Serpent's Bane (Snakesblood Saga Book 3)

by Beth Alvarez

  “But it wasn't supposed to make me.” His voice cracked, despite his best efforts. “I'm not like you. I'm damaged, twisted—”

  “We're all broken,” she interrupted. “You simply wear your scars more openly than most. But you feel it, don't you? The way the power wants you? You've learned wrong, fought its embrace your whole life. What if, just once, you let go?”

  Rune hesitated. Magic did want him. It always had. It was always there, pressing against him, filtering through him though he tried to control it, its wild surges and shifts reflected in the curious glow of his eyes. “Why would it want me?” Somehow, he'd never thought to ask.

  The Aldaanan mage raised a brow. “Why would it not?”

  He had no answer.

  She chuckled and raised her hands with a shrug. “Brant, His power—they do not make mistakes. Your battle is your own, but this is as you should be. You feel it, too, don't you? Otherwise, you wouldn't be here.” Her eyes drifted closed and once again, she melted into the tide of magic.

  Rune exhaled hard and stared at the mud-stained slush before him. Magic tingled against his skin, crawled across him like some shapeless creature driven by curiosity. He trained his thoughts on it. No matter what the Aldaanan said, he still held his doubts. He didn't want control, he needed it. Unfettered magic had made him what he was. Opening himself to it as freely as his teachers suggested seemed dangerous, even foolhardy.

  The currents of power against his skin slowed, as if in response to his thoughts. It didn't feel dangerous. That was why it troubled him. It was warm, welcoming, like a laughing brook on a summer day. Only he knew the current was swift, wild, and its waters deeper than what he could navigate. Yet his teacher would not be satisfied until he tried. Stifling his growing frustration, he exhaled again.

  He could argue all day and it would go nowhere. Silent, grudging, he tried once more. His breath deepened and his shoulders sank. This time, he opened to embrace the magic that surrounded him slowly.

  At first, nothing happened. Power hovered nearby, as if waiting, hesitant. To feel it was different from grasping it, he reminded himself, and nothing would come of mere feeling. He started to reach for it—as he had so many times before—and caught himself at the last second. No; he couldn't force it. Couldn't will it. It had to come to him.

  Please, come to me, he pleaded silently. How was he supposed to communicate with something that wasn't alive? A troubled feeling stirred in his chest, weighty and dark, and he chased it away before it could settle.

  Something else stirred. Fleeting, foreign, and yet it felt as if it should have been there all along.

  Rune's breath caught in his throat and he willed himself to be still.

  “Breathe,” his teacher prompted. “Think of your breath, nothing else.”

  The suggestion summoned a thousand wild thoughts to mind. He fought them back until they scattered like white serpent's-tongue flowers on the wind.

  No, he inwardly snapped. Like nothing. Nothing.

  Stillness returned after a handful of breaths. And then something else stole in with his breath. It spread within his chest, suffuse warmth that crept into his limbs and tingled within his flesh. His awareness of the world around him faded, and with it, the discomfort of the ice beneath him disappeared. Comforting heat blossomed in his lungs, swelled until his ribs ached with their fullness. Power unlike anything he'd ever known coursed through him, stealing a gasp from his lips and replacing his air with more.

  Searing pain shot through his limbs. Rune's eyes shot open and his gaze darted to his arms. Fat blotches of black spread and seeped at the elbows of his shirt. Itching, burning heat exploded just beneath his skin and panic gripped his heart. He tried to tear the fabric, but his fingers were too numb. He wrenched his sleeve up his arm instead.

  Thick beads of ichor bubbled between the scales at the rough transition between beast and human flesh. It sizzled against his skin, blistered the tiny plates of emerald-green. A startled cry escaped him and in an instant, the magic retreated.

  The weight of all his senses hit him like a hammer blow and he all but fell to the frigid ground, gripping his bloodied arm.

  The Aldaanan woman opened her eyes, a hint of a smile playing at her lips.

  It was all he could do not to snarl. “What was that?”

  “Progress,” she said, simply. When she stood, her dress was dry.

  Rune glared at her back as she left without another word. His breath came fast, ragged, the winter air biting in his chest. Slowly, the pain in his limbs subsided, and he lifted his hand. Black, sticky ichor clung to the palm of his hand, and a small, blistered patch of scales peeled away from his arm.

  In a heartbeat, his panic evaporated and a small spark of wonder ignited within him, lit by the hope he hadn't dared kindle.

  New, perfect skin waited underneath.

  20

  Cleansing

  “It's the most incredible thing. Like when you have an empty cup and you hold it down in a basin. The water rushes in to fill it from every direction, just because it's there.” Rune shoved another spoonful of food into his mouth and made a face. He still couldn't get used to the bitterness of molasses, but the army had nothing else to sweeten their morning porridge.

  Sera laughed, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement. “Your descriptions of things are ridiculous, you know that?”

  Mealtimes had become invaluable for explaining the extent of his lessons, and Sera often took breakfast at the cook fire closest to his tent. Once he joined the Aldaanan for the day's exercises, they did not release him until he was too weary to speak. His meetings with Sera were almost as exhausting, with the amount of effort she put into wringing information from him. Sometimes she offered tidbits of news in return, information about the army and Garam's plans. Today she offered nothing, but she was garbed in white to blend into the snow. She would be on scout duty, it seemed.

  “I cannot think of a better way to describe it. Can't,” he corrected himself with a wince. “Sorry. I try to have the Aldaanan teach me in this tongue instead of theirs, so I can practice, but speaking your tongue is still difficult sometimes. And sometimes their concepts don't translate well.”

  “I appreciate that you try.” She leaned forward and patted his knee with a sympathetic chuckle. “You've gotten much better. But tell me more about this magic! It sounds incredible. Being that full of power all the time, exerting that little strength to twist the flows...” She gave a wistful sigh.

  Rune shook his head. “It isn't like being full of power. It's just like I said. You are the cup and the water is the power. It fills you, but it also moves through you, moves all around you. It fills you when its presence is needed, but the way you float within it is what makes it amazing.”

  “And it feels like that all the time?”

  “No, only when I need it.” He shrugged and spooned the last of his porridge into his mouth. “It's difficult to explain.”

  Sera clicked her tongue and stared at the bowl in her hands. “I'm going to hate telling all of this to Garam. He'll be terrified to think all the Aldaanan have that much power at their fingertips.”

  “Would you like me to tell him instead?” He didn't relish the idea, but he was trying to stay on the captain's good side. Thus far, he hadn't invoked the man's ire. There were many reasons he kept his experiences with the Aldaanan to himself as much as possible. What the Aldaanan could do for him was all that pushed him to cooperate with the army in the first place. The fingertip-sized patches on his arms where human skin had replaced scales represented hope in Rune's eyes, and would mean inevitable loss in Garam's. There was no hiding his marked improvement in mood, though, and Rune knew the captain had noticed.

  She made a face. “No. He still thinks I'm sneaking all this information out of you, instead of you sitting and spilling your guts like a child who doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut.”

  Rune snorted and put his bowl aside. “I can keep my mouth shut just fine.” He dust
ed snow from his knees as he pushed himself up.

  “Can you?” she teased.

  “Yes. After all, you still don't know my birth name.”

  “Hey!” she shouted, scrambling after him as he turned away. “You can't tease me like that! I thought you told Garam your real name was Rune?”

  “I did,” he agreed. “And it is. It just isn't the name I was given when I was born.” He flashed her a grin and wove between the tents on his way toward the pale tower at the edge of the city. He'd taken too long to eat; he was sure to be late.

  A snowball struck the back of his head and he stumbled. Growling, he glared over his shoulder and dropped to the ground to make one of his own. Sera's eyes went wide as he turned to throw it, but it wasn't until a hand caught his wrist that he realized her expression wasn't for him. He turned his head and his face fell when he saw Garam.

  “Both of you. My tent. Now.” The captain released him, the hard look on his face dashing any mirth the two of the might have felt. Sobered, Rune fell in step behind him.

  He and Sera weren't the only ones summoned, as they discovered when they stepped inside Garam's tent. A messenger and a handful of lieutenants already waited around the table in the tent's center. Ria sat in the corner. Her ear-tufts lifted when she saw Rune. He offered a nod of greeting in response, momentarily unsure why he'd been called. When he noticed the figurines atop the map that lay on the table, he understood.

  A large number of robed figurines stood in clusters across the map's mountain ranges. Mages, no doubt. Garam's army was represented by figurines in armor, serving as a sharp reminder that Rune and Sera were the only mages in his command.

  “The gryphons have spotted campsites while flying over the mountain ranges,” Garam said, pacing around the table to stand behind it. He leaned forward and rested his hands against the map. “After locating the groups of mages, they began tracking them. They followed these groups over the course of several days. Their movement leads us—the gryphons and me—to believe they mean to band together and strike us.”

  “So we move against them before they have a chance to rally together,” one of the lieutenants said. “Scatter their forces again.”

  “They'd flatten the army if you tried,” Rune muttered. The officers glowered at him. He answered by raising a brow. “Have any of you fought mages before?”

  Sera scoffed. “Of course not. Mages have never gone to war. Not since the battles that saw dragons eradicated from the Triad.”

  He gave her a hard look. “Mages are going to war now. They know what they're doing, or else they wouldn't be here. The mountains make Aldaan difficult to invade. If they're gathering in visible camps, it's because they hope to lure us out.”

  One of the lieutenants began to protest, but Garam raised a hand to silence him. “Go on,” the captain said.

  Rune gestured to the map. “You have a formidable army, but only two mages. The Aldaanan are strong, but they number too few to protect us if they're split up between fighting squadrons, and the mages from Lore must know it. They mean to draw your forces into the mountain. Then they will withdraw, and when your men pursue them, the college mages will sweep in from either side and crush them. Mages are scholars. They have a greater understanding of tactics than you know.”

  Garam's eyes narrowed, boring into him like dark coals. “Have you fought mages before?”

  “I've fought before, that's enough.” Rune folded his arms over his chest and shifted uneasily. “Getting close to the mages will be difficult and dangerous. They use barriers that can protect them from arrows and thrown spears. Getting close enough to strike them with a sword means putting yourself well within range of their power. The weakest mage can toss a grown man like a rag doll, armor and all.”

  Sera nodded in agreement, drawing a chorus of frustrated sounds from the lieutenants.

  “Then how are we supposed to fight them?” one asked, exasperated.

  Rune cast him a sidewise glance. “Why would you fight them? With our camp at the foot of the aerie, we have all the Aldaanan and the gryphons ready at our backs. We have food and the gryphons can bring in more of anything we need without being hindered by the enemy. It is winter and the mages are just now moving into the mountain ranges. Better to wait them out, make them desperate. They will run short on supplies before long, and their numbers are likely too few in each group to open Gates to retrieve more.”

  “I don't think King Vicamros sent me to wait them out,” Garam said through gritted teeth.

  “I don't think King Vicamros sent you at all,” Sera murmured. The captain shot her a scowl and she glared back. “Just admit it, Garam. The council sent us here to get us out of the way. The Triad is three large provinces. Kingdoms in their own right. Your army is a paltry number of men compared to what they could scrape from the countryside if they decide they need more. How can you think they expect you to win a war against mages when they've only sent you with two of your own?”

  Garam's face darkened with anger. “We have the Aldaanan—”

  “Who can't even agree on whether or not they want to fight,” Rune interrupted. “Becoming involved with bound mages again is the last thing they want.”

  “I don't care what they want!” the captain roared. The room fell silent, even the lieutenants appearing taken aback. “I am here because King Vicamros put me here. Because King Vicamros expects me to solve this problem. It is my rank, my life, my sister's life on the line. I... Will... Not... Fail.” He jabbed a finger against the table to punctuate each word.

  “Then listen to the only man present who has any idea what you are up against.” Rune's eyes flashed in the dim light of the tent. “Wait them out, or you are sending good men to their graves.” He sent the lieutenants a meaningful look and then turned to leave.

  “You are not dismissed,” Garam snapped.

  Rune turned one baleful glowing eye toward the captain. Undeterred, he threw back the flap that covered the tent's entrance. “Try and stop me.”

  No one moved. Satisfied, he slipped outside and breathed deeply of the biting, frigid air.

  It felt good to be defiant, to let his frustration and anger free. It felt like reclaiming a piece of himself. He didn't like who he'd been forced to become; a shell of a man who'd been pushed into compliance with threats of prison and worse. He'd been a leader before. Not as experienced as some, but more experienced than the lieutenants clustered around Garam's table. He had seen war. A war against mages, no less, but that was something he didn't intend to share. He didn't know how far word might have traveled from Elenhiise, but with the Master mages intent on his death, he didn't mean to find out.

  The frosty air burned in his chest, giving him something else to focus on. He willed himself to be calm and tried to think of the lessons he'd had with the Aldaanan.

  He'd tried desperately, but hadn't again reached the state of calm meditation he'd entered that caused that small number of his scales to fall away. Control over his Gift would come with control over himself, they told him each time he failed. The reassurance hadn't eased his frustration. Rune wiped his face with both hands and struggled to rein in his emotions. Eyes were a portal through which one could see the soul, Filadiel said. It made sense the turbulence inside him would be visible there, but walking into his lesson with his eyes aglow would only earn him a reprimand.

  Thus far, his lessons had taken place in the south field or in the council chamber at the top of the tower. Today, he'd been instructed to seek a teacher inside the tower. The south field was empty. His composure returned as he climbed the tower's ramp.

  It was unusual for more than one of the Aldaanan to teach at a time, which added to Rune's confusion when he opened the door at the top of the tower. The room went silent. Every seat in the council chamber was filled, and more Aldaanan sat on the floor. All eyes turned in his direction. Many of the free mages present were people he'd never seen before. He drew back. He was late for his lesson, but he hadn't expected council to be
in session already—not when his lessons were hours long.

  “Come in,” Filadiel called from the far end of the room. “Shut the door. Sit. If you are to be one of us, you should be included in this discussion. Perhaps you can offer insight from another perspective.”

  A handful of the Aldaanan frowned, but no one protested. Rune slipped inside and closed the door. There didn't seem to be any order or arrangement to seating. He moved a single step to the side and sat on the floor. Nobody spoke. After he was settled, everyone looked back to Filadiel.

  “As I was saying,” Filadiel began, his voice holding none of the flightiness Rune had grown used to hearing, “I am well aware they need more mages for this. We can defend Aldaeon for a time, but only if we are here. I do not think Captain Kaith has any idea the number of enemies lurking in the mountains. He has asked for fourteen free mages to shield fourteen groups, but fourteen is a small number for such a large mountain range. If we divide our numbers, Aldaeon is weakened. Who's to say that's not exactly what the mongrel-mages want?”

  A woman with the same mousy coloration as Filadiel gave a snort. “Were it not for the army King Vicamros deposited in our lands, there'd be no need to defend Aldaeon at all. We could have made for the northern mountains, left the city empty. It's not our land they're after, if you recall. It's us.”

  “You forget the other people who live here,” another woman protested. She was dark-eyed and gray-haired, and Rune thought he remembered her from his first visit to the council chamber. “We have protected the humans in Aldaeon for generations. And even if not for them, what are we without our land?” She shook her head, as if to answer her own question. She wore more chains in her tall ears than the others, and the jewels that hung from them bounced with the motion. The others in the room grew solemn and she went on. “We are Aldaanan. We have lived in this valley since the gryphons built their first nest. True, there are some who have scattered, small pockets of free mages to be found all across the known world, but they are nomads at best. Aldaan is our home.”