The Poison Princess by J. Stone Read Free Book Online

of joy that came with the blissroot, however did affect
him. The serpent demanded to know what the lambs had been coated in
that tasted so sweet. Eagerly, Cyrus showed the serpent to the only
known source of the fruit in the caves below his people’s
homes.
    Sythys proceeded to devour all the blissroot
he could find in those dark depths. With each bite, the toxins were
released throughout the land, slowly befouling them into what
existed in Ruby’s time. The serpent dug deeper into the earth,
sussing out more of the fruit and growing more and more addicted to
its spicy taste and the sensation of bliss that came with it.
Having tricked the beast from its home, Ruby’s ancestors left the
now poisoned Abyss for Lavidia. In the serpent’s absence, Cyrus and
his people claimed not only the land as their own, but also all of
Sythys’ treasures. Beneath the castle, an archive was built to
house all of the powerful artifacts that they had stolen from
him.
    The story that Ruby had heard had been only
one of many regarding the nature of the Abyss and the origin of her
royal line in Lavidia, but she never would have guessed that to be
the one with truth on its side. It had been far from the most
reasonable, and many scholars seemed to have dismissed it entirely.
Even her teacher, Art, had his reservations about that particular
story. None of that seemed to matter now, as the enormous serpent
stared down at her.
    The serpent’s voice snapped Ruby back to
reality. “What isss thisss?” it hissed. “A sssnack for me, yesss,
yesss?”
    Ruby groaned and looked up to see the
enormous form of the beast hovering above her and peering down over
her. Its breath was strangely hot on her skin, and extreme heat
seemed to radiate off the serpent’s body unnaturally. The massive
beast slithered eagerly toward her, and the princess could see that
each of its scales were as big as her hands, and they transitioned
in color between dark red and abyssal black in a spiral pattern.
Its eyes were pale, milky white and its forked tongue a soft pink
hue. Horned ridges appeared just behind its eyes, disappearing into
a white mane of hair that streaked down its backside, finally
ending far from its head.
    “Who… who are you?” the princess stuttered
from the ground, noticeably shaking. She was either too afraid or
too weak to stand. She wasn’t sure which.
    “Sssurely, you’ve heard of me, yesss?” the
serpent replied.
    Ruby stared, wide-eyed, at the serpent,
fearing the answer would be the snake of her story, but she shook
her head side to side unable to accept the possibility.
    “No?” it asked, mimicking her head movement
at a much larger scale. “How isss that posssible?”
    “I don’t… understand. How… how would I know
you?”
    “I am feared!” the serpent roared, exposing
its terrifying fangs to the princess. “I am known! I dessstroyed
kingdomsss, yesss!”
    Terrified of the enormous creature and
beginning to tremble, Ruby tentatively asked, “Well… what is your…
name?”
    “My name, yesss? My name isss Sssythysss! All
know me!”
    Dread was all she felt then. How could such a
beast live down there and for so long? “I do know your name, but
it’s… not possible. How long have you been down here?”
    “Not long, yesss. I jussst came down to
partake in that ever ssso sssweet delicasssy of the
blisssroot.”
    Ruby looked around. The conditions of the
cave proved that Sythys had been there a very long time. Perhaps
the fruit had addled his brain and memory over the years. “...But
that was over five hundred years ago.”
    “You lie!” Sythys shouted back at her. “It
hasss only been a ssshort while, yesss. I wasss about to leave.
Return to the sssurfasss. I jussst need one more bite… Yesss, one
more.”
    The serpent turned around, scouring the
underground chamber. Soon, it found what it was looking for in a
curved, white fruit hanging part way out of the rocks overhead.
Snapping forward, Sythys grabbed the bottom