The Serpentine's Revenge

Chapter Nineteen

Darkness. Pitch black. And silence. Complete silence. Her footsteps neared. Her shoes made almost no sound on the muddy floor. I heard her voice. Your father was a bastard. He ruined everything for me. He promised me a life, a good one. But he failed to deliver. I thrashed around, hearing the clanking of chains. You will pay for his crimes. You will forever be my prisoner. Allura’s voice echoed around the chamber. I felt the familiarity of the cold mud against my sore bottom. I saw them.

Cobalt, Allura, Crimson, my parents and even Millard. They closed in on me. I backed all the way up, until my back hit the brick wall. You are nothing. They said in unison. You wasted what you were given. You have killed innocents, and ruined countless more. You became the orphan that creates more orphans. You should’ve stopped all of this before it could even begin. Out of Allura’s hands was a dancing ball of fire. She grabbed my wrist, her grip iron. Now Allura can do what she dreamed of doing. I smelled the scent of my own burning flesh. There was so much pain, it just felt like a white blinding light. There was no colour to it.

I screamed out of my dream. I desperately drank in oxygen. Sweat tainted my brow, and my clothes. Was that— There was vomit all over the bed. The smell lingered in the small confined tent. I ran outside, and emptied my stomach again. I lied down on the grass and looked up at the sky. My pulse still raced beneath my skin. I sat up, and wrapped my arms around myself. I stayed outside until the coldness shivered into my bones.

I quickly cleaned up all the bed sheets, and tossed them out. My hand shook violently. I held it in my other hand, but the shaking continued. I had to do something.

I tossed my cape around my shoulders and headed out of the fenced area. I slid into the shadows of the familiar infirmary. It was complete nighttime, and all the patients were probably asleep. I crept through door, and the floor squeaked. I swore under my breath. I pushed open the door to Anya’s storage room.

My eyes scanned across the shelf of potions, elixirs, and some other mysterious draughts and herbs. In Anya’s curly writing, a bottle of clear potion read Dreamless Sleep Tonic. I was about to reach for it, until I saw Anya’s writing of Sertraline beside it. I grabbed every bottle of Sertraline on the shelf, and stuffed it everywhere on my body. In my boots, in my pockets, in my cape. I needed this tonic. Badly.

I popped open the cork of one of the vials, and downed the tonic in one gulp. I felt my muscles instantly relax, the pounding in my chest return to normal. I crept out the door once more, completely unnoticed.

~

Anya came to visit me a few days after. I was training outside my tent, sweat coating my skin. I threw my knife. It flew straight into the bark of a tree. I spiralled in an aerial toward the tree, grabbed the knife out of the trunk and thrusted my closed fist into the tree.

The bark splintered underneath my hand. “I’m impressed.” I looked behind my shoulder to see Anya with a parchment in her hand. I blew the stray hair out of my face.

“Practice.” I merely said. I looked at the paper in her hand. “What is it you need?”

She c****d her head to the side. “Why do you think I need something?”

I shrugged. “Everyone who’s come to me, has asked me for something.” She handed me the parchment, and I cracked open the seal.

“Lord Ryker sent me this.” In a beautiful calligraphy, the letter stated that Millard, Anya, and I were invited to dine with the Ryker family. “Do you care to explain?”

I sighed. “Lord Ryker asked me to assassinate his son.” Anya’s mouth opened up, but I stopped her before she could say anything. “I don’t know why. However, I refused to kill his son, despite the large sum of money I would receive if I did. I bumped into his son in the marketplace, where he spilled water all over me. He took me back to his house to clean up, and he made me eat a meal with his family.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean?” I tied my hair up in a high ponytail.

“Why didn’t you kill him. I’ve never heard of The Assassin backing out on an large offer.”

“I didn’t see why a father should kill his son.”

She eyed me skeptically. “Was he handsome? I’ve heard the Ryker’s son is quite the ladies’ man.”

I was taken aback. “What does this have to do with anything?” She didn’t say anything. But I knew what she wanted to say. “I mean, I guess. He was decent. He wasn’t ugly.”

She held her hands up in surrender. “Alright. What does this have to do with Millard and I?”

“Well,” I paused. I’ll just straight up tell her the truth. “I might have said you and Millard were my siblings…”

She scoffed. “You can’t be serious.” I smiled sweetly. As if to say Please? “Fine. I’ll be your sister. Only because I want to see this Ryker boy. If you didn’t kill him, there must be a very good reason why. Perhaps, you two could be…” I shook my head violently. I thanked the gods. “I suppose you want me tell Millard?”

I smiled even more innocently. “Will you please?”

She laughed. “We are going to this dinner. We are going to see if the Ryker boy is your true love.”

It was me who scoffed this time. “Excuse me? No. If you are going to try to get me with Thomas, you are out of your mind.”

Anya licked her lips. “Aah, his name is Thomas. A beautiful name. Azuria and Thomas? Thomas and Azuria? Thomas and Azuria Ryker? I like it.” I laughed.

“Go tell Millard.” I pointed behind her, gesturing her to go. “And I’m not marrying him, calm down.”

She looked extremely offended. “You want me to break the heart of my friend, telling him that the woman he loves, loves another?”

“I don’t love Thomas. I barely know him. Just go.” She giggled and danced away, chanting ‘Azuria and Thomas’.

I rolled my eyes. I threw another knife into a tree.