Arvin paced impatiently in the reception hall, angry at having been kept waiting an entire morning. Dmetrio’s house slaves had provided him with wine and food—roasted red beetles the size of his fist, pre-cracked and drizzled with herbed butter—but Arvin waved away the yuan-ti delicacy. He’d already blunted the worst of his hunger at the palace and was too restless to eat. He ignored the smooth stone platform the slaves urged him to recline on and instead paced back and forth across the tiled floor, staring at the locked door of the basking room. At last it opened and a slave, bent nearly double under the weight of the jug of oil he carried, stepped through. Arvin strode toward the door.
“Wait!” the slave cried through the scarf that covered his mouth. “There’s osssra inside. You mustn’t go in there!”
“Too late,” Arvin muttered as he pushed past the slave. “I’m already in.”
The air in the basking room was thick with smoke that smelled like a combination of mint tea, singed moss, and burning sap. It hit Arvin’s nostrils like a slap across the face, leaving them watering. As he breathed in the smoke, the room swayed and his legs began to tremble. He staggered, catching himself on one of the pillars that held up the domed ceiling. He clung to it, shaking his head, fighting the waves of dizziness.
A low chuckle helped him focus. Still clutching at the pillar, he turned toward the sound.
Dmetrio Extaminos lay in a shallow pool in the floor a few paces away. His naked, scaled body was coiled under him; it gleamed from the oil that filled the pool. His upper torso rose from it, bending back like a snake’s. He looked up at Arvin with a languid expression, slit eyes wide and staring, his dark hair slicked back from his high forehead. A forked tongue flickered out of his mouth, tasting the smoke-filled air.
“Ah,” he said. “The rope merchant’s agent. Are you really here… or just part of my dream?”
Smoke drifted slowly from the half dozen lidded pots that surrounded the pool, drawing Arvin’s eye. He watched, fascinated, as amber-colored tendrils twisted toward the ceiling. Only when he heard the slither of Dmetrio shifting position was he able to wrench his eyes away from the smoke. He shook his head violently, trying to concentrate. The smoke, he thought. He should have listened to the servant’s warning. He tried to manifest the power that would allow him to overhear Dmetrio’s thoughts, but his own thoughts were too sluggish; they drifted like the smoke. A glint of silver sparked in his vision then was gone.
“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….
