by Beth Alvarez
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to real people or events is entirely coincidental.
SERPENT’S TEARS
Copyright © 2020 by Beth Alvarez
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Beth Alvarez
Edited by Savannah Grace Perran
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Edition: May 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-952145-04-9
Serpent’s Tears
Book Two of the Snakesblood Saga
Beth Alvarez
Contents
1. Setbacks
2. Dismissal
3. Secession
4. A Place To Belong
5. Core
6. Homemaking
7. Dissent
8. Doubts
9. Fracture
10. Roles
11. No Exceptions
12. Nothing More
13. Business
14. Celebrations
15. Unmasked
16. Known
17. Returns
18. Severance
19. Truth
20. By Blessing Of Brant
21. New Foundations
22. The Price Of Poison
23. Duel
24. War
25. Vengeance
26. Worth Fighting For
27. Escapes And Exiles
28. New Life
29. A Name
Author’s note
About the Author
Books by Beth Alvarez
1
Setbacks
Ash still smoldered in the temple.
Heaps of ruined furniture and books sat in the courtyard, mages clustered around them to supervise their destruction. Firal tried not to linger, though the gilded lettering on the scorched spines of records still called to her. She struggled to shut out the worry that came with seeing them on the piles waiting to be burned. It seemed a waste, though she knew there was nothing left to salvage from the piles now. The magelings had worked to the point of exhaustion on a daily basis, scouring Kirban Temple for anything that could be saved after fire ravaged the grounds. In the wake of the disaster, destroying the rubble that remained with more fire seemed tasteless, but she knew there was no other choice.
No matter how she reminded herself she'd chosen to move on, the loss of the records still stung. Firal had spent so much of her life chasing her parents' ghosts that moving on without finding them seemed an impossible feat. But the records had been her last hope of finding them; that dream, along with the temple's library, was ash—and she only had herself to blame.
Her friends had been quiet, sheltering her secret, but she saw their furtive glances and caught the way their conversations ended when she drew near.
Fat plumes of dark smoke wafted to the sky as the remnants of the library were disposed of. She swallowed and made herself move on. The infirmary waited, and it was one of few places where she could make a difference.
The temple had suffered, but a few sections were well on the way to recovery. The infirmary had been one of the first areas cleaned, and the box of supplies in her arms had survived in one of the undamaged storerooms.
A handful of workers stood outside the infirmary, marking measurements for a new roof on large sheets of parchment. Canvas had been drawn over the top of the building to form a temporary shelter, and magelings came and went with boxes in tow. Shymin—Firal's classmate and one of her dearest friends—stepped from the open doorway with an empty box dangling from her fingertips, but she offered no more than a smile before hurrying on her way.
Firal bowed her head as she slipped inside. Her companions had every right to be angry with her. It was her own selfishness that had ruined things. Her desperation for answers had pushed her to impatience, drove her to seek aid from their enemies—from Daemon.
After their time traversing the ruins outside the temple, it hurt to think of Daemon as an enemy. Firal couldn't bring herself to think of him as a friend, but he'd been an ally.
Yet a true ally would not have set men upon the temple, or destroyed her home with the very power he'd begged her to teach him. Resentment stuck in her throat and she used it to fuel her determination. She thumped dark glass bottles of tinctures and medicines onto the new shelves erected against the sandstone walls, turning all of them so the new labels were meticulously aligned.
She'd been a fool. Foolish to think her path would be easy and foolish to trust an Underling.
“You seem angry.” Vahn swept into the empty space beside her, another box of supplies in his arms. He flashed her a grin and tilted the box to offer its contents for her approval.
Firal finished stocking her own bottles first, then removed one from his box to inspect. “Not angry. Disappointed, perhaps. You've seen the damage. It's such a waste.”
He gave a helpless shrug. “There's nothing we can do about it now. The temple has lost a great deal, but it will recover. It recovered after the first fire, too.”
The first fire. Firal had heard something about it before, but no one was eager to speak of it. After living through Kirban's destruction, herself, she understood why the mages remained tight-lipped, and she suspected her feelings would be raw for some time. Vahn was different, a soldier from the capital city, stationed at the temple to aid its reconstruction and defense. The fires meant nothing to him. She studied him from the corner of her eye. “What do you know about it? The first time the temple burned?”
“Not a lot,” he admitted. “Just what my father told me. He still served as Captain of the Guard when it happened. From my understanding, he feared something like the fire might happen. Well, maybe not fire, exactly, but he always said the temple's lacking defenses would invite problems. But the generals ignored his warnings.”
She put her empty box aside and selected another pair of bottles from the one he held. “When did it happen?”
“Not long after the founding. It came after some sort of dispute, but he never said more than that.” Vahn's head turned when another mageling entered. His face fell when it wasn't the one he'd hoped for.
Firal couldn't help but smile. “You're looking for Kytenia. She'll be back before long.”
His eyes widened and a hint of a flush crept up his neck. “I wasn't looking for—I mean—”
“No?” She tapped the corks of bottles in the box as she counted them. More than she had space for. She turned back to the shelf and rearranged the bottles she'd already aligned to make more room. “She'd be disappointed.”
“You think so?” he replied, a little too fast. The redness stole into his cheeks.
Firal felt a twinge of shame. “Goodness. I didn't think it was that serious.” She hadn't meant to tease him that severely. Vahn was a shameless flirt, but it seemed his own sensitivities lurked nearby.
“No, I... I appreciate candor, if you're serious. I enjoyed her company at the solstice ball.” He averted his eyes. “I enjoyed it a great deal.”
“And yet Ran was the first person you asked after when you arrived at the temple,” she said.
He rolled his eyes. “For entirely different reasons, I promise you.”
“Oh, no, I understand.” She cast a glance over her shoulder and then lowered her voice, mindful not to be overheard. “He's gone to great lengths to hide his position and his father's identity. I imagine he makes an effort to be unknown most place
s. Though I suppose it will be harder to scrape by unnoticed now that he's in Master white.”
Vahn almost dropped the box. “White? Ran? You can't be serious!”
She arched a brow. “You mean to say you haven't seen him? He's been parading around in white robes since we returned from Ilmenhith.”
“I thought it was gray! A Master? But he can't even...” A look of consternation drifted over his face and he thrust the box of bottles into her hands. “Hold this. I need to go.”
The box was heavier than Firal expected and she squeaked when the weight jerked her downward. “Wait, what do you mean he can't? Can't what?”
“I'm sorry, I've got to go!” He waved a farewell and rushed for the door, narrowly missing a collision with a mageling.
Firal's eyes narrowed. She eased the box to the floor and straightened as she wiped her brow. Would that she was a Master, herself. The rank would have more benefits than just letting her teach. It would give her information, and she was getting tired of all these secrets.
Setback was not the term Daemon wanted to apply to the situation. It was a disaster. The biggest failure he'd ever experienced. It had torched all hopes of progress and left him farther behind than when he'd started. But setback was a gentle term, one his men would accept. It implied he had control, that he'd already planned a way forward. If only he had.
Daemon buried his face in his scaly hands and rubbed as if he could scrub away his frustrations. The privacy of his quarters was the only place he dared shed his mask. With the burden that weighed on him now, he was grateful for whatever freedom he could gain.
A half-dozen reports lay spread across his desk. None were good news. He'd read each of them twice and still hadn't decided how to respond. Food was the most pressing concern; he'd have to address that first. Agriculture was difficult in the concentric rings of the ruins and while their raids had supplemented their stores for a time, he'd always known they were not a viable long-term option. On the heels of the temple's destruction, raids were not an option at all.
But food, at least, was a problem he'd already devoted thought to. He'd laid enough groundwork to make a difference. They would simply have to reach north to bolster their supply, take care to avoid places where news of the temple may have spread. If they moved fast enough, the trade routes he hoped to create would be established before word of what his queen had done reached the remote areas of the island.
Lumia was a problem, herself. Daemon pressed his fingers against his eyes, mindful of his claws. The rune-shaped scar that decorated his hand tingled as if in acknowledgement of the queen. He'd sworn himself to her service, but his tolerance for her temper had worn thin. They were supposed to be working together for the benefit of the ruin-folk, pushing to claim space on the island's surface and eliminate fears of famine. Once he had his power in hand, not even the mages in Kirban could hope to stand against him.
He'd adhered to his half of the plan, struggling to gain control of his wild magic so he could defend them from opposition. She, on the other hand, had shattered his hopes of progress. He shouldn't have been surprised. Lumia's loathing for the temple ran deep, and he had to accept that the teacher he'd found—short lived as their cooperation was—had been a temple mage, herself. All their knowledge had been at his fingertips.
Then the temple burned.
Growling in frustration, Daemon reached for his mask. It was a setback, he decided; nothing more. His plans had failed, but he had no time to sulk over what should have been.
His people were starving.
2
Dismissal
Though Ran had worn them for more than a week, the white robes that marked him as a Master mage still startled him every time he looked down. The fabric caught on a stack of books and he brushed it loose. The material snagged on his rough hands as badly as it caught on everything else. He'd gotten hung up on the corners of every object between the tower's ground floor and the top, where the Archmage's office waited. The robes were too long, he decided. He'd grown used to wearing them knee-length, but he suspected his position as a court mage would allow him to wear a tunic instead. It wasn't as if anyone other than mages wore white, after all. The robes swished around his legs as he moved on. The Archmage's door was just ahead. He rapped twice before he let himself in.
“What is it now?” the Archmage snarled at the creak of the hinges. Books and artifacts piled on her desk hid her slight figure from sight.
“Not quite the greeting I expected.” The path from door to desk was barely wide enough to walk through. Ran struggled to follow it without overturning anything.
Envesi thrust herself from her chair and glared over the clutter. “You thought I'd be happy to see you? This mess still isn't cleaned up, hundreds of artifacts were destroyed in the fire, and with Kifel's men underfoot, I'll never get anything done.” Small as she was, little more than her snowy hair and icy blue eyes were visible. Though her glower was meant to be intimidating, Ran found it hard not to laugh. But the Archmage's position demanded respect, and he did his best to give it. He'd come for assistance. Mockery would not help.
“I never would have thought you'd be displeased to have an army at your disposal.” He glanced down as a book snagged on his robes and tumbled from a stack at his feet. He picked it up and paged through it. It was written in a language he didn't recognize, the lettering sharp and angular. He put it back with a frown. “Alira sent word by messenger pigeon. She will return by morning, with an ambassador from Relythes following to make arrangements. I imagine you're going to need my father's soldiers out of your hair before an ambassador from the Giftless king arrives.”
The Archmage grew still, and her pale blue eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”
“In return for what?” He gave her a hard look, matching the ice in her stare. “Surely you don't think I have a way to move all of Father's men before tomorrow?”
Envesi gritted her teeth and pushed books aside. “Kifel's men don't belong here. He knew what might happen, what your mistakes might bring down on us, and yet he did not send an army until after my temple burned.”
His mistakes. The accusation made his hackles rise, but Ran refused to take the bait she dangled in front of him. There was a little room in front of her desk, just enough space for one small chair. He pulled it back until it hit a crate and then sat down without permission. One corner of her desk poked out from under the mess. He leaned back and propped a boot heel on it, crossed his ankles, and smirked at the look of disdain on her face. “Very well, then.” He clasped his hands together atop his stomach. “If you want them sent back to Ilmenhith, how about this? I see that the soldiers are gone before midday tomorrow, and you take care of a small matter for me in return.”
“I don't have time for your games, Lomithrandel,” the Archmage snapped as she shifted a pile of books from the top of her desk to a towering stack behind it.
“What a shame, a chess match would have been pleasant. Do you still play?” He paused just long enough to stir her temper again. “Maybe you'll have time for a match after Kifel's army receives their orders. They might be sent north before sunrise, I've heard.”
Envesi watched him for a long time before she spoke. “You guarantee they will move before the ambassador arrives?”
“My word should be as good as guarantee.” Ran picked dirt from his fingernails, feigning indifference. “Besides, I thought you were the one pulling the strings. The whole purpose of keeping a leashed pet is to have it do tricks.”
Her mouth drew tight and one fine white brow arched. “A bold change in your opinion. I ask again: What do you want?”
“Nothing extraordinary,” he replied, though his heart pounded. More than once, he'd considered letting go of what had transpired, but irritation still needled beneath his skin. How else was he supposed to protect his interests? Neglecting it would only make things worse. In the Archmage's eyes, his request would mean little. For him, it was peace of mind. “I just ask that you move a ma
geling to another station.”
“I beg your pardon?” The Archmage's face remained stern and unchanged, but her eyes hardened. He wondered if she knew the steely glint gave her away.
“You heard me. Nothing complicated. There is a green mageling here by the name of Firal. I understand she's become something of a troublemaker for the Masters. She has also become aware of my rank and my position within the king's household—knowledge that could make it difficult for me to perform my duties, should it become common around the temple.”
Envesi lifted her chin as she cleared her desk and sank into her chair.
He went on. “I want her out of the way. Preferably a southern chapter house, away from the soldiers who have been stationed here. The only tongue looser than a mageling's is a soldier's.” He shrugged. “Transfer her to another post, send her as apprentice to another Master, I don't care how you do it. Just send her away. Perhaps she could go east. I'm sure the Masters in Quaris could use a new assistant.”
Envesi regarded him thoughtfully. She leaned forward to rest her elbows on her desk. “A simple request. Consider it done.”
“Then consider those men moved.” Ran stood, righting his robes and brushing dirt from her desk. “If you'll excuse me, I must return to Ilmenhith.” He dipped in an insincere bow and turned to leave without regard for the books that toppled in his wake.
He hadn't expected the Archmage to agree so easily, but perhaps he'd underestimated her desperation. Still, he was aware of the cold smile that pulled at the corners of her mouth, the weight of her eyes heavy on him as he departed.