Viper's Kiss - Lisa Smedman [57]
"Ambassador Extaminos," he said thickly, his words slurred. "Glisena is in danger. Her child-"
"What child?"
"The one you fathered," Arvin continued. "The midwife, she…" He paused, blinking slowly. What was it he'd wanted to ask?
"Glisena is pregnant?" Dmetrio asked. A slow hiss of laughter escaped from his lips.
Arvin tried to shake a finger at him and nearly fell over. "She's also missing," he said when he'd righted himself. "She's been kidnapped."
"So?" Dmetrio curled into a new position in the oil, his scales leaving glistening streaks on the tiled edges of the pool.
"Do you know where she is?"
Dmetrio slowly arched his neck, stretching it. Oil trickled down one cheek. "No. I don't. Nor do I care."
"She's with child. Your child," Arvin protested. "She might die."
"Human women die in childbirth all the time," Dmetrio said. "Bearing live young is messy. Laying eggs is a much more efficient way of doing things." He rolled over in the oil, coating his scales with it. "Glisena has grown tiresome. I'll be glad to be away from here."
Arvin let go of the pillar. He meant to take a step toward Dmetrio, but he reeled sideways. "But the child," he said. "You must care about…" His mind wandered. It was getting more difficult to concentrate by the moment. His thoughts were like bugs, caught in sap and struggling to get free. The smoke… His gaze drifted up to the ceiling again. He wrenched his mind back.
"But the child," Arvin repeated. "Won't you take it… with you?"
Dmetrio let out a loud hiss of laughter. "Why would I want to do that?"
"Because it's your child. You can't just abandon-"
Dmetrio waved a hand. Someone seized Arvin's arms from behind-two someones, wearing armor and helmets flared like cobra hoods. "Rillis?" Arvin asked, peering at them through the smoke.
Neither was the guard Arvin had bribed for information the day before. They dragged him backward out of the basking room. A servant-the one who'd been carrying the jar of oil-closed and relocked the door behind them. Arvin found himself being dragged through the reception hall, down a corridor, out a door, and down a snow-covered ramp. His heels skidded through the snow, leaving two drag marks. He stared at them, fascinated. They were like the trails left by snakes. If he moved his feet from side to side, they slithered…
A gate creaked open and the militiamen lifted him up. Then he was floating through the air. No, not floating… he'd been thrown, tossed out by the militiamen. He landed on his back in the snowy street. As people drifted past him, shrinking back from the spot where he lay, he stared, intrigued, at the snowflakes falling out of the sky. He watched them while the snow soaked through his cloak, trousers, and shirt. They started off so small and got so big. Like that one… it was huge.
No, that wasn't a snowflake. It was a woman's face, looking down at him. She had dark eyes, wide cheekbones, and black, wavy hair that reached toward him like snakes.
Heart pounding, Arvin tried to crawl backward through the snow, to escape the snakes. Then he spotted the frog hiding behind them. The notion of a frog sitting on a woman's earlobe seemed so silly, somehow, that he had to laugh. It came out like a croak.
"Vin?" the woman asked. "Are you all right?"
Arvin stared dreamily up at Karrell for several moments, tracing the curve of her lips with his eyes. He tried to raise a hand to touch them, but his arm flopped into the snow above his head. He needed to tell her something that he'd breathed in something called osssra-but his lips wouldn't form the word. "Sssraaa," he slurred.
Karrell bent down and lifted his arm from the snow. "Vin," she said, her voice low and serious. "You need help. Please try to stand."
His arm drifted up around her shoulder, and his legs were scrabbling under him, messing up the snow. Yanked along the street by Karrell, he stumbled after her, staring at the pattern his feet made, oblivious to the people staring at them. There were so many