34
The Serpent & the Garden
ELOISE
The night of the full moon brings a trio of red-robed scribes to Marabella’s to usher me to the palace. I’m nervous but as ready as I can be. After I trained with Damien, Marabella supplied me with not one but two of her recovery shakes. I’m as strong as I’ve ever been.
The scribes form a triangle around me as we parade through the marketplace toward the challenge. I have flashbacks to that episode of Game of Thrones when Cersei has to walk naked through town, but no one screams profanities at me or throws rotten vegetables. No one rings a bell and announces shame repeatedly at my side. Surprisingly, the many vampires and the rarer human companions who watch my procession wear a mixture of curiosity and cynicism in their expressions. I’m not sure what that means.
Damien follows behind us in his monster form. Maybe his considerable presence is the cause of the silence. No one in their right mind would ever voluntarily piss him off.
At the scribe’s direction, I navigate a series of halls to reach the silo. It’s exactly as I remember it from my dream, only without the walls of sunlight or my mate huddled in the center like a boulder. Instead, Lazarus stands at a small podium with an ornately decorated box that looks similar but not identical to the one Sabrina showed me. The octagonal mirrors are placed on the floor on either side of him, spaced about eight feet to his left and right. He gestures for Damien to join him, and my mate takes a spot next to the scribe.
As if on cue, Valeska enters, similarly escorted by three scribes in red robes. I silently laugh to myself. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. She no longer looks like a queen but a competitor. No fanfare. No elaborate dress. In fact, she’s dressed similarly to me. I’m in the fighting gear that Cassius obtained for me—black tactical pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Her pants are leather but her black mock turtleneck gives the same general affect. We both have daggers strapped to our thighs. Her black hair is in a ponytail. Mine is braided and bright red. We might be dressed the same, but we are very, very different, and I’m not stupid enough to underestimate how deadly she is.
“It’s worth it just to see her like that,” a man behind me whispers.
I pretend to scratch my cheek with my shoulder and see him rapidly exchanging money for tiny slips of paper, some white, some blue. They’re betting on this trial. I don’t know which color paper represents me, but there are plenty of both colors gripped in people’s fingers, which means Valeska, at least in these vampires’ minds, isn’t foreseen to be the clear winner. I hold on to that thought like a talisman as a radiant yellow moon rises over the edge of the silo on a path toward its apex.
“Challengers, step forward,” Lazarus announces as he opens an enormous tome to the place where it’s marked with a red silk ribbon. “Eloise, as the challenger and Damien’s current mate, you will roll the position dice first. The highest number wins.”
I step to the box, and he hands me a six-sided die that appears to be made from scored bone. I toss it into the cloth-lined box.
“Make a note that Eloise Harcourt has rolled a four,” Lazarus says to the scribe who sits at a small table near the wall, scribbling furiously. “Now you, Valeska.”
The vampire queen does not look at me as she takes the die and rolls it. She hisses when it lands.
“Note that Valeska has rolled a two,” Lazarus says. “Eloise, you will roll for the challenge and be the first to choose a doorway.”
I nod.
Lazarus turns to the crowd that has lined the walls three rows deep and raises his red-robed arms. “Provocationem Ad Mortem is a game fueled by ancient magic, designed to protect our most sacrosanct bond, the one between mates. As such, each challenger will be required to prove their worthiness of the bond. The magic will harvest challenges based on Damien’s own memories. The competitors will solve the challenge and return through the archway. The magic will assign a winner based on their individual performance.” He gestures toward the large rectangular mirror on the top of the box.
The harvest moon rises a bit higher, and moonlight falls on the two octagonal mirrors. A blinding flash sends a murmur through the crowd, and then two identical archways stand where the mirrors once were. Lazarus mumbles something that sounds like a curse.
Each is made of ancient, worn stone, chiseled with barely recognizable arcane symbols. The tattoo on my back tingles with awareness as if the symbols that make up my sigil recognize the power of those chiseled in the archway. I try to make out the specific designs, but the ravages of time have left the grooves shallow. The sides rise like pillars toward a gentle arch with a square keystone at its apex. One such stone bears a symbol like a star, the other a crescent moon. Rippling darkness fills each archway like two dark, oil-slicked pools.
“Eloise, if you will do the honors.”
I take two dice from Lazarus’s hand. These are also made of bone but look more like Dungeons & Dragons dice than anything that might belong in a casino. The sides are not numbered but bear a series of sigils the likes of which I’m not familiar. Anxious to get this over with, I toss the dice.
They land with a red x and purple fish facing up. I have no idea what that means, but the large mirror at the back of the box turns smoky. When the white haze parts, a woman in a gown and elaborate pearl earrings is running through a forest, laughing. She looks over her shoulder, and I get a clear view of her face. This is Damien’s mother. I’ve never met her. Never seen a picture. But I just know it’s her. The resemblance is striking. She smiles, and one of her earrings drops from her ear. A close-up of the earring fills the mirror and then vanishes.
Valeska growls. “So we are to recover this… this woman’s earring?” She flicks her red nails at the looking glass.
Lazarus frowns. “I’m afraid I cannot provide assistance to you, my queen.”
Is it possible that Valeska didn’t notice Damien’s likeness in the woman’s dark hair and diamond-colored eyes? That is Nyxadora, I’m sure of it, although I suppose it could also be his sister Karyl. No. Not with that dress and that crown. That was the queen. I close my eyes and picture the pearl earring, made from a dozen blue pearls strung together into a geometric pattern. Damien said his mother and father used to hunt behind their castle. It did look like a forest behind her where it fell off.
“Eloise, you are the first to choose.”
I look at the moon archway. Where before there was only rippling darkness, now lies a dark green forest with what could be snow on the ground. The queen was running in a forest, but I’m sure Tenebris has many wooded areas. I don’t think this is the same one. The way Damien speaks about his world, snow is limited to the mountains. I don’t remember seeing any snow behind Nyxadora in the scene the mirror played for us. Furthermore, wouldn’t someone as important as the queen hunt close to home, especially since the kingdom was at war? I’m presuming a lot, but what other way might I make a decision?
I turn my attention to my other option. Under the star archway, it’s also green but there’s no snow. A path and a lone purple rose are visible within. I take a deep breath. I remember purple roses from Damien’s dream of the castle garden. If I end up near the castle, I should be able to find the forest where the queen most likely lost her earring.
Fisting my hands, I choose the star archway and its purple rose. As I approach the arch, I notice the octagonal mirror is gone, replaced by a stone threshold with characters I recognize as vampiric Romanian. I can’t read what it says, but I can only imagine it is some terrible warning. I take a deep, fortifying breath and then step over them, ready for wherever this challenge takes me.
The stone of the silo’s floor gives way to an artfully designed pathway that leads into a garden. I walk toward the purple rose and then look back toward the archway I just walked through. It’s gone. The only thing in that direction is a steep garden wall. For three solid seconds, I worry that something went wrong. How will I get back? And then common sense kicks in. If the archway opened magically when I rolled the dice, it will most certainly open for me again when I find the earring.
