restrained the smile tugging at his lips, and he let his eyes scan the page. A Loegrian sonnet. Curious, he glanced at the book’s first page for the author.

“Fernsby is better known for his nonfiction than for his sonnets,” he said. “Have you read his Treatise on Instability?”

Eliza’s furrowed brow said she hadn’t.

“He claims every structure in life is fragile and inevitably collapses. Even love.” Silas closed the book and handed it back. “It’s a depressing read. Understandable why you skipped it. Now, back to our situation—this is our way out, and a kiss doesn’t mean anything.”

After glancing between him and her worn-out book, she tucked it into her pocket like a cherished treasure.

“Yes it does,” she insisted. “You may have gone around kissing girls you don’t love—”

“They both kissed me,” he drawled.

“—but I’ve never kissed anyone. Because a kiss is meant to be a declaration of love.”

He opened his mouth, but before any new argument could leave his tongue, she cut in again.

“Besides, Yvette said I had to mean it, and I couldn’t mean it with anyone but Henry.”

Magic did intertwine fiercely with intention. Silas grimaced.

“There’s an easy solution.” Eliza gave what was clearly meant to be a charming smile. “You help me find Henry, and then Yvette breaks our Cast. Done.”

“Right. I’ll just set aside my life and obligations in favor of yours for however long it takes. That’s fair.”

“It will only take a day!”

She seemed to really mean that. A headache stirred in the back of his skull.

“A schedule,” he ground out. “We’ll make a schedule.”

He knelt at the desk, reaching for his pen. Eliza scurried off the cushion, the mouse fleeing a snake, and he did his best to ignore the sting of that. With quick strokes, he sketched two schedule options in his journal, turning the page for her to see.

“Either we each take part of a day to pursue our goals, or we alternate days—the exception being if I’m needed in Kerem’s office.”

She clenched her fists against her knees. Clearly, her royal entitlement urged her to say her search deserved first priority.

“Finding Henry will only—” she started.

“No matter which one we choose,” he said, “I have to work for Kerem today. I’ve already committed. Unlike you, if I neglect my work, I lose my livelihood.”

“I suppose you really can’t be a lord, then.” When he frowned, her gaze slid away. “There’s a Lord Bennett at court. I thought you might be his heir.”

“No, he wouldn’t claim me as such.” Silas kept the words droll, but they left a bitter taste in his mouth.

She gathered in a breath, clearly planning a scheme, and Silas clenched his jaw.

“You can finish your work,” she said, “and then we can search tonight.”

“Tonight,” he repeated flatly. “In the dark. In Pravusat.”

“I’m not going to sleep anyway,” she muttered. Raising her voice, she added, “We can take a lantern—”

“Light isn’t the problem, apta. It’s the exponential rise of violence at night. Most of the slave trafficking doesn’t happen at high noon.”

She reared back. “There’s . . . there’s slavery here?”

“It’s actually a Cronese trade invading on Pravish territory. Regardless, no, we’re not going out in the city at night.”

“Well, if you intend to sleep the full morning, there’s hardly any day to split!”

“Alternating days it is.” Silas snapped his journal closed.

He was concerned with how Eliza would react once they found proof Lord Henry had gone down with the shipwreck, which was still the most logical conclusion.

Or maybe the bigger concern was that she would never accept proof of any kind, that she would rather continue a hopeless search indefinitely than face a dismal reality.

Either way, a problem for tomorrow.

“I need to change,” he said, gesturing for her to turn away.

She gave a disappointed glance at her own clothing. Silas rolled his eyes. She could have bought better clothes in the market, but, instead, she’d performed wild negotiations for magic. A mixed sense of priorities was entirely her own fault.

“I’ll wait outside,” the princess said, ducking from the room.

He pulled on fresh clothes, then packed his bag. When he met her in the hallway, he found her fighting a war with her hair, an agitated general offering commands her troops clearly did not follow.

“Stay down,” she ordered, trying to flatten a line of wispy hair with her palm while holding sections of a braid between the fingers of her opposite hand.

Silas raised an eyebrow. “You don’t experience much humidity at the castle, do you?”

Maggie had always complained about the humidity in southern Loegria and what it did to her hair, especially when Silas’s hair remained indifferent to it. She’d cried jealously whenever readying for a big event.

Eliza surrendered the battle with a huff. She finished her braid, pinned it in place, and threw her hands up with clear dismissal.

“Cover it with a scarf,” he suggested. “That’s what most Pravish women do.”

“I can’t afford a scarf,” she muttered.

“Not my problem.”

With a glare, she jerked her chin at the door. “Let’s go. Henry’s life may hang in the balance, but I wouldn’t want you to lose your very important livelihood.”