Page 92 of Embrace the Serpent

I felt the soft brush of his lips, barely a touch. All the world narrowed, every nerve in my body attuned to him, to the next touch, the next breath.

His lips met mine. And I knew more about him; the soft way he kissed, tender, exploring. His lips were warm and firm, and my body was liquid, and I curved into him, my hand finding his neck, his arm wrapping around my lower back and drawing me closer.

I felt him smile against my lips. His hand cupped my face, his thumb brushing my cheek with a tenderness that made me feel strange and soft and seen.

When we finally broke apart, it felt like something new wasbetween us, an invisible thread that tied my heart to his. Our breaths mingled, and my chest felt alight. My eyes fluttered open to find him watching me, his gaze filled with a mixture of wonder and something deeper, something that felt like home.

The water reflected us. I met my gaze; my face, the dark hair, the large dark eyes, my nose, my lips, but there was something different. “What did you change?” I asked.

He pressed a kiss to my hair. “There’s no illusion on you.”

As we descended, the air became cooler, and human craftsmanship gave way to the designs of nature. Hallways became tunnels, until we came at last to a vast cavern. The craggy rock walls were spotted with stalagmites that glowed a ghostly green.

Our footsteps echoed fourfold, and I took pains to tread softly. Rane carried a lantern he’d pulled from a sconce, and it cast a small radius of warm light. A path wound around huge rock spires that rose upward, disappearing into the dark above our heads, each so wide around that to encircle one would take five of me standing fingertip to fingertip.

The path leveled out before a pool that was suffused with light. Stepping stones made a path across it, to a small domed shrine that gleamed in the dark, like a pearl in an oyster.

Rane went first across the pool, and I followed, as drawn to the shrine as if it had a hook around my spine.

White marbled columns supported a domed roof of palest alabaster. And hanging between the columns were threads of gold strewn with jewels that glistened like raindrops.

A stone plinth stood in the center of the shrine, and on it was what looked like an immense globe made of concentric rings. It was the greatest working of jewelsmithing I had ever seen. Gold, silver, orichalcum, copper, electrum, ashtadhatu—almost every metal that a jewelsmith could use was there. And the jewels, hundreds of little ones, all working together.

I stepped inside, through a gap in the golden thread work. The loops and whorls of the setting were all around me, and I imagined this was what it would be like if I were the size of a dust mote and had found myself inside the setting of a magnificent medallion.

I was absorbed, following the threads, working out the meaning, and understanding the design of a long-gone jewelsmith. It was endlessly complex, fascinatingly clever, and it felt familiar. Somewhere, somehow, I had met this jewelsmith’s work before.

Picking carefully through the jewelwork, I began to decipher the setting.

Here, on the outer ring, were clever ways to mark the border of the kingdom. Small stones encircled in gold; the latticework said they were references, shards of greater stones that were buried somewhere above in a corresponding location.

And here was the structure of the enchantment. It would allow to pass those recognized by the heart of the setting. Those it recognized could then let others in by claiming them as their own.

Deeper was the gold that said the kingdom would disappear from the world, none would be able to find it, even if they knew where it was on a map.

All the kingdom was here, rendered by a hand who had takengreat pains to understand it intimately. There was great love in this working.

All the golden lines led to the center. All the power came from the heart of the setting. A great red-orange stone.

It was almost the color of a ruby, but unlike rubies, it was not cheeky, playful, trying to burn.

It was tired.

The stone drew me in, and a crushing weight fell on my shoulders, followed by a sneaking fear that crept around my ankles and sank into me, hollowing me out, whispering that if I ever let that weight down, everything I cared for would be lost. My muscles strained, my neck bowed, my shoulders stiffened and trembled under the weight. I couldn’t bear it—but neither could I bear losing everything I held dear.

I thought of Grimney. My mother. I thought of Rane.

“Saphira?” A warmth between my shoulder blades, a hand, stroking lightly, bringing me back to myself.

The jewel’s influence fell away. There were tears on my lashes, and I scrubbed them away. The fear that came from the gem was so like my own, the fear that had been my shadow and my teacher ever since I was taken from my home. In a way, the working was like my mother’s ring, but instead of shielding one person, it protected an entire kingdom. “This is incredible.”

“My great-grandfather had it made,” Rane said. “It was in his father’s time—my great-great-grandfather—that the Emperor first rose to power, with the aid of the jewelsmith Darvald. My people had not worried much, even when the first stories came, of a tinkererwho had bent peris to his will. Not when he captured the ghoul lights in jewels. And then Darvald captured a djinn, and it was too late.

“My great-grandfather loved birds. He fed them daily. Can you imagine a serpent lord whom birds adore? He was gentle in that way. Beloved by his family, his people. And though he was not a warrior king, he took up the war that he inherited. He forged alliances with the other divine peoples, which was more difficult than you might imagine. Some of us, like the serpent lords and the eagle folk, had leaders and territories, but many of us were wild, prone to mischief, unwilling to change or to believe we were at risk. You must understand, for centuries, we had become accustomed to living amongst your kind, perhaps the way crows are accustomed to hummingbirds. We thought we were the more powerful.

“My great-grandfather forged those alliances, and then he met with Darvald. He risked his life to show Darvald who we were and convince him that he was wrong. It took a rare genius to invent what Darvald had done, but copying his work took only ordinary skill. Darvald wept, but what he had unleashed could not be contained.

“My great-grandfather’s last hope was this enchantment. He was born with a heartstone, which is uncommon for our kind. Some are born with other stones, a jewel between their eyes, a jewel in their navel. But a heartstone is a sign of rare power.

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