Page 44 of Sonnets and Serpents
In a moment of decision, Silas said, “We’re going to the Sarazan tabernacle.”
“The what?” Eliza frowned.
“When we first met, you wanted me to get a translation from the innkeeper about Sarazan. I’ll show you what he was talking about.”
She could have yelled at him for not explaining that the first time. He expected her to.
Instead, a hesitant smile budded on her face. Her eyes sparkled in the sunlight, a light brown speckled with copper that Silas hadn’t noticed before.
They were pretty.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He cleared his throat, looking away. “Don’t thank me yet. Prepare for a hike.”
Silas had not exaggerated the hike.
At first, they climbed the winding paths that led to the top of Izili’s cliffs and the university, but when the paths diverged, Silas took the route directly along the cliff edge.
At the peak, Eliza paused, marveling at the beauty of the ocean from this height. The horizon stretched into eternity, a never-ending expanse of sparkling water. She stood on a divider. To her left, the cliff overlooked civilization, bustling city streets and brightly painted buildings. To her right, the edge fell away into an empty, sandy landscape, a long stretch of tan and beige bordering the ocean, marked only by a worn footpath.
“I come out here sometimes to read,” Silas said. An ocean breeze ruffled his hair, tossing it all to the left in an adorably lopsided way.
Eliza couldn’t help but laugh. “Toread? Not to ... I don’t know, look at the ocean?”
“I look at the ocean between pages. Unless the book is particularly enthralling.”
All her life, people had told Eliza she read too much. She should have introduced them to Silas.
As soon as she had the thought, her chest tightened.
Introducing him to anyone in Loegria would mean his death.
The world tilted, like her body thought it was back on the ship to Pravusat, swaying without solid ground.
“Highness?” Silas frowned.
“It’s high,” she managed, though that wasn’t the problem at all.
She didn’t want to think about the real problem.
Silas led the way down the other side of the cliffs, and she followed in silence. Beneath the withering afternoon sun, her clothing quickly grew sweat-soaked and constricting, the silk of her shirt trying to escape the heat by becoming one with her skin.
Her cheeks tingled, little pricks in her skin warning against the sun’s burn. At home, the palace physician could have given her cooling balms, but here, she would have to live with the blistered skin. She attempted to shade her face as she walked, but the path continued, and her arms grew weary.
Eliza flapped her shirt against her chest. The puffs of air against her throat were almost more torture than relief.
Then, finally, she saw it. Or at least,something.
It wasn’t a building so much as a tent. A verylargetent, rectangular and blocky, with thick posts holding its shape. It was both larger and closer than she’d realized because it was the same dusty beige of the landscape, camouflaged against the sand.
As they drew closer, she saw a limestone statue near the entrance, an enormous serpent with fangs bared. Because of course it was.
And Silas, of course, paused to admire it.
“They probably worship it, don’t they?” Eliza said, and her bitterness really had nothing to do with snakes at all.
Actually, it did. But just with one.
