Page 16 of Embrace the Serpent
“Master Galen,” she said in a low, amused voice. “Come closer.”
He did. I did not.
“The Emperor has heard of your prowess, your prodigious talents. He regrets that he has not given you a challenge worthy of your ability. He wishes to rectify this.”
To everyone else, Galen would’ve seemed to have merely puffed up, but I saw in his eyes a spark of surprise followed by quick calculation. “I am willing and ready for this honor.”
She crooked her gold-tipped fingers, and an attendant rushed over with the quick, tiny steps of one who wanted to unobtrusivelymaterialize. The attendant knelt and, hands raised above her head, presented a wooden jewel box.
Galen startled. I guessed that from his perspective, a jewel box had appeared from thin air.
Lady Incarnadine opened the box. On a bed of velvet sat a dark yellow jewel of an old-fashioned cut. Beside it was a mangled mess of pale yellow metal. Probably a gold and silver alloy of some kind.
The jewel caught the light, and there was something... beckoning....
Incarnadine’s voice came. “The gemstone alone induces a moderate hypnotic effect. But the setting was of a singular design.... It was last worn by the Lady Delphina. All whom she spoke to were compelled to obey her.”
At her prompting, another attendant unrolled a scroll. A drawing. A woman with medium-brown hair, eyes, skin. A plain face. Save the gleaming jewel at her throat, set in a necklace worn like a collar.
I’d never heard of a piece that could do what Incarnadine claimed. It seemed more fairy tale than truth.
“She was shot through the throat by an archer with the foresight to seal his ears with beeswax. Alas, that damaged the setting.”
Damaged? It was a knot of metal, half melted. No arrow did this, not even a flaming arrow, unless Lady Delphina happened to fall into a fire hot enough to be a jewelsmith’s forge and was then trampled by an elephant. But no one corrected Lady Incarnadine. No one dared. Perhaps that was why she didn’t need the armor—she knew we all remembered her blood-spattered and victorious.
Or perhaps everyone was too busy watching Galen. Master Vyalis wore a smile as spare as his designs.
It began to dawn on me what she was asking.
“The Emperor desires that this necklace be restored to its original state. But alas, even Master Vyalis was unable to do so.”
Master Vyalis’s smile dimmed. It did little to soothe the horror rising in my throat.
“If you succeed, then we must all agree that you are the foremost jewelsmith in the Empire. However, should you fail, should your words here today be proven falsehoods... you will be stripped of your title and your place on Gem Lane.”
Galen smiled like a cat. I couldn’t imagine why, unless he had suddenly developed a zest for living on the streets.
“My lady,” he said, “I have spoken no falsehoods. I request one additional boon upon my success.”
Lady Incarnadine’s brows rose into her hairline. “Yes?”
“When I succeed,” said Galen, “I wish to be granted the workshop currently belonging to Master Vyalis.”
“Why, you—” Master Vyalis took a single step before a raised finger from Lady Incarnadine stilled him.
“If you succeed,” she said, “then the workshop will be yours.”
Galen bowed. “Fear not, my lady. It will be done.”
“I can’t do it.” I said to my knees. I was curled up at the bottom of the workshop stairs. Three days had passed since the party, since Galen’s drunken boast, and every passing hour made it only more clear that it couldn’t be done.
“Of course you can,” Galen’s voice said from somewhere above and to the side. “You must. You know what’ll happen if you don’t.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to—I can’t.”
His footfalls came closer. “You will, Saphira.”
His voice was so sure. I looked up at him through the mass of my hair. How did he know? What did he see in me that I couldn’t see in myself?
