The Fake Bride Offered to the Snake God - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I froze where I stood.

Norn’s breathing was faint.

Semyre’s hand was pressed over his wound, black blood steadily welling up between his fingers.

All at once, I understood why Malo had sent me in here.

They weren’t trying to offer up a Sacrificial Bride.

They were testing whether the Snake God would still go soft for a face that looked like hers.

I asked, “What exactly happened three hundred years ago?”

Semyre lowered his eyes.

“You’re asking that now?”

“I need to know now.”

I stared at him.

“They said you bit a liar to death, but in the dream I saw, that woman said she never lied to you.”

The Black Lotus in the pool swayed gently.

After a long time, Semyre said, “Her name was Livia.”

I touched the red mole behind my ear.

“She looked just like me.”

“No.”

He said, “She was better at lying than you.”

The words stung.

But his voice was very low, without mockery, like an old wound that had been soaking in water for three hundred years.

Livia was a Holy Maiden raised by the Temple.

She had been sent to approach the Snake God, take his Divine Bone, and exchange it for one hundred years without disaster for the Temple.

Semyre knew.

He had known from the very beginning.

“Then why did you still trust her?” I asked.

The corner of Semyre’s mouth twitched.

“She lied very well.”

But later, Livia did not kill him according to the Temple’s plan.

She stole the Divine Bone in order to hide it inside her own body and sever the chains the Temple used to control him.

The night the Temple chased her into the Serpent Lair, she had not brought knights.

She had brought pursuers.

She told Semyre to wait three days because she wanted to deliver the Divine Bone to the Northern Border and find a witch who could cut the contract.

But she never made it out of Yuehuai Grove.

The Temple killed her at the cave entrance.

Then they used her blood to write a false contract, saying she had betrayed the Snake God.

“Then why did you think she lied to you?”

Semyre said nothing.

I followed his gaze toward the rear of the pool.

A broken Silver Bell hung there.

The very one Livia had been clutching in the dream.

“I heard her say with her own mouth that she never loved me.”

His voice was flat.

“The village said the Silver Bell records the last truth spoken.”

His voice was very soft.

“So I believed it too.”

I remembered the sound of the bell in the dream.

I remembered Livia crying as she said she had not lied to him.

“Is it possible the Silver Bell was tampered with?”

Semyre looked at me.

His gaze chilled my back, but I went on. “If Malo and the others can use a Divine Bone Fragment to raise a Vessel, then they can alter a bell.”

“Ailia.”

He called my name.

“Do you understand what you’re saying?”

“I do.”

I said, “I’m saying you hated the wrong person.”

The cave was terrifyingly cold.

Suddenly, Semyre let out a laugh.

“You’re just like her.”

A sharp pain stabbed through my chest.

“How am I like her?”

“You both like deciding how much I should hurt on my behalf.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

Norn suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Semyre pressed a hand to his chest, his face turning even paler.

“Save him first.”

I grabbed his sleeve.

“Will it hurt?”

He glanced at me.

“Who are you asking about?”

I went silent.

He carried Norn to the edge of the pool, his snake tail sinking into the Black Lotus.

One by one, the Black Lotus blossoms closed, as if they had scented blood.

Semyre used a silver knife to cut open his own chest.

I saw a tiny section of silver bone emerge from his heart.

The scale-like markings on the back of Norn’s neck lit up as well.

He woke from the pain, sobbing as he called for his sister.

I held him tight.

“I’m here.”

When Semyre drew that section of silver bone out of Norn’s body, the entire Serpent Lair shook.

He clenched his teeth and made no sound.

Only his snake tail swept uncontrollably across the stone wall, scraping off a bloody patch of scales.

I suddenly thought of the rumors.

The Snake God hated liars more than anything.

But he had clearly been deceived again and again, yet the first one he always bit open was himself.