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She continued. “I want to see you and your brother on your knees. I want to see you beg for mercy.”
Ladon scoffed. “It’s a good thing you’re used to failure, Reyna. You’ll never be a queen, and you’ll never see me beg.”
Reyna rose to her feet with a scowl. Lightning cracked in the sky and it occurred to me that perhaps her power manifested in the stormy weather. The looming fog. The sunless sky. The electricity in the air was as wild and chaotic as she was.
She snapped her fingers, and thunder boomed. I watched with terror, waiting for something to happen. She stared down at us through her long dark lashes. The corner of her mouth turned up in a feral, terrorizing grin.
Just when I was beginning to think nothing was happening, that her command had gone unanswered, I heard something moving behind me. Something rustling the twigs and loose soil. I looked over my shoulder and my eyes went wide as I shouted in horror.
A large black snake slithered from the hedge maze, down the marble steps, making its way closer to Ladon and I. I jumped to my feet as best as I could, putting distance between myself and the latest arrival to this party of lunacy.
The snake was at least twenty feet long, and the thickest section of its torso was larger than my waist. It could crush me in a matter of seconds if it chose to. If Reyna commanded it to.
It inched its way toward the platform, slithering right between Ladon and I. I took another step back for good measure. Ladon didn’t show any fear, just an uneasy bob of the throat as he swallowed. As for me, my icy tremors turned to beads of sweat.
Even the two hellhounds looked apprehensive. One whined but halted immediately when Reyna shot it a look of malice. It drooped its head after being silently scolded by its owner. I almost felt bad for the creature until I remembered how it had terrorized me.
“Do you like my pets?” Reyna asked, and I realized her attention was once again focused on me. “Nova and Nox are still puppies. Bred them myself with starlight and things that hide in the depths of the mountains. Things that make even my skin crawl.”
She bent down and scratched one hound behind the ear. “They’re very energetic and their eagerness makes them hard to tame at times. But they’re learning.”
If those things were puppies, then I didn’t want to know what a fully grown hellhound looked like.
“But Vessina, my viper, I’ve had her for decades. She’s well trained. Patient. She knows how to extend the pain without completely incapacitating her prey. She’s cool and calculated. Much like me. I’m sure you can appreciate the similarities.”
Reyna paced back and forth on the platform and, oddly enough, Vessina swerved back and forth in time with her master. Her black scales matched Reyna’s dress and her beady eyes had a sliver of orange down the center.
“So…you don’t intend to play nicely, Ladon? What a shame. I don’t think you’re going to like Vessina’s games. Vessina,” she pointed her finger to the snake and then flicked it toward Ladon. “Play.”
The snake reacted quickly, turning from the platform and coming straight for Ladon and I. She closed the distance in a matter of seconds, rearing her head to strike. The shadow of her massive figure swallowed us entirely. Vessina hissed and bared her venomous fangs.
Something foreign tugged at my core, unwilling to let Ladon endure the assault. Gods knew he didn’t deserve my consideration or my interference. But I darted in front of him anyway, and rather than attacking Ladon, Vessina drove her fangs into my shoulder.
Those sharp ivory teeth cut through my skin with such ease. She latched on while her venom surged into me.
I screamed. The pain was blinding. A million times worse than the damage the hellhound had done to my leg. Like a thousand tiny shards of glass had been injected into my veins. They multiplied and shredded my very soul as they spread through my body.
I shook violently, but Vessina didn’t let go. She kept her fangs buried deep into my skin and muscle. The pain was so excruciating; I wondered if she’d pierced the bone, too. I felt her everywhere, even in my mind. She was all I could see. My heart pumped wildly, seemingly fighting against the intrusion, but it backfired as the venom spread.
I was faintly aware of Reyna laughing in the distance and Ladon’s hands grabbing me from behind. He didn’t pull or try to rip me from the viper. Likely knowing that if he tried, Vessina would only dig her fangs in deeper. Ladon simply held me up. He kept me grounded, whispering something that sounded like hold on, Emilie.
“You stupid girl,” Reyna said with a shrill laugh. “Vessina, release her.”
The viper pulled her fangs from my shoulder, and cool air whipped around the puncture. Two gaping holes were left behind and what should have been a relief was more like salt on a wound. I gritted my teeth and tried to breathe through my agony.
My body slumped against Ladon, and I felt myself being lowered to the ground. He held me in his lap, against his chest. There should’ve been warmth where our bodies met, but I just felt cold.
“Hold on, Emilie,” he said again. I didn’t have the energy to respond. It took everything in me to keep my eyelids open. My head lolled to the side, resting against his shoulder.
“What are we going to do with you now?” Reyna asked with an air of amusement. Like my impending death was no more consequential than a spilled glass of wine. The disposal of my body would be a mere inconvenience for her.
I licked my lips—parched. I’d give anything for a glass of water right now. My body was shriveling up. My eyes hurt and I considered if it would be better to just close them.
Ladon shook me gently. “Don’t you dare give up. Do you hear me?”
Reyna chuckled. “How sweet…it doesn’t really matter how hard she fights, though. The venom will kill her eventually. If only there were an antidote…”
Through my blurred vision, I watched Reyna dip her hand into a pocket and pull out a small glass vial with a cork stopper. The liquid inside was black and thick like syrup.
