They destroyed far more than our land. Our clutches have grown smaller with each passing generation. The war poisoned more than soil, it fractured the very lifeblood of our kind. Now each hatchling is a rarity, a blessing. We count them like sacred beads, guard them like treasure. And still the numbers dwindle.
The serpentglass pulses beneath my touch, warming slightly. The ancient technology of my ancestors, fused with magic that predates even our oldest histories. Through it, I can observe unseen, protected from the human gaze that has always meant danger for my kind.
She approaches the gate alone now, reaches out to touch one of the carvings. Bold. Too bold. Does she not understand she has not yet been accepted? Or does she simply not care?
"Admiring your new pet, Prithas?"
The voice slides through the chamber like venom, familiar and unwelcome. I do not turn, do not acknowledge immediately. Let him wait. Let him remember his place as Second Fang.
"She is not a pet, Lurok. She is a treaty obligation." My voice remains level though my scales prickle with unease. "The exchange that ensures our people's survival."
Lurok’s massive form glides beside me, his scales silver where mine burn dark like lightning to my flame, cold gleam to my ember glow, yet scarred from the same battles as mine. Hair the color of fog before dawn hangs in loose, uneven strands that seem to shift with the faintest motion of air, as though thewind itself clings to him. Brothers in battle, we trained together, fought together in the endless war. But now I no longer know which side he serves. He moves like a warrior, but his words carry the venom of those who whisper in the dark.
"Survival?" His laugh is dry, incensed. "Is it survival to dilute our bloodlines? To bind ourselves to creatures who skinned our hatchlings for their armor?" His frosty gaze narrows, colorless and unblinking, fixed on the serpentglass. "Look at her, Varok. She touches our sacred gates as if she has the right. As if she belongs here."
I say nothing because there is nothing to say. He is not entirely wrong. I have seen the trophies humans display. Naga scales fashioned into shields, teeth strung as necklaces. I have buried too many of my own kind not to hate them for it.
Lurok presses on, his voice coiled tight. “The prophecy warned us of this.A child of flesh shall cross the gate.What if she is that child, Varok? The omen of corruption the TrueCoil preach. A harbinger of destruction, not salvation. You would be blind not to see it.”
I turn to face him at last, voice cutting like steel. “You think too much like them. The TrueCoil twist prophecy to justify their hatred. The Temple Guardians teach differently. Besides, this human is no harbinger, she is a symbol of accord, nothing more. She fulfills a treaty, not destiny.”
His tail lashes against the stone, sharp as a strike. “You are a fool to believe she is not the one! Fine. But when blood remembers what fire forgets, it will not be peace that follows. It will be ruin.”
"The Serpent Crown has decreed this path," I say finally. "It is not for us to question.”
"Naryth grows old and forgetful and well you know it." Lurok's voice drops dangerously low. "He forgets the taste of human treachery. Forgets what they did to the clutches of theeastern caverns." He leans closer. "But you remember, don't you, Varok? You remember your brothers."
Pain lances through me, sharp and familiar. I remember, even though hundreds of years have passed. How could I ever forget the horror? Seraph, barely past his first shedding, his golden eyes wide with shock as the human pike tore through him. Karesh and Viren, their bodies found days later, scales harvested, muscles carved away. My parents’ second clutch, my blood, reduced to trophies.
"I remember my duty," I say, the words like stones in my throat. "Unlike some. Peace is the way forward, Lurok, whether you accept it or not."
“Forward into extinction,” Lurok growls. His tail lashes once, a sign my barb found its mark. “You bind yourself to her, you bring her into your den, and still you pretend she is not prophecy made flesh. You cannot outrun what has been foretold.”
I let the silence stretch around us. Through the serpentglass, I watch as crimson beads well from the human female's palm and anoint the ancient stone. To my surprise, it trembles. Awakens. The rock shudders with recognition, its surface rippling outward from where her blood touched, as if her essence speaks a language the stone remembers. No seams appear. No hinges creak. The gate simply parts like water before a sacred vessel, flowing away in slow, deliberate waves that seem almost... reverent.
Beside me, Lurok's scales bristle as he witnesses the impossible. "By all the Ancients," he hisses, eyes fixed on the parting gate. "The gate recognizes something in her blood.”
"Her offering was to be but a formality," I utter in disbelief. Never before has the gate parted for human blood. Only naga essence has held this power.
“She offers a few drops where oceans of our kind have spilled, and it parts for her?" he snarls, icy eyes narrowing to slits.
“The time for bloodshed has passed," I tell him, though part of me, the part haunted by the spectral eyes of my clutch-brothers, their scales still gleaming with youth when humans cut them down, agrees with him. "Peace equals our survival."
He leans closer, gaze hardening. “Mark me, Varok. When the prophecy burns true, it will not be the Guardians proven right. It will be the ones of us who never forgot what humans are. And when you bind yourself to her, when you take her into your nest, remember this: she is not your true mate. She is your enemy. Her kind will never see us as equals. Only as monsters to be tolerated until they grow strong enough to destroy us completely."
I do not answer. Instead I watch as First Fang Sareth and three of my strongest warriors, Traven, Zaethir, and Nirik surround the human female, escorting her through the gate and into the labyrinth of tunnels that leads to the Temple of Threads. She does not look back at her father or the human delegation. Her stride remains steady, shoulders squared. She moves with determined strides. Resolute in her fate among strangers.
Her strength unsettles me more than her fear.
Sareth murmurs a brief command in our tongue, and the formation shifts with disciplined ease. All but Zaethir. His pale gray eyes flick toward the human, narrowing for a fraction of a second. The inky-haired naga hesitates just a heartbeat too long.
Odd, as Zaethir is known for his precision, for moving like a blade drawn before thought. My frown deepens as unease coils low in my gut.
Something is off. I feel it in my scales. Perhaps it is the human who has shaken me as I have no reason to doubt these four warriors.
"Why are you here, Lurok?" I finally ask. "You have never cared for bonding ceremonies.”
His mouth curves, sharp and humorless. “To witness history. To see my commander chain himself to human flesh in the name of peace.” His tongue flicks, tasting the air between us. “And to remind you some of us still remember what it means to be naga.”
