Lisa Smedman: Viper's Kiss

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and saw Marasa staring down at him. Her face was deeply lined and streaked with tears; her hair seemed even grayer than it had been before. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t realize….”

Arvin looked up at her through tear-blurred eyes. “Karrell was still alive when she went into the Abyss. Is there any way she could still be—”

Marasa shook her head grimly. “No. She would never survive.”

Arvin’s shoulders slumped.

“She was pregnant,” he whispered, “with my child.” He shook his head and corrected himself. “With my children. They’re all….” His throat caught, preventing him from speaking further.

Marasa nodded but seemed too weary to offer any further comfort. Her hand fell away from his shoulder.

Outside, the skies darkened and a wet snow began to fall. A chill wind blew flakes of white in through the shattered window. A shard of blue—all that remained of Helm’s eye—fell to the floor like a tear and broke, tinkling.

Arvin spotted Karrell’s ring, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Two severed fingers lay next to it. He picked the ring up and wiped it clean on his shirt, then stared for a long moment at the turquoise stone. Then he pressed the ring to his lips. “Forgive me,” he whispered.

He slipped the ring onto the little finger of his left hand then clenched his hand shut, savoring the pain of his abbreviated little finger.

Karrell was dead.

So was Glisena.

Arvin had failed them both.

But Sibyl was still alive. And if she managed to get her hands on the second half of the Circled Serpent, many more would die.

He stared down at the ring on his finger. “I’ll do it,” he vowed. “Finish what you started. See to it that Sibyl never gets a chance to use the Circled Serpent.”

In the darkening skies outside, thunder rumbled.

Arvin stood near the stern of the ship, watching the shoreline of Sespech fall away behind. Already the square buildings of Mimph were no more than tiny squares on the horizon, their lights slowly fading. The waters of the Vilhon Reach were as dark as the overcast evening sky above, a perfect counterpoint to his grim mood.

Seven days had passed since Karrell had disappeared into the Abyss. His eyes still teared whenever he thought of her. Her life had entwined with his only briefly, yet he still felt frayed by her loss. He thought back to what she’d told him on the day he’d discovered she was a yuan-ti. After they’d made love, she’d told him more about the beliefs of her religion. Every person’s life was a maze, hedged with pain, disappointment, suffering, and self-doubt, she’d said. To find one’s way through this jungle, one had to keep one’s eyes on the “true path”—the course the gods had cleared for one through the thorny undergrowth.

Arvin had joked that he still hadn’t found his true path—that he kept fumbling his way from one near-disaster to the next. Karrell had just smiled and told him he would find it, one day, by following his heart.

Arvin sighed. He had followed his heart—to Karrell—only to lose her.

On the day she disappeared—and every day after that—he’d tried to contact her with his lapis lazuli, but she’d never answered.

She was dead. And it was his fault.

He touched the chunk of crystal at his throat, wishing the gods had taken him instead. “Nine lives,” he muttered.

He’d never thought of his continued survival as a curse before.

He watched as Mimph sank from sight, its lights seemingly extinguished by the cold waters of the Vilhon Reach. In distant Ormpetarr, a grieving Foesmasher would be mourning the loss of his daughter. Marasa had tried to summon Glisena’s soul back to her dead body—that was what had taken Marasa so long to reach the chapel—but her attempt to resurrect the baron’s daughter had been in vain. Glisena’s death had been magical in nature, and irreversible—the contingency that allowed the binding to end and the demon to assume its full size.

At least Foesmasher still had his grandchild. He’d reacted amazingly well to the news that Belinna was carrying it. Instead of denouncing the “serpent,” he’d begun to weep. “It’s all I have left of her now,” he’d moaned. Then, wiping away his tears, he’d summoned Belinna to his council chamber. Belinna, forewarned by Arvin that the child in her womb was not only half yuan-ti, but of royal blood, had responded hesitantly to the summons. That hesitancy had turned to amazement and joy when the baron announced she would be elevated to the position of royal nursemaid. That her child would, from the moment it was born, have everything it needed—as would she and her husband.

Despite his daughter’s death, Foesmasher had also been generous to Arvin—very generous. With his coin pouch filled with gems and coins, Arvin would have no difficulty making a new life for himself anywhere he chose. But that could wait. For the moment, there were more pressing matters he had to attend to.

As for Naneth, there had been no sign of the midwife, despite the baron’s soldiers having searched every corner of Ormpetarr. Arvin wondered where she was. Or rather, where the mind seed was that, even now, would be taking over her body. The seed would, no doubt, soon be on its way to infiltrate Sibyl’s lair. There, Arvin was certain, it would face an unpleasant reception from Sibyl, who must by now have known that her plan to assassinate Dediana Extaminos had failed.

Nor had the baron’s men been able to locate Zelia. Would she follow Dmetrio and the mind seed back to Hlondeth? If so, Arvin would have to tread carefully, starting the moment his ship docked there. Tymora willing, he would spot Zelia before she spotted him.

The ship rose and fell, its rigging creaked, and tie-lines fluttered against the taut canvas above. Arvin could no longer see Mimph; the gloom had swallowed it. “Farewell, Sespech,” he said. “I doubt I’ll see you again.”

Then he turned to stare across the water at the dark line that was the north shore of the Vilhon Reach—at the faint green glow on the horizon that was Hlondeth. Somewhere beneath its streets, Sibyl was laired in an ancient temple, with her half of the Circled Serpent.

Somewhere in the city above, Dmetrio had his half. Somehow, Arvin would have to find one or the other, before the two halves were joined.