Page 119 of Sonnets and Serpents
With a spike of panic, Eliza realized she couldn’t hear the slithering.
“Tulip?”
Distantly, she heard a rumble, like one of the Stone Caster earthquakes at the dorm. Had something frightened the snake into changing directions?
Another rumble. Was she hearing earthquakes or ocean waves?
She increased her pace, then even more, until she was running in the dark. What if she stepped on Tulip? Better to be bitten by the python than to lose her completely. Her knees wobbled. Her hand on the wall grew clammy, sliding at a breakneck pace.
Then she saw the tunnel curving around her in the dimmest outline.
Eliza ran faster, and the glow increased until she could see faint rays of light streaming through a pile of fallen rock. Half of the mouth of the tunnel had collapsed. She strained her ears but could hear nothing beyond, so she clawed her way up the rocks, slipping and scraping her hands until she finally wriggled over the top, sending a few smaller rocks tumbling down ahead of her.
She’d reached a cavern, wide and recently vacated.
She based the “recently vacated” idea on the fact that the light was fading, bobbing through a tunnel on the other side of the cavern, like a lantern being carried away.
She almost shouted for Silas, then stopped herself. If it was him, she’d catch up in a moment. If it wasn’t ...
Eliza swallowed hard, then carefully picked her way to the cavern floor, trying to disturb as few rocks as possible.
She crept toward the light.
Silas was faster than a regular snake, but enhancing his speed drained his magic, and it didn’t take long before he felt the strain. He tried to head toward the ocean, basing his direction on the scent of salt in the air. It wasn’t ideal to seek Sarazan’s hunting grounds, but if he could find the ocean, it meant an exit from the cave system.
The floor sloped down abruptly, dumping him into a new cavern. This one had a shallow pool of water filling its center, and his adder form glided across the water, but left a wet streak across the rock on the other side, easy to follow.
He transformed into a human, then immediately cursed at letting his panic take charge; human eyes were terrible in the dark. Not to mention he’d done a string of transformations in a short period of time after already being wounded both physically and emotionally. His magic felt like a cup with only a few swallows remaining.
Meanwhile, Kerem had an Artifact that offered him a deep well’s supply.
Silas’s only chance of survival was to stay ahead of pursuit.
He limped on in the dark.
Silas knew he was dead when he sensed Sarazan ahead of him. Kerem must have directed the serpent through a side tunnel, a shorter path. There were no diverging paths for Silas to take. He was trapped between snake and master.
In that case, he’d take the snake.
He got as close as he dared, relying on his magic to locate a snake he couldn’t see. He was panting, his forehead dotted with sweat, and the ache of his leg paled next to the ache of his regret.
The slice of scales against stone cut through the darkness, quiet in his ears beneath his rapid heartbeat.
He should have written a letter to Maggie.
He should have told Eliza the kiss meanteverything.
Faint light grew behind him, like the beginning of dawn. Ahead of him, a blue-scaled head rose in the shadows.
Silas’s pulse throbbed against the scar on his throat.
I want to live.He focused that single thought into a tether, connecting him to the serpent in front of him, and he poured his remaining magic into a one-word command: “Leave.”
Sarazan resisted, head pulling back under the physical force of the order. Its tail thrashed, knocking into the tunnel wall,vibrating the rock. The serpent unhinged its jaw, straining to strike the prey directly in its path, furious at being forbidden.
Silas stood his ground, bristling with fangs of his own.
And, finally, the serpent turned, slinking into the dark.
