Sin froze in her tracks. She felt it… before she heard it. The echoing sounds of hissing… towards the coast.
A woman with white hair and tentacles hovered over the water, waved a three-pointed spear, laughed, and then sank into the water.
Whatever this woman did, revealed where that hissing was coming from.
They weren’t a mile from the west gate, where Sin focused her hearing and could track several anticipated heartbeats.
“There’s at least fifty of them waiting,” the queen whispered.
“They’re waiting for my return, I think,” Gideon answered.
The noises towards the coast became louder.
“Stars,” the queen breathed.
Sin looked towards the smiling queen and prince, she and Jocelyn both frowning in question.
“It’s the army,” the queen answered her unspoken question. “Just watch, Sin. No one enters the castle yet,” the queen ordered.
Sin?Max’s voice was a ghost, distant and pained, echoing in her mind.
Her vision tunneled, focusing solely on the castle ahead. Nothing else mattered—each step was a heartbeat, every breath a promise to reach him. No one, not even a queen, would stand in her way.
I’m coming.The words were both a promise and a desperate plea before she started to run.
“I said, wait.” The queen’s voice was cold steel, her grip on Sin’s leathers unyielding as iron.
Sin tried to yank herself free, and stopped cold in her tracks at the sight before them.
Thousands of snakes slithered into the gates, scales rasping against the stone, moving like a dark, undulating tide. The hissing filled the air, drowning out every other sound—a living wave of death.
Thus began the screams—high-pitched, panicked wails that echoed off the stone walls. The clashing of swords rang out like a brutal symphony.
“It’s the army of my home,” the queen whispered to her in awe. “Let them clear the way for us first, and we’ll follow in through the west gate.”
Sin nodded, floored by the sights and sounds of an army of shifter snakes taking over the kingdom.
Max, she called to him.
Yes, my love?
They’re here.
Sin
The sounds of battle filled the castle halls, echoing off the stone walls. Sin and her group appeared in the midst of the chaos. Soldiers in green and gold clashed violently, and several soldiers immediately moved to surround and escort the queen.
The clash of steel echoed, punctuated by guttural screams and the wet, meaty thud of blade meeting flesh. The cries of the wounded blended into a symphony of agony, haunting and relentless.
Sin found herself stepping over the twisted bodies of the fallen, her boots slipping on the blood-slicked floors. Each step forward required effort, her footfalls weighed down by the corpse-strewn path that had become an obstacle course of the dead and dying.
It was a gruesome battle within the castle halls, bodies piling up as they made their way toward the dungeons, but it was all happening too slowly for Sin’s patience.
The queen and other allies pushed forward, fighting through the defenders with skill and brutality. Bodies continued to pile around them, and Sin’s aggression only grew.
Horns were blaring outside the castle.
A little too late, she thought, as she followed the path that could only lead to the dungeons. There were very few places Sin was unfamiliar with in the castle, given her time serving in it.Only one area was forbidden to everyone: the furthest floor of the east wing.
