Page 84 of City of Snakes
Sybilla continued to walk through the parting crowd. She wore a rust-colored silk gown that left little to the imagination. Black embroidered thorny vines trailed their way up the train. The dark embroidery looked like my Shadows.
Meanwhile, two charmed bronze rattling snakes trailed her on the ground, lazily circling her whenever she stopped.
Every few feet, she approached members of the crowd, offering them her hand or crouching to allow smaller children to hug her.
Every person she interacted with seemed enthralled and taken with her—as though she were the sun and they basked in her attention.Clever.But I also knew it to be the most genuine part of this grand gesture. Shelikedspeaking with them.
I’d have never approved of her entering the crowd, but the effect was overwhelming. Her show of trust, her calculated choice to be unarmed and unaccompanied, it all left my people in awe. With a mind like hers, she did not need weapons. It still made me nervous to see her down there alone.
“I’m very pissed off at you,” I mumbled to Elsedora, who’d reached my side on the balcony.
Elsedora shrugged. “You don’t stay mad long. Plus...it’s the entrance we needed to sell this alliance. Look at her.”
“I am,” I answered.
Sybilla stopped in the center of the courtyard before glancing up at me.
I tilted my head down, watching as she turned to address the crowd in front of her.
“You do not know me,” she yelled over the buzz of voices.
A wave of silence rippled around her.
“You don’t know me,” Sybilla repeated. “But you will. I am Queen Sybilla Wymark of Luz. I would like to tell you a story about the night your King saved my land. Would you like to hear it before I head up there?” She pointed to me on the balcony, and the people of my city let out a cheer of approval. She waited until the roar died down to speak again.
“I thought you might,” she said, smiling in a way that, even from a distance, told me I was in deep trouble. I found myself stepping down onto one of the balcony steps just to get a better look at her profile.
She recounted the night in Luz like I was her hero despite having thought me the villain at the time. The captivated crowd remained silent. I held onto every word because in a different time, a different context, maybe I could have been everything the spun story made me out to be.
“And so, I fell in love with your King. It happened the moment I first set eyes on him. He appeared there on the wall of my palace as his men rescued my city from inevitable demise.”
My head tilted, and a twitch started in my eye. What the fuck was she doing?
But the crowd was entranced—women swooned and men puffed out their chests and hollered up at the balcony with pride.
Sybilla motioned with her hands for them to be quiet. “Now, I prepare to give this realm my whole heart. You deserve every assurance that the Central Corridor will long remain an ally to the Sahlms. As part of our wedding vows, I promise to be as much your Queen as I am theirs.”
She was a beautiful liar. I wanted to be upset, but no anger found me. A sense of terrified awe settled over me.
“Elsedora,” I whispered, still not fully understanding what I was meant to do while she addressed my people about wedding vows I’d rescinded the offer of.
El’s grip tightened on the railing, and she stepped beside me. “Thatpart we hadn’t discussed,” she said with too much amusement. “But I can’t pretend I’m disappointed.”
“Now, although it has been a joy to spend time with you all, I will join my betrothed on the balcony,” Sybilla called out before she was on the move again and cheers cut through the air. Ryn trotted down the stairs to help Sybilla past the guards at the bottom. Too stunned to think straight, I retreated to the top step.
Once Sybilla began to ascend, I could take her in fully. She looked good in Sahlms colors, and Elsedora had been right about one thing—she would be willing to stay. I hardened my expression, not wanting to acknowledge the flood of relief that brought me.
The bronze serpents slithered up the steps next to her, rattling and hissing at any guards that came too close. The snakes circled their way up her legs. One rested around her waist as a belt, the other kept slithering past her neck and then up to her head, coiling itself into her curls to become a crown. That one kept its eyes on me. Its tongue tasted the air as Sybilla approached.
A dark, terrible thrill washed over me.
She’d made a memorable entrance.
She wore our colors.
Our symbolic serpents adorned her.
And she claimed to be in love with me.
