Chapter 72: The Syrenthis Has Two Forms… And Apparently One of Them Is Adorable
Chapter 72: The Syrenthis Has Two Forms... And Apparently One of Them Is Adorable
Elyn’s POV
For a moment, no one said anything.
The giant blue snake stared at me. I stared at it.
Its tongue flicked out again—slow, deliberate, tasting the air—and I swear my soul attempted to leave my body through my knees.
Rin, who was far too calm for someone sharing a room with a monster capable of swallowing a carriage, nodded matter-of-factly.
"Yes, my lady," Rin said. "The Syrenthis is a snake demon. And it’s the one that has been stealing all your snacks."
"And you guys didn’t think to tell me that the Syrenthis is a snake demon?" I asked her.
She shrugged. "I assumed you already knew."
"How would I know? I’m new here," I told her.
"Oh." She said it as if it had just dawned on her that I was still a new person in the demon realm.
It’s only been days and it feels like I’ve been in the demon realm for over a hundred years and sometimes I... you know what, let’s just forget about it.
I turned towards the snake robotically, silently wishing that maybe it wasn’t in the room anymore. That it had found its way outside because I didn’t like snakes. They were scary... extremely scary.
But instead of disappearing like I had hoped, it stared right back at me. Yeah, it wasn’t disappearing.
The forked tongue flicked again as if tasting the air, but from all the videos I’d seen in my past life about snakes, I knew it was just a normal reaction. An instinctual move.
I cleared my throat, pretending like that tongue and this huge but beautiful snake wasn’t a recipe for nightmares in my head.
Then I pointed at the woman. If the Syrenthis was the snake and the snack thief, then who was she?
"Who are you then?" I asked her.
The woman stepped forward with easy confidence, wings shifting elegantly behind her. She bowed in a graceful, seductive sweep.
"I am Lady Seraphielle Valcaryn," she said, voice dripping velvet. "Succubus noble... and the current Leader of the Incubi and Succubi." She paused.
Ah.
That explained everything.
The gown. The curves. The confidence. The I-can-make-a-nun-blush aura. And that unsettling feeling I had when she told me to move closer to her.
"Ohhh," I murmured. "That... makes sense now."
Seraphielle smiled with the kind of satisfaction someone wears when they’ve been properly acknowledged for their beauty. Meanwhile, I looked back at the snake, who was still giving me the world’s slowest blink.
Then I glanced at the scattered trays of half-eaten sweets.
Then at the snake again.
Then at Rin.
"How," I asked flatly, "does the snake even eat snacks? Aren’t snacks supposed to... I don’t know... not attract giant reptiles? And how does it actually eat them?"
Rin lifted a finger. "It has another form, my lady."
"Of course it does," I said, because why wouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t the snake-demon-thief have another shape?
Before Rin could elaborate, a soft groan came from the couch where Vaelory had been sleeping peacefully.
How she didn’t even stir throughout this chaos was beyond me. But that was Vaelory.
She stirred and then sat up abruptly. She rubbed her eyes sleepily as she took in the room.
She paused when she saw the massive blue serpent curled around the room.
Her eyes went wide, and I was expecting her to collapse like normal, but then she took me by surprise.
"There’s no way this is real." She chuckled softly, as if in disbelief. "I’m dreaming," she muttered to herself. "I’m absolutely dreaming. There’s no way I am seeing a giant blue snake. Nope. Not happening."
Then, with the most dramatic self-deception I had ever witnessed, she lay back down and went back to sleep.
I stared at her. It was like I was having déjà vu because this was the exact same way I had fooled myself and gone back to sleep.
"At least that’s better than fainting," Rin muttered dryly and, dare I say, unimpressed.
I turned back to the snake and, before my very eyes, it shifted.
The massive coils loosened and lowered. Its form shivered, its outline blurring, shrinking, folding in on itself.
I watched, breath caught in my throat. Partly because I was fascinated—this was nothing like what I had witnessed when Rin was shifting—and partly because I was too scared to even move.
Scales melted into pale skin. The enormous body compacted into something much, much smaller. Color changed shape. Bones rearranged.
And standing where the snake once coiled...
...was a child.
A little boy—no more than five, maybe six. He was dressed in a white dress that glowed to the floor. It was oversized and it looked like he had stolen someone’s laundry because the shirt even fell from his shoulder a bit.
His skin was pale and faintly iridescent, shimmering as though lit from within. His hair was blue-black, cascading all the way down to the floor. His blue eyes were still slitted like a serpent’s, bright with curiosity—and right between them, the jewel remained in place, glowing faintly.
He blinked at me.
He looked adorable.
Adorable in a "might bite you and poison you but you’d still say sorry" kind of way.
"Oh," Rin said dryly. "He’s still just a young hatchling."
I had no idea if she thought that was supposed to be helpful because it wasn’t. How was it that that young child had once been a huge snake that could swallow about ten of me at the same time?
I gave the child a look. He looked so innocent that I couldn’t even be annoyed at him for stealing my snacks.
"What’s your name?" I asked him.
"My lady," Seraphielle said to me, "you don’t have to be kind to it. They are not kind creatures. They are very dangerous and you shouldnt even be getting close to it."
"True but take a look around the room, he didn’t scatter anything even while he stole, do you think that means he’s going to hurt my lady?" Rin asked her.