Page 4 of Sonnets and Serpents
ONE WEEK LATER
The worst day of Silas Bennett’s life was the day his father tried to kill him.
Second-worst was the day Silas agreed to track down a reckless princess. When taking the assignment, he learned exactly three things about the girl he was supposed to find.
One: Her name was Eliza de Loegria. The “de Loegria” was not a true surname but simply a mark of her royal lineage. She was, quite literally, “Eliza of Loegria,” as if every other Loegrian citizen were not “of Loegria.” A prime example of royal arrogance.
Two: She was a princess. Not heir to the throne—that title belonged to her older sister, Aria. Considering Silas hadn’t known of Eliza’s existence until Aria requested his assistance, he could say that being second-born in a royal household held as many perks as being second-born in any other. The privilege of the second-born was to always be a second thought, which Silas knew from his father’s treatment of his own younger sister.
His father had tried to marry Maggie off to an abusivedrunkard, which was the only reason Silas had made a deal with a royal. Crown Princess Aria stopped the marriage, protecting his little sister, and in return, Silas agreed to protect hers.
He knew only one additional thing about Princess Eliza, and it was the worst of the list.
Three: She was a fool, of the variety commonly known as “a hopeless romantic.” She’d run away from home—and in her sister’s direct words—chasing aboy.
It would be one thing if Eliza had just gone to a neighboring town, but no. She’d crossed the ocean to Pravusat, a country where she presumably didn’t speak the language, didn’t know the dangers, and definitely didn’t belong.
Silas sighed. The Izili outer market bustled around him, a sprawling collection of blankets, canopies, wagons, and crates, where merchants hawked everything from fruit to furniture, bartering in brightly violent tones that charged the air with passion.
Unlike Eliza, Silas knew the markets and streets of Pravusat well. Izili—the capital city—had been his temporary home for the two years he’d studied at its university.
After crossing the ocean between Loegria and Pravusat, then bribing two dockworkers and almost losing a finger to a cranky old lady, Silas had tracked Eliza to this market, the biggest in Izili. Now he just had to find her among the packed, colorful crowd.
A horn-nosed snake slithered beside him, its dusty yellow pattern blending with the sand, and Silas could feel its pulsing anxiety—hundreds of people packed into a single market with all their baggage and noise and trampling.
“We’re looking for the girl out of place,” Silas said quietly. His magic didn’t need words, and the snake certainly didn’t speak either Pravish or Loegrian, but he found it easier to direct commands with spoken language than through focus alone.
The horn-nosed snake darted off, disappearing into the cluttered merchant stalls pressed against the city wall. That left Silas to search the crowded main thoroughfare.
Unlike the markets of Loegria, where everyone arranged things in neat, orderly rows and used permanent wooden stands to display their goods, the markets of Pravusat were like a big family picnic, where everyone threw down a rug in any available space. Untethered chaos in the form of a winding maze that changed daily. But there was always familiarity, if one knew where to look, and although merchants changed specific location, they favored the same general areas of the market.
So he wasn’t surprised when Baris called out a loud greeting in Pravish, waving a hand missing the last two fingers. “Silas the student! Come to buy a papaya!”
Before Silas could dodge it, Baris shoved a basket of fruit into his legs, bruising his shins. Silas stepped back with a hiss, which only made the large, dark-haired man laugh.
“Soft as a snake!” The Pravish idiom was a compliment meaning someone led such a blessed life, they were allowed to have a soft underbelly, though Baris used it for more literal reasons.
Ducking out of the walkway, Silas crouched on the merchant’s rug. “I’m looking for someone. Another Loegrian, like me.”
Like mewas the wrong description. They may have been from the same country, but Eliza belonged to the ruling family, who created laws to persecute magic users—registration and branding for Casters and death for Animal Affiliates.
Silas was one of those Animal Affiliates.
So, no, he and the princess were nothing alike. And while Silas had no desire of his own to help her, he would swallow the poison for his sister’s sake.
Baris scooted closer on his rug. “I heard you’d gone back to your country. Izili University is no longer good for you?”
“I finished my studies, so I went home for a while.”
Specifically, he’d gone home for a single week where everything had gone horribly wrong. He’d been disinherited, banished, and even forced to strike a deal with royalty. It had been a mistake, going back to Loegria.
At least it was a mistake he’d never make again.
“Obviously,” said Baris, “your country does not appreciate snakes as we do, since you are back to us so soon.”
He had no idea. Loegria enforced a bloodthirsty prejudice againstshapeshifters—the derogatory term for Animal Affiliates—which included ridiculous myths about infants being eaten by demons who then assumed their forms and lay in wait to devour others.
Silas was very, very careful to keep his magic a secret back home. But here in Pravusat, there were no laws against Affiliates. He could have transformed into a viper right in front of Baris, and the man would have only put him to work guarding the papaya baskets.
