Page 122 of Sonnets and Serpents
Those who had died to create it were already dead; he couldn’t change that. Should their power go to waste? Wouldn’t it be more honorable to do somethingwith it?
Kerem’s voice echoed in his mind.The deaths will accomplish an exponential saving.
“Silas.” Eliza’s hand covered the box’s glow, light leaking through her fingers. She rested her other hand along his jaw, her thumb stroking the edge of his mouth. Her brown eyes carried a clear worry as she whispered again, “Can you break it?”
“I can’t,” he rasped. Then, with as much willpower as he could muster, he lowered his hand, leaving the box in her grip. “I need my research assistant’s help.”
A resource-draining assistant, he’d once called her.Resource-drainingwas just what the situation called for.
Her eyes widened. “I don’t know how to use magic!”
“You don’t have to use it well. Just use it up.”
Taking her other hand, he pressed it to the wall, then stepped back. She should feel the resonance in the Artifact, the Stone Casting begging to be used. The glow grew sharper, and Eliza’s jaw fell slack with wonder.
“Be reckless with it,apta.” Silas smirked.
Eliza met his gaze for a brief moment—accepting the challenge—then closed her eyes. Beneath her touch, the rock wall rippled. Shadows crawled outward, cast by rivers of golden light, leaping forward and twisting in on themselves like snakes.
Words, Silas realized. She was carving words.
An entire book of sonnets, to be precise.
The poetry flowed from her fingers, spilling onto the floor and ceiling, engraving the full cavern and beyond. Perhaps the entire system of tunnels. Flower silhouettes curled across the lines, creating leaves and vines and blossoms. Reflections of light swayed in the water.
Until, finally, the glow faded, lingering only in the copper sparks of Eliza’s opened eyes and a misty haze around the Artifact.
Spots flickered in Silas’s vision like persisting stars.
“I think that’s all the Stone Casting,” she said hesitantly. “Should I ... try the water?”
Silas almost joked that liquid wouldn’t hold words as well as stone, but as he turned to look at the pool, something launched out of it at him.
A horned viper.
Kerem aimed well. He struck Silas almost exactly where the cobra had, flaring the damaged muscles anew. Even without venom, the bite seared pain all the way to the bone, and Silas dropped to the floor with a cry.
“Silas!” Eliza fumbled the Artifact, and its glow vanished, plunging the cavern into solid black.
But Kerem was still in his snake form, able to navigate the dark.
Eliza screamed, piercing Silas more than any wound could.
With a snarl, he transformed, launching forward even before his senses adjusted, but his jaws closed over nothing but air. Kerem twisted sharply, making a strike of his own that Silas barely reared away from.
They circled as snakes at the edge of the pool, testing each other, fanged mouths snapping.
One bite.That was all Silas needed. One successful strike with venom could paralyze Kerem, and—
Kerem plunged in the other direction, toward Eliza’s colorless, shadowy form.
No!Silas dove to intercept.
Which was exactly what Kerem wanted.
Twisting back, the horned viper sank its fangs into Silas’s neck, just behind his head. No matter how he thrashed, he couldn’t free himself or get off a bite of his own, and his magic drained like blood through a fresh wound.
With no other choice, he turned human, collapsing on the cave floor and gasping through a throat that still felt trapped between jaws. The world tilted, his vision spotted and dizzy.
