own.
She would never give them up. She was ecstatic in her joy, and drowsy.
Thus she didn’t see the snake until it reared, fangs wide and gaping, and struck
like lightning, biting Arton on the arm.
Then, wide awake with two terrified babes to hold, one wounded and screaming,
the other howling just as loudly, she cowered.
To reach her sword or freeze the snake, arching high above the bed and glaring
fire-eyed down upon her, she’d have to put down one or both children.
This the frustrated mother could not do. She tried to shield Gyskouras with her
body, interpose her own arm, even force it like a gag into the snake’s gaping
jaws.
But the snake was wise and quick and its jaws unhinged, so that it bit right
through Jihan’s arm and punctured the godchild’s flesh and shook the Froth
Daughter and the child, stapled together by its fangs.
Jihan wailed in rage and agony-a sound the like of which had not been heard in
Sanctuary since Vashanka battled Storm-bringer in the sky at the Mageguild’s
fete.
And that brought help, though she barely knew it as her body fought the poison
and her arms, about the snake’s neck, grew weaker as she wrestled it. Even
Tempus and Niko paused in horror at the sight of Jihan locked in bodily combat
with the viper, the god-child being crushed in between.
Beside Tempus, Niko drew a breath and then reached out: “Riddler! Quickly! Take
this dagger.”
The dagger, like Niko’s sword, was dream-forged and it felt hot in the Riddler’s
hand.
He raced his Stepson, on his right, to reach the snake and the two of them began