The Girl Who Could Not Hide
1160 Words
Chapter 8
The palace did not sleep that night.
Torches burned in every hallway. Guards moved through the corridors like restless wolves, their armor clinking softly in the dark. Messengers ran from tower to tower carrying orders from the king, their boots striking the stone floors in quick nervous rhythms.
Something had shifted inside the palace.
The search had begun.
And once a king begins hunting something inside his own walls, peace dies very quickly.
Inside her chamber Selene stood by the window, watching the red wound in the sky flicker above the city of Vareth. The light had grown stronger as the night deepened, like the heavens themselves were bleeding slowly over the kingdom.
The serpent lay coiled around the metal frame of the window.
Its golden eyes reflected the crimson sky.
“They suspect you,” it said quietly.
Selene didn’t answer immediately.
She could feel it too.
Something in the air of the palace had changed. The guards outside her door had doubled. Their voices whispered through the corridor like men discussing a funeral.
“They don’t know yet,” Selene finally said.
“No,” the serpent agreed.
“But they feel it.”
Selene turned away from the window and walked slowly across the room.
The black veins beneath her skin had spread farther again. They now curled faintly across the back of her hands and along her wrists like dark roots searching for soil.
She touched them lightly.
They pulsed beneath her fingers.
“What happens when it spreads farther?” she asked.
The serpent tilted its head.
“It will.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
The serpent slid slowly down the window frame and onto the stone floor.
“You will change.”
Selene gave a tired smile.
“That’s not comforting.”
“Truth rarely is.”
Selene paced slowly across the room.
“My father is searching for the Serpent Queen,” she muttered.
“The priests are whispering about prophecy. The guards are looking at everyone like they expect a monster to crawl out of their skin.”
She stopped walking.
“And the monster is me.”
The serpent watched her carefully.
“You are not a monster.”
Selene laughed quietly.
“Then what do you call a girl with poison running through her veins?”
The serpent did not answer.
The silence stretched long enough for Selene to understand.
Before she could speak again—
A distant scream echoed through the palace.
Selene froze.
Another scream followed.
This one louder.
Closer.
The serpent lifted its head instantly.
“That was not fear,” it said.
Selene’s heart began to pound.
“What do you mean?”
“That was pain.”
The chamber door burst open.
Mira stumbled inside, breathless and pale.
“Princess!”
Selene rushed toward her.
“What happened?”
Mira grabbed her arm.
“There’s fighting in the lower halls!”
Selene blinked.
“Fighting?”
“Someone broke through the outer gate!”
The serpent’s golden eyes flashed.
Selene’s voice dropped.
“Who?”
Mira shook her head.
“No one knows. But they’re cutting through the palace guards like they’re nothing.”
The serpent’s voice slipped quietly into Selene’s mind.
One of the hunters.
Selene felt cold crawl down her spine.
“So soon?”
The serpent lifted its head slowly.
“The world has waited centuries for your blood.”
Selene turned toward the window again.
“How many hunters are coming?”
The serpent’s answer came without hesitation.
“Too many.”
Another scream echoed through the palace corridors.
Steel clashed.
Someone shouted orders.
Selene looked back at Mira.
“You need to leave.”
Mira stared at her.
“What?”
“This isn’t your fight.”
Mira’s voice cracked.
“I’m not leaving you.”
Selene placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders.
“Yes you are.”
“But—”
“Go.”
The serpent slid across the floor toward the door.
“They’re getting closer.”
Mira’s eyes filled with fear.
“Selene…”
Selene forced a small smile.
“I’ll be fine.”
It was a lie.
Both of them knew it.
But Mira finally nodded and slipped back into the corridor, disappearing into the chaos spreading through the palace.
The moment she was gone, the serpent turned toward Selene.
“You should run.”
Selene shook her head.
“Running didn’t work yesterday.”
Another crash echoed somewhere below them.
Stone breaking.
Men shouting.
Selene walked to the door and slowly pushed it open.
The palace corridor was filled with smoke and torchlight.
Guards ran past carrying wounded soldiers.
One man stumbled against the wall, blood pouring from a deep cut across his chest.
Selene grabbed his arm.
“What happened?”
The guard looked up at her with wide terrified eyes.
“He’s not human,” the man whispered.
Selene felt the serpent coil tighter around her wrist.
“Who?”
The guard’s voice trembled.
“The man in black.”
Far below them, in the shattered entrance hall of the palace, Kael stepped over the body of another fallen guard.
His sword dripped slowly onto the marble floor.
The palace soldiers had tried to stop him.
They had failed.
A dozen bodies lay scattered across the hall.
Some still breathing.
Most not.
Kael wiped the blade clean against the cloak of a dead soldier and looked toward the grand staircase leading deeper into the palace.
His eyes glowed faintly in the red light pouring through the shattered roof above.
One of his riders approached from behind.
“My lord.”
Kael didn’t turn.
“She’s here.”
The rider frowned.
“You can feel it?”
Kael smiled slowly.
“Yes.”
He began walking toward the stairs.
“The serpent blood always announces itself.”
Behind him the rider hesitated.
“And when you find her?”
Kael stopped halfway up the staircase.
For a moment he looked up toward the higher floors of the palace.
Toward Selene’s chambers.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“Then the world will finally begin to change.”
Back in the corridor above, Selene stood very still.
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
The serpent’s voice slipped into her thoughts again.
He is close.
Selene swallowed.
“Who is he?”
The serpent’s golden eyes darkened.
“One of the few men in this world who might survive meeting you.”
Selene felt the black veins pulse beneath her skin.
“And if he’s here to kill me?”
The serpent tilted its head slightly.
“Then he will try.”
Below them, Kael began climbing the palace stairs.
Each step echoed through the stone halls like the ticking of a clock counting down toward something inevitable.
And for the first time since the prophecy began—
The Serpent Queen was no longer the only dangerous thing inside the palace.
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