There was no time left to waste. She had already spent late hours with U'tu and the kids. Luckily, she had the map given to her memorized.

A long winding hallway stretched across towards the North Tower of the stronghold. It would have been so easy to get lost, but the paintings proved more than helpful to guide her way. Na'reem noted to watch out for a hallway filled with paintings of animals in the forest and a black golden statue that marked the stairs next to it. She found an open archway that led upstairs marked by torch sconces on the graystone walls.

Her legs gave a powerful protest to climbing another spiral staircase, its sore muscles strained and ached that burned on every step. By the time, she arrived at the top she was already grunting, growling and cursing gravity.

Another imposing double doors greeted her at the top of the staircase. It was much like at the South Tower, except this wooden door filled her with dread. A heavy churning grew in her stomach in spite of her steely conviction. She had already made it this far. Turning back would only give her relentless guilt.

With a firm resolve, she gripped the door handle, pulled down the lever and heard the locks click open. The door opened with an ominous creaking sound, holding her breath she peered into the pitch black darkness of the room.

The faint glow from her balloon lamp provided modest illumination. She needed to investigate deeper inside. With a gulp, she entered the room. The door slammed shut behind her almost immediately and she debated making a run for it. She can barely make anything out of her flimsy faint light source. So far, she could merely surmise it was an entirely empty room with rough-hewn concrete floors.

"Behagthi?" she called out weakly.

A rich deep sounding voice answered, "Call me Crow. I prefer to be called by my name."

"Do they give prisoners any privileges?" she fired back as a dignified Ensign general should, trying to tamp down her frantic nerves.

His baritone chuckle was smooth and silky, like a heavy decadence of chocolate sin. "You must be an Ensign."

Where are you? she wanted to say out loud and get it over with but she couldn't expose that she wasn't part of a snow tribe. As far as he could see, there was pitch black darkness in this empty room. And as far as River could see, the room was lit up in a faint white glow. Although, she was at a greater disadvantage because vipers can detect thermal heat signatures using their second eyesight. Na'reem assured her that the balloon lamp can avoid being detected by thermal sensibilities but how much could she really put her faith in a stranger?

A few steps forward revealed a shadow figure sitting with his back against the wall. Bulky chains from the wall wrapped around his arms down to his wrists then down to his ankles. One elbow rested on top of his knee making him look loose and relaxed when he shouldn't be. It's downright chilly in this tower and he was only wearing a loose-fitting grey pants and not much else let alone a shirt. Another step forward illuminated his facial features. He was classically handsome: strong brows, square jaw, hooked nose, and a cleft on his chin. His long black hair was shiny and straight going down past his waist with the bottom strands resting on the concrete floor.

His wandering gaze explored every inch of her with undisguised interest, the corners of his mouth tipping up slowly in a grin, "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Ensign?"

"Curse-breaking."

His leisurely facade faltered in a brief second before giving a sardonic laugh. "This has the Gatekeeper Brothers written all over it." he said, peering up at her. "Those damned Fates. Never could have gotten away with it, could I?'"

She stifled a full body shiver at seeing sharp incisive fangs with his teeth. Remembering from earlier that just one bite of it can kill a small child in an instant.

His smile turned to a sneer "I was wondering when you were gonna come for me, starlight. Make it quick, will you? Give me that and I won't haunt you for the rest of your life."

"Do you even know what I'm talking about?" she asked, having doubts if she was conversing with a madman.

"It is whatever damned curse you're brewing in that majestic Ensign Council of yours nowadays. I gotta say, the last one was a tad bit bland and derivative. Tell me you brought me a good one, at least."

His words were met with silence.

"Don't think I don't know the Gatekeeper Brothers sent you?" he said, "One of the previous Ensigns let it slip when he was in the heat of yelling expletives at me. Too easy, you know? You would think a trio of gatekeepers would have known to send someone more competent than a dithering fool."

She licked her bottom lip, studying the room he was in. She could barely make anything out in the dark but she needed to think. The past few days have gone on so fast it felt like being caught in a whirlwind. Why was he being so hostile? "They did seem incompetent on first impression." she said, looking back on yesterday. But she quickly realized there was always more to what they were saying. They had a vast expansive array of interests and this quirk where they phrase what they say in different times as if the times were mixed and interchangeable.

Light reflected off his deep grey eyes, making them twinkle with smugness. "Just as I expected from those bumbling idiots."

She scanned him, eyeing him up and down, trying to look for deceit. "Aren't you cold at all?"

Surprise registered in his face, a brow lifting up "Isn't that the point? I'm fighting to stay awake as we speak."

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to be insensitive." she said, raising her palms. An action that made her balloon lamp sway, it was a movement that his blue gaze latched on.

Now that she was thinking about it, she did remember a biology class about snakes being cold-blooded which means they can't regulate their own temperature. If he was imprisoned here to fight death at every waking second, then she couldn't possibly fathom what kind of twisted horrible mind had come up with this torture.

She considered the chains he was in, and moved close to him, slipping her jacket to throw it around his broad shoulders. Next, she unwinded her scarf to put it on his neck.

"What are you doing?" he said.

River patted around her many pockets to grab an extra cable-knit beanie cap, putting it on his head and tugging it down to cover his ears for warmth. "I'm gonna need your full attention to get my answers."

A muscle twitched beneath his eye, "Curses or poison? The former I know fuck none about. But the latter? Starlight, I'll blow yo— "

"Neither." she said, stopping him and feeling like she needed to cool off first because her cheeks were heating up. There was something about the deep resonance of his voice that made it feel like every word he said was an actual physical touch against her skin. If he wasn't already a poison scientist, then his voice alone could be a lethal drug by itself. It was addicting. It's the kind of voice that can keep you warm at night without ever having to touch skin-to-skin. It was freaking sexy as hell. She sucked in a rattling breath and continued "I'm gonna break you out of here but I'm gonna want to hear what your plan would be like since you've been here the longest."

"Just like those brothers to send another incompetent bumbling fool my way." he rolled his eyes, "Sorry, starlight. Whatever sort of demented torture you have planned for me, I won't be part of it. Do what you please."

"Do you really think the Gatekeeper Brothers would send someone to torture you?"

"They did a couple times before. What's stopping them now? If it weren't them, then it has gotta be someone else from the sun tribe with some kind of demented suicide mission. Freaking lunatics, the lot of you. Who would send a child to do their damned dirty work for them?"

"I don't understand, the Gatekeeper Brothers made sure we were good enough to rescue you."

He gave her a sobered stare, pointing his chin to the far corner of the room, "Have a look over there."

She took careful steps pacing to the corner he had indicated and saw a skeleton corpse of a child the same age as Lann'a. The wrist bone had a loose string wounded around it and a floating balloon was hovering above its body. She gasped, her knees buckling until she hit the ground. The balloon lamp needed heat and friction to energize into a glow but now it hovered extinguished and unlit over a dead body like something out of an insane Gothic circus jamboree. She edged backwards, trying to get away from viewing it. But it's too late. As she closed her eyes, she could still see its dry cracking bones, its hollowed black holes where the eyes should be, and the dark slits where a nose would be on top of. "What happened to him?" she croaked.

"Her." he said in a dry tone, "Her name is Alli'ona from the western sun tribe. The mountain poison hits different to outsiders. Vipers like us can withstand and adapt to it, however to anyone who doesn't already have venom running through their veins, there is only a few days before the poison rots your lungs until you can't breath anymore."

"H-how did you—"

"Hibernation." he said gruffly, looking down to his feet. "Organic decomposition takes 3 months to complete. I hibernated for about a year."

River tried to calm her breathing, a rising panic that urged her feet to burst out of this forsaken place.

This man slept through a child rotting next to him. A sun tribal child whose death she couldn't bear to process in her mind.

Alli'ona died. And he had to watch and have her rot beside him.

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"If it were that easy, you know?" he muttered, locks of stray hair falling over his forehead "To just hibernate for all time until this freaking stronghold crumbles down to a ruin. But I can't. They would come for me. Even knowing there's a rotting body beside me that needs to be sent back and buried with her family. They would leave her here. For what? For some petty punishment because they've run out of vindictive ideas to punish me with?"

She couldn't speak. The events of the past days unfolded before her eyes, it came crashing down on her. How could she have been so gullible?

"What did they tell you? That you would become a hero among the tribes? That you would be celebrated for all time? Whatever curse you think is happening, it's not because of me. I'm not responsible for curses." his voice went hoarse and scratchy like he hadn't ever used it in months.

No one deserves this, she thought. But first, she needed time to think. But not here. She needed to go somewhere else. Some place where it wasn't so crowded with strangeness and laden with tragedy. "I'm getting you out of here."

Dropping her backpack on the ground, she rifled through its contents until she found a slender box case. It opened to thin straws made of steel with hooked ends in varying sizes made by Na'reem who was a jack of all trades. He didn't even bat an eye to her strange crafting request and took to his work with a kind of sturdy conviction reserved for masters at work. Maybe that's why she hadn't come to suspect them. They had come across as too sincere and so impressive that she got busy getting dazzled by them to care enough if they were telling her the truth.

Those damned biscuits and gravy took me off guard, she thought. How am I supposed to gather doubts when they've got the most heavenly treats in the whole damn town?

She lifted two lockpicking tools from the box and went on to work with his cuffs. The mechanism was strangely primitive, she didn't even need the complex thin-strawed tools that she brought. Instead, she opted to go for another thicker lockpicking tool that is blunt enough to ease the overturn in the mechanism. Then, she rotated it in one fluid motion, clicking it open in a satisfying slide of steel against steel.

It was followed by another click open, then another click and one last smooth click echoing in the empty room.

Crow let out a shaky breath and moved his arms, the cuffs falling to the ground with a crashing thud.

"Stay quiet." she said, giving him a bigger coat to put over his jacket and frowning at the wide thick expanse of the fabric as she opened it across his shoulders because her backpack didn't feel heavy when she carried it on her back. It was yet another reminder how clothes weren't as hefty as it seemed. "Let's not get caught on our way out."

When he stood, the top of her head was up to the middle of his chest. He lifted his arm above her head in a weak listless motion and made a grab for her balloon, popping it with a squeeze of his fist.

By instinct, she grabbed for something solid to hold on to when raven-black shadows conquered completely "What the hell?" she hissed. It was impossible to see through the dark.

Suddenly, his breath was against her ear. "The guards around here aren't worth their salt as warriors. They lag behind and take their leave early. No need for precautions. You can count on me."

"How could you possibly know that when you've been locked away in here this whole time?"

He gave a wry laugh, "You'd be surprised by how much griping my tormentors would give on a daily basis. Let's just say their bark is stronger than their bites, teh?"

"I didn't think you could notice the light." she grumbled.

"Aren't I a behagthi?"

"Aren't behagthis supposed to be different, coming entirely from another universe?"

"I was pulled straight into the heart of the snow tribe. I would have died straight away if they hadn't turned me into a viper. How did you think I could have survived after all these years?"

"Whatever. Just lead us out. I don't want to stay in this depressing place any longer than I have to. You seem to know this place best. Get us to the back view garden where the exit of the maze is at. I have arranged a ride out there to lead us to safety." she said, realizing belatedly that what she had grabbed onto was a stone-cold steel pipe. Oddly, she felt muscles bunching underneath it and gasped. Tracing her fingers upwards over its surface, it met the familiar feel of jacket fabric. Just to be sure, she traced back downwards and felt steely coldness.

His skin was freezing, what sort of torture were they putting him under?

Oh right, it could be that he's part cold-blooded animal. Not completely human. This is normal, she thought, no need to panic about dead-ass skin that was freezing as fuck.

Her heart stopped when his large cold palm engulfed hers, entwining their fingers together.

"Definitely not from snow tribe. You're too warm." he murmured, standing too close that her face was an inch away from his chest. "Neither from the sun tribe." he pulled her hair back behind an ear, gently. "You're too weak."

Before she could stop to consider her words, she lashed out. "Bite me, bird boy." she said "I'll show you what a weak bumbling idiot is made of when my foot meets acquaintance of what tiny prick you've got between your legs."

Even if it was dark with nothing to see, she could feel amusement radiating from him as he spoke "Too impulsive, also." his voice was a rich rumble that didn't go above a whisper, "So if you are not from the scholarly sun tribe, perhaps the dark tribe? No, I don't think so. Theirs are full of cowards. No one from the dark tribe would ever put their lives on the line like you do, starlight."

"I'm gonna have to ask you to stop calling me that. I have midnight black hair and brown skin. Pick a suitable name."

"Too late. It has caught on." he said, tugging her forward to walk behind him. His hand holding her wrist. "Could you be any noisier?"

"Slow down a little." The guy was way taller than she was, and his strides were harder to catch up on.

He scoffed, "I'm gonna have to ask you to stop ordering me about."

"I'll stop ordering you about when you start talking sense." she followed after him.

When they reached the stairs, his hand found her arm, wrenching her closer to him. "Can I trust you to not make a sound going down?" he asked.

She swallowed at the reminder of stairs and its impending ordeal. "Debatable."

"Well then," she felt him shrug his shoulders. "Do you have any reservations about murder because I just might have to since you may well as have awakened the whole place up with your loud noisy racket going up from here earlier."

"There would be absolutely no murder," she whisper-yelled, "And I wasn't making any noise."

"So all that grunting and growling earlier was just you saying a modest prayer about gravity?"

"God, I can't believe you heard that."

"The whole stronghold might have heard as I heard everything. Do you really think climbing stairs is like birthing a young babe?"

"Stop. You are not to hold me accountable for the things I say during my painful ordeal. It was the longest damned flight of stairs in my life."

"It sure sounded like it." he said wryly.

"You really don't think I might have disturbed anyone else's sleep, do you?"

"You sure did with me, starlight."

She gripped his cold damned hand tighter, "I'm serious."

He uttered a deep long-suffering sigh before lifting her into his arms— one arm under her legs and the other supporting her back. Then he began to descend down the stairs that had winded her until she was starved for air but to him, it didn't even raise his heartbeat. Her ear fell flat against his strong chest and she could feel its steady rhythm whereas hers was fluttering like a caged beast.

"I will not be held like a baby. This is compromising. Shame on you. Put me down now."

"Hush, my weak starlight. I will as soon I reach down the end. I would rather not meet the bitter hag that crawled up these stairs earlier. She sure sounded like she was going to bite someone's head off. And you don't want that, do you? I seem to remember you having trouble with murder."

"No. But I'm going to wish it real hard if you don't put me down now. I'll show you a bitter hag."

"All bark no bite." he said, mildly.

She gave a frustrated growl "Don't patronize me.'

"I won't patronize you if you stop spoiling our lurking in the halls. Don't you know this is the most barbaric prison stronghold in this century?"

Crossing her arms, she said, "Whatever, bird boy."

"It's Crow, just in case you've forgotten already. Since you're not from the sun tribe, I doubt you'll be able to hold the information well in your head."

"Insult my intelligence one more time." she hissed, jabbing a finger against his rock-hard chest. "See what happens."

She felt him pulling her closer, the strength of him was sheer power that she hadn't even felt the sharp pull of gravity at every step he had climbed down. The damned-named bird boy wasn't even breathing hard, she thought. Smooth-ass fucker moves like a freaking jungle cat.

He just caught her at the worst state is all. At any other time with her full-rested power, this stairs would have been a cinch. He didn't know that. So to hell with him. She didn't really care what he thought of her, anyways. Even if he looked savage gorgeous, looking like he belonged in the deep heart of a wild jungle.

Anyways, nobody looked as gorgeous in the daylight as they would in the subtle light in the dark. For all she knew, he might be way older than he appeared. On second thought, that wasn't a deal-breaker for her. Which is besides the point, she needed to stop being dazzled by mythical stories and mesmerizing brothers whose festive cooking could make an actual simp out of her.

She had to remain objective.

Rescuing Crow was her objective, and his snarky attitude could go take a hike for all she cared.

Frowning, she took deep calming breaths and tried to clear her head.

"Here we are." Crow said.

"This isn't the back garden." she whispered to the pitch black dark.

"No it's better."

"Don't tell me we're underground, please, don't tell me we're underground." she said, her anxiety growing "You know what. You need to put me down right now or I'll stick a knife against your throat this instant."

"Feisty. How you ever got here in one piece is beyond me."

"Only because I've had the most agreeable companion. Someone with manners."

"That confirms the fact that the sun tribe sent you." he said, sounding smug.

"Where are we?" The inescapable pitch black darkness was beginning to stack on her rising anxiety.

"In the main throne room." he said, taking a pause. "A dead tribal king means an empty throne room. No one ever goes here."

Complete utter stillness blanketed the shadowy room. "Dead?! That's impossible. My cover was to be sent here per his instructions."

"You didn't arrive here with a kid, did you?"

She audibly gulped, "What's it to you?"

"The orphans living here are actually the tribal king's bastards, but nobody is supposed to know that. Not even the kids themselves. They keep popping up even after his death so the Ensign Council houses them here. Which is a cause for trouble. I didn't think the tribe could have gone downhill so fast and so soon." he cleared his throat, "You said you wanted to know my plan. But you're gonna have to trust me on this."

"I trust that you want to get out of here as much as I do."

He let out a bitter laugh, "Not as much as I do, starlight."

"Quit with the name-calling. I already told you I'm called River and I can't see a damned thing. Either you tell me what's going to happen or I wil—"

His hand clamped around her mouth. "Hush. The guards double their patrol around this time. It's much easier to sneak out in the daylight, teh?"

She pushed his hand off and took a wild grab for his head in the dark, pushing him towards her to whisper in his ear, "We don't have until daylight. We have to go now." she said, feeling how odd his skin was due of its icy temperature. Cold blooded snakes, she thought, not wanting to let go of him. Because out of the strangeness in this foreign universe and of all people, she felt safe with him.

Then, muted daylight had started to stream across the halls from the floor-to-ceiling windows on each side of the throne room and she gasped, "I didn't realize it was already so early."

"No." he said, his voice straining under a rumbling growl, "They know I escaped."

She heard the doors press open. Muted white light came pouring in from the entrance. A gust of warm air whooshed next to her and she felt a slithering presence wounding upwards inside her jacket on the back against her bare spine.

Serpent vipers weren't supposed to do that, she thought. They were supposed to be half-human and half-snake, only transforming at a partial level like U'tu said. Yet cold-ass scales pressed against her naked skin, its length wounding around her hips until the beastly head rested between her chest.

They can't turn into a full-bodied snake, can they?