Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [115]
“Excellent,” the woman said. “Now do not move.”
“Why?”
“Ask no questions. Obey.”
“Why are you testing me?”
No answer.
Compressing her mouth stubbornly, Elandra sat there with growing resentment. The idea of being tested was infuriating. It made her wonder if they could do something to restore her sight. If they could, and they had not done so, then they were beyond cruel.
Her anger growing, she reached down to scoop some of the hot sand into her hand.
Something ropelike and sinuous slid across the back of her hand.
She flinched back instinctively, her heart quickening.
Suddenly she was aware of them. She could hear the faint rustling glide of scales across sand, could hear the hissing. Snakes surrounded her.
A visual image of their powerful, writhing bodies filled her mind. Her mouth went dry, and she choked off all sound, forgetting even to breathe as she froze in place.
“You sense them?” the woman asked, her voice soft and intense.
Elandra could not speak. Jerkily she nodded.
“Do not move. You must accept their presence.”
In spite of the heat Elandra felt clammy all over. She breathed in fear.
One of the snakes slithered across her ankle, and she nearly screamed. All her life she had feared snakes. Growing up in the hot humid jungles of Gialta, she considered the reptiles a way of life, but deadly nonetheless. Even in her father’s palace, the servants were ever vigilant. Cats and tame mongooses roamed at will to help patrol the rooms. As a very young child, Elandra had witnessed her old muimui, her nurse, being bitten while pulling a snake from Elandra’s crib. The old woman had swelled up horribly and died. Shortly thereafter, Elandra had gone to live with her father, but the memory had never left her.
Now her heart thudded inside her chest, and she drew in short, raspy breaths. A snake slid over her legs, and she started shaking. They were closer, hissing, their tongues flickering along her wrist in delicate little patterns of exploration.
Her body was freezing. She had tensed her muscles so tightly they ached. Filling her was the certainty that if she moved the slightest degree, or spoke, or even breathed too deeply, one of them would bite her.
Then she would convulse with agony, and would swell with poison, and would die, choking for air.
“There are forty serpents in the sand pit with you,” the woman’s voice said calmly. “The warmth makes them active, and they have found you. Do not move.”
Simple hatred was not enough. Elandra clenched her eyes tightly shut, raging against the woman in her mind. Clammy perspiration trickled down her temples. With every thud of her heart, she felt the urge to run consuming her.
She couldn’t stay here, waiting for one of them to bite her. She had to do something, had to flee, fight, get out of here.
Suddenly she was gasping for air, gulping it in with desperation. Panic shuddered through her. This was crazy. She didn’t have to take this.
And yet something held her motionless. She forced the panic down, remembering her father’s voice in her mind. Never act in panic, he always instructed his troops. Panic in warfare is defeat. Panic is death.
A moan rose in her throat, and she stifled it. Don’t move, she told herself. Don’t move. She could feel them now, sliding over and around her. Their sinuous bodies were warm and silky soft on her skin. Their tongues flickered across her, making her fight herself not to flinch. She was trembling with exhaustion. She did not know how much more of this she could endure. Then one curled around her throat, and panic flooded her anew.
The snake tightened its coils. It was going to choke her. She could feel its blunt snout moving through her hair. Its tail tickled along her shoulder blade. She shuddered again and clenched her fists in the sand. Her heart was hammering out of control. She could not stand this, could not.
“Its coils will tighten slowly,” the woman said in a soft, expressionless voice. “It kills by crushing its prey.