Page 51 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

Silas knew he was dead when he sensed Sarazan ahead of him. Kerem must have directed the serpent through a side tunnel, a shorter path. There were no diverging paths for Silas to take. He was trapped between snake and master.

In that case, he’d take the snake.

He got as close as he dared, relying on his magic to locate a snake he couldn’t see. He was panting, his forehead dotted with sweat, and the ache of his leg paled next to the ache of his regret.

The slice of scales against stone cut through the darkness, quiet in his ears beneath his rapid heartbeat.

He should have written a letter to Maggie.

He should have told Eliza the kiss meant everything.

Faint light grew behind him, like the beginning of dawn. Ahead of him, a blue-scaled head rose in the shadows.

Silas’s pulse throbbed against the scar on his throat.

I want to live. He focused that single thought into a tether, connecting him to the serpent in front of him, and he poured his remaining magic into a one-word command: “Leave.”

Sarazan resisted, head pulling back under the physical force of the order. Its tail thrashed, knocking into the tunnel wall, vibrating the rock. The serpent unhinged its jaw, straining to strike the prey directly in its path, furious at being forbidden.

Silas stood his ground, bristling with fangs of his own.

And, finally, the serpent turned, slinking into the dark.

Before he had the chance to feel any victory, Kerem’s voice came from behind.

“Bikmayak kalamak.”

Silas spun, taking a blind swing at the professor he expected to be directly behind him, but Kerem was out of reach, crouching with his hand on the ground.

The rock directly beneath Silas melted into a liquid, muddy sand, sinking him up to his knees, then thighs.

He grabbed for the wall but couldn’t find purchase.

With the movement, he sank up to his waist.

“At least fight with your own magic!” he spat.

“The magic you’re so familiar with?” Kerem shook his head, the angles of his face dancing with shadows from the lantern on the ground beside him.

He cradled the Artifact against his chest, like a child to protect.

“Can you picture it now—the kind of power afforded to a person with magic of any type? I can even create compositions by myself. I’ve no need for research partners any longer, and perhaps that’s for the best. Mazhar’s betrayal caught me off guard even more than yours.

He started with vision but lost it halfway. ”

Apparently Silas hadn’t given the short-tempered Fluid Caster enough credit for his conscience. It may have kicked in late, but it was more than Kerem showed.

“Hypocritical of you to talk about betrayal,” Silas said bitterly.

“In what way did I betray you?” Kerem’s eyes flashed. “I believed in you, mentored you, made it possible for you to remain at the university. I wanted you involved in all my greatest achievements, because I’ve always seen you as . . .”

The unspoken hung between them, and Silas halted his struggle against the quicksand.

“You can still stop,” he found himself saying. Begging. “You can stop this. Please.”

Kerem looked away. Quietly, he asked, “What could I do instead? Stand aside and watch the corruption grow? I can’t, Silas. I tried.”

He stood, curling his fingers more tightly around the Artifact, any sign of compassion gone.

“I need your venom. At least I can promise I’ll use it to save the country you love.”

Scales flickered across Silas’s skin, but he remained himself, too exhausted to complete a transformation. Pain lanced his skull at the attempt, and for a moment, he couldn’t even open his eyes.

But in the dark, a faint impression came to his mind.

Find Silas.

Slowly, he blinked. Kerem had taken a few steps toward him, but the man faltered, looking down.

A familiar python slithered between the professor’s legs.

Tulip reached the edge of the quicksand and tested it with her tongue, then glided forward like the strangest sailboat.

She curled protectively around Silas’s waist, pulsing with a contentment he could feel, like she’d accomplished an important mission.

She distracted them both from the second familiar visitor.

With both hands, Eliza slammed a dagger into Kerem’s back, dropping the professor to his knees with a scream of pain. He released the Artifact to clutch his shoulder, grasping for a hilt he couldn’t reach, and Eliza rushed forward to grab Silas’s wrists, trying to yank him free.

Realms, she was gorgeous. Haloed with frizzy hair and scowling with determination, a better saving angel than any portrayed in art or statue.

“Pull!” she shouted, shaking him from his stupor.

Silas did, almost pulling Eliza into the muddy pit along with him. But contact with Tulip had given him a new surge of magic, so he transformed into a snake and then back so quickly he left the princess blinking.

Frantically, he looked for the Artifact that had fallen close to Kerem.

The professor saw his attention and lunged at the same moment Silas did.

Kerem was closer, but Silas was faster. Desperation could do that to a person. His fingers closed around the box just as Kerem’s hand clamped over his. They wrestled, but Kerem’s injury weakened his grip, and Silas managed to wrench away.

Kerem rose to follow but collapsed again with an agonized grunt.

Silas hesitated, his eyes on the dagger hilt protruding from his mentor’s back.

“Gravmak!” Eliza ordered. Outrun the strike.

She seized his hand, and he ran with her, just as they’d run from the kuveti.

An echoing hiss through the tunnels told him Kerem was calling Sarazan back.

Eliza had snatched the lantern, and the light wavered wildly as they ran, painting the world with dizzying shadows. A few rats scattered from their path.

They rounded a corner, splashing through the cavern with the shallow pool, and Silas’s injured leg slipped on wet rock. He stumbled, catching himself on the wall.

Awareness prickled the back of his neck.

Eliza turned, darting back to his side before he could warn her.

A massive blue sea serpent filled the cave behind him, body sliding through the water, displacing it in tides over the rock.

Jaw unhinged for a fatal strike.

“Not her!” Silas bellowed, and the blast of magic he sent out froze the massive serpent in place, fangs still exposed.

Eliza didn’t hesitate. With a battle cry, she threw the lantern directly into the snake’s open mouth, spilling oil and fire across its forked tongue.

Rearing back, the serpent’s shriek rattled Silas’s mind. It thrashed in the cavern, slamming walls and loosing rocks from the ceiling, and Silas grabbed Eliza, pulling her to his chest and shielding her head. The closest rocks splashed into the pool, spraying them both.

With one last shriek, Sarazan whipped around and fled, almost tangling itself in its haste to retreat.

Silas managed to breathe again.

Without the lantern, the cavern was a dark pit, and even holding Eliza, Silas couldn’t see her. He held tighter.

“What was that?” she whispered in the dark, fisting her hands in his shirt like she couldn’t bear to be separated either. “Regular cobras aren’t dangerous enough for you, so now you’re picking fights with the snake gods?”

Despite the situation, he laughed. He smoothed her hair with both hands, then cradled her face, leaning his forehead down to touch hers.

“How are you here?” he whispered.

“I told Tulip to find you,” she said, her breath warm against his face. “And I followed.”

She was a wonder.

“Just how many languages did you learn from me, apta?”

Somehow, he could feel her smile. Even without sight, every other sense tingled with an awareness of her.

He wished to never move, to hold her forever, but they weren’t safe yet.

“We have to find the Artifact,” he murmured. He’d dropped it when shielding her.

Together, they searched along damp rocks until Silas located the box. Unlike the damaged version he’d previously examined, this one brimmed with power, humming against his skin. Tentatively, he focused on it, trying to access the magic.

It was like plunging his head into the ocean. The raw force inside the Artifact stole his breath, a vast collection of magic swirled together, the bottom distant and murky.

Coming up for air, he gasped.

The Artifact retained a hazy glow, gilding Eliza’s face in the dark.

“Can you break it?” she asked.

He barely heard her, swept away by a wave of possibilities. Kerem’s hypotheticals took on color, and Silas imagined himself as an unstoppable force, changing entire countries. What use was an army in the face of a flood pulled from the ground itself?

The power lust lasted only a moment, replaced by something far more enticing—the research opportunities. What could this well of magic do for the medical field, for communication, for transportation? It could revolutionize the world.

“Silas?”

Those who had died to create it were already dead; he couldn’t change that. Should their power go to waste? Wouldn’t it be more honorable to do something with it?

Kerem’s voice echoed in his mind. The deaths will accomplish an exponential saving.

“Silas.” Eliza’s hand covered the box’s glow, light leaking through her fingers. She rested her other hand along his jaw, her thumb stroking the edge of his mouth. Her brown eyes carried a clear worry as she whispered again, “Can you break it?”

“I can’t,” he rasped. Then, with as much willpower as he could muster, he lowered his hand, leaving the box in her grip. “I need my research assistant’s help.”

A resource-draining assistant, he’d once called her. Resource-draining was just what the situation called for.

Her eyes widened. “I don’t know how to use magic!”

“You don’t have to use it well. Just use it up.”

Taking her other hand, he pressed it to the wall, then stepped back. She should feel the resonance in the Artifact, the Stone Casting begging to be used. The glow grew sharper, and Eliza’s jaw fell slack with wonder.