Gilded Serpent by Danielle Jensen (top 10 novels txt) 📕

Malahi.

She was here.

 75LYDIA

Playing her part, Lydia stormed up the stairs to their room, but once inside, she swiftly pulled on her cloak and mittens, then went back into the hallway and locked the door. Staying in this place any longer than they had to was going to get one or both of them killed, which meant finding Malahi soon.

Pulling up her hood, she slipped back down the stairs, glancing to where Killian sat, still shirtless, with Baird and Agrippa. While obviously in pain, he didn’t appear in immediate danger, so, keeping her head down, she fell in behind another group that was leaving the common room and moved out into the street, her spectacles fogging in the chill air.

Despite the hour, the town was bustling as though it were midday anywhere else, though the prevalence of staggering drunks spoke to the idleness of those trapped in this town. Hunted in Mudamora and prevented from returning to their homes in Derin, she could well understand why they’d turned to drink.

Marching along as though she had purpose, Lydia moved through the town, searching for a place that seemed a likely location for keeping prisoners, her strategy to find the only soldiers in town who weren’t drunk because they’d presumably be on duty doing something. Yet everywhere she walked, all she found was the chaos and wildness of those without purpose, the buildings she ventured into filled with people struggling to survive.

Stepping back out into a street, Lydia paused in the shadows to take stock of her situation. Cloud cover blocked what light there was from the moon and stars, the mountains little more than shadows. But the green glow of the mounds was clearly visible.

They were under guard.

Frowning, Lydia walked to the edge of town, stopping to look down the slope at the strange glowing hillocks, the smell of the blight heavy in her nose. Undoubtably the source of it—possibly a fungus or parasitic plant of sorts that stole life from the land to feed itself.

Were they something natural to the land?

Or had the tenders been forced to create them?

Either way, she wanted a closer look.

There were four men standing guard over the mounds, though they seemed more interested in holding their hands over the fire they had built nearby. Lydia kept low as she crossed the empty ground between them and the town, using the cover of darkness and snowdrifts to hide her motion. The wind howled, and the raucous noise of the drunks in the streets easily disguised any sound she made, but relief still filled her as she slipped behind the mound most distant from the guards.

Her relief didn’t last.

This close, she could see that the twisting mass of vines making up the mound were shifting and moving, unnatural in every way. She waited to see if the mound would react to her presence. But while the vines continued to squirm, they made no move toward her. So she reached out to grasp one of them.

It throbbed beneath her hand with the same pulsing beat as a heart, but it didn’t fight against her as she tugged it aside. Grasping another one, she eased it out of the way, slowly creating a passage into the woven mass of glowing vines.

Taking a deep breath, she eased into the tunnel, making her way toward the center of the mound and pushing aside the vines as she crawled. Soon not even her feet stuck out the side, but the brilliance emanating from the center drew her deeper, the feel of the vines moving beneath her like crawling on a bed of snakes.

Then she saw something. A figure.

Ignoring the chill of fear that told her to get out, Lydia eased aside a thick tangle, gasping at what she found before her.

It was a woman.

Far older than Lydia, the woman was wrapped round with vines, thin filaments running through her hair. Her eyes were closed and her skin illuminated by the green glow of the vines. She was kneeling, her hands barely visible where they pressed against the ground, although there was no mistaking the black lines of blight radiating from her fingertips.

Lydia stared at the black murk drawing life away from everything it touched, like a parasite. Gagging, she considered withdrawing, but curiosity drew her closer to the woman.

She seemed catatonic, entirely unaware of Lydia’s presence, and as she drew aside some of the vines, Lydia saw why. The vines weren’t just wrapped around her, they were running through her, the woman and the vine parasite merged together. Almost … almost as though the woman were now more plant than human.

“Gods,” Lydia whispered, trying to understand how such a thing was possible. How it could be undone.

And then the thought fell upon her: Malahi could be in one of these mounds.

Wriggling backward, her arms and legs tangling up, she finally tumbled out onto the snow with a soft thud. She sat frozen, waiting to see if the guards had heard her, whether they’d come to investigate, but they never broke from their conversation around their fire. So Lydia moved to the next mound.

Doing her best to stay quiet, she wrenched the vines out of her way, crawling toward the center until she found the tender within: it was a man, his face unfamiliar.

Retreating, she moved on, gasping for breath but unwilling to rest lest Malahi be imprisoned within one of these things.

How would she get her out without killing her? Even her mark had its limits and she’d have to practically tear Malahi apart to get her free.

What would it do to Killian if he couldn’t save her?

Tears burned in her eyes, and she pushed up her spectacles to wipe at them before moving onto the third mound. Then the fourth. Then the fifth.

All strangers.

Crawling to the eighth mound, the one closest to the soldiers, she fought with the vines, struggling her way inside, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

Please don’t be her.

Please be a stranger.

She shoved aside a tangle of glowing green,