Page 17 of City of Snakes
“The heat slows you down, but you get used to it,” I said.
She nodded and called out, “Elsedora—I’ll take that change of clothes.”
At least she had enough sense not to die of stubbornness in that wool and velvet.
A rattling sound came from the brush nearby, and I stepped between her and a thicket of half-dead grass. “Might want to stay back.”
“What is that?” Sybilla asked as she instead stepped forward to peer around my arm.
A horn-nosed snake slithered out from the brush. Its rattling died away as it peacefully made its way into another patch of thicket.
Sybilla stepped up beside me and glanced down at the symbol of the rattling serpent on my silk tunic. “Why are they on your crest?”
Fighting the urge to shrug away her question, I answered, “Because they are precise and lethal, but they always provide a warning before striking. They are docile until provoked.”
“Is that what you think you are?‘Docile until provoked’?” she asked.
I looked over at her and shook my head. “Not anymore.”
***
The red rocks surrounding us seemed to ebb and flow with the midday heat. Elsedora had slipped a change of clothes into the carriage for the Central Queen, and we waited for her to change as my soldiers watered their horses.
“You two were looking chummy. I haven’t heard you talk that much in a century. What’s your angle there?” Elsedora questioned in a hushed tone.
“No angle.”
“I know you better than that. What do you think of her?” Elsedora prodded.
“I think nothing of her,” I said.
El crossed her arms, blowing a stray red lock from her eyes. “She doesn’t seem as bad as we’d thought, does she?”
Not quite as bad, but infuriatingly talkative.
“No comment.”
“Whatever you say, my King.” The click of the carriage door interrupted us. Elsedora smirked, pushed off from where she’d been leaning against the cab and went around it to go address the thirty or so soldiers that had stayed back. “We move again in five!” I heard her call out.
Immediately skeptical as to why she’d fled so quickly, I turned toward the carriage door.
Sybilla stepped down with a hand shielding her eyes. “I’m not in a skirt anymore—I can ride.Pleasedon’t put me back in that oven. I don’t give a shit if we encounter bears or criminals. Either would be a quicker death than being cooked alive.”
Elsedora had provided the Queen with a pair of emerald silk pants, which flowed too long on her. Slits ran up the sides of her legs, revealing a dagger strapped to one hip. That’s what drew my eye—not the supple skin there. It was smart, after all, to keep track of the weapons on someone who might want to kill me.
“No,” I said.
“Do you think you get to make all decisions now?” Sybilla asked.
“Yes.”
“Thatis not what I agreed to.Alliesdon’t lock each other in small boiling carriages for a week. Technically, that blood oath you took was to keep me safe—is letting me die of heat in that cab ‘keeping me safe’?”
She was rambling, but I was preoccupied with how the matching silk top snaked around her waist and cinched at the back, leaving no curve a mystery. The thin fabric cascaded down at the neckline and drew my eye downward with it. Fucking Elsedora.
“My eyes are up here, if that’s what you were looking for.”
I bit my inner cheek but made no move to correct my gaze; instead, I let it trail back down to the dagger at her hip. “You’re wise to stay armed.”
