The next night the King returned with his guard and stood before Sylvanis’s cell.

“It pains me to witness you,” he said in a dejected tone. “To see caged a thing that should instead be free. So lovely, so wild, restrained. Why must you torture yourself with such stubbornness? How dismal to be wounded for another’s selfish action. Will the suffering continue, or will the judge decide on mercy? It is the second night, and I ask my question again.”

“My answer still is no,” Sylvanis said. She watched the King’s eyes grow fierce.

“Are you so merciless?” the King asked. “So savage and cruel? Is no love left within you?”

“Confinement brews strange tendencies. I will be what I must,” she said.

“We will see.”

Then the King turned to his guard again.

“Go and beat the boy with a switch this time, and flog his right hand and left foot, that he may never practice his trade again.”

Then the King stormed from the dungeon, fast and with fury, up out of the corridor’s chill.

The guard turned with grim features to fulfill his awful task.

But Sylvanis called out.

“Wait,” she said, and pushed open her cell door.

The guard looked back in wild shock and wondered for how long she’d been free. But girl spoke softly to her jailer.

“If you would spare my love and show him mercy,” she began. “Then I would grant to you that which I still deny your lord.”

With that Sylvanis took a ginger step back in her cell. She backed against the wall and beckoned.

The guard moved forward, taking cautious steps. He stopped before the cell door and looked in at the slender maiden.

Then he pushed the door closed. He took from his belt the keys and locked the cell up once again, taking no notice of the broken insides.

Sylvanis moved forward and set her hands against the bars.

“You would deny that which the King himself so covets?”

“I will not add to your suffering, maiden,” the man said with a melancholy smile. “For it must be great enough.”

“You are kind,” Sylvanis said, and she put her hand on his. “Yet my kindness seems to vanish with every moment I am caged, and so I must be cruel. Forgive me.”

Brown scales struck from beneath the hay.

Wide jaws lunged up from the stone. They snapped out like a bolt of dark lightning, curving through the iron bars and snatching the guard at the neck. The man’s throat quickly closed, the snake’s jaws crushed it shut, and the two slid down to the floor. The man twitched, struggled, tried to scream and could not. Then he stilled. His limp hands dropped, and the ring of keys fell to the stone.

Sylvanis pushed the gate open and picked them up. She looked down at the guard with disgust.

Disgust…

She caught herself. Compassion suddenly returned, as though a spell had lifted from her. Her heart swelled up, and she looked down at the man with pity.

“Forgive me,” she muttered. Then she set off down the hall.

“Come along,” she whispered to the snake.

The two moved swiftly down the corridor.

“Oh Deyus!” Sylvanis cried when she set eyes upon her love, tearing open the iron bars and falling to her knees.

The boy looked up, bearing the bruises of the past night, and smiled.

“For you, I would bear a thousand pains,” he said.

Sylvanis felt her heart swell. She threw herself up him, wrapped him up in her arms.

She flinched away.

No warmth filled her when she held him, no pleasant, familiar touch. His hands felt cold and painful, as though lingering too long on ice. Sylvanis ran a hand down his cheek, but felt only chilly, biting scales. She kissed him, but it seemed as though her lips touched frost. She could not feel his skin upon hers: not his kiss, nor his touch.

His touch.

Her touch.

And she understood.

Sylvanis choked down a muffled cry. She quickly balled her fist and tucked it behind her. Her thumb moved gently over the stub on her hand, and the truth of what she’d traded became clear.

Hesitantly, Sylvanis raised the keys.

Deyus looked on in amazement.

“You truly are a marvel,” he said. “However did you get those?”

He reached forward to take her hand.

Sylvanis recoiled. She watched her lover’s shock, and could not bear it.

“The guard is dead,” she babbled out. “I took from him the keys, that you and I might flee.”

“Dead?” Deyus asked. “How?”

“Ask no more questions!” she snapped.

Deyus looked back with wide eyes.

Sylvanis clenched her fist and bit her tongue as it pressed up against her teeth. Her forehead burned and her eyes began to ache. Gently she ran her thumb again over the stub. She looked back out the gate into the hall.

The serpent lay coiled and ready. Her serpent.

Deyus saw the thing and threw himself suddenly forward.

“Away, demon!” he shouted, and he called for Sylvanis to stay back.

“He will not harm you,” Sylvanis said. “For he is mine, and I do not will it. Ask no more of me, Deyus, for I am thin and might unravel. Let us go and be rid of this place. Please.”

Sylvanis watched her love nod. She took a deep breath, then pushed up from the stone and took a step down the hall. She moved over the serpent and looked back.

“Come along,” she said quietly.