The ground thrummed, cracked, and a spiny, disfigured tree unfurled from the earth, scattering dirt and embracing the serpent in its creaking branches. The creature flailed, splintering the tree. Its tail caught Valenna’s legs and pulled her feet out from under her, then curled its body around her. Valenna shrieked.
To Evander, her scream was a lightning strike.
With a surge of mad energy, he snatched up his knife, sprang to his feet, and threw himself onto the creature’s head. Without a second thought, he plunged the blade into its skull. The snake twisted and reared back, but he hooked his hand inside its gaping mouth. It lurched upward, lifting him into the air. Dangling from its lower jaw, Evander pulled himself up, clutched the knife protruding from the creature’s brow, and yanked it free. Then he struck it into the roof of its mouth. The blade stuck, caught on bone, and the snake squealed, indignant and alive, trying to shake him off.
Valenna moaned, the serpent’s body tightening, forcing the air from her lungs.
Winding his legs around the snake’s neck, Evander bared his teeth and forced the knife further. The blade pierced through the upper palate and, with a sudden, smooth release, into its brain.
The serpent fell dead, the impact of its body an earthquake.
Chapter twenty-four
Valenna
Rib-cracking pressure, unbearable pain. Valenna couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even struggle. Lights popped in her vision as the snake constricted, and then, suddenly—release.
Sliding free of the snake’s coils, Valenna lay in the dirt and dragged in aching, wheezing breaths. Her ribs throbbed like fingers uncurling from a tight fist. Coughing, she pushed up to her knees and stared at the endless tangle of limp scales.
Unless a hero had appeared out of the trees and rescued them, Evander must have killed the serpent.
Oh, Roz. Where was he? Valenna stumbled to her feet, and her gaze fell on Evander a few paces away, trapped under the serpent’s head. He wasn’t struggling; he was just lying calmly, staring at the waving canopy. Thinking he was dead, Valenna let out a strangled shriek.
But then he turned his head.
“There you are,” he said, his voice compressed. “I’ve been searching for you.”
“You’ve been searching for me?” she cried. “I wasn’t the one who got carried away by my wretched pet.”
She slid to her knees beside him. “Are you alright?”
“Just contemplating existence,” he rasped, “while being slowly crushed to death.”
Valenna hefted her shoulder against the snake’s body, but it hardly budged. Evander grit his teeth and tried to push it, and Valenna gasped and grabbed his wrists.
“Stop! You’ll strain yourself.”
“Val,” he said, “if the hellish nonsense I’ve been through today hasn’t killed me yet, this isn’t going to do it.”
Valenna cast around for a fallen bough, found one sturdy enough to serve, wedged it under the snake’s jaw, and doubled over it. Her feet lifted off the ground, and the head raised enough for Evander to roll free.
Valenna dropped the bough and bent over him.
“You’re lucky I came after you.” Her tone was angry, but her hands were gentle as she ran them over his body, feeling for fractures. “I’ve never been so furious at anyone in my life. To Roz with your oath! You would have let that thing eat you! I could kill you! I could really …” Her voice hitched, and she bit down on the tirade. Evander, as usual, was unperturbed.
“I tried to find you, the second Hera dropped me. I swear.”
“Well, you would have had a bloody difficult time doing that from the digestive system of a giant snake, you absolute idiot!”
He struggled to his knees. “I need to find Hera before Raska finds me.”
“Why?”
“Raska fears Hera. She won’t take me when Hera is with me.”
“But why does Raska want you? I don’t understand.”
His eyes were bleary, his complexion too pale.She pulled his arm around her shoulders and helped him stand. “We need to get you more wyvern bone powder quickly. You’re bleeding inside your head, I can tell. Your eyes don’t look right.”
