Serpent's Mark (Snakesblood Saga Book 1)

by Beth Alvarez

  “How could you let that happen?” Lumia snarled. “Who has gotten through? Why haven’t you killed them?”

  The sentry flinched and bowed his head. “Our orders were to avoid engaging any threats, my queen.”

  She snorted in disgust. “Who gave you these orders?”

  “You did, my queen,” the sentry said, apologetic, all but groveling before her. “It’s only a mageling, run away from the temple, but—”

  “What a failure you are!” Lumia spat. She brandished her dagger, its blade marbled with blood. “The lot of you make note of this: there is no tolerance for incompetent fools in my house!” A cry of pain punctuated her words as she delivered a kick to the sentry’s jaw and he toppled backwards onto the floor. She flung the dagger at him but missed flesh by inches. The blade skittered across the stone and people recoiled as if it were a serpent. A handful of men moved to help the sentry to his feet, though no one dared speak. Lumia wheeled in place and Daemon flinched as she leveled a finger at him.

  “You,” she snarled. “These fools look a threat to our home full in the face and run to have decisions made for them. Their wasted time puts all of us in danger. Our secrecy is our safety. You’ve sworn yourself to serve me. You will go. You will clean up this mess. Do you understand?”

  Daemon swallowed. “Yes, my queen.” He bowed his head as she removed the ceremonial collar from his throat. Relief flooded him and he breathed deeper. His heart still hammered, and a hint of pain pulsed behind his eyes, but he was free. He stood and shrugged out of the lavish decorative robes. The ornate fabric slid to the floor and he righted the plain clothing he wore underneath.

  “And as for that wretch,” Lumia raised her voice as she settled on her throne again and dangled the collar from her fingertips. “Feed that pathetic excuse for a soldier to my pets.” The collar clattered against the floor.

  “No!” the sentry cried, scrambling backwards as the armored soldiers advanced on him. “No, please!”

  Cringing, Daemon pushed through the masses and toward the main doors. The crowd closed behind him and he did not regret that he would miss the gore of the sentry’s demise.

  2

  A Ruin

  “Bother,” Firal sighed. Her amber eyes flicked toward the darkening sky, barely visible through the leaves fluttering with the wind. Only a moment ago, sunlight danced like golden butterflies across the papers in her lap, wings flitting where the leaves permitted. Now raindrops changed written words to blotches and thunder rumbled in the distance. Firal swept her papers into her arms before they could be ruined. Hurrying to her feet, she hugged her studies to her chest and bowed her head against the rain. The cobblestone path through the garden already glistened with water, slick beneath her steps.

  All she’d wanted was a moment to study outside the noisy dormitory, and now it seemed even the weather was against it. Of course, the weather had been fickle lately. It wasn’t surprising that it would begin to storm just as she sat down.

  Scattered drops became a downpour and she broke into a run. The doors of the temple’s dormitory were only a few steps ahead, standing open beneath the awning to welcome the cool breeze that accompanied the storm.

  A figure stepped into her path.

  Firal grimaced, halted mid-stride and lifted a vicious glare to the young man most students referred to as the Archmage’s pet.

  “Ran!” she cried, clutching her precious papers to her chest in a vain attempt to shelter them from the tropical rain. “Get out of the way, before my homework is ruined!”

  Lomithrandel was the only part-time student ever admitted to the temple, for which many magelings held him in silent contempt. Unusually well-built for an Eldani man and standing a full foot taller than she did, he made an intimidating adversary. His blue eyes danced with mischief as he looked down at her, a broad smile on his lips. He didn’t even acknowledge the rain. “I’ve been gone for days,” he said, sarcastic complaint oozing from his tone. “Is that all the hello I get?”

  Firal crinkled her nose and darted toward the awning behind him. He shifted to block her and she glowered. “I didn’t bid you farewell, did I? So I have no need to greet you.” She lurched forward and dug her shoulder into his stomach. Much to her pleasure, he winced and moved aside. She stomped past him and into the empty main hall of the dormitories.

  “Well, then!” Ran rubbed his stomach with one hand and grinned as his good humor returned. “Why don’t you go ahead and say goodbye now, so that you can give me a proper greeting when I come back?”

  Firal patted her blurred papers with the sleeve of her green robes. It did nothing to help; her clothing was just as wet as her notes. “I haven’t the time.” She thrust her homework into his hands so she could wring out her ebony hair. “I need to get my studies out of the way.”

  “Studies.” He frowned, paging through the soggy papers. He tilted his head, trying to puzzle out the blotches that had once been words. “That’s all you ever do. You take this training far too seriously.”

  “And you take it far too lightly,” she snapped as she finger-combed her hair away from her face. “Gaining admittance to the temple in the first place is no small feat for most magelings, mind you. It’s difficult enough to find time for my reading without your interruptions. Give me those.” She sniffed and shook water from her hands before she snatched the papers back. “You’re soaked too, you’ll make the ink run.”

  “I don’t think it can run any more than it already has.” Ran eyed the dark blotches on his hands and shook his head before he slid his fingers through his tawny wet hair. The ink left several dark streaks and Firal made a face.

  She could not understand why the temple had accepted him, though there were a number of rumors. The most popular of which claimed the Archmage had been paid an impressive sum of money to accept him as a student when his Gift was discovered. Ran did, at least, seem to be quite inclined toward magecraft, though he was rarely around for classes. He had a terrible habit of disappearing for anywhere from days to weeks on end.

  “Are you all right?” He waved a hand before her eyes. It took a moment for Firal to realize she was staring at him and he was staring back, a strange look on his face.

  She flushed and tucked in her chin to hide her annoyance. “I have to get to my room.” She started toward the east hallway in a rush. Ran made no effort to follow.

  The dormitories within the large, curved stone building were separated by sex, the east wing housing female students and the west wing housing male. The upper floor was home to most of the faculty. There were far fewer male students than female, though just as many men as women were born Gifted. Young men were simply more likely to pursue mundane careers, settling as blacksmiths or even farmers. As far as Firal knew, Master Nondar—her favorite teacher and the one in charge of her training as a healer—was the only man among the Master mages who resided in the temple.

  The small dormitory room she claimed as her own was equipped to house two students, though it was rare for anyone to be saddled with a roommate. Accommodations easily outnumbered magelings, though she’d heard their numbers had been more plentiful in the beginning. Fewer mages applied for admittance to the temple every year.

  Firal paused before her door and exhaled hard. Her shoulders slumped as if to shed her frustration as she pushed into her room. With the way the building’s wings curved back, none of the rooms were quite square. Hers faced the main courtyard of the temple and was wider at the far end. The furnishings were simple; mismatched beds stood more or less in the far corners of the room with a recessed window between them. One wide desk with a single chair sat beneath the window and a deep trunk for clothing rested at the foot of either bed. The other two corners of the room hosted a full-length standing mirror—a clear display of the temple’s wealth at its founding—and a small table with another chair.

  Firal left her ruined papers on the table as she made her way to the window to close the shutters. Then she peeled her training uniform o
ff over her head and draped it over the back of the chair to dry. In spite of the luxury of mirrors in the dormitory, the temple did not have the resources to issue more than one uniform to a student, and she would need hers again for classes tomorrow. The simple robe’s color was faded, but she was proud of what it stood for. Mages, while representing their craft, wore colors to distinguish their rank within the temple. There were six ranks of color, each showing a different level of proficiency. Her green robes marked her as a fourth-rank mage, and a band of color for each rank she’d graduated marked her upper sleeve: gray, lavender, and yellow.

  Her underthings were damp, too, she noted with a frown. She stripped out of them, folded an arm across her full bosom and cast a glance toward the shuttered window as if she expected it to fly open before she retrieved fresh clothing from her trunk. With Ran in the temple, she never knew what to expect. But the window remained closed and she donned her underthings in peace, topping them with a simple yellow dress that was a little tight in the bodice. She sucked in her stomach to do the laces up the front.

  While not exactly plump, Firal was stocky in build and lacked the willowy grace of her counterparts. Her hips were too wide, her chest too deep and breasts too full for her hand-me-down clothing to be comfortable, and the tropical heat turned her long hair into an unruly frizz of curls that spilled around her pointed ears. She didn’t think herself unpleasant to look at, but if nothing else, she knew her fiery amber eyes were lovely.

  She tucked her hair behind her ear with one hand and freed her necklace from the bodice of her dress with the other. It was nothing special, a white-on-blue relief of a seven-pointed star with a ring around its center—the Eldani kingdom’s crest. But it was all that her mother, a court mage, had left her. She’d been told her mother’s rank was the only reason she’d been accepted as a student at the temple. At times, she thought that meant she was wrong to begrudge Ran his special treatment. Then again, she was expected to attend all of her classes. He was not.

  Firal ran a thumb over the embossed pendant before straightening the chain, settling it around her neck again as she sat down at her desk. Her mother’s legacy was a lofty one to live up to, and there were times she doubted she would. Few mages were granted the honor of serving the king.

  The rain did not stop until after she’d rewritten her homework on dry sheets of paper. She would have to remember to demand Ran replace what had been ruined. The temple was some distance from the nearest market, making decent paper hard to come by. Not to mention the expense. She hoped leaving the blotched papers in sunlight later would bleach them enough that they could be reused.

  Firal’s stomach grumbled, reminding her of the time, and she cleaned her quill pen and corked the ink bottle before she started for the dinner hall.

  The temple courtyard had been transformed by the rain. Pools of muddy water collected on the stone paths and droplets glittered on garden plants like gems in the light of the setting sun. Lamps lit the large communal hall nestled in the northwest corner of the temple grounds, giving it an inviting glow. Light streamed from the wide windows and the open double doors.

  The dinner hall was a beautiful structure, built with a high ceiling and open rafters. Aside from the many tables and benches, it was home to the kitchens and a number of storerooms. The interior walls of the building had been whitewashed recently—an event Firal recalled clearly, as Ran had dumped a pail of whitewash down her front—and it made the room feel bright and airy.

  The temple was home to perhaps five hundred students, and another hundred instructors and workers. From the din of voices that crashed over her the moment she set foot inside, Firal imagined most were already gathered to eat. Preferring quiet, she settled at the first empty table she found. As soon as she sat, a service-woman deposited a tray heaped with food before her. Firal no more than touched her fork than the cheerful voice of her dearest friend rose behind her.

  “Eating alone again?” Kytenia asked teasingly. She still wore her robes, and Firal suspected she’d stayed with Master Nondar for extra drills. Kytenia shared her healing affinity and had been studying at the temple for nearly four pents, and while her yellow robes marked her a rank beneath Firal, she was quite skilled for a half-blood.

  “Of course not.” Firal nibbled the crust off a piece of bread and gestured for her friend to sit. “I was waiting for you. I hope you haven’t spent half an hour trying to find me in the crowd this time?”

  Kytenia laughed and put her plate on the table across from Firal. Half-bloods were often referred to as awkward and uncouth, but Kytenia was tall, slender, and moved with the grace of a dancer. Save her less-pointed ears hidden by her orderly brown curls, there was nothing to betray her human heritage. “Actually, I just caught you out of the corner of my eye as I was sitting down. Have you seen the other girls? I haven’t been able to catch anyone since Master Nondar wanted me to repeat that splint-setting exercise after class. There are rumors from the capital and I hoped we could speak.” She heaved a sigh and bit into a slice of buttered bread.

  Firal shrugged and picked at the edge of a pastry on her plate. The dinner hall was too loud for comfortable conversation and she leaned closer to be sure Kytenia would hear. “I haven’t seen any of the girls. I did see Ran, though, when I was coming in from the rain.”

  “Oh, he’s back again, is he?” Kytenia wiped the corner of her mouth with a fingertip. Her wide green-hazel eyes sparkled with mirth. “I’m sure Master Nondar will be after him for missing classes again. Did he ask for tutoring? Or did he want copies of your notes this time?”

  “No,” Firal snorted as she tucked her pastry into a hidden pocket of her skirt. “And it’s good that he didn’t, seeing as the rain ruined them all while he was blocking the door.”

  Kytenia gave her a curious look. “Not hungry?”

  “I am, but I have a lot of notes to rewrite. I’ll need to find somewhere quiet if I’m to get anything done. With that beast back on temple grounds, I never know what will happen when I’m trying to study.” Firal shuddered.

  “Off to your little retreat again, then?” Kytenia rolled her eyes. “If that’s the case, you won’t get much studying done. I’m not distracting any Masters for you to sneak out this time.”

  “I don’t expect you to.” Firal took a few bites of the boiled yams on her plate and pushed her food around as she gulped them down. “I don’t see what the problem is, honestly. The Masters spend an awful lot of energy hammering old folktales into our heads. They’d be better off focused on teaching our craft.”

  “Maybe they’re superstitious, maybe they’re not.” Kytenia shrugged and swiped a forkful of yams from Firal’s plate. “Either way, you know how I feel about you wandering off in that place, folktales or otherwise. Even if it’s not haunted or anything, I’m sure you’ll break an ankle trying to climb over everything that’s fallen down.”

  “I’ll be careful, I promise.” Firal stuffed her mouth with the last of her meal before she rose from the table. Aside from Kytenia, there was no one familiar in sight. Relieved she wouldn’t have to escape Ran’s antagonistic antics twice in one day, Firal patted Kytenia’s shoulder affectionately on her way out.

  A short detour to her room let her pick up her cloak, lantern, and the small satchel that hung from the desk chair. The satchel was always ready for expeditions, filled with papers, sticks of graphite, and the leather-bound notebook Master Nondar had given her on her birthday. She settled it at her side and slung her cloak around her shoulders on her way outside.

  The Kirban Temple had been built right on the edge of a massive structure the rest of the world called the Kirban Ruins. Firal didn’t know whether the ruins had been named after the temple or the temple after the ruins, but she did not particularly care. Magelings were not to leave the temple grounds without a Master to escort them, and anyone who asked to be taken into the ruins would have been thought mad. As far as Firal was aware, Kytenia was the only one who knew of her affinity for the plac
e.

  Thick clouds masked the darkening sky again by the time Firal reached the hedgerow at the edge of the gardens, though their pale underbellies made rain seem unlikely. The mage-barrier, the invisible wall of magic used to keep outsiders at bay, waited just beyond the hedges. She drew a breath and held it as she shoved through the dense bushes. A sharp prickling coursed through her body as she moved past the hedgerow and barrier and ceased the moment she stumbled into the field between the temple’s grounds and the thousand crumbling stone entryways of the ruins.

  The soft carpet of grass tickled her sandaled feet and a breath of wind ruffled her cloak and skirt as she hurried across the open space to dart inside. She always felt safer once she was in the ruins. As risky as Kytenia made Firal’s exploration sound, the only real danger was being caught by the Masters. The ruins were a refuge against the bustle of magelings and the persistent tingling sense of magic that pervaded the temple.

  A labyrinth of concentric circles, the ruins sprawled across nearly a quarter of Elenhiise Island, and close to a third of the Eldani kingdom. Once strong walls now crumbled, and mossy stones lay strewn across the unkempt corridors. Night insects whirred in the tangled undergrowth. There were large trees farther in, but only a handful of saplings grew in the grassy outer rings of the structure. Despite her years of exploration, Firal had never reached the big trees—a testament to the size of the place. Even when looking out from the temple’s central tower, the ruins joined with the horizon before their middle could be seen.

  A number of legends surrounded the ruins. Having lived in the temple for as long as she could recall, Firal had heard plenty of them. Most tales were filled with beastly creatures and wars against the Eldani, and the stories had been used to frighten her before bed when she was a child. She still remembered most, though there wasn’t a single tale she liked to recall.