The Serpent Bride. Sara Douglass

Light often assumed the shape of the serpent, just as Water sometimes assumed the shape of the frog. He hadn’t immediately connected the name of Serpent’s Nest with Light, simply because then he had not realised that Serpent’s Nest was the ancient Mountain at the Edge of the World.

      The ancient home of the Lord of Elcho Falling, who had once allied himself with Light and Water in the battle to imprison Kanubai.

      Finally, unable to ignore it any longer, Maximilian turned and looked at the other column.

      Its velvet cushion held an object so ancient, and so cursed, that Maximilian felt slightly ill even looking at it.

      It was the crown, simply made of three thick entwined golden bands, of a kingdom and a responsibility so ancient that its name had been forgotten by all living people, and which had never been recorded in any history book.

      Living darkness writhed among the golden bands.

      Very slowly, every step hesitant, Maximilian walked over to it. He had never touched it, and hoped he never had to. His father had never touched it, nor his father before him.

       If ever Maximilian had to lift that crown to his head, then it meant that the end of the world had risen, and was walking the land.

      To Maximilian’s profound relief, the crown looked just as it had every other time Maximilian had studied it. The darkness (that same darkness which writhed through the Persimius blood) lived, yes, but it did not seem aware, or awake. It merely waited, as it had been waiting for thousands of years.

      Maximilian allowed himself a sigh of relief, his shoulders finally relaxing.

      Perhaps Ishbel’s connection with the Mountain at the Edge of the World and its current association with a serpent, was coincidence merely. He should not worry.

      But he should, perhaps, be highly careful.

      Maximilian turned his back on the crown, and collected his ring preparatory to leaving the chamber.

      But just before he climbed back into his bedchamber, Maximilian turned and looked once more at the dark crown. He frowned, something stirring in his mind.

       Cavor had never been inducted into the mystery of this chamber.

      Why not? Everyone had believed Maximilian dead, so why hadn’t Cavor been inducted into this mystery?

      Maximilian stood there a long time, the rings silent, before he turned abruptly on his heel and left the chamber.

      And the crown of Elcho Falling.

8

       SERPENT’S NEST, AND THE ROYAL PALACE AT RUEN

      Ishbel sat in her bare chamber, staring unseeing at her hands clasped in her lap.

      Tomorrow she was to leave for Margalit. The early negotiations with Maximilian had been successful. He was willing to consider the offer of the “ward” of the Coil — Ishbel’s mouth curled slightly in a smile — as a wife. She’d entertained doubts that Maximilian would even come this far, but he had, and so now she must leave.

      Maximilian was sending a deputation to Margalit to meet with Ishbel and to hash out more detailed negotiations. The negotiations could still break down — Ishbel could almost smell the wariness in Maximilian’s initial interest — but they could just as easily progress further, and Ishbel needed to ready herself to commit to marriage.

      Ishbel had indeed largely resigned herself to marriage with Maximilian. She still had no idea why the Great Serpent thought such a union would help avert the threatening disaster, but she would do as he (and as this curious frog god) wished. Ishbel had spent the last few weeks discovering all she could about her potential husband, but that was little enough. There had been more details about his harrowing seventeen years spent as a prisoner in the gloam mines, some interesting tales about how he’d been released and how he had defeated Cavor in battle, but very little information about the man himself. Ishbel discovered that Maximilian was respected across the Central Kingdoms, that he had a good relationship with the kings of Pelemere and Kyros, and that his small kingdom of Escator was, indeed, crippled by debt. Ishbel had decided that Maximilian was likely harmless enough, and that his worst fault (apart from some as yet undiscovered socially embarrassing habit) was likely to be a mild dreariness engendered by his long imprisonment.

      He certainly had done nothing to set the world afire since his restoration to the throne of Escator.

      Ishbel had also steeled herself to accept the sexual intimacy of the marriage. She would endure, if that was what the Great Serpent needed of her.

      Additionally, she would endure the necessity of deferring to her husband. She, the archpriestess of the Coil, who had hitherto bowed only before gods.

      What Ishbel feared most was the actual leaving of Serpent’s Nest. It had been her only home, her entire world, for most of her life. The mountain was her safety and her comfort, and it shielded her from the horror of the world beyond.

      For an instant a memory resurfaced of her mother’s whispering corpse, and Ishbel jerked a little, fighting to keep it at bay.

      She was not looking forward at all to her journey to Margalit. Ishbel would be travelling only with a company of guardsmen from Margalit itself. No one from the Coil would be accompanying her. Ishbel understood the necessity for this. She needed to distance herself from them and become the Lady Ishbel Brunelle rather than the archpriestess of the Coil, and Ishbel could not do that if any of the Coil or their servants travelled with her.

      There came a knock at her door, and Aziel entered. He came over to Ishbel and sat down beside her on the bed. Wordlessly he picked up her hand, kissed it, then kissed the side of her forehead.

      “You will come back,” he said softly, and Ishbel blinked away her tears, and nodded.

       She would return.

      Since the night he’d looked at the map, Maximilian had either avoided Vorstus, or had avoided speaking to him alone. Maximilian simply did not want to give Vorstus the satisfaction of a reaction.

      It irritated Maximilian that Vorstus had not simply come to him and said, “Maxel, an offer of a bride comes out of the Mountain at the Edge of the World. A woman associated with a serpent god, no less. What do you think about that, then?”

      Instead, Vorstus had decided to play games.

      It took Vorstus eight days before he knocked one evening at the door to Maximilian’s bedchamber as Maximilian was preparing for evening court.

      Maximilian waved away the servants, then indicated Vorstus should take a chair. “What can I do for you, Vorstus? You are normally cloistered in your library at this time of night.”

      “What did you think of Serpent’s Nest, Maxel?”

      Maximilian tugged at the cuffs of his linen shirt, making sure they sat comfortably under his heavy velvet over jacket. “I’d wondered why you did not come to me directly, Vorstus, instead of cloaking this offer in mystery. You know more than you are saying. What?”

      “All I know is what I have told you. No one was more shocked than I when I saw that Serpent’s Nest is what was anciently called the Mountain at the Edge of the World.”

      Maximilian shot him a deeply cynical look. As Abbot of the Order of Persimius, Vorstus was privy to almost all of its secrets.

      “All I know is what I have told you,” Vorstus repeated quietly.

      “How coincidental that the Mountain at the Edge of the World is now dedicated to a serpent god.”

      “Perhaps just a coincidence.”

      Maximilian