Kerym
As the snake snapped its jaw, Kerym drew his sword, pulling Pellie behind him and growling at Soria, who’d strayed too far, to “back the fuck up.”
His eyes didn’t leave the animal’s glistening black ones as it used the thick vines weaving their way down the glossy stone on the outside of the castle to get closer. He hissed back at it when the maw in the large black head opened to display an impressive row of fangs that glistened with venom in the sunlight.
“I hate these things,” Kerym snarled as Merrick also reached for his sword.
Rioner had somehow gotten obsessed with snakes and had bred them so they’d spread all across Vastala, and Kerym had seen far too many Fae—accidentally or not—fall victim to their snapping jaws and swift-acting venom.
And now? His disgust for them also mingled with the intense sorrow he felt as they reminded him of hisbrother. Kerym’s hand gripped the hilt of his blade until the metal made his fingers ache.
Fuck. Thissian had deserved better than to die at the hands of a fucking shifter. In snake form, of all things.
“Lessia!”
Merrick’s snarl had Kerym’s eyes focus again, the pain that had pressed at his chest giving room for other emotions, even if the hurt remained within him, as it would always do. But he didn’t mind it. It was a reminder of his brother. Of the love he had for him. Of what he’d been lucky enough to have to lose.
“Give me a second,” Lessia snapped when Merrick moved to grab her arm, pulling her back from the railing where she’d lingered, her eyes transfixed by the vicious serpent.
“I’d listen to your mate,” the healer cautioned from inside the room. “We’re always low on the antidote, since those damned snakes bite so many.”
Kerym’s eyes rested on Lessia as the crazy female raised an arm, her hand reaching toward the coiling black snake, and he didn’t even blink—his frame went as still as the Death Whisperer’s beside him—when the snake closed its maw, a soft humming sound leaving it as Lessia cooed, “Come and don’t hurt us.”
“What the—” Kerym started.
But Pellie came to his side, her short gasp vibrating through him as she whispered, “One to command the dead, and one to command the living.”
“The balance of nature,” Soria added, worry lacing every letter of her words as she took Kerym’s other side. “One for one. Dead for living. If one walks this sacred earth, so must the other.”
Fuck, Kerym didn’t like the sound of that at all.Neither did Merrick, apparently, as he let out a sharp sound when the damned snake slithered across the railing and actually placed its head under Lessia’s outstretched hand, then moved to coil its body around her.
But not in a threatening way. No. The serpent seemed to protect her—actually hissed at Merrick when he tried to get close to Lessia again.
“Enough,” she said softly, and the snake? It fucking listened, laying its head on her shoulder as it allowed Merrick to her side.
“The living will protect you because the dead will kill you,” Pellie said, her voice shaking at the end when Lessia turned their way.
There was a spark of surprise in Lessia’s eyes, but then she shrugged as she slipped one of her hands into Merrick’s, the other gently shifting the snake onto the railing again, where it remained, its gaze trained on Lessia.
“I can feel it somehow,” she said. “I don’t know what this feeling is, but I feel connected to them—to him. It’s like his soul”—she nodded toward the snake—“calls to me.”
Soria walked closer to the serpent, her eyes flying over the glistening black scales, but remaining far enough away that the creature wouldn’t be able to easily reach her. “He senses your soul too.”
Pellie followed her sister, and despite Kerym not wanting to get an inch closer to that beast, he followed, keeping his sword readied as he shadowed the copper-haired sisters.
“He’s drawn to it,” Pellie exclaimed, her green eyes rounding. “He’s… For centuries their minds have all been poisoned with your family’s cruelty, but you… He knows you’re different. He knows something is about to be different. He… wants to protect you until it happens.”
It was as if the snake understood the witch, because he raised his head, and with a… was that a bow? Yes, the snake dipped its chin before retreating, using the vines to make its way into the gardens, disappearing between the lush bushes that spread out beneath them.
Kerym knew he was gaping, but how could he not?
“That was…” The Siphon Twin didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“I don’t like this,” Merrick growled as he dragged Lessia to him, brushing his lips over hers as if he needed to ensure she was truly there. “Let’s get to the library. I… I don’t want to wait.”
Giving him a long glance, Lessia nodded. After a quick conversation with the healer—apparently the half-witch would survive, but the Fae had given him something that would make him sleep for a few hours—and a guard who’d make sure there was food for them when they returned, Merrick and Lessia took the lead up a spiral staircase at the end of the corridor of rooms.
The witch sisters had mumbled to each other the entire time Lessia and Merrick spoke to the staff, but as they followed Merrick and Lessia, they fell silent.
