Page 57 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

When Eliza finally visited Loegria’s university, her mother required her to bring a carriage and a lady-in-waiting and a royal guard, so she felt like an overstuffed pillow arriving in the middle of a collection of practical paving stones, but she didn’t let it stop her.

“It’s bigger than I expected,” Jenny whispered, peeking out the carriage window at the university campus.

Eliza smiled. At least Jenny had agreed to be her lady-in-waiting. Even as a maid, she’d always been more sister than servant.

“It’s less than half the size of Izili’s,” Eliza said, enjoying the way Jenny’s jaw dropped.

University de Loegria was near the border to Patriamere, surrounded on either side by two wide forks of a river, making it a stranded sailor, huddled on an island, just trying to survive.

Unlike Izili’s grand offering, the architecture was nothing to boast about, a collection of square edges in granite blocks, squat and perhaps even dreary.

But the campus had wide-open lawns, beautiful gardens, and winding paths, a splash of hopeful paint on an otherwise disappointing canvas.

And the students traversing the paths—rosy-cheeked and puffing clouds of cold air as they laughed—reminded her of the ones in Izili.

She could make this work.

Ignoring the stares she received for her entourage, Eliza walked confidently to the dean’s office, practicing what she would say.

If he suggested private tutors, she would argue about the unique experience of a campus environment.

If he claimed her status would be a distraction to other students, she would remind him of the benefits of a royal perspective.

They’d never had a student like Eliza before, and that came with both good and bad; she had to convince him to focus on the good.

She entered the antechamber outside the dean’s office, a collection of cushioned chairs and plush rugs.

There was a refreshment tray set out for guests, a simple arrangement of cucumber sandwiches and mint tea, which permeated the room with a calming scent.

Eliza wistfully recalled the healing hall where she’d left Silas.

Then, abruptly, she halted.

Another person had just exited the dean’s office, his hand still on the door, his dark features familiar to her from her dreams, from her nightmares, from every recent memory she both treasured and struggled to forget.

Silas Bennett was standing in Loegria, looking right at her.

And saying, “Disi dokmek.”

For a moment, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t believe the evidence of her eyes. He didn’t look like himself—dressed as a Loegrian noble in a buttoned shirt and vest, dark trousers, dull colors. He could only be an imposter.

He couldn’t be here.

“Eliza—” he started.

The sound of her name from his mouth stoked her fury. To the great concern of Jenny and her guards, Eliza grabbed a sandwich from the tray and hurled it at the imposter, who lifted his hand too late and instead got hit in the face by a wad of bread and cucumber.

“Your Highness?” said one of her startled guards, apparently unsure if she needed help or not.

She did not.

“You couldn’t leave!” she shouted at Silas. “I knew you couldn’t leave. That was why I cried while you were in the healing hall and why I left you my book and why I didn’t let myself—”

“You’re not supposed to be here!” he shot back.

“I’m not supposed to be here?”

He barely ducked the next sandwich.

It hit the dean, who had opened his office door to see what the commotion was.

Eliza spent the next twenty minutes apologizing to a man she’d meant to impress and trying to plead her case while her mind was still in the antechamber where her guards were preventing Silas from slithering away.

Fortunately, the dean was thrilled by the idea of a princess attending his university. He hoped it would set an example and encourage even more children of court to attend. Rather than arguing, he thanked her.

Good. She could save all her arguing for the imposter outside.

“I’ll start on a schedule at once, Your Royal Highness,” the dean promised. “Since it’s variety you want, I’ll make that my priority, and I’m sure you’ll be pleased by the classes we have to offer.”

“One last thing.” Eliza glanced toward the door. “The boy who was in here before me—what did he want?”

“Silas Bennett!” The dean said it with as much pride as if introducing his own son. “The prodigy of Fairfax. I tried recruiting him years ago, but his father insisted he study abroad, something about gaining an appreciation for Loegria.

“Now he’s bringing me a letter of recommendation from the dean of Izili University. Apparently, Izili wants to start an information exchange between our universities, and they want Bennett to run the program.”

With each word, Eliza’s heart sank. Silas had come on behalf of Iyal Afshin. He wasn’t here to stay. Apparently, he’d meant to slip in and out without ever seeing her.

Woodenly, she thanked the dean, and then she returned to the antechamber.

Silas’s eyes met hers at once, and he tensed, perhaps anticipating another edible projectile. She ordered her entourage to wait outside the room; she wanted as much privacy as possible.

Forcing composure, she said, “I’m sorry to have interrupted your diplomatic mission, and I’m sorry for the . . . sandwiches.”

He stood from his chair, and he opened his mouth but closed it with a grimace.

“I’ll leave you to it, then, Mr. Bennett.”

As she stepped past him, his hand snaked out to catch hers. Not in any innocent way, but with fingers tangled, his grip desperate. He pulled her into his arms.

She shoved away. “You can’t do that! You can’t keep giving me hope only to—”

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” he interrupted. “I was supposed to get my professorship here settled first. I was supposed to get your sister to approve establishing a warlockry curriculum. I was supposed to face my family, and then—”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“I had a plan! A well-thought-out and reasonable plan, and when I did face you, it was going to be after I’d written everything down, after I had the right words and knew where I stood at court and at the university and regarding a princess. After I knew what I had to offer.”

Eliza’s fury puffed out like an extinguished candle, leaving the slow smoke of hope wafting in its place.

“Silas,” she whispered, “what are you saying?”

“Nothing well,” he muttered. He rubbed his hands over his face, and she noticed the subtle pink shade to his ears that marked his blush.

Her lips twitched, but she didn’t dare smile yet.

“Use your words, Silas Bennett, and tell me what this means.”

The last time she’d insisted on that, he’d broken her heart. But broken things could mend. She believed in that as strongly as she believed in love.

And she would take the risk to hear that one impossible word from him.

He drew her into his arms again, and this time, she didn’t resist. Gently, he brushed his knuckles across her cheek, as if memorizing her outline. And then his dark eyes met hers.

“In three languages”—his voice cracked—“I can’t find the words for what I feel, because language can’t describe the depth of it. Poetry has never penned, tongue has never tasted, magic has never matched the connection my soul feels to yours.”

Eliza’s eyes misted with tears, but she smiled through them, leaning into his hand. “Careful, I might think you believe in love after all.”

“Someone did recently tell me I was wrong more often than I’d admit.”

“She sounds wise. Maybe you should cross an ocean for her.”

“Maybe I did.”

Everything inside her swelled, pulled toward him as if gravity itself had reoriented. Her feet had surely left the floor.

“I’m in love with you,” she said. “Some of it happened by accident, some by dare, and some, I insist, by fate. But from this moment on, it’s a choice.

” She pressed her hand to his chest, feeling his heartbeat match the same erratic, joyous rhythm as hers.

“I’ll choose to be yours, Silas, if you’ll only choose me too.

If you tell me you want me, then I’ll choose to love you forever, snakeskin and all. ”

He held her more tightly, and his response almost broke her heart again, but for a different reason.

“I’m afraid.” He paused, drawing in a shuddering breath and blinking away a sheen of tears from his eyes. “I really do hate this country, Eliza. I hate what’s happened to people like me here, and I’m afraid I’ll wind up just as bitter as . . .”

Just as bitter as Kerem.

“But you still came back for me?” she whispered.

She’d been so certain he would never leave Pravusat, so certain he would never choose her.

But he had.

“You came back for me first,” he said. “After the library, I was cruel. I pushed you away. And you still came to save me—even when it meant facing snakes and worse.” Tilting his head slightly, bangs falling in his eyes, he added, “You chose a flawed donkey over a perfect ideal when I never thought anyone would.”

Eliza started trembling, and Silas’s brow furrowed. Before he could worry that he’d said something wrong—because he hadn’t; she’d loved every single word—she rushed to confess.

“I’m afraid too!” she blurted. “I said I would never hurt you, but I’m not certain that’s a promise I can keep. I might hurt you on purpose. You changed your entire life for me, but in a single bad day, I might get swept up in a storm and—”

He caught her chin, smirking in his roguish way.

“I can forgive a few rage transformations,” he said, and then his expression softened, his thumb tracing the edge of her lips.

“Because there’s a difference between a momentary hurt and a real betrayal.

I realize that now. And because I love you, Eliza, just as you are. ”

All her life, she had obsessed over every romantic story she could find. She’d swooned over men fighting monsters, knights undertaking quests, heroes trekking across deserts, everything in the name of saving the women they loved.

Now she realized she could never be saved more than she was by Silas’s promise of forgiveness for her mistakes.

“I’ll be your sword,” she vowed. “Any prejudiced law, any tradition, any sheep trying to spread hate—I will fight for you. I’ll reshape the entire country until you don’t have to hate it.”

He drew her closer, one hand pressed against the small of her back, the other caressing her face.

“Good,” he murmured. “I’m really better suited to a pen.”

Then he kissed her in a way that put every romantic story to shame.