The scent of jasmine and rot filled the air.
Veronica Venenatus opened her eyes to find herself standing in a grand garden. Twisting hedges, thorns, and flowers that gleamed with venomous dew. Vines slithered along the old marble walls. The view was familiar yet foreign.
"How fitting," she muttered, brushing dust off her clothes.
She was alone.
"No Darkness, no teammates. Let me guess. The trial?"
A loud hiss answered her. The ground trembled. Its voice slithered into her thoughts.
"They sssaid you had unique blood but to feel for myssself-"
"I am Duchess Veronica Venenatus, I have come to seek your trial!" Veronica shouted.
Before her, a massive serpent slithered from beneath the hedge maze. Its scales shimmered in oil-slick iridescence. Its slit eyes gleamed with something sinister.
"Gods above…" She stared at the massive snake.
I did not expect to fight huge damn snake.
"You who bear poison in your sssoul… Do you beg or seek a ssspirit bond?"
Veronica lifted her chin. "I don't beg. I earn."
"Then earn it." The snake coiled, towering over her.
"If cunning is your gift, then outwit me. If deception is your strength, then use it. You must sssurvive. However, you have until your heart stops beating."
She felt it. This giant snake was going to kill her.
She wasted no time and ran.
The ground beneath her cracked. The marble walls shifted. An entrance formed before her.
Veronica moved fast, darting into the hedge maze.
The vines shifted. Walls rearranged as she ran. Paths twisted like a puzzle mocking her intelligence.
"Cute," she murmured, running her hand along one vine. "I can feel it. Living, reactive, probably laced with paralytic spores."
Not enough to faze me. My blood is poison.
Ok, think. This whole place is designed to test me.
The snake said a riddle.
She stopped to catch her breath.
And the answer is obvious, I have to die-
Gods below, no! I don't want to die. I don't even want to risk it. I'm finally free.
"Come on! Think!"
****
Flashback: Childhood Pride
She sat in the garden picking her favorite flowers her dad loved. She looked over at her family estate.
"Father had urgent business with old Baron Darwin." She smelt some of her gathered flowers. "Father will be so happy when he-"
"Hey Veronica!" A voice called.
A group of boys walked up to her. One was holding an odd-shaped mushroom.
"Try eating this!" Jeremy gave Veronica a mushroom.
"You dare approach me?" Veronica sneered. "And what is that mushroom?"
"Oh, my dad said this mushroom gives anyone who eats it the strength of ten men!" His smile was wicked as he gave it to her.
"Why would I eat anything from someone with such a low station?" She asked.
"It's just a mushroom Veronica geez."
Veronica grew tense. She examined the mushroom. Something inside her told her it was poisonous.
"Don't be stupid Jeremy, she's too chicken to eat that." One boy called out.
"Please, I'm a Venenatus, I'm anything but a coward."
She ate it.
Her vision blurred. Head ached.
The next moment she was lying in her bed. Everything was foggy.
"Gods above!" A man screamed. "My baby! My Veronica you're awake! You're alive!"
The man was squeezing her hand.
"Father…" Veronica's voice low and hoarse. "Where am I?"
"It is ok my little apple, everything is fine. You're safe. I don't know why you ate that mushroom but it does not matter." He said as he dug his head deeper in her hands.
She looked at him.
He looks like he did not slept for days.
"It's ok father, I'm fine, please don't cry." She squeezed his hand.
"I- if I lost you too-"
"Father, don't worry. I'm not going to die."
****
A hiss broke her from her memory.
"You cannot run. You cannot fight. Only deceive."
Yeah, that mushroom would have killed me if it weren't for my blessing. There is no way I can beat this giant snake. I do not even have a weapon.
Veronica stopped at a marble fountain, its water pitch-black.
She stared at her reflection. Her emerald eyes narrowed.
Until my heart stops beating, so my death is the only option.
"Fine. I'll answer your trial." She whispered.
She bit the tip of her lip. Blood leaked from her mouth. She poisoned the water. Enough to kill a demonic beast. Or… make a point.
"I'm a Venenatus," she whispered. "And I'm no coward."
With a single breath, she drank it.
Her heart stuttered.
Her body collapsed by the fountain, pale and still.
The serpent struck instantly, piercing through the hedges, fangs wide, only to find a lifeless body.
It paused.
"Poissson? You killed yourssself. Interesssting, but a ssshame."
The snake turned to leave.
Her voice, soft, echoed behind it: "No, serpent. I only completed your trial."
The serpent turned.
Veronica stood, ghost-pale, but very much alive. Blood ran from her lips, but she smirked.
"Antidotes in my veins. My own venom. I had to tweak it to stop my heart… mimic death. The only one who can survive my poison… is me."
She stepped forward, every inch a queen.
"You stared at the head of a snake but never followed the coils it left to bind you."
The serpent froze.
Then laughed.
"Oh, I like you."
The trial shattered.
The garden melted into a shadow.
And in its place, the serpent coiled beside her, not monstrous now, but small, sleek and emerald.
Its voice hissed in her ear.
"I am Syrethe. Sspirit Ssserpent of Deceit and Wisdom. I offer my coil and cunning to you, mistress of venom. A contract never to be broken. "
Veronica knelt down and placed a hand on its head.
"I accept, Clever boy."