Serpent's Bane (Snakesblood Saga Book 3)

by Beth Alvarez

  Her quarters were far from the grandiose display Medreal insisted was proper for a queen. Firal liked it that way. She had been a guest in the palace once, when she attended the solstice ball with the other mages from Kirban Temple. When it was time to furnish her new quarters, she had requested the furniture from the room she'd stayed in; a small touch of familiarity to help her settle in. The four-posted bed looked woefully small in her new bedroom, but the rich forest greens of the bedding and curtains looked spectacular washed in the warm evening light from the arched windows that lined the far wall.

  Firal breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the door behind her, smoothing her skirts and her hair before she made her way to the half-open door that led into nursery. She expected a nursemaid to be in the room. Instead, she was taken by surprise.

  Vahn hummed softly to the bundle nestled in his arms, booted feet keeping the rocking chair swaying. His sword leaned against the cradle beside him, and the circlet that marked him as king-regent lay atop his folded purple cape on the floor. Firal leaned against the door frame and watched in silence with a lump in her throat. A time passed before he noticed her there. Surprise and then guilt spread across his face.

  “I sent the nursemaid away,” he said in a rush, putting both feet down to stop the chair and glancing to the child in his arms. “I hope that's all right. I just thought—”

  “You're raising her, Vahn,” Firal said with a smile tinged by sorrow. “If you wish to hold her, you don't have to justify it to me.” She clasped her hands before her stomach and moved to stand beside him, where she could look down at the round face of the swaddled infant. The girl’s pink lips puckered in a pout, her eyes closed and their long lashes brushing her rosy cheeks.

  He relaxed into the rocking chair and brushed a dark curl from the baby's forehead with a fingertip. “It's good that she looks like you.”

  She chuckled beneath her breath. “My cheeks aren't quite that round, thank you.”

  Vahn offered a nervous smile in return. “Are you done with your duties for this evening?”

  Firal nodded and held out her hands in request. He shifted the sleeping infant into her arms with some difficulty. She couldn't fault him for that; a month's time and he was still as nervous around the girl as the day she was born. “Medreal will be sending up an evening meal for us. She chastised me this morning for spending too much time on my feet.”

  He all but leaped from the chair, gesturing for her to sit. She gave him a reprimanding look, but eased down into the rocking chair and leaned back as she cradled her daughter against her chest. The girl favored her strongly, Vahn was right about that. But for all that Lumia looked like her mother, there was plenty of her father in her, as well. It pained her sometimes, seeing the girl's parentage reflected in her peculiar violet eyes. Firal brushed the thought from her mind. There were more important things to worry about now.

  “I had an interesting meeting this evening,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. “It seems that all of Core has uprooted from the ruins and set up camp a few miles from Ilmenhith's edge.”

  Vahn grimaced.

  “So you did know, then?” Firal raised a brow.

  “I didn't plan to keep it from you,” he said, twisting a button on the cuff of his sleeve. “I just didn't want you to worry about anything else. You have enough to manage right now, and I thought... well, I thought I could take care of this before you heard.”

  “Take care of it how, Vahn? The Underlings are my people, perhaps even more so than the people of Ilmenhith.” It surprised her how easy it was to keep calm. Had it been anyone else in the world, perhaps she wouldn't have managed it. But she owed Vahn a deep debt of gratitude. He'd never done anything but serve.

  He shifted on his feet. “By arranging for provisions and lodging. I commissioned more fishing vessels when they arrived, since fish is about all that's plentiful now, and put out an order for more grain to be shipped from the mainland. Though it won't make much difference for a few months, at least.” He paused then, looking away. “I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds, my lady.”

  Firal sighed. “Vahnil, how many times have I told you not to call me that? We're supposed to be married. And you are supposed to be king-regent, overseeing my affairs until I fully recover from childbirth.”

  “I know,” he groaned, rubbing his brow. “I know. It's just...”

  “Hard to keep pretending,” Firal finished, turning her amber eyes toward the window. “I know.”

  An awkward silence fell over the room, punctuated only by the steady creak of the rocking chair.

  “Please don't call me Vahnil,” he said at last.

  She smiled sarcastically. “Please don't call me your lady.”

  “So you aren't angry at me?”

  That made her pause. “I'm displeased that you decided to keep such important information from me.” She weighed the words before they left her tongue, a skill the Kirban mages were still trying to hammer into her. “But I appreciate the thought that went into your reasons. However, that does not change the fact that I am the ruler and you are my regent. It's fortunate that I learned of the Underling camp from Davan himself. Can you imagine what a fool I'd have looked if it had been anyone else?”

  “I know. I'm sorry. I should have considered that first.” His shoulders sagged. He took his sheathed sword and rested its tip beside the toe of his boot, a finger on the pommel balancing it upright. “I'm still learning too, you know.”

  Firal nodded in agreement, content to enjoy the quiet until their meal arrived and the scent of food drew her to the table.

  She insisted on their portions being made smaller, but the amount of food the servants still brought to their quarters made her ache with guilt. Ilmenhith wasn't starving, not yet, but the price of produce had risen until only the wealthy could afford even sweet potatoes. Grain merchants emptied their stores and kept only enough to feed their own families, and livestock had grown so scarce that Firal feared the peasantry would take to slaughtering their work animals for meat before the rainy season returned. There were fish, of course; Elenhiise was an island. But while fish would feed hungry mouths, overfishing the waters nearest the island came with its own set of problems.

  The months behind her blurred in lessons about the island's economy and lack of effective agriculture, taught by both Medreal and the temple mages. They still expected her to find a solution. She still hadn't. Her education as a mage had been focused on healing, not barter and exchange, not crops and farming. Elenhiise had always been a trading outpost between the northern and southern continents, a place for the trade of gems and spices and fabric and other things that lasted well during long months at sea. How was she to know how to bring food to the island?

  There had to be something she was missing. She considered again how to seek help from the mainland. It was good that Vahn had ordered more provisions, but they needed something much more immediate. She could order the temple mages to open a Gate to the mainland, but with no idea who to contact, how was she to seek assistance? Was there even anyone in the temple who knew the mainland well enough to establish a Gate? If she'd been raised in the palace, surrounded by nobles, perhaps she'd have known who to seek. If Kifel had lived to see her crowned as heir, perhaps he could have set her on the proper path. But that path was nowhere to be seen, and her father was dead.

  Not for the first time, Firal tamped down feelings of resentment and forced herself to breathe deeply and calm her mind. Her food had already grown cold.

  The baby woke as Firal finished her meal, having tasted it little with how her thoughts were elsewhere. She returned to the nursery's rocking chair once more, cradling the girl to her breast and adjusting her swaddling. Half the palace was still scandalized by her decision to feed the girl herself, rather than calling for a wet nurse. She couldn't expect them to understand. It was the last shred of independence she had to cling to, the last scrap of self-sufficiency she could provide her broken family. Had Kifel
never come to retrieve her and the girl been born in Core, things would have been very different.

  “Firal,” Vahn started from the doorway. She was surprised to see him still there, given the uncomfortable way he usually acted when she nursed the baby. “I've been meaning to ask for a while... I hope you understand.”

  She lifted a blanket and draped it over her shoulder and the baby in her arms. With her modesty restored, he seemed to relax. “Yes, Vahn?”

  His brow furrowed and his tongue darted between his lips, as if to unstick the words. “Out of all the names you could have chosen for her, why Lumia?”

  Firal's heart sank. She tried to smile and found she couldn't. Instead, she stared down at the cover that hid the infant from sight. “As a political gesture, I suppose. The people of Core answer to me. More than ever, we need symbols to unify our people. That was the name of their queen once. Now it will be again, someday. And because...” Her voice cracked.

  She forced herself to go on. “Because a man should have his daughter's name etched on his heart.” All the emotion she'd tried to tamp down through the day came bubbling up at the question. Tears blurred her vision and though she blinked hard, she couldn't keep them at bay. “Because he ought to at least know it, and what other names are there that he could never forget?”

  Vahn grimaced. “I'm sorry, my lady, I didn't mean to—”

  “The Masters knew him. I never would have thought walking away would mean his death. How could I have failed him so completely, Vahn?”

  He moved to her chair and knelt beside her, wiped tears from her cheeks and cradled her face in his hands. “Master Anaide's actions are not your fault. You can't blame yourself for that.”

  “But I could have spoken! I could have said something—anything—instead of just walking away in anger. How could I have misjudged his intentions? Now I'll never see him again, and the last he'll remember of me is that I turned away and left him to those vultures!” The first sob almost choked her. Her hands trembled as she clung to the child, her only remaining anchor to the life she should have had.

  Vahn moved closer and she buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing helplessly. He stroked her hair, steadfast and gentle, the only friend she felt she had left in the world.

  “I couldn't be a proper mageling. I couldn't have survived without the mercy of the Underlings. I couldn't even save my husband in the moment he needed me most,” she cried. “I've failed at everything!”

  He hushed her, resting his cheek against her head. “You know that's not true.”

  “It is, and now I'm supposed to be queen? I've hardly been out of bed. I don't know how to rule, I never even had a chance to know my father before taking his crown. I didn't even want it! Now I'm nothing more than a puppet on the strings of the Master mages.” She gulped back her tears and fought the rising wave of bitterness that swept over her. “Everything I've done has been at their behest. Even when dealing with Relythes and the Archmage I was little more than their mouthpiece, reciting what they drilled into me before the meeting took place.”

  “And in doing so, you protected the temple and the kingdom.” Vahn rubbed her back and brushed hair from her face. “Every ruler starts somewhere, my lady, you must know that. You've taken the throne while quelling a war, carrying a child, and grieving the loss of both Ran and Kifel. Who could expect more from you?”

  She sniffed and looked away. “Ran expected more.”

  Vahn opened his mouth as if to protest, but closed it again when her tears began anew. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her while she cried, the baby sheltered between them.

  Some time passed before Firal heard the footsteps of the maids crossing their apartment to join them in the nursery. She wiped her eyes and breathed deeply, doing her best to compose herself before they appeared at the door. Her drowsing infant remained oblivious to all that had transpired, something for which she was silently grateful. The last thing she needed was an inconsolable child. Vahn stood and brushed back Firal's hair one more time before he stepped back from her chair.

  “Come now, my queen,” Medreal said as she slipped through the doorway and reached for the baby in Firal's arms. “You have meetings with the Kirban mages early in the morning. We must get you into bed. Shall I have a maid tend the baby tonight?”

  “I'll tend her myself, as always. Thank you, Medreal.” Firal let the old stewardess usher her into the bedchamber. The other maids led her behind the standing screen in the corner to help her out of her dress and into a nightgown. She could dress herself, of course, but had long since learned it was easier to allow the maids to do it—if only because it stilled their tongues. She drew another deep breath and hoped her eyes were no longer red, lest their tongues wag about something else.

  “Shall you need assistance, as well, master Vahnil?” Medreal asked.

  Vahn shook his head. “I believe I can manage with my wife's assistance.”

  Medreal raised a brow and turned to look at Firal behind the screen. “Very well,” she intoned, obviously amused. Firal gave her a darkening look.

  Despite her insistence she could tend the baby on her own, the maids still diapered the infant and changed her clothes and swaddling before they surrendered her to Firal again. Then they turned down the linens on the bed, fluffed the pillows, and gathered up every scrap of wash on the way out. Medreal lingered at the door. “Shall I send breakfast in the morning, or would you prefer to eat with Master Anaide when she arrives?”

  Firal's mouth tightened. Another lecture from Anaide was the last thing she wanted to submit herself to, but she couldn't afford to anger the ranking mages any more. Not after she'd named Nondar as Archmage. “Anaide and I will take breakfast in my office. Thank you, Medreal.”

  The old woman inclined her head and curtsied before she let herself out and latched the door behind her.

  A long minute drew by in silence before Vahn released a sigh and scrubbed a hand through his short crop of blond hair. He sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots as Firal slipped beneath the blankets. “I don't envy you for having to deal with the mages,” he muttered.

  “I don't envy you for having to deal with peacekeeping between our men and all of Core.”

  He gave her a reproachful look, then turned away. She averted her eyes, studying the walls and ceiling as he stripped down to his undershirt and breeches. “I'll keep the peace in the city,” he said, sounding determined. “It's my duty to my queen.”

  Firal snorted and cast him a sidewise glance. “Everything you do is your duty to your queen.”

  “Not everything.” He pulled a pillow and extra blankets from the bed and folded them into a pallet on the floor. He slid into it, drew the blanket halfway up his chest, and looked up at her with a mirthless smile. “Some is for my queen. And some is for a friend.”

  She returned his smile, unable to keep sadness from her eyes. “Good night, Vahn.”

  He nodded and sank into his pillow as she extinguished the lamp. “Good night, my lady.”

  4

  Arena

  Predawn hours felt the same as any others in the musty dungeons, though they held fewer visits from guards. The jailers kept some semblance of normal hours and seemed to expect the prisoners to keep the same, for the guards at the front of the prison slept during the long night watch.

  Sleep didn't come so easily for those inside the cells. Rune gave up on sleeping long before the armed guardsmen rattled the door of his cell to rouse him.

  He had expected them to cart him off to the arena, but he'd also expected to go alone. The long line of inmates in the hallway between cells surprised him. Several looked as if they'd been beaten, though Rune hadn't heard any ruckus to indicate there'd been resistance. He sat up and stared at the armored guard who unlocked his cell door until the man shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze. They remembered the fight he'd put up before, then; he wasn't sure if that worked in his favor or against it. He rose when beckoned and took his
place in the line of inmates, holding out his wrists for the manacles he knew were coming.

  The guard checked the manacles twice before he fastened one around Rune's wrist and fastened them to the heavier chain that held the prisoners in line. Rune held out his other wrist. His eyes never left the guard's face as the man closed the second cuff and tucked away the key.

  With his cell nearest to the door, he was the last man added to the line. A handful of guards stood before the prisoners and another handful stood behind. One of the guards in the back carried an odd presence and Rune eyed him a moment before he realized the man was a mage, there to maintain whatever barrier it was that kept him from reaching the power that might have set him free. One of the armored men in the rear shouted an order and the whole line shifted forward without delay. The guards moved to flank the line as they marched the prisoners up the curved stairs and into the blazing morning light.

  Rune blinked hard and turned his eyes to the ground until his vision adjusted. He'd not been in the city long enough to recognize anything that surrounded him, but he studied everything all the same, mindful not to let his expression change.

  The buildings that loomed tall beside the streets seemed strange after the architecture on Elenhiise. Squared stone buildings stretched toward the sky, topped with tall, peaked roofs of dull clay shingles. Some bore balconies supported by sculpted columns, while others sported intricate carvings and reliefs along their roofs or the ground. Most of the buildings stood so close together that a grown man would have had to turn sideways to squeeze between them. Others had no space between them at all. If he escaped from the prison, he'd be forced to flee along the main roads.