Page 66 of Embrace the Serpent

She loved him, but he did not love her. He was, however, happy to marry her. It took them almost half an hour to say this through poetics and dance.

Rane played Maras’s brother, who begged her to see that the prince didn’t love her.

She would not see it. She went through with the wedding.

Barad fell in love with another, a human princess, played by thedoe-eyed member of the troupe.

The djinn wept. Then fury grew in her heart.

The musician beat a drum in time with her heartbeat.

The doe-eyed princess wandered the gardens of her castle, waiting for Barad. She was attended by her innocent maidservant, which was me.

A hand pushed me up the stairs, and I was blinded. The heat of the lamps made my upper lip sweat. Or perhaps it was the terror. Dozens upon dozens of guards had their eyes trained on me. Unfriendly, unsmiling faces.

I vaguely registered Maras rising from the shadows and monologuing about being a djinn, being in love, and being superior to the princess in every way. She killed the princess, who crumpled beautifully to the floor.

There was a pause.

My mouth was dry, my mind was empty. I needed to be something, to spin a lie, so they couldn’t see me.

“What dost thou say?” Maras said, “Do you beat at your chest and tear your hair and bemoan the passing of your mistress?”

“Oh,” I said. I tugged at my hair and thumped my chest. “My mistress! I bemoan thee!”

A chuckle came from the audience.

“You are not part of this, but I cannot let you go!” Maras proclaimed. “My love has brought me low! To have the blood of an innocent upon my hands!”

My face burned. I ducked my head. In the intense light, my arms glittered. That was odd. The backs of my hands sparkled more than my palms.

A pressure jabbed at my side. Maras was holding a hilt to my waist, and the blade, presumably, was inside me.

I blinked at her.

“Fall,” Maras hissed without moving her lips.

I collapsed like a felled tree, cracking my elbows on the stage.

In the audience, several someones laughed.

Of all the things that had happened to me recently, my body was convinced this was the most horrifying. I swallowed down my nausea, staring up at the night sky, at the dark clouds veiling the crescent moon.

I breathed in, and out.

And realized I’d missed my cue to slink off the stage.

The dialogue went on above me. Barad wept over his princess. Maras stepped over me, her red silks brushing my face, her dagger raised.

At the last moment, she dropped it. “I can’t kill you, my love.”

“I know,” Barad said, and killed her.

The audience gasped. Someone shouted, “No!”

Silence fell. I couldn’t see what was happening, not without turning my head.

A twang of music.

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