Taming the Beast World with a Frying Pan-Chapter 50: Cellmates

"Lyssa," Ren sighed, not even turning her head. She kept her chin resting on her knees, shivering as the damp cold of the dungeon seeped into her bones. "I should have known. You smell like sour grapes and swamp water."

In the adjacent cell, the Green Snake Concubine stepped out of the shadows. She was in her human form, her skin rippling with scales as if she couldn’t quite hold the shape in her agitation. Her fine clothes were tattered, stained with the grime of the cell she had occupied since Ren had blinded her with chili powder.

"And you smell like a wet dog," Lyssa sneered, gripping the rusted iron bars that separated them. She looked Ren up and down, taking in the makeshift snake-skin skirt and the shivering form. "So, the King finally grew bored of his toy. I told you, Mammal. I told you he would discard you. You are a novelty. And novelties lose their shine."

Ren turned slowly to face her. Despite the cold, despite the hunger gnawing at her stomach, she managed a look of withering pity.

"I’m not here because I’m boring, Lyssa," Ren said calmly. "I’m here because I have too much personality for one room. Unlike you, who got locked up for being defeated by a condiment."

Lyssa hissed, her face contorting. She slammed her hand against the bars.

"You think you are special?" Lyssa shrieked, her voice echoing off the wet stone. "I was the First Concubine! I warmed his bed for five winters! I know his scales better than anyone! He only took you because of the molting fever. Now that it’s over, he sees you for what you are—a hairless, useless, soft-skinned weakling!"

Ren sat up straighter, wrapping her arms tighter around her chest. The cold was making her teeth chatter, but her rage was keeping her warm.

"If he was satisfied with sex with you," Ren shot back, her voice sharp as broken glass, "he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to kidnap me to warm his bed."

The silence that followed was absolute.

Lyssa’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her face turned a violent shade of green. She looked like she had just been slapped with a wet fish.

"You..." Lyssa sputtered, gripping the bars until her knuckles turned white. "You dare? I gave him everything! I oiled him! I hunted for him!"

"And yet," Ren smirked, leaning back against the cold wall, "he still crossed a swamp to find a better mate. Face it, Lyssa. You’re the room temperature water of girlfriends. Lukewarm and disappointing."

"I WILL KILL YOU!" Lyssa roared, throwing herself at the bars between them. "I will slide through these gaps and crush your windpipe! I will make you beg!"

Ren ignored her. She turned her back on the former First Concubine and lay down on the wooden bench. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the constant drip-drip-drip of water leaking from the ceiling and Lyssa’s angry curses.

’Just one night,’ Ren told herself, her teeth chattering violently now that the adrenaline of the argument was fading. ’I can do one night. I’ve slept in worse places. I slept in a tent during a monsoon once. I slept in a 24-hour diner booth.’

But she had never slept anywhere this cold.

The temperature in the dungeon was dangerously low. Unlike the upper palace, which was heated by the thermal vents, the deep cells were cut into the raw earth. For a warm-blooded human wearing nothing but scraps of silk and snake-skin, it was brutal.

She curled into a tight ball, tucking her hands between her thighs to preserve heat. She tried to summon the memory of the fried chicken she had cooked earlier—the warmth of the oil, the heat of the fire—but the cold ate through the memory.

Time crawled.

Minutes turned into hours. Lyssa eventually fell silent, her breathing slowing into a rhythmic hiss as she entered a torpid state.

Ren couldn’t sleep. Every time she drifted off, a violent shiver would rack her body, waking her up. Her toes were numb. Her nose felt like an icicle.

’I’m going to get hypothermia,’ Ren thought miserably. ’I’m going to freeze to death in a dungeon because I wanted to be a hero.’

She shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t make her hip bone grind against the wood.

Clank.

A sound echoed from the far end of the corridor.

Ren froze.

It wasn’t the scuttling of a rat. It was the heavy, metallic sound of the main gate being unlatched.

Ren sat up, her heart pounding.

’The guards?’ she thought. ’Did Syris decide housework wasn’t enough? Is this the part where they drag me to the crocodile pit?’

She peered through the darkness.

A faint, orange glow appeared at the end of the hall. It grew brighter, casting long, dancing shadows against the wet walls.

Footsteps approached. They weren’t the heavy, slithering drag of Viper or the cobra. These were lighter. Almost silent, save for the soft rustle of fabric.

The light stopped in front of her cell.

Ren squinted against the sudden glare of the oil lantern.

Standing there, bathed in the warm, flickering light, was Syris.

He was wearing his sheer black sleeping sash and a heavy velvet cloak thrown over his shoulders to ward off the dungeon chill. His hair was loose, falling around his face like a curtain of midnight silk.

His face was unreadable. The anger from the Nest was gone, replaced by a strange, haunted intensity.

He didn’t look at Lyssa’s cell. He looked only at Ren.

He saw her shivering on the bench. He saw her pale skin, blue with cold, the goosebumps rising on her arms. He saw the way she hugged her knees, trying to disappear into the wall.

Ren swallowed hard, her voice trembling. "Syris?"

He didn’t speak.

He raised his hand.

In his palm, glinting in the lantern light, was a heavy iron key.