Page 9 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

The day Silas had almost lost his magic, it had been raining all morning—a light drizzle that annoyed and dampened but kept no one at home—and when the overhead gray broke at last, he’d been on the outskirts of campus, basking in the rays of sunlight.

There was a path out to the cliffs that he sometimes liked to walk, though he hadn’t made it that far yet.

With a few other students on the path around him, he thought nothing of a jostle when someone passed.

Until the girl caught his hand. His eyes widened as she went up on her toes, and that moment hung frozen, her face and his, a breath apart, her blue eyes approaching like a sudden wave to capsize an unsuspecting ship.

Then she kissed him.

He should have been appalled to kiss a stranger, but Silas enjoyed the unexpected, and there was nothing more unexpected than being suddenly kissed by a girl he’d never met.

Curiosity flared in his mind. Why him? Why this way?

Most likely, she was a Fluid Casting student on a dare.

Because of the increased heart rate during a kiss, maybe she was experimenting with his blood.

She’d be expelled for unsanctioned experiments on other students, but he was having difficulty focusing on the lecture she deserved.

It was only his second kiss; the first had been an innocent peck at boarding school, followed by a lot of giggling from the girl and a lot of confusion from Silas about why people chose to do this repeatedly.

Now he had a better idea. He could have written an essay about what this girl’s lips were doing to his senses.

Until he realized what they were doing to his magic.

Silas shoved back. The sense of magic within him flickered like a candle threatened by wind. He breathed slowly, trying to guard the flame.

Even though she’d been the one to attack, the girl with ocean-blue eyes stared at him with wild panic in her expression, like he’d drawn a weapon on her.

A scale pattern appeared along her cheekbones—gray lined with black, just the way Silas’s skin looked when he was in danger of transforming.

He was certain the scales hadn’t been there before the kiss.

In her hands, she clutched a small box, obscured by her fingers, peeking through in slits of bone-white angles and thick black decorative lines.

Then she bolted away, almost knocking over one of the other students. The few bearing witness gawked at the drama, some laughing, some rolling their eyes.

Silas should have grabbed the retreating girl, but he was struggling to breathe, paralyzed by the feeling that any sudden movement would extinguish the most vital part of him. She’d drawn his magic out like a thread, and he had to somehow wind it around his core again without letting it snap.

Scales flickered on his skin, fleeting as ghosts.

Even with fierce concentration, he couldn’t transform, and he began to tremble.

Though he stood in a ray of sunlight, he couldn’t feel the warmth, and he finally stumbled forward—not following the girl, just reaching desperately for something to ground him.

“Come,” he rasped. He couldn’t see a ripple in the air, couldn’t be sure he’d sent a command at all.

His knees gave out, and the other students finally took note. One of them ran for a physician. Silas clenched his fists, pulled his knees up, and tucked his head down, like he could hold everything inside by sheer force of will.

A faint hiss met his ears before Tulip slithered up beside him.

The python almost never left the Yamakaz, but he was grateful she’d answered.

When he extended his hand, she curled once around his wrist, and magic surged through every bone.

Warmth returned to the world. He let out a gasp, no longer candle-frail, and his gaze finally searched campus, dreading the view of a girl who was, thankfully, long gone.

Magic stealing. It had been hypothesized for decades but never proven. Iyal Kerem had a volume of extensive research on the subject, documentation of a hundred experiments conducted by Affiliates and Casters alike, all ending in failure.

Yet Silas couldn’t deny the truth screaming to him from every bone, the fear vibrating his chest with every heartbeat.

He was an academic, not a coward. He chased new information, new experiences.

He lived far from home in a culture not his own.

While witnessing a failed revolution against the Nephew King, he’d stood in a doorway as the street before him was torn between Stone Casters in a living earthquake.

While others ran, he’d waited out the conflict, and, the next day, he’d turned in an essay about it to Iyl Yvette.

But this girl was different. She’d been a threat with no warning.

The sheer casualness of the encounter made it more callous, more frightening than any impassioned revolution.

She’d not torn apart the cobble of streets; she’d reached between his ribs and torn the fabric of his soul.

With a single touch, she’d almost unraveled him entirely.

His academic instincts told him he should track down the ocean-eyed girl, chase the discovery that could change the world.

Instead, he did the unthinkable.

He ran.

He boarded the first ship back to Loegria, only to have his home country reject him in the one moment he actually needed it. He should have known. Whether it was his father’s sword or the king’s banishment, all his home had to offer was betrayal.

Now he had nowhere to run.

His terror hadn’t vanished—even the memory of the near loss of his magic held sharp edges. But if proving magic stealers existed stood between him and his future, then he would fight a revolution of his own, and, fangs bared, he would show the world what he was capable of.

One should be very careful about cornering a snake.

Silas worked out an agreement with Kerem for a paid position as his assistant.

It was a meager salary—Kerem couldn’t spare much—but it was enough for Silas to secure the university’s cheapest dorm, and as long as he was living on campus, he could use the dining hall for evening meals.

The rest of the time, he would make do. All that mattered was that he’d seized his opportunity.

Now to succeed in it.

For the next three months, he would spend his effort in three ways: One, assisting Kerem.

Two, tracking down the ocean-eyed girl. Three, attempting his own experiments to steal magic.

He didn’t have any insights greater than those who’d already conducted failed experiments except knowing for certain it was possible.

Sometimes, knowledge like that was all it took to open new angles of creativity on research.

Although he was tempted to ask for Kerem’s insights, Silas refrained. If he was going to prove himself worthy of a professorship, he had to do this project alone. All his study, all his ambition, would serve or fail him now.

He grabbed a few books from the library and settled into his new dorm.

The room he’d rented left a lot to be desired, but that was the point.

Most people wouldn’t pay for it, so he’d negotiated the cost down to almost nothing.

Iyl Myrna, the housing matron, had been generous while bartering, especially after he’d given her one of Baris’s papayas.

The room itself was cozy, furnished with a sturdy bed, a wide dresser, a floor desk, and a washbasin. The biggest trouble was that, while most of the university enjoyed water piped directly to their rooms courtesy of Fluid Casters, this particular dorm did not.

That was because it stood next to the Stone Caster training yard, which suffered frequent earthquakes that would have broken the pipes.

As Silas sat cross-legged on a flat cushion beside his desk, turning his pen in his hand and feeling the heavy flow of ink inside slide from one end of the barrel to the other, the ground beneath him rumbled, signaling the start of Stone Caster training.

He leaned one elbow on his desk, which was low to the ground and sturdy enough to anchor him through the tremors, and while the room rattled around him, he kept reading Tales of Nightmare Beast.

His other books were all research on magic stealing, but this one was a mythology from Cronith, one of the countries bordering Pravusat. When he’d seen it on the shelf, it had tickled the back of his mind, and Silas knew better than to ignore his instincts.

If he only knew what they were trying to tell him.

A particularly large quake made his books hop, and he dropped his wrist atop the stack to hold it steady.

He couldn’t write notes during the tremors.

Although his pen was an immense improvement on the quill and ink of his childhood—Fluid Casters had fashioned it to release ink at just the right rate—it still couldn’t save him from an unsteady environment, and he’d rather not have jagged lines all over his journal.

So he merely absorbed the words of the text, letting his mind chew through them like a heavy piece of meat at a banquet, savoring the spices and trying to identify them.

Ever hunger, the text read. Never sated. Monster dwelling. Blood and ash.

The translation was choppy at best and gibberish at worst. Silas should have grabbed the book in its original Cronese rather than Pravish. Cronese was the weakest of his three known languages, but he’d specifically learned it because the Cronese syllabary script didn’t lend itself to translation.

All at once, he knew why he’d been drawn to this text, what his mind had been trying to tell him.

“Blind as a burrowing snake,” he muttered, closing the book. He grabbed his bag, stumbling as another tremor shook the dorm building.

The black symbols on the magic stealer’s box—even obscured, he’d recognized something about them. They reminded him of written Cronese.

At a brisk pace, he crossed campus back to the Yamakaz. He returned the translation of Mollier’s text and asked for the original, only to learn it had been signed out by another student.

“Other works in Cronese?” he asked.

He followed the librarian’s directions, seeking a shelf of historical texts about Cronith.

Until he turned a corner and came face-to-face with the reckless princess.

“Disi dokmek,” he cursed. Swallowed tooth. It was the best expression of bad luck—the idea that, while biting lunch, a snake could lose and swallow its own fang. It certainly felt like Silas had something sharp lodged in his throat.

Eliza had been sitting at a table, as if waiting for something, but she leapt to her feet when she saw him. What was she doing at the university?

Her brown eyes fixed on his and began smoldering like embers, and Silas found he didn’t care for reasons. He didn’t have time for this.

The princess surged forward, clearly intent on intercepting him, but he ducked into a passage between shelves, certain he could lose her between the historical accounts of the Century War and the research by Fluid Casters in the medical field.

He’d forgotten how fast the mouse could scurry.

Just as he rounded a corner, he glanced back only to realize she was nearly upon him.

At the same moment, his magic tingled with awareness—snake below.

Tulip was down from her tree, stalking the library for her next rat, and he’d almost stumbled right into her.

She lifted her head, hissing her displeasure, even though he’d halted at the last second.

With premature triumph, Silas smirked, knowing the snake would drive Eliza back.

Instead, it did the opposite.

She launched herself directly into his arms.

With a grunt and no other choice, Silas caught her, keeping them both from falling onto an innocent python.

The trembling princess pressed her face to his chest, eyes squeezed closed.

He appreciated the irony that she found him a safer option than a snake.

That was the trouble with ignorance; it motivated hypocritical decisions.

He cleared his throat, trying to extract himself from her grip, which was more constricting than any python’s. She whimpered, and he rolled his eyes.

“Tulip won’t hurt you,” he said. “First, because she’s a lazy thing, and she has plenty of easier prey available. Second, because even small as you are, you’re not that small. Third, because you have a problematic shape for swallowing, particularly in the shoulders. Need I go on?”

Slowly, Eliza loosened her grip, straightening but not releasing him. Despite himself, Silas softened. In the past, only Maggie had ever trusted him to be her defender, and no matter how irritating the princess was, she’d stirred fond memories.

So he spoke more gently when he said, “Just because I have no fear of snakes doesn’t mean I can’t see the reasoning in it. You know, my sister—”

With the speed of a striking cobra, Eliza pulled her arms free, revealing something clutched in her right hand. Something she clamped around Silas’s wrist.

His magic roared in his ears. Intruder, it screamed.

Threat! A pulse of magic not his own wrapped him with invisible cords, binding him in a cage.

With a snarl, he ripped free of Eliza, clawing at the unwanted shackle.

But the magic had already fastened, and the bracelet fit him perfectly, a band sealing his wrist without seam, without hinge or release.

Distantly, he heard the princess’s smug voice. “Since you wouldn’t help me willingly, I’ll be borrowing your language proficiency to find Henry. You won’t have to lift a finger, so—”

Silas looked up, and her voice died in her throat, her eyes widening. He could guess what she saw in his.

Red eyes, pupils narrowed to slits. His viper eyes.

Beside him, Tulip reared, lifting her head almost to his waist, her gaze also trained on the princess.

Eliza’s face drained of color. Her lips trembled.

Silas felt the press of fangs in his mouth, the desire to lash out at being cornered, to strike with venom.

It was a good thing the princess didn’t run.

If he didn’t strike her, Tulip would. Silas wasn’t her brood, but the python was poised to defend just the same.

Eliza wouldn’t die if Tulip struck, but she’d be in for a few miserable days and a pair of nasty scars.

No more than she deserved.

Silas tried to keep his boiling emotions under control, tried to exhibit restraint, but there was little of that left to him. Not after being chained like an animal.

His hold slipped, and he transformed in a puff of gray mist.