The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

Coming back to life was like surfacing through concrete. It was like being trapped in the maze of Diyu, lost between the levels of torments, unable to find the way back.

Jianyu’s chest burned as though he were being flayed alive. His limbs felt like fire was running through his veins, but he was not yet at the surface. Darkness surrounded him, strangled him, even as he struggled against it. But soon the pain was nothing but noise. Soon, even through the terrible weight of it, he could begin to feel something other than the absolute certainty of death.

His eyes opened, but at first he could not see. It took minutes, maybe hours, for the world to come back to him, dim and blurred. He heard voices. Felt the pain recede as worried hands touched his skin. A pair of eyes appeared above him, and he found that he knew them.

“Viola?” Jianyu tried to form the shape of her name, but his mouth was still missing.

He had asked for Viola, had told Cela and Abel that she alone might be able to help him, but he had not been sure that she would come. Not when she had no idea of anything that had happened—not about how Dolph had been murdered or why Darrigan had done what he did. If she was here… If she had saved him, then truly, they might still have a chance.

“He needs water.” Another voice, soft and sure. Cela. In the darkness between life and death, he had heard her voice coming to him from a distance, but he had not been sure whether it was real or a dream. He would likely never be able to repay her for all that she had done.

Jianyu felt something wet and cool against his face, liquid trickling down over his chin, and then his body seemed to understand what needed to be done. Suddenly he was swallowing. Gulping down the bright, cool liquid like it was the source of life itself, until he realized his body’s mistake—or perhaps his body realized his—and he began coughing it back up. He barely cared that the two women leapt to fuss over him, like he was a very old or very incompetent fool of a man. His embarrassment at their fussing did not matter. He was not dead.

Perhaps he had wondered once or twice before what the future could possibly hold for him, trapped as he was in this country—on this island—so far from his homeland. He had wondered when he realized the truth of the Brink, and when a group of men had held him down and cut his queue, making it certain he could never return home. Often Jianyu had questioned whether the constant struggle of simply existing was worth the seemingly endless exhaustion, the endless battle. He had continued on, but he had wondered many times before what it was all for.

Jianyu had found the answer to that question as soon as he realized how desperate his injury was. As he had grown weaker, the wound constantly seeping with his blood and his life, and then later, when he fought against the ceaseless undertow that pulled him toward nothingness, Jianyu had understood that the struggle had always been worth it. Always, even in its darkest moments.

He was not dead. He had somehow survived, and these two women—Viola and Cela, who were so different from one another, so different from Jianyu himself—were the reason. He allowed them to cluck and fuss because he understood they needed to. He could only be grateful.

A while later, when he was dry and clothed and propped back up in the bed, Viola explained how they had solved the problem of the wound her knife had made, and Jianyu finally told her everything about what had happened in those days after the bridge. Eventually, they came to other things that needed to be said. Difficult things that belonged only between the two of them.

The atmosphere in the small room shifted, and Cela seemed to understand. She excused herself, pulling Theo Barclay out of the room along with her, so Jianyu could speak with Viola alone.

“When I told them to send for you, I was not sure that you would come,” Jianyu admitted, forcing himself to meet Viola’s eyes.

Viola frowned. “Why would you think something so stupid?”

“You were so angry at the gala, and I had not the time to explain.” He paused, knowing these were excuses. “I also wondered if you had ever forgiven me… for Tilly.”

Viola stiffened slightly. “What happened to Tilly wasn’t your fault,” she told him.

“The others were never so sure. I heard what they whispered about me, even after Dolph gave me his support,” Jianyu told her, remembering those dark days after the Bella Strega’s cook had been struck down by some unseen power. He had never felt as if he truly belonged to the Devil’s Own, but after Tilly… it had felt even more impossible. He had stayed only for Dolph, because of Dolph.

“The others were fools,” Viola told him, taking his hand in hers.

“Perhaps, but there were days after when you looked at me with fire in your eyes. There were days I wondered if the moment would come when my heart would seize in my chest.” Jianyu squeezed her hand gently. “I know what Tilly meant to you. We all did.”

Viola’s gaze broke away to study their intertwined hands, and her throat worked like someone who was holding back tears. “I wouldn’t have harmed you—I never blamed you.”

Jianyu accepted her words, allowed the relief of them to wash over him before he spoke again. “And I do not lay any blame on you for what happened at the gala.”

“I nearly killed you,” Viola said, looking back up at him.

“Nearly is a great distance when it comes to dying,” Jianyu reminded her. “You saved me. Now there is truly nothing to forgive.”

“Tell that to the one downstairs,” Viola told him, nodding toward the door. “She has knives in