The Silvered Serpents

by Roshani Chokshi

  He opened his eyes, reached into his pocket, and drew out Tristan’s knife. The blade shimmering with the muted glitter of Goliath’s venom. As he turned it, the scar on his palm gleamed. Even in the dark, he could make out the faint network of his veins, and the outline of the blood running within it.

  You’re only human, Séverin.

  Therein lay the irony.

  He didn’t have to be.

  To be a god, Séverin had to divorce himself from all that made him human. All his regret and, even, all his love. Sometimes to love meant to hurt. And he would be a loving god. Séverin looked up to the matriarch and felt as if that numbing ice had once more wrapped around his heart.

  “I’ve made my choice.”

  34

  ENRIQUE

  Enrique’s ear—or what had been his ear—throbbed with pain. He breathed slowly through his nose, trying to ignore the wet slick of blood dripping down his neck and focusing, instead, on the slender moon of the ice grotto. With every passing second, it thinned. Ten minutes had nearly passed, and still Ruslan kept turning the knife. Beneath them, the packed ice floor of the grotto began to splinter. Threads of water wept from the cracks. Enrique tried to speak, but the rough gag in his mouth held fast. Every part of him screamed that this was the end. He would die here, in this cold place that smelled of salt and metal, not at all like the sunshine-steeped earth of the Philippines.

  And it was all his fault.

  How fitting, he thought through the fog of pain, that Ruslan would take his ear. It was his own craving to be listened to that made him share the very information that damned them all. Ruslan had seen the weakness inside him and sharpened it to a weapon. Over and over, he replayed what Ruslan had said when he dragged them to the grotto. He’d secured the gag, humming to himself. And then he’d gripped Enrique’s face, pressing their foreheads together.

  “Thank you, my friend, for trusting me,” Ruslan had said. “You know, I’ve always thought that I was meant to find The Divine Lyrics … but I now believe I needed you. And I understand with my whole heart that what I’m doing seems cruel … but I think you understand. It’s all in service to the knowledge, is it not?”

  True regret shone in his eyes.

  “I wish, in war, there were no need for casualties,” he said. “And yet, no one is truly safe. When the devil waged war in the heavens, even angels had to fall.”

  Now, the floor of the ice grotto trembled once more. The leviathan was slowly becoming unmoored. One of the tethers had broken loose, and the other—hooked around a mechanical gill—trembled. Its tail whipped against the underside of the floor, throwing Enrique to his side. His vision blurred for a moment, but he heard everything.

  “Cousin,” said Eva. “We should take this conversation to a different room.”

  Ruslan tapped the flat of his knife against his mouth, then closed his eyes.

  “No,” he said. “I’m waiting. Two minutes left, Laila.”

  “We could all die,” said Eva.

  “If we die here in pursuit of godhood, then I’ll take the divine lyre to the bottom of the lake. I can live with that.” Ruslan called out, “Where is Séverin? Why is it taking so long to find him?”

  Enrique craned his neck. He could sense Zofia beside him, silent and unwavering. She stood straight-backed, her candlelight hair shining bright as a corona. Her eyes looked unfocused, hollow. The sight of her—so defeated—jolted him from grief.

  Even though the minutes were sliding to nothing, even though he felt horror climbing up his throat … all he wanted was one moment to talk to her. They couldn’t save the world. They couldn’t save their friends. They couldn’t save themselves. But he could tell her he was proud to know her, proud that he’d seen her wield a flaming sword and jump off the back of an ice stag. And if he could just tell her all the ways he knew they’d tried … it would have been enough.

  “The last minute is up,” sighed Ruslan.

  Enrique tensed, expecting Ruslan to take his other ear or, worse, his very life. Beside him, Zofia closed her eyes. Enrique wanted to tell her not to worry, that everything would be fine, to keep her eyes closed. Ruslan took another step. Enrique braced himself. The pain in his ear was nothing more than a dull pressure. He could take it.

  But then Ruslan stepped toward Zofia. The world slowed. No. No. Not her. Enrique thrashed, trying to get out of his bindings. His bound hands robbed his balance. Every time he tried to right himself, he failed and fell against the ice. He looked to Zofia, praying that her eyes had stayed shut … but they were open. Open and fixed on him, that blue-as-candle-hearts gaze scalding him like a flame.

  “Please, you have to believe me!” shouted Laila.

  “Believe? I have so much belief, my dear,” said Ruslan. “That’s why I do not hesitate in what I do.”

  He stroked the sides of the ancient lyre, attempting to pluck its dull strings for the thousandth time.

  Enrique wanted to scream. He wanted to scream so badly that when he heard a loud, shattering sound, he thought, for a moment, that it had come from deep within his soul. He looked up and saw that something inside the leviathan moved. A figure appeared. Séverin.

  In spite of himself … in spite of how it broke something inside him to know that Séverin had destroyed his chances with the Ilustrados … he felt relief. When things fell apart, Séverin put them together. When they didn’t know how to see what was in front of them, Séverin adjusted their focus. He would fix this. He had to fix this because no matter how much he’d changed … he was their Séverin.

  Séverin stepped out of the leviathan’s mouth, his face grim, the moth Mnemo on his lapel fluttering its stained glass wings. The moment his foot touched the ice, the leviathan wrested free of the last tether and sank into the waves. The last thing Enrique saw was the blue water lapping over its bulging, glass eye.

  “You have the wrong person,” said Séverin, staring at Ruslan.

  “I thought you were unconscious somewhere,” said Ruslan curiously. “Wherever did you come from?”

  “The belly of the devil,” said Séverin.

  Ruslan took one step back from Zofia, and Enrique’s heart rate eased.

  “Sounds spacious,” said Ruslan. “And very intriguing, but I’m more curious about why you think I have the wrong person? Laila has a touch unlike anyone else. I’m sure you’d agree.”

  Séverin’s face darkened.

  “She is a descendant of the Lost Muses—”

  “She’s not,” said Séverin. “I am.”

  Enrique went still. What?

  Ruslan stared at him, then started laughing. “You?”

  “What do you see when you look at that lyre in your hand, Ruslan?” asked Séverin. “Do you see dull, metal strings? Because I don’t. I see a song waiting for my hands. I see the guide to a temple where the lyre must be played if you want its true power. Otherwise, it’s useless to you.”

  A hungry expression flickered across Ruslan’s face. “Prove it.”

  Séverin reached for the Mnemo bug on his lapel and slashed the sharp end of the pin across his palm. Out the corner of Enrique’s vision, he saw Laila strain forward, her eyes round with hope. Ruslan held out the lyre, and Séverin smeared his hand across the strings. Enrique held his breath. For a moment, nothing happened. And then, he heard a low sound. He couldn’t say where it came from … some pocket of his soul or a corner of his mind. But if there had ever been a Music of the Spheres, a hymn that moved celestial bodies, it was this. A sound like winter wind shuffling icicles on branches, the mournful song of swans at dusk, the groan of the earth turning. He felt it sear through his bones, expand in his heart … a song woven into a thread that wound through his whole being.

  But only for an instant.

  Near the wall, Laila let out a cry and slumped forward. When she raised her head, blood trickled from her nose. Around them, pieces of the wall broke off, crashing into the ice. Ice sculptures, once moving, now froze. The projectile podiums went fro
m glowing to muted and dull.

  Everything Forged was failing.

  Enrique forced his gaze to the lyre … there, the once dull and metallic strings shone iridescent. At least, Enrique thought it was iridescence. It was a sheen the likes of which he’d never seen. Something like the cross between a spill of oil on the surface of a pond and the ocean backlit by the sun.

  “Amazing,” said Ruslan. He tilted his head as he looked at Séverin. “How?”

  And then he paused.

  “Your mother,” he said softly. “The woman from Algeria … I remember tales of her. And her name … Kahina. I wonder if the old patriarch of House Vanth knew what a treasure he’d managed to smuggle out of that country.” He smiled, and then looked eagerly at the lyre. “Well, don’t hold us in suspense any longer! Don’t just pluck a string, play the thing!”

  Enrique thrashed again on the ice, trying to catch Séverin’s attention. No! Don’t do it.

  Laila spoke, her voice breaking. “Please, Séverin … please. I need you to play it. I … I’m dying—”

  “I know,” he said, cutting her off.

  The ice in his voice would’ve frozen the room over.

  When he said nothing else, Laila flinched. Her mouth opened, closed. Enrique watched the horror settling behind her eyes, and he wanted to tell her … no. Not that. He wanted Séverin to tell her that the lyre destroyed all that was Forged. That there was a reason behind this pain.

  “Please,” she said.

  “Yes, please, Séverin,” said Ruslan, like a child. “Play it.”

  Séverin looked at Laila, his expression utterly blank, and then he turned to Ruslan.

  “No.”

  Laila hung her head, her hair curtaining her face, and Enrique—even as relief surged through him—felt his heart ache.

  “I won’t play it here and risk my own chance at godhood,” said Séverin with a cruel smile. “You need me, so I suggest you follow my rules.”

  “Play it,” insisted Ruslan. “Or…” His gaze slid to Enrique and Zofia. “Or I’ll kill them.”

  Enrique’s pulse turned jagged. If he played it for them, Laila would die. If he didn’t play it, all three of them would die. But however much he struggled with his thoughts, Séverin seemed collected.

  “I’ll save you the trouble.”

  Séverin moved swiftly. His face was blank and cold, and Enrique thought he had never seen such empty determination in someone’s eyes. Enrique struggled against his bindings as Séverin crossed the room, standing before Zofia. She flinched back as he grabbed the nape of her neck. Something red glinted on his hand. And then, impossibly, Séverin’s dagger went to her heart.

  Zofia’s heart.

  The same heart that offered so much without hesitation. A heart full of bravery. Full of fire.

  Enrique blinked. He had to be wrong. Maybe he’d lost so much blood, he couldn’t see straight … but no. Séverin stood so close to Zofia that he might have been whispering in her ear. Not that Zofia would see. Her eyes widened, her body slumping forward as she went utterly still. Séverin’s hands were cherry red. Laila let out a scream, just as Séverin turned to him with that same knife. His eyes held no humanity, but something older. Something feral.

  Séverin moved closer. Enrique’s heartbeat thundered so loud in his ears that he almost didn’t realize Séverin was speaking. When he finally heard him, it made no sense.

  “I wish my love was more beautiful.”

  I don’t understand, Enrique wanted to say.

  But Séverin didn’t give him the chance.

  35

  LAILA

  Laila did not trust her body.

  It had failed her by not lasting long enough. It had failed her by filling her soul with the wingbeats of false hope. It had failed her now by showing her something that could not be real. Each blink of her eyes, each beat of her heart rendered what she saw more sharply until she could not ignore her own senses.

  Séverin had killed Zofia.

  Séverin had walked to her, his gait unchanging, purposeful. He looked down at Zofia, and Laila wished she had not seen her friend’s face. She wished she hadn’t seen her blue eyes widening, hope glossing her gaze.

  How many times had they done this? How many times had Séverin swept in at the last moment … and freed them?

  Hope squeezed through the cracks of logic. There was a moment—bright and suspended—where Séverin bent down, as if to whisper in Zofia’s ear, and Laila thought all might still be well. She could not see her hope for what it was, nothing more than a silvered serpent.

  “No!” she called out.

  But it changed nothing. Zofia slumped to the ground, beside Enrique who squirmed and kicked out against the ice as Séverin turned to him. Then he too went still.

  Gone.

  They were both gone.

  And for some reason, she was still here. The wrongness slanted through her heart. She was not supposed to outlive them. She thought about her mother on the day she died. For two days before her death, Laila had clutched her mother’s hand so tightly, she was convinced her soul wouldn’t be able to find its way out of the body. In that time, her father’s grief became a land of exile. One that, perhaps, he never left. Maybe that was why he knelt at his wife’s bed when he thought their daughter had gone to sleep. Maybe that was why he said: I keep praying they will take her instead of you.

  Her mother had shushed him for saying such things: I would never wish for the pain to outlive the ones I love. Even in this, I can find God’s blessing.

  To outlive the ones she loved.

  She had not considered such a thing to be a curse until now. Though how long that existence would last, she could not say.

  Laila had always wanted her last sight to be beautiful—and he was. He was moving darkness, and he was all she could see. Séverin walked toward her, rubbing his thumb across his mouth. Laila zeroed in on that mouth, the same one that had spoken such truths and whispered her name as if it were an invocation meant to save him. The same one that had just condemned her to death.

  I’m dying—

  I know.

  Such words held all the finality of a thrust blade. He knew. He knew, and he didn’t care. Laila wanted to believe she had dreamt up all of the last hours’ tenderness—his kiss, his smile, his body curling around hers in sleep. But then, peeking out over the collar of his shirt, Laila glimpsed the evidence of last night: a smudge of her lip rouge. Wrong wrong wrong. How could she have been so wrong?

  “Laila—” started Eva, looking stricken. “I never … I thought—”

  Laila tuned her out.

  “I take it killing her won’t make you play the lyre either, will it?” asked Ruslan.

  “No,” said Séverin. “She’ll die soon anyway, and my knife is too slippery. I’d like to get moving before dark. I am sure we have a ways to travel.”

  Ruslan nodded. He reached for the lyre on the ground. The strings still shimmered from Séverin’s blood, but the light in them had dulled. Laila stared after it. Her body had failed her once more, for while it might look like a member of the Lost Muses … that too had been a lie.

  “Goodbye, Laila,” said Ruslan, waving sadly. “You might not be a true muse, but you will live on as inspiration to me.”

  He blew her a kiss and then glanced to Eva.

  “Knock her out.”

  * * *

  HOURS LATER, LAILA WOKE UP sprawled out on the ice.

  Beside her, she caught the faintest stirring of colorful wings. She blinked, her senses slowly flowing back into her as she saw what lay beside her head: a Mnemo bug and a single diamond pendant from the necklace Séverin had given her.

  Laila touched her throat. The rest of her choker was gone. Maybe Eva had taken it, ripped it off her like some prize. Laila wished her throat didn’t feel so bare. She wished she didn’t recognize that Mnemo bug lying on the ice. Once, it had been on Séverin’s lapel. Laila stared at the thing, her hand twitching to reach for it, but sh
e refused. This had always been the risk. That she should offer her heart, only to be told it wasn’t as precious as she had thought it to be. The last thing she wanted to see was the moment when Séverin had come to that realization himself.

  Across from her, Laila saw the broken forms of Enrique and Zofia. They almost looked asleep, if it hadn’t been for the red seeping into the ice beneath them. And Hypnos … where was he? What had Séverin done to him? Laila pinched her nose, feeling sick. When she looked at them, she was reminded of every moment they had spent in L’Eden. Every moment they had sat beside her in the kitchens. When she closed her eyes, she could almost smell those memories, fresh bread and—unmistakable to her wrung out senses—the tang of raspberry jam.

  It was this scent, biting and sweet, that made her reach for the Mnemo butterfly. Its colorful wings burned with Séverin’s memories. She held that knowledge lightly in her palm for a few seconds. And then, in one swift movement, Laila dashed it against the floor. The images in its wings rose up like smoke. Whatever memories the moth held soaked into the ice and vanished, leaving Laila alone in the frigid Sleeping Palace. Around her, the icicles chimed and the ceiling quivered so that a light snow sifted to the ground, and Laila thought of Snegurochka. She wished she were like her, a girl whose very heart could thaw and unmake her on the spot. Perhaps if she had been a girl made of gathered snow, she would be nothing but a puddle of water. But she was not. She was bones and pelt, and though every part of her felt broken, she wrapped her arms around her knees as if it might hold her together.

  36

  SÉVERIN

  Séverin Montagnet-Alarie knew there was only one difference between monsters and gods. Both inspired fear. Only one inspired worship.

  Séverin sympathized with monsters. As he walked out onto the hard ice of Lake Baikal, his heart humming, his body numb … he understood that perhaps monsters were misunderstood gods; deities with plans too grand for humans; a phantom of evil that drank from the roots of good.