Free The Prophet by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page A

declaration of wealth, power, and luxury—but not this hall, where privileged guests never walked. Jeshickah, Mistress of Midnight, had instructed Farrell to come this way so he would see the savaged souls who were a warning to anyone who might stand against Midnight. Had she meant for him to see this, too? Did she have any idea what it would mean to him?
    The woman had hair like diamonds, perfectly white, and she looked at Farrell with pale eyes whose tint was hard to distinguish in the flickering light of the oil lamps that lined the dim hallway. She stared at him attentively but without expectation. He should have been able to feel the heat from both her body and her emotions, but she lacked both, which told Farrell two things: she was serpiente, like himself, and she was broken.
    The boy, on the other hand…
    He had his mother’s coloration, as far as Farrell could tell, though his eyes were closed. He hunched in a corner as Farrell approached, wrapping his arms around his knees and rocking. Farrell could sense the boy’s terror. He tried to go closer, to get a better sense of him, but the child flinched as if he were trying to press himself into the wall. Farrell stepped back, his heart going out to the poor thing, who still owned enough of his mind to feel fear.
    The mother and the boy were obviously white vipers. How? Maeve’s kin was extinct. Though Farrell had taken the name once used by Maeve’s people when he started his own tribe, it had been hundreds of years since anyone had actually seen a white viper. They were a myth, an ancient symbol of freedom that had no real presence in the modern day—except that they should not be kept in a cage.
    ***
    Generations stretched before Malachi’s eyes, from the priestess Maeve to the man now standing at the door to his cell, staring at him. Against all reason, the man stepped forward. Why would any fool willingly walk into this blood-soaked room?
    The boy pressed his hands to his face, trying to draw his vision back so as not to get even a glimpse of the stranger.
    The man knelt in front of him. “My name is Farrell,” he said. “What’s yours?”
    Farrell. That wasn’t his real name. The man didn’t mean to lie, but he didn’t understand that Farrell wasn’t the name that mattered.
    “The boy doesn’t speak, sir,” the woman, Malachi’s mother by blood, said.
    “Why not?” not-Farrell asked.
    Words were too heavy, too full of import. Speaking just made the world louder.
    “I do not know, sir,” the mother answered.
    Malachi knew the stranger understood the danger of voice, because it had only taken a few sounds to make him shudder. Farrell had forced his question past that invisible wall once, but now he needed to protest.
    “Please don’t call me sir. I’m not your master. You shouldn’t have a—” His voice broke. There was too much power in words. “You are a white viper, aren’t you?” he asked.
    “Yes,” the woman answered simply. She was deaf to the echoes that floated through time in that moment. The past called out “Remember.” The future demanded “Decide.”
    “And he is your son?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who is his father?”
    “His father was shm’Ahnmik. I do not know his name.”
    Shm’Ahnmik. Farrell whispered the word and put a hand on the boy’s chin, lifting his face to meet his gaze.
    No—too much want, and will. Too many questions. Malachi couldn’t look into the strange serpent’s brilliant blue eyes a moment longer. He jerked his head to the side.
    —
    The balance was broken. The magic was wild, untamable, and devastating.
    The followers of Anhamirak blamed the black magic of those who worshipped Ahnmik. Those loyal to Ahnmik blamed the unbridled chaos of Anhamirak. And they all looked to Maeve, who had been dedicated to balance above all, as the root of their loss.
    She had been tasked with holding the world together, but she had fallen. She and her kin, the white vipers, had been driven out of the clan.