Venom in Her Veins by Tim Pratt Page B

usually have my meal with the guardsmen.”
    “You eat with the servants?” Julen frowned. “Why?”
    “Would you rather talk about timetables and schedules and harvesting quotas with my mother, or about dice and fighting and war stories with the guards?”
    “The latter, certainly, but—they include you in their conversation? The times I’ve been alone with servants, they barely say anything , except for my guard of the bedchamber, and that’s different.”
    “We’re a bit more informal in the Travelers,” she said. “Everyone here depends on everyone else to keep them alive. It’s a dangerous business, going out in the field. If you don’t act like a little lordling, they won’t treat you like one.”
    “I’ll do my best,” Julen said, and they started toward the mess tent.
    Krailash met them, and held up his hand. “No,” he said. “Your mother wants you to dine with her, Quelamia, and …” he frowned. “There was someone else.”
    “Glory,” Zaltys prompted, and Krailash’s expression cleared.
    “Yes. Her . A table will be set up by your mother’s wagon.”
    “Am I being punished for something?” Zaltys said.
    “I think she just wants the family and the most loyal retainers to dine together,” Krailash said. “She wanted me there too, but I said it was better for morale if I ate with my men.” He winked at her—a gesture he’d picked up during his time among humans, though he used it rarely, being a serious person by nature—and said, “You’ll be dining in an hour or so.”
    She sighed. “All right. Can I leave Julen with you for a little while?”
    “Why?” Krailash said.
    “I left my ice arrow in the jungle. Stupid, I know, but my cousin here distracted me. I’d like to go retrieve it.”
    “I’ll detail a few guards—”
    Zaltys rolled her eyes. “It’s barely ten minutes away, and that’s if I creep along slowly. The scouts didn’t find anything threatening besides the shadow snake, and it’sdead. We’re barely in the jungle yet—I think I can make it that far safely. All right?”
    Krailash considered. “All right. This time. But come straight back.”
    “Yes, yes.” Zaltys told Julen she’d see him at dinner, then set off toward the jungle. She took a brief side trip to snatch one of the folding shovels the laborers used to dig latrine pits, then went into the trees.
    She found the clearing easily, following the marks left by her own trail—Julen hadn’t left any more sign than she had, amazingly, he was skilled at stealth—until she reached the statue’s severed head. The serpent’s body was still there, untouched as yet by predators. Zaltys began digging a hole near the statue, easily turning up spades full of the yielding, damp earth, until she had a small pit a few feet deep. She placed the shadow snake’s body in the hole, and put its eyeless head on top. Then she refilled the hole and piled some of the smaller chunks of statue rubble over the grave, disturbing countless colonies of fat, trundling beetles in the process. She kneeled for a moment by the grave, unsure why she’d felt compelled to bury it, unsure what she should say. “I’m sorry you had to die,” she said finally, and stood up, turning back toward her camp.
    While she’d been intent on filling the grave, the clearing had filled with snakes. Mundane ones, not flame spitters or shadow snakes or coil constrictors, just brightly-colored jungle serpents, all lifting their heads in the air and looking at her, swaying slightly. Zaltys started to take a step back, but she sensed, somehow, that they meant her no harm. Were they capable of telling thatshe’d done a kindness for their larger, more shadowy relative? Or annoyed at the way she’d casually killed one of their own with an arrow earlier? Either seemed possible, though neither was likely. As she moved forward, they slithered aside, clearing a path for her, and Zaltys backed into the trees, watching the serpents as they, in