Page 108 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

I lurch forward, reaching for his head again, pressing my palm to his cheek.

“Serpent,” I whisper, my fingers brushing his nearest scar. “Why would you do this for me?”

This beast barely knew me. He had no reason to protect me. Except maybe…

My focus rises again to Maxim, who rages at Antony, provoking another sequence of strikes that audibly break Maxim’s bones.

The serpent didn’t do it for me. He did it for Maxim.

Dear Goddess, but I was the one holding on.

In the haze of movement, I remember that clearly.

I stopped Maxim from moving away from me.

I may not yet understand the circumstances that drew us to that moment, but Maxim has already proven to me how seriously he takes the danger of his fire. He doesn’t live near his people anymore. He wouldn’t even step close to me earlier.

Stellen stands guard at my side with Nara on the other side of him while I take another breath and prepare to launch myself into the conflict between Maxim and Antony.

The moment I push away from the serpent, I stop.

My fingertips are tingling. An odd sensation.

I peer closer at the bumpy scar I was touching, tracing the curved welt along the serpent’s scales, following the nearly imperceptible sequence of golden ridges that extend all along the serpent’s neck.

“These marks,” I whisper. “They look just like…”

I turn my arm over in a flash, comparing the blood bind runes to the pattern on the serpent’s scales that are now leaping out at me like a blazing sun.

“This is a blood bind!” The marks are darker. Clearer. As if Maxim’s flames had caused them to rise across the serpent’s scales. “Stellen, this is a⁠—”

He’s already at my side.

“Look.” I hold my arm closer to the scars. “This mark on my arm is the same as this mark on the serpent. This one, too!”

“They’re runes.” Stellen doesn’t touch them, his palm hovering above the serpent’s scales. “Very cleverly concealed. It looks like they were drawn in⁠—”

“Gold ink.” A shiver runs down my spine as the images in my Oracle vision flash back within my mind: a woman drawing in gold on a baby’s arms and then lacing the lines with blood.

Stellen leans back on his heels. “Blood mixed with gold is a very rare combination. I’ve only read of it once and that was a vague mention in one of the letters I showed you.”

One of those letters strongly indicated that the fae who forged the Dragonstone Blade was a Blood Fae.

But I start to doubt myself. “Ferocie Scribes used metallic inks, didn’t they? Maybe this isn’t a blood bind but simply a decoration, like an insignia.”

Stellen rubs his chin. “As much as I’d like to believe that, these are dark marks. I don’t know what they mean, but the stroke pattern matches a blood bind. Parts of your blood bind, to be exact. Which could mean the similar marks are some kind of foundational building blocks from which the other runes extend.”

My mind churns as I try to understand what this could mean. “Blood magic is specific. Targeted. Why place a blood bind on this serpent?”

Maxim said the serpent already had these scars when he slithered out of the sand two years ago, the only serpent willing to carry him.

What was the serpent’s blood bind doing?

Before I can ask, Stellen jolts toward me.

“Thyra, you’re bleeding.”

I swipe at my nose. Only a trickle but enough to make a mess across my hand.