The ink seemed to simmer against the page, the final phrase searing itself into Sariyah’s memory. *Should the elemental bloodline not be surrendered, before dawn the Serpent will feast on the heads of the Brotherhood.* A choked sound scraped past her teeth. Surien was not merely tracking her; he meant to butcher everyone who stood in his path, beginning with the officers Jaran was sworn to defend. Her gaze cut to Jaran, still wrestling with the beast venom, his ribs shuddering under shallow breaths. He could not march. Yet if he stayed, his superiors would walk unarmed into an ambush. The only way to shatter the trap was to cut Surien down before sunrise.
“No,” Jaran rasped, his voice a gravelly whisper as his eyes flickered open, fixing on the scroll in her hand. “Give that here, Sariq.”
She snatched it back, a sudden surge of protectiveness flaring. “You’re delirious. Stay down.”
He struggled to sit up, a sheen of sweat on his brow, muscles clenching in protest. “The gala… is set for dark. I must go. The commanders… they’ll be vulnerable.” His fever-clouded gaze pinned her with blunt defiance. “Surien’s intent is clear. I won’t let my men die.”
“You’re still poisoned, you fool!” she snapped, shoving him back onto the cot. His skin radiated fever heat against her palms. “You’d collapse in the entryway, a massive target. Worse, you’d distract everyone trying to shield you.” Seeing the obstinate spark flare in his irises, she knew reason had failed. “I’ll go.”
Jaran blinked, his brow furrowed. “You? As who? A scullery boy?” A humorless cough rattled his chest. “Surien’s gala isn’t for initiates, much less for those barely out of their initiation trials.”
Sariyah’s lips thinned. He didn't know the full extent of her past, the skills she’d honed in gilded cages. “No. As a dancer. A distraction. Someone who can get close.” Her voice was low, laced with an edge she rarely let surface. “He won’t recognize me. Not like this.”
Jaran stared, his gaze sweeping over her boyish, mud-streaked face, the short-cropped hair, the rough tunic. “What are you talking about? You’re no dancer.”
“I was.” The word dropped like lead between them, thick with the burden of an existence she had bled to flee. “I can be again. For a single evening.” She met his bewildered, searching stare. “I’ll need silk from the tribute wagons. And Kenan’s help.”
Outside, the monsoon had eased to a persistent drizzle, shrouding the barracks in a damp, clinging mist. Kenan, sickly pale in the drizzle, clutched a bundle of stolen red fabric. Kratip, dripping and thoroughly sulking, huddled under his elbow, gouging into a purloined mango.
“You want me to… help you steal a lady’s gown?” Kenan’s voice turned reedy as he gaped at the weave. “From the governor’s stores? And then… you’ll wear it?” He looked from Sariyah’s calloused forearms to the fine embroidery, crimson rushing up his neck. “But… you’re a man. Sariq.”
Sariyah snorted, a crass, dismissive sound. “Relax, pretty boy. It’s for a disguise. To fool the old Serpent into thinking I’m just another trinket.” She snatched the silk from him, a rich, deep crimson that seemed to absorb the dim light. “Now, I need you to create a diversion at the south gate. Loud, memorable. Give me twenty minutes inside before anyone comes looking.”
“A diversion?” Kenan stammered, his mind clearly struggling to process the abrupt shift from combat to couture to subterfuge. “What kind of diversion?”
“Something that’ll make everyone run to the south gate,” Sariyah said, her eyes already scanning the layout of the barracks. “A runaway leviathan pup? A fire? Be creative. Just don’t get caught.” She turned, disappearing into the shadows behind the supply sheds. “And Kratip, you’re with me.”
Kenan stared after her, then down at the disgruntled pangolin who was now staring at him with a look of utter betrayal. “He wants me to *start a fire*?” he mumbled, then shook his head, a flicker of resolve hardening his gaze. Sariq had saved him. He would do this. He would be creative.
Inside the mess hall’s darkened pantry, reeking of brine and rotted timber, Sariyah unrolled the crimson bundle. The smooth yardage felt foreign across her roughened palms. Stripping away the initiate's coarse linen tunic, she touched the curved horn hilt of her keris for steadying anchor. Kratip perched above on a spice rack, snout twitching.
“Don’t gawk, you scaled thief,” she muttered, tightening the linen binder over her breasts until her ribs ached with the old compression. The silk draped across her shoulders, whispering cold against her collarbones. Taking her keris, she lashed its sheath tight to her inner thigh beneath the pleated skirt, the cold iron biting into her skin like an old accomplice.
She studied the polished copper shield hung by the door. The initiate, Sariq, was erased. In his stead stood a sharp-featured woman, lips parted in grim appraisal, draped in carmine cloth tailored to shift freely with every stride. Knotting the cord of a lacquered brass half-mask over her cheekbones, she hid her brow and gaze. Concubine, performer, killer: the training had never really left her marrow.
“Wish me luck, Kratip,” she whispered, her voice a low murmur she barely recognized. The pangolin merely yawned, showing off his tiny, sharp teeth.
The gala was a dizzying sensory assault. The humid night air, thick with the scent of jasmine and spiced wine, thrummed with the music of gamelans and rebecs. Lanterns of glowing jellyfish cast an ethereal light over the ornate pavilion, illuminating tables laden with exotic fruits and roasted meats. Wealthy merchants, minor nobles, and the Brotherhood’s senior commanders mingled, their laughter brittle, oblivious to the Serpent coiled in their midst.
Sariyah wove between the banquet benches, the red hem skimming tiled stone. She tracked the dais, pulse thudding against her temples. Surien was impossible to miss: broad, bedecked in sea-pearls, his smile fixed in an oily grimace as he leaned over the Brotherhood’s Supreme Commander, thick fingers resting boldly on the elder officer’s forearm.
And then she saw him. Jaran. He was there, against her express orders, propped in a shadowed alcove, a wine goblet clutched in his hand, his face pale but his eyes burning with an intense, almost predatory awareness. His gaze swept the room, not with the easy dismissal of a guest, but with the focused scrutiny of a hunter. He hadn’t noticed her. Not yet. She had to get to Surien.
She slipped into the row of masked performers already circling the center carpet. Bronze gongs crashed, setting a driving cadence that guided her limbs. She turned on the ball of her foot, arching her spine and flicking her wrists to the percussion, letting years of forced grace transform into coiled venom.
Midway through a low spin, she felt eyes bore into her back. It was not Surien’s drunken ogling. It was Jaran. Rigid in the shadowed alcove, goblet arrested mid-air, he tracked her every turn with unblinking, fixated scrutiny. His stare burned across the crowded floor, sharp enough to raise the hair on her arms.
The dance ended, the music fading to a soft, lingering hum. Sariyah slipped away from the other dancers, seeking the shadows, her hand subtly brushing against the keris hilt. She needed to close the distance to Surien, to find her opening. She navigated a less crowded path, past a wall of towering jade plants, into a dimly lit alcove.
Fingers clamped around her upper arm like an iron shackle. She spun, blade-hand twitching beneath her skirt. Jaran. His pupils were blown wide with fever and disbelief, his jaw working as he dragged her an inch nearer into the shadows. “You move,” he breathed, his voice ragged, “precisely like someone I know.”