Page 121 of Sonnets and Serpents
An echoing hiss through the tunnels told him Kerem was calling Sarazan back.
Eliza had snatched the lantern, and the light wavered wildly as they ran, painting the world with dizzying shadows. A few rats scattered from their path.
They rounded a corner, splashing through the cavern with the shallow pool, and Silas’s injured leg slipped on wet rock. He stumbled, catching himself on the wall.
Awareness prickled the back of his neck.
Eliza turned, darting back to his side before he could warn her.
A massive blue sea serpent filled the cave behind him, body sliding through the water, displacing it in tides over the rock.
Jaw unhinged for a fatal strike.
“Not her!” Silas bellowed, and the blast of magic he sent out froze the massive serpent in place, fangs still exposed.
Eliza didn’t hesitate. With a battle cry, she threw the lantern directly into the snake’s open mouth, spilling oil and fire across its forked tongue.
Rearing back, the serpent’s shriek rattled Silas’s mind. It thrashed in the cavern, slamming walls and loosing rocks from the ceiling, and Silas grabbed Eliza, pulling her to his chest and shielding her head. The closest rocks splashed into the pool, spraying them both.
With one last shriek, Sarazan whipped around and fled, almost tangling itself in its haste to retreat.
Silas managed to breathe again.
Without the lantern, the cavern was a dark pit, and even holding Eliza, Silas couldn’t see her. He held tighter.
“What wasthat?” she whispered in the dark, fisting her hands in his shirt like she couldn’t bear to be separated either. “Regular cobras aren’t dangerous enough for you, so now you’re picking fights with the snake gods?”
Despite the situation, he laughed. He smoothed her hair with both hands, then cradled her face, leaning his forehead down to touch hers.
“How are you here?” he whispered.
“I told Tulip to find you,” she said, her breath warm against his face. “And I followed.”
She was a wonder.
“Just how many languages did you learn from me,apta?”
Somehow, he couldfeelher smile. Even without sight, every other sense tingled with an awareness of her.
He wished to never move, to hold her forever, but they weren’t safe yet.
“We have to find the Artifact,” he murmured. He’d dropped it when shielding her.
Together, they searched along damp rocks until Silas located the box. Unlike the damaged version he’d previously examined,this one brimmed with power, humming against his skin. Tentatively, he focused on it, trying to access the magic.
It was like plunging his head into the ocean. The raw force inside the Artifact stole his breath, a vast collection of magic swirled together, the bottom distant and murky.
Coming up for air, he gasped.
The Artifact retained a hazy glow, gilding Eliza’s face in the dark.
“Can you break it?” she asked.
He barely heard her, swept away by a wave of possibilities. Kerem’s hypotheticals took on color, and Silas imagined himself as an unstoppable force, changing entire countries. What use was an army in the face of a flood pulled from the ground itself?
The power lust lasted only a moment, replaced by something far more enticing—theresearchopportunities. What could this well of magic do for the medical field, for communication, for transportation? It could revolutionize the world.
“Silas?”
