Page 116 of Embrace the Serpent

I looked up. The Emperor, his jeweled armor polished and glinting, set with garnets for strength and jasper for endurance, his eyes cold, his mouth twisted in fury.

He raised his sword.

A shadow fell over us. The Serpent King, his eyes blazing with a fury that made my blood run cold, loomed above, his massive form coiling with terrifying grace. His eyes locked on to the Emperor, and for a moment, everything seemed to stop.

His gaze found me, and then shifted to his heart.

“Go—your heart!” I screamed.

The heart was lost in between hooves. A soldier advanced on it, bearing a mace glinting with jewels—he raised it—

Time seemed to slow as the Serpent King faced his choice, his immense eyes flicking from me to the heartstone. The Emperor’s sword swung down toward me, and I braced.

A roar, so loud the earth trembled, and the serpent lunged toward me, placing himself between me and the blade. I heard the clang as the sword bit into his scales, but he did not flinch. His massive body coiled protectively around me, his eyes blazing with defiance.

In the distance, in the direction of the heartstone, came a loud and horriblecrack.

“No!” I screamed, from within the embrace of his coils.

The heartstone. His skin was slippery with blood, but I managed to climb out, just as the Serpent King’s tail smacked into a line of advancing soldiers.

I ducked, falling to my knees, and I crawled to the huddle of soldiers, a glimpse of red at their feet.

A hand closed around my ankle and pulled me back. The Emperor, his eyes wild, a crazed smile on his lips, a curved dagger in his hand. “Who are you, little girl, to stand against the crown? Do you not know what happens to those who defy me? Their blood is the fertilizer from which my empire grows.”

I pushed at him, twisting to get away, to get to the heartstone, but he dragged me back.

A sudden surge of heat turned the air scorching and bright, and the Emperor turned to its source. A pillar of red-orange flames, andin their center, a figure of pure white fire.

Her gaze landed on me. “I come to pay two debts. One to the girl who freed me—our bargain was too deeply in my favor—and now the scales are balanced. And the other...” She turned to the Emperor as I scrambled back, putting distance between me and them.

“You betray me?” he spat.

Incarnadine laughed, a sound like crackling fire. “A friend betrays. A slave merely rebels.”

The dirt under her feet turned to glass with each step she took toward him.

The Emperor realized his predicament, for he softened his voice. “Y-you were not my slave.” Sweat beaded on his brow. “I—I loved you. I would have married you, but for the laws.”

“Do you want my love?” Incarnadine said, tilting her head.

His heat-reddened cheeks rounded as he smiled, confident. “Of course.”

She moved like a leaping flame, closing the gap between them, and embraced him. He screamed, thrashing, but she did not let go. The light grew blinding, and I raised my arm to block it. His screams ended, and then came the scent of burnt flesh.

The light dimmed. Incarnadine made a soft sound, an exhalation of pure relief, and I felt it like a cool wind on my skin. It was the end of his reign, the end of his Empire, the end of children being stolen from their homes.

My fingers found the mark on my chest, concealed by my clothes.

Nothing remained of the Emperor but ash and a puddle of molten metal. It was over.

She met my gaze, her eyes twin fires, and she rose into the skywith such force that a wall of air slammed into the soldiers on all sides, clearing a circle around me and the serpent. He reared up, his great silver head rising into the sky, his eyes on me.

I scrambled across the steaming dirt, to where a shard glinted red against the earth.

It was lodged in the dirt by the force it had been struck with. I clawed it out with shaking hands, and turned it over, scrubbing the dirt away.

There was no crack. But I’d heard it—

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