Page 90 of Sonnets and Serpents
He let the silence stretch, a net of anticipation waiting to catch his next words.
“There is nothing wrong with you, Henry. You are not broken. You are not cursed. You are not lesser. All you are is a person. Some of what you can do, like jousting, is a skill shared by many other people. And some of what you can do, like transforming into an animal, is a skill shared by very few. The unique combination of traits is what makes you the person you are, but there’s not a single trait in itself that isn’t shared by some other human. If you need time to adjust to this new trait, that’s fine, but don’t waste time mourning that you’re different from everyone else. You aren’t. You’re just an ordinary person, now and always.”
Eliza couldn’t read Henry’s reaction because her own eyes had blurred with tears. Only Silas could say,You’re nothing special,but in such a way that it was empowering rather than an insult. And although the message was meant for Henry, she selfishly tucked it into her own heart.
You are not broken. You are not lesser. All you are is a person.
Baring his soul left Silas feeling drained and empty. More than that, it left him aching for home.
He’d willingly dredged up the past, and now he was mired in it. Remembering his years at Fairfax and his first visits to Gill’s house. Remembering being mobbed with hugs by Gill’s younger twin brothers as soon as they found out he was an Affiliate too. Corvin coaching him through his first Artifact creation. Leon hissing about the professor who’d triggered Silas’s rage transformation and telling him he should go bite the idiot after all. Gill sternly forbidding animal attacks from anyone under his watch.
Silas had never been ashamed of himself or his abilities at the Reeves estate. Only in his own house. Only in the presence of his father.
His father’s reaction to the truth was a story Silas didn’t share with Henry, because the knight needed hope, not more despair. He swallowed that story, and it weighed heavily on his throat in the form of a scar.
He needed something else to focus on.
“What can you tell me about Ceyda?” he asked.
Although Henry looked as drained as Silas felt, he nodded. “She was just a passenger on the ship. Kept to herself, didn’t speak to anyone. I was so caught up in my own situation, I didn’t take much notice of her, except that she was always holding a white box.
“Every day on the ship got worse. We were farther from home, and things kept becoming more real, things like, ‘I’ll never see my family again.’ When they finally made the call for land, I ... lost it.”
“You transformed,” Silas said, sparing him from having to recount the details. “On a ship with a Loegrian crew and captain. I can imagine how they responded.”
“Torches and pitchforks.” Henry grimaced. “Or swords, rope, and crossbows, as it were. They would have killed me if not for Ceyda. She, uh ... she made that box glow, and then an enormous wave overturned the ship.”
Eliza gasped. “Shesank the ship?”
Creating an ocean wave big enough to sink a merchant galley would require anenormousFluid Casting effort. Even Gill would struggle with the task.
“Was she unconscious after?” Silas asked.
“No, but I was. I think I hit my head on the mast when the ship went over. She got me out of the water and all the way to shore.” Henry’s voice quieted, nearly inaudible. “I don’t know why it was just me.”
There certainly should have been other survivors. Any of the seafaring crew would have been strong swimmers, with knowledge of how to respond to a shipwreck.
Unless someone made sure they didn’t survive.
Silas drummed his fingers on the bedpost, frowning to himself. In his first encounter with Ceyda, she’d been frightened of him, retreating as soon as he showed resistance. In their second encounter, she’d been much the same, sheltering behind crates,fleeing at the first opportunity. Hardly the battle-hardened killer he would expect capable of taking down an entire ship’s crew.
Then there was the matter of Henry’s sleeping Cast and the tidal wave. Ceyda could not be both Fluid Caster and Stone Caster, not through her own abilities.
He glanced at the bone-box Artifact, sitting innocuously on his desk.Unbind. Bind.Unbinding magic from an original host and then binding it to the box to be used by someone else. It was unfathomable. It was groundbreaking.
Silas itched to experiment on it right away, to see if it was broken beyond use or if he could glean anything from its depths.
Later, he ordered himself sternly, refocusing on Henry’s story.
“I woke in a large tent with physicians, I assume. I couldn’t understand any of them. Ceyda was still there. She told me her name, but that was the extent of how much we could communicate. She seemed ... scared. Looking over her shoulder, flinching. She was still protecting that box.”
“I assume the crack happened during the shipwreck?” Silas asked.
Perhaps when a normal person would be rendered unconscious for overtaxing their mind and magic, the Artifact failed instead.
But to his surprise, Henry shook his head. “No, it was intact.”
Silas squinted at the knight, trying to make sense of all the pieces. “Why didn’t she steal your magic? Why put you to sleep instead—and why for so long?”
