The blade hung suspended—one inch above Sunniless's neck—quivering like a lover denied at the last second.
He could feel its cold kiss, the faint vibration humming through the iron. One heartbeat. Two. Then the world exploded.
CRAAAACK! A sound like the sky tearing open ripped through the arena. Stone screeeamed. Mortar burst into white dust. The western wall of the coliseum simply ceased to exist as something colossal punched through it, sending rubble and black scales flying.
The crowd's bloodlust curdled into pure terror.
A serpent—no, a leviathan—coiled into the sunlight. Forty paces long if it was an inch, thicker than royal war-masts, scales matte black and glossy as spilled ink. Each plate the size of a knight's shield, edges razor-sharp, catching the sun in flashes of violet and venom-green. Its head rose above the royal box, hood flaring like a cobra's, but a thousand times more monstrous. Pale gold eyes, slit and ancient, surveyed the fleeing ants below with bored contempt.
The silent hiss that followed was worse than any roar. The sound of graves opening. The sound of every nightmare Elynor's priests had warned about deciding to take a morning stroll.
People trampled each other. Mothers dropped babies. Nobles crawled over peasants. The bottleneck at the eastern gate became a meat grinder of screaming bodies.
Guards—brave, stupid, or both—formed a hasty spear line. Their pikes looked like sewing needles against the beast.
The serpent struck.
Its head snapped forward faster than thought. Jaws unhinged, revealing double rows of fangs like ivory scythes dripping clear venom. Four guards vanished whole. A fifth was bitten in half; the serpent flicked its tongue, and the man's legs fell away, still kicking, cauterized by venom so potent the stumps didn't even bleed.
CRUNCH. GULP. CRUNCH.
It ate with the casual efficiency of a noblewoman sampling grapes.
Ser Gavren Brightsteel, captain of the royal guard and famous for slaying a wyvern single-handed, roared and charged. His enchanted lance flared holy blue.
The serpent let him come. At the last moment, it opened its mouth and inhaled. Ser Gavren—horse and all—flew twenty feet through the air and down the gullet like a pebble into a well.
The executioner—poor bastard—stood rooted beside the ruined guillotine, piss steaming down his trembling legs. He had executed hundreds. Never once imagined he'd be dessert.
The serpent's gaze slid to him. Gold eyes narrowed.
The tail whipped around in a blur. A black whip thicker than a ship's mast.
CRACK!
The guillotine exploded into splinters. The blade spun end-over-end through the air and buried itself in the royal box, cleaving the king's empty throne in half. The impact jarred Sunniless loose; he tumbled across the platform, ropes biting deeper into his wrists.
Before he could curse, a coil of muscle thick as a tree trunk wrapped around the executioner, hoisted him squealing into the air, and bit his head off with a wet POP! The body jerked once, twice, then hung limp, fountaining blood over the royal crest embroidered on the platform.
The serpent turned those ancient eyes on Sunniless.
He should have screamed. Should have pissed himself like the executioner. Instead, he lay there in sawdust and blood, staring up at death wearing scales, and felt… tired.
After everything—after selling his own mother, after every betrayal and knife in the dark—this felt almost fitting.
The serpent lowered its massive wedge of a head until its snout nearly touched his face. Breath rolled over him, hot and rank with old blood and strange spices. A forked tongue, black and glistening, longer than his arm, flicked out and tasted the sweat on his cheek.
WORDS poured into his skull, bypassing ears entirely. They tasted of smoke and deep time.
You are mine now, little thief.
Sunniless coughed. Blood flecked his lips—his own, the executioner's, impossible to tell. His throat felt like broken glass.
"Got a name, snake?" he croaked. "Or do I just call you 'fashionably late'?"
A ripple of dark amusement passed through the coils. The pressure around his torso eased; he hadn't realized the serpent had gently encircled him until it released. Ropes snapped like burnt thread.
Stand.
His legs betrayed him twice before they obeyed. He swayed, barefoot in the gore, staring at the emptying arena. Corpses lay in windrows. A child's shoe sat alone on the steps, still tied. The royal box was abandoned, velvet cushions soaked crimson. King Eldric had fled—or been carried. Sunniless neither knew nor cared.
The serpent nudged him with its snout. Gentle, yet still enough to nearly bowl him over.
Walk.
"Where?" His voice cracked like a boy's.
Away. Knights come soon. Silver lances. Holy fire. Unless you wish to die after all.
Sunniless glanced at the ruined guillotine, at the executioner's headless corpse still twitching. He barked a laugh that hurt his ribs.
"Been trying to die for years, mate. Takes more than steel. Or fangs, apparently."
The tongue flicked across his cheek again, leaving a cold burn that somehow didn't kill him. Instead, it tingled, numbed the worst of the pain.
Then let us disappoint them all.
The serpent lowered its body, arching a section into a living ramp of muscle and scale. Without thinking, Sunniless climbed. The scales were warm as sun-baked stone, slick but not slippery, ridged perfectly for fingers and toes. He found a hollow just behind the hood and clung there like a burr.
The serpent moved. Not slithered—moved. One moment they were in the ruined arena, the next a flowing explosion of power carried them forward. Stone walls detonated outward. The serpent crashed through the outer ring of the coliseum as if it were parchment, into the boulevard beyond.
Wind screeeamed past his ears. Hair whipped back. The city blurred.
Behind them, the arena collapsed in a thunderous roar of stone and timber. Dust billowed like the funeral pyre of an empire.
People froze mid-flight, staring at the black god racing above them. Some fell to their knees in awe. Others… ran faster.
The serpent weaved between buildings with impossible grace, tail lashing out to shatter a pursuing cavalry squadron into red mist. Church bells all over the city clanged in frantic discord—alarm, heresy, end of days.
Sunniless clung tighter. Heart hammering. Yet beneath the terror, something hot and wild unfurled in his chest.
He was free.
Not pardoned. Not redeemed. Free. Carried on the back of the nightmare that had just eaten half the royal guard for breakfast.
He threw his head back and laughed. The sound started small, cracked, but grew until it tore out of him raw and manic, drowning even the wind.
You laugh at death, little thief?
"Death's late," Sunniless shouted. "And it brought a bigger knife than the king!"
Another ripple of amusement. The beast banked hard around the cathedral spire. Bells clanged wildly beneath them.
Through the northern gate—no, where it had been—the serpent simply shouldered aside the twenty-foot portcullis like a curtain. Iron screamed. Guards were flung into the moat like dolls.
Beyond lay rolling hills shrouded in storm clouds, and farther still, the Ashenwood—forest older than Elynor itself, where no king's law reached.
Nyxara slowed. Sunniless finally slid off, legs numb, body trembling. For the first time in years, he felt… warmth. Pain eased. Hunger quieted.
He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to warm scales.
"Oy. Snake. You got a name, or do I make one up?"
Names are chains, little thief. But if you must… call me Nyxara.
"Nyxara," he tasted the word. Smoke on his tongue.
I know what you are called. And what you are.
A shiver ran down his spine.
Below, the capital burned in patches. Torches flickered like fireflies. From this distance, the screams were faint, almost pretty. Sunniless watched without regret.
Good riddance.
Nyxara's pace slowed in the Ashenwood. Trees rose like the pillars of a drowned cathedral. Moonlight—though barely past noon—filtered through in silver blades.
She lowered her body. Sunniless landed, dust and blood clinging.
Up close, even more terrible. Scars crisscrossed her scales. Horns swept back from her skull. Those eyes—ancient, amused, weighing his soul and finding it wanting… yet somehow worthwhile.
Sunniless scratched his jaw. "So. You ate the royal guard, smashed my date with the guillotine, and kidnapped me. Either collecting scum or want something."
Both, perhaps.
He snorted. "Figures. Nobody saves anyone for free. Not even monsters. What's the price, Nyxara? My soul? My firstborn?"
The tongue flicked.
Nothing so crude. I offer a bargain, Sunniless of no house. Power. Enough to burn kingdoms. Never kneel again.
He barked a laugh. "Lady, I just escaped death. You selling me another?"
Not death. Apotheosis.
The word sank like a hook.
He stared. "You want to make me… a warlock? Dragon rider? Chosen hero?"
Nyxara's maw parted in what might have been a smile, fangs longer than his forearm.
I want to make you a plague upon those who wronged you. A blade in the dark for every light that turned away. Walk back into Elynor one day. Kneel—or burn.
Sunniless felt something cold and eager uncurl in his gut. The bitter smirk slipped.
"…And what do you get out of it? Vengeance? Amusement?"
Freedom.
The single word carried centuries.
I have been bound, Sunniless. Longer than your kingdom has existed. A compact older than bones. You will be my key. I… will be your venom.
Silence stretched, broken only by distant thunder.
Sunniless looked toward the glowing capital. Somewhere down there, priests prayed. Somewhere, King Eldric screamed.
He thought of every beating, every hungry night, every sneer. The blade stopped an inch from his throat because something ancient decided he still had use.
A slow, ugly smile spread.
"Well then," he said, voice low and steady, "when do we start?"
Nyxara lowered her head, eyes level with his. Gold on dull grey.
Lightning split the sky. Thief and monster, bound by mutual damnation.
The age of the serpent had begun. Its herald: the greediest, black-hearted bastard the slums had ever spat out.
Sunniless laid a filthy hand on scales older than nations.
"Partners, then."
Partners.
No blood. No words. Only hunger recognizing hunger.
Somewhere deep in the forest, something ancient and ravenous smiled with far too many teeth.