Page 48 of Embrace the Serpent

He reared back, clutching his nose. “You wretch!” he said—at least I thought that’s what he said, since it sounded more like “Ooo resh!”

He swung a fist. Grimney leapt at him and bit his ear.

The guard swatted at his face, staggering back.

I ducked under his flailing arms and out the carriage. “Grims!” Grimney jumped, and I caught him.

I ran. As fast as I could. His footsteps—no longer careful—dogged me. He kept up a string of curses, then switched to threats of what he’d do to me, which made me run twice as fast.

Another voice came, distant and hoarse. “Bring her alive!”

Branches grabbed at my clothes. I tripped and caught myself, and tripped again. Tree roots, blasted things.

I crawled into a thicket, through the knotted underbelly of roots and branches. The guard snarled, “Where are you, little girl?”

I held my breath.

A glint of silver. My heart leapt.

The Serpent King’s back was turned to me. The soft light filtered through the leaf cover, growing moody, resting on his shoulders and crowning him.

Someone screamed. The Serpent King moved. A squelch, and the scream cut off.

My heart thudded.

A guard—the one who had been chasing me—ran at him, sword raised, nose bleeding, ear bleeding.

The Serpent King turned to meet him, and I caught a glimpse of his face in profile, his teeth bared as he struck fast as a cobra. Blood splattered across his clothes, his face.

I scrambled back. The air had a metallic tang, and it reminded me—it reminded me—

The guard’s body crashed to the ground.

I remembered.

The smell of fire, of resin smoke. The thuds of a battering ram at the front door, dust falling from the rafters with each boom.

My mother’s tear-lined face. Her lips parted.Hide.

Her ring dropped into my hand. The door shut, throwing me into darkness. A sliver of light. I pressed my eye to the crack.

I saw a pool of blood, spreading. Here, on the forest floor. There, on my mother’s prized carpet.

The guard was dying. My mother was dead.

Blood painted the Serpent King’s lips, dripped from his hands.

Some stories were true. Lady Incarnadine was a monster. And so was he.

10

Blood rushed in my ears. A path through the trees. Nothing else existed. My breath tore itself from my lungs.

A distant light penetrated the gloom of the forest, like a beacon. I burst out of the forest onto a dirt road that curved down a hill. A gust of wind, cold and bracing, knocked into me. I breathed it in, and the terror settled down, and my mind cleared.

My legs were shaking. How long had I been running?

I held my breath and listened for any sound of someone following me. The Serpent King might not have seen me—he was turned to the side—but if he had returned to the carriage and found me gone...