Serpent's Bane (Snakesblood Saga Book 3)

by Beth Alvarez

  It was comforting to retire knowing the army wouldn't move again for some time. While Rune was eager to begin lessons with his new teachers, the night had been long, filled with tests of power and finishing with the piercing of his tongue. Healing the wound was forbidden, Filadiel said. Sleep offered sweet respite after the night's events.

  Yet his dreams were far from peaceful, filled with images of strife and bloodshed. He saw faces that seemed familiar in glimpses too fleeting for him to recognize them, and other faces he knew so well he wouldn't have needed more than a glance to know them. He heard his name spoken like a caress, felt a surge of anguish and need. He saw her reaching for him through a crowd that faded like ghosts when she pushed through. Fire and urgency scorched in his veins, and his skin burned as if pricked by a thousand needles. The urgency grew. He tried to reach her, grasping for her extended hand, only to have her vanish the moment their fingers touched.

  Rune jerked awake, gasping for breath in the icy air. Cold sweat slicked his body beneath the blankets, his skin still aflame with a stinging sensation the likes of which he'd never experienced. Light peeked in through a gap between the flaps of his tent. Desperate, he tried to cling to the image of Firal's face, to the image of her reaching for him. He trembled as he wiped sweat from his brow. His mouth was dry, but he still swallowed hard.

  “Are you awake or not?” a voice called from the other side of the tent. Fingers drummed against the outside of the canvas before they swept back the flap. The daylight that poured in was all but blinding. “It's past midday, you need to eat something before—” Sera slid inside and stopped short when she saw him. “Are you all right? You look ill.”

  He was not all right. He was shaken, uncomfortable and confused. But he nodded, unable to form words.

  She frowned at him, but swung a basket of food into view. Better than travel fare or rations, it was filled with fresh fruits and breads, along with smoked meat and a bit of cheese. She crouched and leaned forward to put it on the ground beside him, then rested her elbows on her knees and peered at him with a look he almost thought was concern. “Are you sure you're all right?”

  Rune reached for the basket and tried not to look at her again. “Just a dream.”

  He lifted a piece of seed-topped bread out of the way to get a look at a jar of something underneath. He pulled it free and tilted it to watch dark liquid slosh inside. Wine, he figured, putting the bread back and opening the jar first. It smelled of berries with a hint of honey. He tested it and, finding the taste pleasant, took a long drought.

  Sera waited to speak until he'd put down his drink and picked up a piece of bread. “May I ask you something?”

  “Won't promise to answer,” he replied, not looking up. A maluiri fruit rested in the bottom of the basket. He picked it up, amused.

  She sat on the ground and crossed her ankles. “Garam told me why you were arrested. Why you ended up in the arena. But how did you come to be in the Royal City to begin with? You had no grasp of our language until Councilor Parthanus began teaching you, and you obviously know nothing of the area. You speak Old Aldaanan, but you're clearly not from here.”

  It wasn't as invasive a question as he'd expected. Rune shrugged as he chewed his mouthful of food. Redoram had warned him that his behavior gave him away, made his status as a noble in his prior life too obvious. But he couldn't shake the manners his nursemaid spent the better part of a century driving into him. “I don't know how to hunt here. The animals are unfamiliar. Foraging was poor along the coast. Didn't want to risk staying in one place too long, stole what I needed and followed the main roads north. A man does what he must to survive.” He tried not to indicate he noticed the way she watched him eat. Too close, too intent. Studying his every move.

  Cradling her chin in her hands, Sera leaned forward. “The coast? So you made landfall from somewhere else?”

  Rune blinked. Out of everything he'd said, he hadn't thought she'd latch onto that. “The harbor was in Roberian, I believe. The land there was interesting. I'd like to go back.”

  She grinned. “I've heard Roberian's harbor is the biggest in the Triad, but I haven't seen it. When I left my homeland, I took a Gate straight to Lore. Are mages rare in your homeland?”

  “Aren’t they rare here?” He lifted the jar of wine to his lips again. “There are next to none in the Royal City.”

  Her face fell and she gave a slight shrug. “Mages are not held with the same regard they once were. It's a dying art, I'm afraid.”

  Considering the rank and honor that came with magecraft on Elenhiise, he couldn't imagine mages on the mainland being scarce. “But there's the Grand College.”

  “Which serves the entire world,” Sera said with a wave of her hand. “Sure, they have a few thousand mages. Out of how many people? How many countries? If I am to be honest, my family was disheartened to learn I wanted to be a mage. They thought I would do better to marry young and forge new alliances for our house. My mother was a mage, but she only learned to utilize her Gift because her parents wanted to strike up an alliance with an Eldani bloodline. It was all politics, nothing to do with passion.”

  Rune smiled ruefully. He knew those kind of games all too well. “What made you want to learn?”

  “Because I wanted to make a difference.” She flexed her toes and stared down at them. “Mages are distrusted in my homeland after their role in the war, but I thought I could restore people's faith in mages if I honed my skills to perfection. I thought I could show them that mages were still needed, even with the way the world had changed.”

  A pang of sympathy stirred in his chest. Her words reminded him of his own ambitions, and he struggled to quash the disappointment that rose every time those memories stirred. They were only a year gone. He couldn't bury them deep enough.

  “I don't understand,” he murmured, studying her face. She looked genuinely regretful, lending that much more weight to what she said. “Mages can heal, they can cure illness, they can manipulate weather. Why wouldn't they be needed?”

  “Because people can live without them.”

  It was simple honesty, but it still jarred him to silence. He'd never stopped to consider it before, but now the realization struck him with painful clarity. For all that Kirban Temple meddled in politics and shuffled mages around like pawns on a chessboard, they weren't necessary. A convenience, certainly, but not a necessity. Elenhiise functioned largely without Gates or healing, the only two arts he could think of as vital. Core itself had functioned for centuries without a healer. Firal had been a boon, but if he hadn't taken her to live among the Underlings, what difference would it have made?

  “But it's strange to think of a world where mages are not common,” Rune said at last, pulling the basket of food closer to look through it again. From the unusual selection of fruits, he thought it a gift from Filadiel or one of the other Aldaanan. “If anyone ever told the Masters back home that their services weren't needed, there would be an uproar all across the country.”

  “So mages carry more authority where you are from?” Sera asked.

  “Some.” Rune offered her an apple and she took it with a smile. Now it was his turn to regard her thoughtfully, to study her until she shifted uncomfortably. He took a bite of fruit. “Why the sudden interest in me?”

  Her shoulders lifted and her expression hardened as her guard rose. “Have you noticed anything unusual about Garam's army?”

  “Half the men are only half as sharp as their swords. The other half seem offended their swords are steel instead of silver, like the spoon in their mouths when they were born.”

  She burst into laughter.

  “What?” he asked, agitated.

  “Just your way of speaking.” She wiped her eyes with the side of her hand. “And that's not what I meant, though I can't say it's not an accurate description.”

  He bit into one of the small loaves of bread and gestured for her to go on.

  “It's just that you and I are the only mage
s. We're also the only soldiers under Garam's command who aren't human.” She turned the apple in her hands, not eating. “I don't think he planned it that way, but I don't think he's unhappy about it, either. He's always been uncomfortable around the Eldani. I'm surprised he's not more suspicious of the Aldaanan than he is.”

  Rune narrowed his eyes. “So he doesn't like magic, he doesn't like the Eldani, he doesn't like me... anything else I should know about your brother?”

  “He doesn't trust magic, or the Eldani, or you. There's a difference between not liking and not trusting. You can love someone dearly without trusting them.” She laid a hand on his arm. “But I trust you. And I think he's being ridiculous if he thinks the Aldaanan might use you against us.”

  His eyes darkened and he pulled away. “If you knew me better, you wouldn't trust me.”

  She startled him with a smile, so warm and genuine it made her seem like a flower opening to the sun. “Knowing you better is why I'm here.”

  He put down his food. He couldn't fault her for seeking someone to relate to, but if she thought he was it, she was mistaken. “You asked how I came to be in the Royal City.” He pushed the basket aside and finally threw back his blankets. He tugged on the open-toed leather footwear that had been made to protect him from the cold, then reached for his sword and belt. “I fought a war my actions helped begin. I lost friends and family in the battle and afterward. I committed treason. I came north by ship to flee execution.” His words shocked her and he was satisfied to see it. He rose and strapped his sword to his hip as he brushed past her. The tent's canvas flaps did nothing to hold the winter at bay, but he still felt the urge to flinch against the cold when he pushed back the flap and paused. “So if you trust me, know your trust is misplaced.”

  He slipped out into the snow and breathed deeply of the frigid air. It was already past midday, and his new mentors would be waiting.

  “Oh yes, that does sound unsettling, but it's not an uncommon occurrence. You really oughtn't worry about it much.” Filadiel filled a second cup, not quite to the brim. He took both teacups, leaving the teapot and tray on the table beside the window. “Dreams can sometimes influence our power, and power can influence our dreams. After all, dreams are an expression of emotion, sometimes drawing on feelings that aren't even known to us. I'm sure you've noticed how much impact emotion has on your abilities. I've seen your eyes.” He placed a teacup in front of Rune and cradled the other in both hands as he sank to his knees beside the low table in the middle of the room.

  Rune wasn't surprised their first lesson would be held in private, but he had been surprised to find Filadiel himself waiting for him in the empty council chamber. There had to be a thousand other things for the short-statured leader of the Aldaanan to tend, things far more important than dealing with a novice mage. Taking his teacup, Rune savored the warmth as it seeped into his fingers. “What about my eyes?”

  Filadiel shrugged. “Well you can't control their light, that much is obvious.”

  It hadn't been so long ago that Rune thought the otherworldly glow of his snake-slitted eyes was just another abnormality that came with being what he was. He thought of Medreal and the way her luminescent eyes looked in the dark prison cell below his father's castle. She had told him he would learn to control the glow, but she hadn't mentioned how, and he hadn't been in a position to ask. He sipped his tea, grimaced at the bitterness, and turned his thoughts to another question instead. “Why do they glow?”

  “Why, because of your power, of course.” Filadiel chuckled, as if answering a silly question posed by a child. Then he tasted his tea and flinched. “Oh, that is awful, isn't it? Well, that's what I get for trying to make it by myself. Have you ever paid attention to how many flows of energy course through you at any given time?”

  Rune shook his head and took another sip of tea. Bitter or not, at least it was warm. “There are too many to keep track.”

  Filadiel grinned. “Precisely! You see, free mages don't call for magic. Magic calls to us. It seeks us, thousands of threads of energy flowing through us at any given time. It's power that wants to be touched, wants to be used. The reflection of that is the glow of one's eyes. Until they learn to hold the energy at bay, that is.”

  “Why would you want to hold the energy at bay?” The explanation was a stark contrast to the lessons in magecraft Firal had given him, and Rune's brow furrowed as he tried to understand. She had to reach for power, often expending much of her own strength in trying to grasp it.

  “Several reasons, I suppose. The largest being privacy. Powerful emotions can affect what energies are attracted to you and how you express them. If left unchecked, these feelings betray themselves by altering the color one's eyes glow.”

  “Like turning them red?” Rune asked.

  Filadiel choked on his tea.

  Rune shifted uncomfortably. “What? What does red mean?”

  Clearing his throat, Filadiel put down his cup. “In your culture or mine?”

  “Yours.”

  “Oh. That would make sense, I suppose I couldn't answer questions about your own culture. Ah, well, I suppose I ought to explain that the colors can also be affected by your perceptions. A greenish glow, for example, is an expression of happiness among my people, while I believe human cultures associate the color green with other, less pleasant emotions. And then of course, red is, for my people... well, lust. In any case, since you've not been brought up in Aldaanan culture, we may want to curtail that light in your eyes for propriety's sake, hmm?” Filadiel smiled, though he was obviously flustered.

  “I see,” Rune murmured. He stared at his tea for a time before he spoke again. “Have you ever trained any mages from outside Aldaanan culture?”

  Filadiel's tall ears twitched. “No. We never have. There's never been a free mage outside of our people, though we knew it was possible one could be born after the magic of the Eldani was bound. Unlikely, but possible.”

  Everything Filadiel said only raised more questions. Rune frowned. He didn't think his inquiries bothered the man; if they did, he certainly didn't show it. But asking so many made him feel like a clueless child. It was worse than taking lessons from the mages in Kirban Temple, where they expected students to arrive knowing nothing. This was personal, focused on the unfathomable power he'd struggled to contain and control for his entire life. It felt like he should know more about it. Instead, he knew almost nothing.

  “Why is the magic of other mages bound by affinity?” he asked at last.

  The question seemed to surprise Filadiel, who blinked a moment and then tilted his head, boggled. “To keep them from using their power, of course. Why else would we have bound it?”

  Rune shook his head. He knew he'd heard right, he just didn't understand. “You bound it?”

  Filadiel's face grew grim. “Yes, and there are some among us who wish we'd bound it off completely, instead of just limiting other mages to their affinities. They worry that access to any magic at all gives them room for more corruption, more atrocities. Sometimes I fear they may be right. But what's done is done, and all we can do is wait for bound magic to fade from existence. It grows weaker all the time, the distance between new mages and the blood of our people growing greater with each passing year. Being born with free magic makes you quite the anomaly, my friend.” The mage offered a smile that was rife with pity. “And we can see the effect it's had.”

  Self-conscious, Rune put down his half-empty teacup and rested his hands on his thighs beneath the low table. “There's so much I want to know,” he sighed. “I don't even know where to start. Everything we discuss reveals something else I don't understand. Your culture, your origins, how free magic is different from everything I've learned—”

  “You've been taught to use magic from a bound perspective?” Filadiel interrupted.

  Rune hesitated.

  “Show me,” the Aldaanan councilor insisted. “Show me something you've learned.”

  For a moment, Rune wasn
't sure what to do. There were a dozen things he could try. His brow furrowed as he ran through them in his head. Something simple was probably best. He scanned the table for something to use before he remembered the runestone in his pocket. He pulled it out and turned it over in his palm, studying the etched front that matched the scar in his hand. Now that he looked at the stone, he realized he didn't know why he'd taken to carrying it. He was just drawn to it, fascinated by the symbol he'd never seen anywhere but the back of his hand. It had been the first stone he'd noticed in Redoram's set of stones, the first stone he'd taken to start his own collection. It had felt like seizing his life, taking full control for the first time.

  Rune held the game piece out where Filadiel could see. The stone began to glow as he poured energy into it to make a mage-light. He realized a moment later that creating a light had been his first lesson with Firal, as well.

  “Oh dear,” Filadiel muttered, rubbing his forehead. Lines of worry formed beneath his fingertips and he sighed. “Terrible. Terrible! That's all wrong. I didn't expect that at all.”

  The mage-light faded. Confused, Rune curled his clawed fingers around the stone. “What did I do wrong? I did just what I was shown, and—”

  Filadiel raised his hands defensively. “Oh no, no, not you. It isn't your fault, I apologize if I made you think that. Yes, what you did would be perfect if your magic were bound, but it isn't. Bound magic is a dreadful thing. It forces people to work differently, expend more of their own energy. When a free mage works magic, they shouldn't use any of their strength at all.”

  “Then how am I supposed to do anything?” Rune asked, his brow furrowed with frustration.

  “Simple.” Filadiel smiled, taking a spoon from the table and laying it flat on his upraised palm. “Remember, the flows of energy want to work for you. If you want them to do something, all you have to do is ask.”