Page 94 of Embrace the Serpent

I drank in the way moonlight crowned him in silver.

I whispered, “Everyone else in this world is selfish. Why do you have to be noble?”

He laughed, low and rumbly. “If I were noble, I would’ve plucked my heart out the moment you told me the old heartstone couldn’t be fixed.”

“You won’t have to. I’ll find another way.”

“I know you will. You’re brilliant.”

“I’d do it even if you—even if we—even if I didn’t feel—”

He reached and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and said, like a secret, “That’s very noble of you.”

I ducked my head, and the air filled with the distant sound of the lake lapping at the palace walls.

“I have to tell you something,” I whispered, pulling back. “When I first saw jewelsmiths at work... it seemed wondrous. It felt like the world had opened up, become endless. It felt like a promise, that there was beauty in the world, that you could make beauty exist inthe world, just through the work of your own hands. And when I say beauty, I mean—I mean all the good things. Joy, and being nice for no reason at all. Not being afraid. Taking care of other people instead of taking from them. I’m not explaining it right. What I mean is that it was a revelation, because, until then, it seemed the world had been trying to teach me that if I wanted to survive, I had to be cruel.

“I don’t know when I lost that feeling. Over the years, with Galen, it became about survival again. About doing what needed to be done, and I didn’t fight when Galen chased fame, when he brought me petty little jobs that showed me all the ways people felt not good enough. I did them.... I didn’t want to lose what little I had.

“These past few weeks... it feels like I remember what art could be. What it could do, what it could mean. Who I could be.”

It was the most I had ever spoken at once. My cheeks heated.

I covered my face. It was embarrassing. I hadn’t even said it right, and still, it felt like my insides were flayed open, like he could look right into the deepest, darkest parts of me.

He touched the backs of my hands. “Can I come in?”

I lowered them.

His eyes twinkled down at me. “I have a secret, too. I knew you, long before I met you. When I first held your work, I could feel the kindness behind it. It was there in the little ways you protected people, like the serpent-head clasp that made people feel safe. I collected stories of your pieces, chased every rumor about Galen’s work. People said that the effects were so natural that sometimes people didn’t even notice the jewels. Yours were so perfectly tailoredto the wearer. You saw them. You listened.” He said intently, “I don’t think I could trust my heart to anyone else.”

“I mean it, I’ll find another way—”

“I know you will. But even still. My heart is yours.”

I felt lightheaded, my skin burning, my chest aflutter. I was embarrassed and something else. I wanted to run; I wanted to press closer to him.

“That’s right.” He smiled. “You don’t need to hide from me.”

His arms wrapped around me, and I remembered a dream I used to have.

It came to me often, back in those early days of being a ward in the Rose Palace. I’d sneak away and find old, abandoned rooms to sleep in, away from everyone else. Drafty rooms in the ancient part of the palace, where the wind whistled through gaps in stone and the nights grew cold enough to see my breath.

Those nights, I had the dream. Of warmth sinking into my bones, into the dark corners of my heart where I’d tucked away all the things I didn’t dare hope for.

Inside me, like a ghost, was the girl I had once been. I felt her marvel at him, at the softness in his eyes, at the good fortune that was too incredible, too inconceivable. It couldn’t be real, she felt.

After all, the dream was my mind tricking me, hiding the cold from me, giving me a way to ignore the numbness that had set into my bones.

Wasn’t this the same? With every brush of his lips at my temple, at my cheeks, at the bite mark on my wrist, he was driving away the numbness that had become part of me.

I pulled back. His eyes were alight with wonder.This is real, I told the ghost inside.

It was real because I could already taste the pain of losing him.

I kissed him.

It was the softest brush of my lips on his, but it sent vibrations through every inch of my body. I was coming alive. He opened to me, his head tilting into my touch. I pressed my lips against his, and this time his answered, moving against me like he was speaking silent words in a secret language. But my skin understood.

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