Chapter 5

The Snake

There's a snake.

The snake isn't the one on the tail of the Dragon.

It's different.

This snake is metallic silver with deep, glittering amethyst eyes. Chains make up its body, and they clink as it rears up, baring its fangs and hissing, the sound trilling high in its body. I can't see its tail; its body disappears into the Amethyst Throne, a permanent connection.

I curl my lips, fur standing on end.

The snake lunges, and Bryant shoves me. Hard. My shoulder slams into the marble floor, and when I regain my senses, I get to my paws and turn around to see Bryant struggling with the snake. It's wrapped around him, chains digging into Bryant's purple suit. Bryant holds onto the base of the snake's head, and his arms shake as he tries to keep the snake from biting him. Venom drips from the snake's fangs, splattering on the ground in shimmering, metallic droplets.

"Stop that!" I snarl.

Anger takes so much energy, but in this moment, it feels right. Anger at the threat of the snake, the threat of the Amethyst Throne and the Dragon. Anger at the situation I'm in, we're in, Bryant and I. Anger at how all of this could've been avoided.

Fury curls in my chest like claws, as cold as the depths of the lonely unconsciousness I've fallen into countless times. It sparks in dry, frozen shards of ice that splinter and shatter.

But before I can reach Bryant, the Amethyst Throne pulses. Violet glows from deep within it, and the Dragon straightens, stepping back to crouch low to the Throne. A melodic tone rumbles in its chest, and it focuses its attention on the snake, narrowing its eyes. The snake pauses, going still in Bryant's grip and making a sound that vibrates through its chains as they rattle.

The snake slithers further around Bryant's body, and then it tightens its grip to bring Bryant to the ground. His legs collapse when the snake takes a foot out from beneath him, and the snake flexes its chains to drag him closer to the Amethyst Throne. Blood smears across Bryant's forehead, leaving a scarlet streak on the marble floor when the snake pulls him further. I race forward and try to pry the snake off, but I can't.

"Let him go. He's not going back to the Amethyst Throne."

I turn my head when I feel Bryant's hand on my cheek. He exhales sharply when one of the snake's coils bands around his ribcage.

"Hush, Jabez," he says. "The Amethyst Throne won't let me go so easy. Let me go back. The snake won't hurt me. Not like you think it will. I need to go back. The Amethyst Throne is angry, but I can give it what it wants."

"You said that before, and I can't."

I dig my claws into the rings of the snake's chains and pull, yanking back as hard as I can. The snake locks up around Bryant in response, winding ever tighter as it hisses, the sound airy and dry, clicking in its throat. I lean my weight back on my hind legs, trying to gain traction on the marble floor, and hook a foreleg under the snake's chain body. The shards of ice on my tail scratch across the ground. Doing so ruins the Throne Room more than it already has been, but I don't care. It's already destroyed. It feels right to break something. At least the Throne Room can be repaired.

The Dragon chuffs as colors swirl within the Amethyst Throne.

"No, don't do it," Bryant warns, trying to twist in the snake's hold. "Don't you dare do it."

A claw catches between two chains as they fold up. Pain sparks at the end of my toe, until the claw snaps and breaks. I spit and flash my teeth, pinning my ears as blood drips to the floor. It continues to drip, now that my heart beats again.

"You can't get me, snake. I won't let you win."

The snake's violet eyes flash as it turns its attention to me. The snake unwinds one loop from around Bryant's shoulders. It releases a sound that sounds like a twittering laugh, low and dangerous.

My fur prickles. Something's not right.

All at once, the snake's coils go limp, and Bryant's free. He sits on the ground, unmoving, and staring at me with fear written all across his face. I hold his gaze, then look between the snake and the Dragon.

The snake slithers forward, eyes twinkling. Its chains clink as it draws closer. Invisible fingers trail across my forelegs, running over every scar and pulling up every memory of how each one got there. I swallow, drawing my ears back. I feel the ghostly fingers circle around my wrists as more drag up my neck to encircle my throat.

The fingers seize up like shackles at the same time the snake lunges, jaws parted wide and venom oozing from its fangs. I jump back, pulling my forelegs in close, but the snake still twists around my middle. I gasp on a breath as my throat closes up with the ghostly feel of a collar latching shut. A heartbeat passes by, air live with anticipation.

The snake bites me, just below the base of my skull.

I scream as pain explodes through my body. My back arches as every muscle locks up. My toes curl to the point of aching, claws fully unsheathed. My tail lashes as my limbs spasm. I twist until my body can't move any further, and then I collapse to the ground.

The snake's fangs sink further into the back of my neck, and I can feel them as they break through flesh, through blood vessels, through nerves, through muscle. I can feel teeth grate along my spine, scraping across bone until the snake's fangs are lodged in tight.

At the first wave of venom, the pain from the snake's initial bite sparks and bursts and explodes further, increasing tenfold before I can even start to ready myself. I shudder, jaws parted in a yowl I don't have the air to voice.

"Jabez," Bryant breathes, placing a shaky hand on my cheek.

My vision blurs and warps, but I can see his face. Tears drip down his cheeks. The sight reminds me of when he held me as I died as Ice. A part of it gives me that aching feeling in my chest, the one that, as Ice, made me want to curl up in Bryant's lap and start purring. I can still purr as Jabez —I used to put Astra to sleep with the sound— but through the pain and the sword-sharp edge of the venom setting every nerve alive, I feel no such desire. I just feel a flattened-out echo of the anger I'd felt before the snake bit me.

"If-if you... if you really cared," I rasp, throat raw, "you never would-would've let all of this happen. You would have s-s-stopped it long ago. You... you would have-have destroyed the Ameth-Amethyst Th-Throne. Don't you-you t-tell... don't tell me you-you're sorry, Bryant."

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I twist and contort, grimacing when the snake sends more venom into my body. My temple slams into the ground when I throw my head to the side. This time, black spots bloom in my vision, growing until all I can see is black. My head spins despite me laying flat on my side.

Bryant smooths a hand over my forehead. I try to lift a paw to bat at him, to push him away, but I can only weakly move a foreleg as I try to remain awake.

Venom spreads further with every beat of my heart, and I can feel it take its toll.

I pant, panic trying to form as I struggle to get enough air, but consciousness slips away from me before I can register the growing desperation for a breath.

I cling on for as long as I can, hoping that I can hang on long enough to pull the snake's fangs from my neck and break free, but after losing my vision, my hearing goes next, falling into buzzing. The connection between my mind and body severs, leaving me unable to feel anything, and I sink beneath the deep, dark waves of unconsciousness.

xxxx

I return to reality slower than I ever have before.

My mind swims, bobbing in the sea of unconsciousness that hold me tight in its soft, lingering grip. It's comforting, yet disorienting enough that I don't want to stay. I don't know where I am, and I know that's a problem.

I push through enough to get my first sense of where I am. My hearing begins to return. Footsteps sound as though they are far away, and someone talks through the fog in my head.

I register a hard material digging into my shoulder and hip, the tingling in a paw that's fallen asleep, the ache of joints that have been still long enough to lock up. Nothing concerning because I've felt it all countless times before, nothing alarming, until I feel the pain in my neck.

I've felt pain along my spine, but this is different. It's sharper, rolling like waves with edges as jagged as shattered ice.

With a groan, I start to move, pulling my forelegs in close and flicking my tail. I draw my ears back as bolts of pain radiate from my neck, choking on an inhale. It burns, everything burns. My claws unsheathe as I curl my toes. My muscles spasm, and any sense of figuring out where I am drifts away.

Eventually, I go still and the pain softens but still remains. I drift off back into the grasp of unconsciousness before I can return to the reality I know exists but cannot make contact with.

xxxx

The next time I wake, I lay where I am, still, flank rising and falling with each slow breath. I remain for as long as I can in the in-between place somewhere in the middle of conscious and unconscious, aware that I'm on the ground and distantly able to hear, but unable to see or fully grasp onto reality.

Eventually, though, my vision blurs into focus and I blink until the floaters disappear. I curl my lips and bare my teeth at the bright light.

The pain in my neck returns as I look around and piece together my surroundings. When I roll to my stomach, something heavy shifts over my back, moving until it's draped over my spine. Something twitches in my neck, something foreign I don't recognize.

It draws me further into reality, and I take a deep breath.

Rubble covers the ground in a thin dusting, chunks of rock scattered about. Some are small, about the size of my paw pads, while others are bigger than my head.

I lift my head, but a tight band around my neck cinches until I can only drag in a shallow breath. Something grazes along my spine.

The snake's teeth.

Memories flood into my head as venom spreads through my bloodstream. My vision blurs and I sway where I lay.

Stay, a voice says in my head. Don't move. It doesn't speak, not really. There are no words spoken, only an intention given that I can clearly understand. In my mind's eye, I can see the flash of the snake's glittering gaze, the curve of its fangs, the pulse of the Amethyst Throne's power.

So, I stay. I don't move.

But either way, I'm too dizzy to stand and I don't trust myself not to fall if I did.

"Jabez," someone says.

It takes me several moments to recognize the voice. Bryant. King Garonda XIV. The King of Ragdon.

"Bryant," I murmur, looking up with only my eyes.

He lounges on the Amethyst Throne, head pillowed on a folded arm behind his head. The other rests lazily on the armrest. He watches me, purple eyes narrowed and an easy grin on his face.

"You're awake. What a surprise! The Amethyst Throne and I thought you'd be out for another few days. The snake really did a number on ya, you know? But I guess you're just special! You took the venom like a champ. True inspiration, you are. I should have the Generals take notes. The Guard and Soldiers, too. There's this model Soldier you should talk to. He's rising through the ranks fast. Never says no, follows every order without hesitation, does everything he's asked, and he volunteers for everything. Just a true model Soldier. Everyone should be like him. Oh! Wait, I'm getting off track, aren't I?" Bryant trails off, before he leans forward with a gasp. "Wait! You called me Bryant. Never do that again. I am King Garonda XIV, the King of Ragdon, the one true ruler of this island, for I sit on the Amethyst Throne. You, Jabez, are my pet cat, just like you were as Ice."

"You brought me back to life and fused me with a human soul," I say as my vision blurs and exhaustion pulls on me with heavy hands. "I chose to belong to you as Ice. I never chose it this time. I could've left as Ice, but I didn't want to. You never gave me that choice as Jabez. I don't know who you are any more. I don't understand what you've done, but you can no longer take it back."

King Garonda XIV's expression morphs into a scowl, and my own twists into a scream as the snake tightens its grip and sends venom flooding through my veins. The Amethyst Throne's bindings around my wrists flare with heat and I jerk my paws to try to escape.

"Why?" I snarl, glaring up at the King with all the anger I can muster through the pain. "Despite it all, I cared for you. I tried to save you from the Throne, and this is what happened? Why?"

"I brought you back to life. We never have to be apart again. You may not see it now, but this is a gift. We had such a short amount of time together when you were Ice, but now we've been together for over a century. We've had our rocky patches. You left for someone who could never give you what we can give each other, but you're back now. You'll see. You may not now, but you will."

I grit my teeth as tears drip down my cheeks.

I don't know what to make of it. He was so kind when I was Ice. I don't know how he became who he is as the King.

Was he always like this and I was just couldn't see it?

Can't things go back to how they were before?

xxxx

The sun works its way across the sky, and the light shining through the windows of the Throne room moves across the ground. Guard and Soldiers come into the room and clean up the floor, removing the fallen chunks of marble. Others bring in tall wooden ladders that seem like they're held together with hopes and prayers that Lucius doesn't arrive today to climb up and replace the columns stretching all the way to the ceiling. The Guard and Soldiers fit in new pieces of marble, and the Amethyst Throne seals in the cracks, leaving no trace the columns were ever broken in the first place.

When night falls, the King dozes off, settling down on a fluffed purple pillow and drifting away into Dreamland.

But I don't sleep.

The snake's chain is too heavy, and every time it shifts, the links of its body pinch together and tug on my fur. Its teeth immobilize part of my neck, and I can feel every bit of where it's biting me. When I squirm, its fangs move. I want to scream, but that wouldn't do anything.

I squeeze my eyes shut, timing my inhales and exhales until the weight around my chest and heart eases. Until I feel less like I'm about to explode and drain all my energy coating the entire Throne Room in a blanket of ice.

I shouldn't have come back to the castle.

I never should have left Astra.

I couldn't bear to see the fear in her eyes, but I should've stayed. At least then I'd know for sure how she felt. It would break my heart, but I would've heard it straight from her that she didn't want to see me again.

I should never have left her the last time I saw her after the Judge and Justice ruled against me and Freedom. I should have found some way to stay with her. I should have found some way to go up against the Amethyst Throne and win.

But I couldn't.

And after I lost Freedom and Astra, the King was all I had left. He was the only one I knew.

I shouldn't have come back to him, but I didn't know where else to go.

Look where that got you, I think to myself as I glare at the far wall of the Throne Room.

A few torches cast rings of light on the marble. The Dragon snores behind me, exhales rumbling and deep.

Off in the corner of the Throne Room, I see movement. I look up and prick my ears.

A creature materializes half into existence. They freeze, eyes widening as they tense, curling in on themselves and arching their back. Long ears tipped in loose hanging fur pin to the sides of their head. Antlers extend far from their skull, casting spindly shadows on their green, mottled fur.

I open my mouth to speak, and the creature shakes their head vigorously. The fear seeping from their body is nearly tangible.

They paw at their face several times. It takes me a moment, but then I notice it:

The strap of leather bound tight around their muzzle. Tight enough that I'm sure it restricts blood flow.