Page 53 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
With all my strength, I pushed against the invisible binds caging me. Inside, an earthquake shook. Outside, the snake slid up my leg, unbothered.
I couldn’t see it anymore, but my stomach churned at the sensation.
I tried, gods, I tried to move my fingers around my weapon. I didn’t manage a twitch.
Slick sweat poured from my temples, dripping into my eyes. They burned, blurring my vision even more, but I was powerless to blink them away.
No.
I wasn’t powerless. I had power in me, grandpa Constantine had said so, and Allie had imbued me with her own spell.
I would rather die from exhaustion trying to save my life than to perish like this.
The snake passed my knee, as if guided by some unforeseen force, too.
My thoughts pushed forward, past the shadowy confinement of my fear, the weapon which had kept me captive for so long.
My body was a cage, but my mind was mine and free.
There was nobody here telling me I couldn’t. That it was forbidden.
It was just me. To blame if I died or cheer if I lived.
I held onto that sliver of a hope, desperately searching for a blue tendril. Seeking whathadto be inside of me.
The snake stopped moving. Its tongue whipped against my thigh. Once. Twice.
Ready to strike.
My chest throbbed andburned. As if a molten blaze bubbled and snapped, trying to free itself.
I was Evelina Vegheara.
I was Protectorate First Family.
And I would survive, even if it killed me.
The throbbing in my chest burst out, searing through my veins.
The last of my strength willed my fingers tomove. With a spasm, they closed tightly around my switchblade.
A tremor raced through my legs, but I couldn’t jerk them. The snake hissed and bit down.
Pain unlike any I’d felt before erupted in my leg. The snake’s fangs dug deep into me, inch by inch, piercing my skin and slicing through my muscles.
I pulled my left hand downward slowly, as if moving through molasses.
Half passed out from the pain and the effort, I kept struggling against the hidden binds. The glint of the blade gave me strength.
My switchblade speared through my dress, straight inside the snake’s skull. It thrashed against me, flogging my skin.
The tip of the blade went through my leg, but I kept pushing.
The snake finally went limp, only held up by my switchblade.
A bitter victory.
He’d already bit me.
