The Silvered Serpents

by Roshani Chokshi

  Zofia looked down at her hands. Her veins still vibrated with the memory of power, and she hated that she could not use any of it now. Slowly, she lowered her fists.

  “Very good,” said the doctor. “Thank you for doing that, Zofia. I’ve never found violence to be the answer.”

  His voice …

  There was something about it she recognized. And how did he know her name?

  “Now,” said the doctor, as the third man stepped toward her. “I need your help, my dear. You see, my muse needs some inspiration before she can work. I think you, Enrique, and Séverin will help us accomplish that. I hope you will agree.”

  When he stepped forward, Zofia noticed something tucked beneath his arm … something pale and white, bent at a strange angle. It was a hand. Attached to the finger gleamed a huge Ring. And then the doctor lifted up his mask, revealing a pair of kind eyes that she had grown used to, a curving smile that she had often answered with one of her own. For Zofia, it felt like two images that did not fit, and yet her observations could not lie.

  The doctor of the Fallen House was Ruslan.

  He grinned and then waved the hand that had never been his.

  “Rather gruesome, isn’t it?” Ruslan said. “Anyway, I do hope you can all help. After all, friends make incredible sacrifices for one another. And I’ve come to consider you just that.” He smiled wide. “Friends.”

  33

  SÉVERIN

  Séverin woke up with his head pounding and his hands bound. He was propped up against a metal chair in a dark silver room that pulsed. The smell was familiar, the salt rust scent of blood. Light wavered across the ribbed metallic walls. A familiar raised podium cut the center of the room. Séverin blinked. He was inside the metal leviathan. Only it looked different now that it had been stripped of its treasures.

  Séverin tried to inch forward silently, but the slight movement sent a burst of pain through his skull. His head pounded. The last thing he remembered was lunging at a guard, only to be thrown to the floor and knocked unconscious by a sharp kick. The hilt of Tristan’s knife pressed against his ribs, and the sharp tip of the Mnemo moth pinned to his lapel pricked his skin.

  Near-silence filled the room, broken only by the eerie, watery pulse of Lake Baikal sloshing against the metal leviathan. A slight stir to his left caught his attention. Hypnos. Séverin scooted forward. The other boy lay utterly still, and for a wild moment Séverin prayed that time itself had stopped because Hypnos lay far too still. He wanted to be like ice, but there were too many cracks in his armor. The closer he got to Hypnos, the more old memories slithered out from the fissures, scalding him. Séverin remembered the brothers they had been—cut from the shadows and resigned to them; Hypnos’s singing voice; sunlight flooding the false theatre in which they had played at being the wanted sons of pale patriarchs. With his bound hands, he nudged at Hypnos’s body, managing to flip him over. The other boy let out a low growl, curling his hand under his chin as he … sucked his thumb?

  Hypnos was asleep.

  “Wake up,” hissed Séverin.

  The sleeping Hypnos merely scowled harder, but didn’t wake.

  “He’ll be fine,” said another voice emerging from the darkened end of the leviathan. “I got to him before the second round of the blood Forging attack. The ice wine put the Order to sleep, and the blood Forging woke them up … though it won’t let them move for another twelve hours.”

  The matriarch approached them. Her fur coat was clasped at her throat like a cape. But the rest of her attire was trousers and boots. She was the one who had knocked him unconscious. She gestured at her outfit and kicked lightly at a discarded mask on the floor. “Camouflage. I have you and your cohort to thank for the idea.”

  “You’re—you’re not—”

  “Affected by the blood Forged drinks?” she asked. “I’ve thoroughly immunized myself to them.”

  Of course, thought Séverin, her little vials served with her suppers. The matriarch held out a tin of biscuits and a jar of the raspberry-cherry jam he had once loved.

  “You took a bad fall … my apologies. Food will help. Besides, you need to eat before the journey.”

  Journey?

  “Wh-what are you—”

  “Rescuing you,” said the matriarch abruptly. “You have no idea what’s going on up there, do you? Allow me to illuminate the situation.”

  “Free me,” demanded Séverin, raising his chained hands.

  “After you see this,” said the matriarch.

  She gestured to the Mnemo-like screen above the podium and pressed her Babel Ring into the thicket and twist of stone thorns. The silver ceiling above flickered to life.

  Séverin shot to his feet, only for the metal leviathan to lurch, listing heavily to the right and throwing off his balance. He staggered toward the Mnemo screen, which showed the ice grotto above. Enrique and Zofia were bound tightly, cloth stuffed into their mouths to keep them from screaming. Two pairs of Fallen House Sphinx stood on either side of them. But every sight was eclipsed by Laila. When he looked at her, he felt as if someone had grabbed his heart in a tight fist.

  Ruslan gripped her arm, forcing an instrument into her hands.

  Ruslan looked unaltered and unrecognizable in the same instant. An eccentric tilt to his mouth. Laugh lines around his eyes. And yet, his hand was pure gold. Gold as ichor. Gold as godhood.

  Beside him, Eva looked stone-faced. She kept raising her eyes from the floor and staring at the others, her face inscrutable.

  “Read it, my dear,” demanded Ruslan. His smile cracked a little. “Find the right strings that are to be played, and we might all pretend at being gods.”

  Laila’s eyes darted back and forth between Enrique and Zofia.

  “I—don’t—know—how,” she bit out.

  Ruslan’s smile hovered on his lips for an instant … and then he threw her against the ice. Séverin heard her skull thud against the wall. He wanted to rush to his feet, but he couldn’t stand with his hands bound.

  “Don’t lie to me!” roared Ruslan. “I hate that. Do I look like a fool to you?” He paused, taking a deep breath and stretching his neck from side to side. “My father thought so … I’m sure the real patriarch of House Dazbog thought so too, but I killed him, so I can’t ask. I think I’m clever, though. Look what I did! I became the patriarch. I released all his staff and brought in my own. I made sure your troika exploded in Moscow and almost finished the job before I realized that perhaps you could be of more use than I imagined … and, oh, how I imagined.” Ruslan turned to Laila, smiling slowly. “Roux-Joubert whispered of you, my girl. He spoke of a girl who seemed to know things with just a touch. And he was right.”

  Ruslan rubbed his head with his gold hand, then he lowered it, turning it this way and that.

  “So you see, I’m not a fool. Not yet, at least,” he said quietly. “That is the cost of godhood, yes? Your Séverin was quick to recognize the ichor on the floor of the dining room … what I did not tell him was that there is a price to it all. I did not know, then, what it would cost to wield such a thing as the Midas Knife, to change the matter of humans entirely … to make us different.”

  He laughed.

  “The hair goes first!” he said. “An annoying side effect. But the sanity quickly follows, and that’s rather less easy to endure. Unless, of course, one has a permanent solution.”

  Ruslan spun the lyre in his hand, and in the space of a second, he was once more the mild-tempered patriarch of House Dazbog that he had pretended to be.

  “Listen—hush, hush, I apologize for that outburst,” he said, raising Laila to a stand. He stroked her cheek with the back of his golden hand. “It’s important, you understand? I just want the world to be a better place. And I can do that if I had just a touch of God’s power. Remake the world by remaking us. Don’t you wish the world would be different? Don’t you yearn for a day when you might walk freely through the world? Don’t you, Zofia, wish to live without persecution
? And you, Enrique, my sweet revolutionary historian … I know you dream what I dream … a world where people like us are not kept under foot, but restored to a place of equality.” He turned Laila’s chin toward Enrique and Zofia. “So, please. Don’t make me hurt them. I hate doing that. For one, blood gets everywhere, which is so gruesome, positively uncouth”—he flashed a charming smile—“and for a second reason, I like them. I like you.”

  Tears streamed down Laila’s face as she turned her face up to him.

  “Don’t you think I want to read it?” she demanded. Her eyes went to the glowing harp on the floor. “Don’t you think that if I knew what strings to play, I would?” She flailed a hand at the instrument. “That is the only thing that could keep me alive, and it’s useless to me. I can’t move even a single string.”

  Ruslan let go of her face with a sound of disgust. “Again with this story of being”—he fluttered his hands, like waving away a swarm of flies—“made. You’re lying. You’re lying to protect your lineage, and I hate liars.”

  Séverin felt sick as Ruslan paced the floor, gently tapping a knife against the flat of his palm.

  “The instruments of the divine … they have personalities. Like any of us!” said Ruslan. “And the personality of this one enjoys the company of ancient bloodlines rather exclusively. Now. This can be very simple. Play the instrument, and tell me the place that you see.”

  “Place?” repeated Laila wearily.

  Ruslan itched his nose with his golden hand. “Of course there’s a place, my dear! One doesn’t merely strum a harp and become a god. No, no. This must be played somewhere special … in a temple. Played in the right temple—or theatre, if you will—and that lyre unlocks the power of God. Played anywhere else, and the lyre is very vindictive and destructive. Rude little object.”

  Laila’s shoulders sank, and she looked up, not at Ruslan, but Eva.

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t see anything—”

  Eva’s lower lip trembled, but she turned her head.

  Séverin’s gaze went to the lyre. Time seemed to move slower, and he wondered how hard he might have hit his head. He could see the strings glowing. Their delicate filament seemed softly hued, a rainbow glimpsed through an oiled pane of glass.

  Ruslan sighed. “You don’t give me much of a choice.”

  The Sphinx advanced on Enrique and Zofia.

  “No!” Séverin tried to scream, but the matriarch clapped her hand over his mouth.

  “Speak and you’ll kill us all,” she whispered harshly.

  “What will motivate you to use your powers?” asked Ruslan. “I know you have them. I know just what your touch can do, Mademoiselle Laila.”

  Laila began to plead, and Ruslan sighed.

  “Fine, I’ll start with your lover, then,” he said. He turned to one of the Sphinx. “Would you be so kind as to deliver me Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie?”

  The Sphinx left.

  “I imagine that will be an unfortunate surprise,” said Delphine, glancing up at the Mnemo screen. “I was told to throw you in a jail cell and wait with you, but as you can see, we took quite a different route.”

  “Eva, please,” whispered Laila.

  But the other girl did not turn.

  When the other Sphinx returned to the room empty-handed, Ruslan’s smile fell.

  “Gone?”

  The Sphinx nodded.

  “Well then, go find him! And make sure everyone is accounted for! Every matriarch and patriarch, every bloody fool with a ring on their hand. Go find them and make sure they know,” he said. “Make sure they know who did this to them. Oh, and, wait—”

  He paused, turning around to grab something lying on the ice. Séverin’s stomach turned. It was Ruslan’s hand. Or, rather, the hand of the real patriarch of House Dazbog.

  “Slap them in the face with this,” said Ruslan. He started laughing and then turned to Laila and Eva. “Truly? No laughs?”

  Eva looked stricken.

  “Perhaps I’m no dab hand at humor,” said Ruslan, punctuating the word with a shake of the severed hand. “But hear me well, for I mean it, my dear. I’ll even demonstrate on our good friend who wants to be listened to so dearly. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the sentiment more than most.”

  He stalked toward Enrique. Too late, Séverin saw a flash of metal slice through the air. Enrique cried out, blood running down his neck …

  Ruslan had sliced off his ear.

  Laila shrieked, straining against her bonds, but Ruslan ignored her. Enrique fell to the floor, writhing painfully.

  “An ear for an ear? Is that not a phrase?” mused Ruslan, kicking Enrique’s severed ear across the ice. “Pity. Anyway.” He turned to Laila. “You have ten minutes to make your decision. Time starting … now!”

  Séverin jerked back from the matriarch’s hold, catching his breath.

  “We have to go,” said Séverin. “We have to save them.”

  The matriarch watched him sadly. “There’s nothing you can do for them. You cannot rush up the leviathan and free them. The leviathan can barely be held in one place with those broken tethers. Can’t you see I’m saving your lives? We’re leaving right now, through that pod—” she said, gesturing to the podlike device at the narthex. “From there, we can get to Irkutsk, and I can call for help. It leaves just enough time while he fools around thinking that girl has the Lost Muses bloodline.”

  But they could not do that in ten minutes. Which meant that Enrique, Zofia, Laila … all would die.

  “You want me to let her die?” asked Séverin. “But you … you like her.”

  The expression on the matriarch’s face was full of age and sorrow.

  “And I love you,” said Delphine. “I have always loved you, and look at what I still had to do.”

  Love? Séverin hadn’t heard her say that to him in … in years. He couldn’t even mouth the word, it seemed to stick his lips together.

  The matriarch removed her Babel Ring from the pillar, and the Mnemo screen showing Laila, Enrique, and Zofia went blank. And yet Séverin couldn’t unsee the sharp light of those lyre strings, or stop hearing the echo of the way Delphine had said the doctor thinks the girl has the Lost Muses’ bloodlines.

  As if she didn’t just know that Laila didn’t have that bloodline, but as if she already knew who did.

  “Long ago, I made a promise to protect you,” she said. “To take care of you.”

  Séverin wanted to spit in her face. “To take care of me?”

  “Sometimes protection … sometimes love … it demands hard choices. Like the one I am asking of you now. I showed you this so that you would know, and that you might make your own choice … a luxury I myself did not have,” said Delphine. “The Lost Muses bloodline runs in your veins, Séverin.”

  Séverin opened his mouth, closed it. No words came to him, and all he could do was stare numbly at her.

  “All these years, I have kept you safe from the people who would use it against you. Who would use you for their own gain. That’s why I had to keep you from the Order as much as I could. When we performed the inheritance test, your blood could have made those Forged objects snap in half. I had to hide you from yourself.” Delphine swallowed hard, fidgeting with her Babel Ring. When she spoke, her voice was ragged with grief. “But I tried to help as much as I could. When I saw how your first caretaker treated you, I was the one who gave Tristan aconite flowers. I thought Clothilde would mother you, but she was greedy, and the moment I found out, I had you removed from their care. I was your first investor in L’Eden. I fought for you from the sidelines. I mourned living without you every day.”

  Small things clicked in Séverin’s head, but it was like a reed caught up in a river—there was simply not enough traction to let it stand and to wonder. He had the bloodline. He didn’t have the space in his mind to process what that meant, or rather, what it failed to mean. Inheriting his House was a dre
am that had dried up in his soul, replaced with a desire that spanned eternity: a dream of godhood, the memory of invincibility that he had only felt through the Fallen House. All this time, he thought he had failed everyone by failing to find The Divine Lyrics, but the secret to its power lay in his very veins. It made him feel … absolved.

  Around them, the leviathan began to list from side to side again. The sound of metal breaking and churning screeched through the silence. The leviathan was untethering. Soon, it would be fully beneath the lake, its belly full of water.

  “You need to make a choice, Séverin,” said Delphine quickly. “Escape or death.” For a moment, he could say nothing, but then Delphine spoke again, and it was as if she’d peered inside his head. “You make the choice that you can live with. You do not have to like it.”

  She raised a knife and cut through his bindings. His hands were free, and the choice was his.

  Séverin clung to Delphine’s words in a way he had not done since he was a child. He glanced beside him to the sleeping Hypnos, and then to the silver ceiling where Laila stood with her head bowed, Enrique lay limply on his side, and Zofia stared numbly at the ice, tears streaking her cheeks. He wanted to protect them. He wanted to make impossible amends. He wanted to be a god.

  What he had not considered was how a god acted, and this was his first taste—the bitter calculus of decision. Gods made choices. Gods burned cities and spared a child. Gods put gold in the palms of the wicked and left that miserable currency of hope in the hearts of the good. He could spare three and sacrifice one, and perhaps—by number alone—it held its own bloody logic. Laila would die if the lyre was played. Laila would die if the lyre was not played.

  He closed his eyes.

  When he breathed, he did not catch that scent of the leviathan’s metal bones or the tang of raspberry-cherry jam. His lungs filled with her. Roses and sugar, the burnished silk of her skin, the force of her smile … powerful enough to alter the course of deep-rooted dreams.