Serpent's Blood (Snakesblood Saga Book 6)

by Beth Alvarez

  The garden suited her. Seeing her there brought back a torrent of memories. Visions of her in Core’s herb garden or sitting beneath the serpent’s-tongue trees filled his head.

  He didn’t have any of those. The grove surrounding the manor house was scattered with clusters of tall pines and full of silver maples, elms, red buds and the occasional nut tree, but he’d never seen any serpent’s-tongue. He thought of planting one near enough to be seen from the house, then dismissed the idea as quickly as it came.

  No serpent’s-tongue. No lotus blossoms for the pond, no aspens, and no serpent’s-tongue trees. Nothing that still bore her memory.

  Alira sought him when it was time to go.

  “With luck, Rhyllyn will be back to you within a few weeks,” she said, depositing her bag on one of the low couches and tightening its straps. “And with fortune, your company will be here to look after you until then.”

  Rune stifled his irritation. “Considering how long you’ve known me, I’d think you’d know I’m an adult and can look after myself.”

  “Adulthood has nothing to do with it. I’m more concerned with the fact you’ve been through a great deal of physical strain and are still recovering. Be mindful you don’t allow him to strain himself further.” Alira settled her gaze on Firal and frowned sternly. “He is an important part of the king’s council, and his experience with the Alda’anan and their methods will make him vital for restoration of part of the college records and curriculum.”

  “He will be well kept,” Firal said.

  Rune groaned at being reduced to a tool once again.

  “Are we ready?” Rhyllyn asked.

  “Oh, yes. An afternoon jaunt sounds lovely.” Minna gave Lulu’s arm a jiggle, drawing a sweet laugh from the girl as they joined the group.

  Rhyllyn nodded and turned to Rune.

  Clearing his head and focusing on what he needed his limited strength to do, Rune met and joined power with Rhyllyn as he’d done countless times before. But instead of the rush of access to pure, undiluted magic he expected, the power crashed into him like a wave, made his head spin and yielded a curse.

  Rhyllyn dropped their link in a heartbeat and seized one of Rune’s arms as Firal took the other.

  The world blurred around him. Rune gripped Rhyllyn’s shoulder for support, shook his head and pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead when the dizziness didn’t cease.

  “Too much, too soon,” Alira said, so cold and matter-of-fact she might have been noting the weather. “Better you see that now than later, when none of us will be here to tend you.”

  “I’m fine,” Rune spat. “I just need a moment.” The spinning eased and he waved them away.

  “It’s all right.” Rhyllyn let go of his arm. “Alira wanted me to try it on my own anyway.”

  Firal gave Rune a look of concern, but he ignored it. Her duties as a healer demanded she look after him. He wouldn’t let himself believe she cared beyond that.

  Retreating to a chair, Rune sat and held his head while Rhyllyn worked on his own.

  The boy’s methods were clumsy and unpracticed, but the energy around him reacted well. It flowed and meshed, slowly growing into the hissing heat of enough pure power to split the air. Rhyllyn strained, but held fast, working until the portal opened and the zigzagging light inside spilled away to leave a clear image on the other side.

  Alira picked up her bags. “It’s close enough to the college. We’ll walk from here so you don’t have to do that again.”

  A grassy hill Rune would never forget waited on the other end of the Gate.

  “Come along,” Firal sighed, ushering Lulu and Minna through the Gate behind Alira.

  Rune watched, unsure he should follow.

  Rhyllyn didn’t give him a choice. He shoved a bag into Rune’s arms and nudged him toward the Gate.

  They emerged into fresh coastal air, a saltwater tang heavy on the cool ocean breeze.

  “We’ll send some mages along from the college to help you go home,” Alira said. “I’ll give you a moment to say goodbye, Rhyllyn, then I expect you’ll catch up with me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the boy said. He shifted the packs hung over both shoulders, mindful not to bang them against the lute slung across his back.

  Rune’s eyes drifted from Alira’s back to travel up the hill.

  Firal held one of Lulu’s hands. Minna held the other, and they helped the girl up the hillside to the strange monument that waited at the top. A small bouquet dangled from Firal’s other hand, made of flowers gathered from the garden and bound with a blue silk ribbon.

  “Going with them?” Rhyllyn asked.

  Rune shook his head. “I don’t want to intrude. I’ll wait down here.” He hefted the bag in his arms and held it out. “Don’t keep Alira waiting, though. You know how she gets when she’s frustrated. We’ll be all right for a few weeks. You need the training.”

  Rhyllyn planted a scaly palm against the bag and pushed it back to Rune’s chest. “That’s for you.”

  “For me?” He blinked down at it.

  “I wanted to make sure you got it before I left,” the boy said. “Go on, open it.”

  Rune cleared his throat. “All right, then.” He fumbled one-handed with the clasp on the bag’s flap, peeled it open and slid a hand inside with no small amount of apprehension.

  Soft, smooth leather greeted his fingertips and Rune wrapped his hand around the object to pull it free.

  A boot. He stifled a laugh and stared in disbelief. Finely made, the pair of them, worked by a skilled hand and obviously custom made. For not only were they the exact knee-high cavalry boots popular on Elenhiise, they were green. Bold, brilliantly rich emerald green.

  “I know you needed them,” Rhyllyn said, hiding a grin. “Given everything that’s happened, I thought... I don’t know, that you might miss the color.”

  The color Rune had spent his whole life trying to escape, that had shaped him and his life the way a hammer and anvil shaped steel.

  Rune clapped an arm around Rhyllyn’s shoulders, held his brother in a warm embrace and laughed until tears rolled down his face.

  30

  New Dreams

  Autumn crept deeper into the air. Fiery hues lit the grove around the manor and chrysanthemums sprinkled through the garden offered bright bursts of color. Firal spent most of her time in the garden, as Rune expected she might. When she wasn’t there, she played with Lulu in the parlor or helped Minna in the kitchen, but every evening, she closed herself in the library.

  Correspondence from Vicamros came at regular intervals and she was always ready. She penned responses and sent them back, then shut herself up with Rune’s books and papers and pens. She kept a volume full of notes on his desk and left it within easy reach, but he hadn’t opened it. He didn’t need to. He already knew what the letters said.

  So Rune worked, distracting himself with things to do around the estate. He visited tenants on his lands and collected rents, sorted documents and filled ledgers with numbers, and sometimes ventured to the Royal City for council meetings in hopes they’d keep out thoughts of anything else.

  Lulu interrupted him from time to time, seeking attention he was more than happy to give. The girl warmed to him with time and drove the knife of sadness into his heart a little deeper every day.

  It was late in the second week after Rhyllyn’s departure that an opening Gate needled at the edge of Rune’s awareness, stole his attention away from the food on his plate and made him turn toward the door.

  Firal felt it too. She looked up with a quiet frown. Though the timing appeared to displease her, the visit right in the middle of the evening meal, she didn’t appear surprised. A bad sign.

  “Something the matter, my lady?” Minna asked.

  “No,” Firal said as she pushed herself up from the table. “Just a guest, it seems.”

  Rune left the table first and made his way to the door.

  It opened before he got there and Rhyllyn s
lipped inside.

  “Back so soon?” Rune greeted him with a hug, though his eyes narrowed. Rhyllyn didn’t carry a bag. He wasn’t staying.

  “Just for a visit,” Rhyllyn said with a half smile. “We’ve brought news.”

  Rune knew Alira was with him; he felt her presence just beyond the door. But there was a second presence, too, and it bore an odd, muddied feeling.

  “I smell food. Did Minna make soup? I’m starving.” Rhyllyn took Rune’s arm, pulled him toward the kitchen, and frowned when he resisted.

  “Rhyllyn! What in the world are you doing back so soon?” Firal hurried around the corner to greet the lad, who accepted her hug with a sheepish grin.

  “I’m not here for long,” Rhyllyn said. “I was supposed to bring a message. Stal sent word to the Grand College this morning. Their seventh child was born and Sera is in good health. It’s a boy. His name is Eben.”

  “That’s wonderful.” A genuine warmth colored Firal’s voice. “Though I can’t imagine having seven!”

  “Well, they are mages.” Rhyllyn grinned. “It’s probably easier when they’re all born seven or eight years apart. Anyway, I was told in no uncertain terms that this time, weapons are not a suitable gift for a newborn child.”

  “Then he’ll get a horse or something,” Rune said tersely. He pushed past them and cut toward the door again.

  Firal followed and caught his arm. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Before Rune could reply, a ghost stepped through his door.

  A small woman—shorter than Alira by half a head, and clad in green silk trimmed with tawny fur—strode to the center of the parlor. Her tall and slender ears rose above her head in twisted points. A dozen golden rings pierced either one and chains connected the loops in a cascade of jewels suspended over her head. Her gray hair was drawn into a stern bun at the nape of her neck and her mouth held a serious set, but her dark brown eyes glowed with an inner warmth.

  “I remember you,” Rune said, his brow furrowing. It hardly seemed possible. He’d searched the world for the Alda’anan and turned up empty-handed for so many years, he’d lost hope.

  “I hoped you would, boy.” She glided into the foyer and Alira closed the door behind them.

  “I looked for you. I looked everywhere. I traveled the world, all the way to the Chains—”

  “I know, boy. And the harder you looked, the harder I had to hide.” She took his elbow and gently turned him toward the sitting room. “Come, sit. We’ll speak.”

  Too dumbfounded to form words, Rune followed.

  Firal and Alira trailed at his heels, while Rhyllyn vanished down the hall in pursuit of Minna’s cooking.

  “Firal,” Alira said as Rune and the small woman sat, “this is Indral. I believe you may wish to hear what she has to say, too.”

  Wordlessly, Firal took a place beside Rune and touched his arm. He felt it, yet couldn’t respond.

  For thirty years, he’d scoured the face of the world in search of her or any of the other Alda’anan, desperate for the help they’d promised. Now he didn’t need it, and one appeared at his doorstep within weeks. The absurdity made him want to laugh, but the frustration of decades of hardship seethed atop the swell of relief, and all he could do was let his mouth work without producing words.

  “I know,” Indral said again, soothing. “Believe me when I say it wasn’t supposed to be this way. So many things we meant to tell you, but how could we? Every time one of us ventured from hiding, they were struck down. We could not reveal ourselves, not even to you. It was tried more than once, and each time, it failed. Our numbers were already so precious few.”

  “You’re Medreal’s sister,” Firal said. “Aren’t you?”

  Rune’s mouth fell open. He’d thought the woman familiar when they first met, all those years ago in Aldaeon. But he’d never placed her, for all that her features haunted him. He should have known.

  Indral straightened and puffed up like a preening bird. “All Alda’anan are related, in a way, but yes. We shared the same parents.”

  Firal offered a shy smile. “You look a great deal like she did, though she had her ears docked to help her hide. It was your Gift that gave it away, though. The two of you feel just the same.”

  “Ah, yes. A skill most Alda’anan develop. If we could not hide our strength, we could never blend in. We tried to teach this one, but he never did learn.” The old woman smirked at Rune. “It seems he won’t need my teachings now, though.”

  “What are you doing here?” Rune asked, his tongue finally cooperating.

  “I felt what happened. The surge of power and the collapse of the earth when the island fell into the sea. I feared the worst. I came in hopes of finding the boy, your brother, Rhyllyn. I was sure you were dead.” A sarcastic smile twisted the corners of her mouth now, a cruel spark in her eyes. “It seems you’ve found a worse fate.”

  His mouth dried, making words that much harder. “What do you mean?”

  Indral leaned back in her seat and studied him. “You’re weak. You will recover some strength in time, but it will never compare to what you had. A gift in its own right, I suppose. When you plug a lamp and add no more fuel, it can only burn so long as the oil lasts. And you, for all intents and purposes, are plugged.”

  “Then remove the seal on my magic. You never should have put it there to begin with.”

  The old mage’s eyes hardened. “It was there to teach you a lesson, boy. With the war creeping closer to us, we had no choice but to leave. Your lessons were not yet complete. You didn’t understand our ways, our thinking. The seal was our only way to teach you from afar. And the seal is gone, boy. It unraveled the moment you struck that stone.”

  Gone. The absence of pain when he worked magic made sense now, but if it wasn’t the seal that prevented him from wielding his Gift to its full potential...

  “Now you understand,” Indral chuckled as his face fell. “You’re an empty lamp. You can light the wick, but it won’t stay lit. Magic will answer you for small things. But power?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, child. Your Gift is gone.”

  A cold uncertainty slithered down his spine and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He needed water. There were no pitchers in the sitting room. Instead, he swallowed hard and sucked on his teeth in effort to moisten his mouth. “But without magic...”

  “Without a Gift, boy. Magic will never leave you. It will nurture you as you age. But you will age, and you will die. Like a bound mage, who just brushes the might of the world. It will carry you along, extend you farther than you might reach on your own, but every pen without a well shall run out of ink eventually. Your lifeline will be long. But it will end.”

  Firal’s hand tightened on his arm. Rune closed his eyes.

  “It’s not a bad end, child.” Indral softened her voice to the soothing tone she’d used earlier. “Many of my elders chose it for themselves, asked others to help them burn. We who are born of magic, we do not age like others. I appear old, yes, but you cannot fathom my age. I walked the earth when the world was young, when the moons Ithi and Ileara were new in the sky. I saw the growth of the first forests, the rise of man. I am weary. But my job is not yet done.”

  “You said you came for Rhyllyn,” Rune said. Firal reached for his hand and he laced his fingers with hers out of reflex. It granted him some comfort, yet not nearly enough. “Did you mean to cleanse his power?”

  Indral sighed and her shoulders sagged. “I cannot. In truth, none of us could. Not even together, when there were more of us. The shadow that sullied your power and still colors his was beyond us. But to tell you that then would have robbed you of hope. And you had so much left to accomplish.”

  “How many of you are left?” Despite the easy way she perched on the couch, he knew she wouldn’t stay long. So many questions brimmed on his tongue. He needed to choose from them wisely.

  “I am the last.” With that, Indral’s face fell. Even her slender ears seemed to droop, the jewele
d chains between them pulling taut. Then she recovered and sat upright once more. “We sought refuge in small groups, but she found us. We were honest with her, told her we couldn’t correct the filth that marred her body and power. It was then we decided to seek you, to send someone to remove the seal we’d placed so you could finish what we could not. I felt the world change as each of my brethren died. But what could we do?” She spread her hands and gave a helpless shrug. “You know our laws. We were allowed to stay, to guide, but never to act.”

  And then she’d thought him dead. “What would you have done with Rhyllyn?”

  “Taken him away, taught him what I could and hoped he could take your role. He is not you. He doesn’t have the force of the world on his side. But he is strong, and with time, he could have stood against her.”

  “Does he know you can’t cleanse his power?”

  Indral nodded. “We discussed it when I arrived at the college and learned what had happened. He is a good child. He insisted he didn’t want to change back anyway. It seems he enjoys his new form.”

  Rune let out a weak laugh. “He would.” Rhyllyn always had been that way, seeing rainbows when anyone else only saw the rain.

  “The boy and I spoke at length,” she continued. “I wish to teach him the ways of the Alda’anan, as we hoped to teach you. He has agreed to travel with me for half of each year, living in the lands beyond the Chains and learning all I can offer.”

  “Beyond the Chains?” Firal sounded skeptical. “There’s nothing past the Chains of Raeldan.”

  A small twinkle lit the old mage’s eye. “Nothing a ship can reach, but it’s there. I am sure the boy will tell you all about it when he returns.”

  “I’m sure,” Rune said dryly as the conversation circled back to the very beginning, all her explanations falling short of the answer he wanted. “But why are you here?”