Slay All Snakes

BETRAYING SISTER

"Vanessa in addition to my position as queen, also wanted something or rather someone that she wanted more than anything else."

Before continuing, Serena had to take a moment to disperse her tears for the umpteenth time, but her heart kept remembering that suffocating pain that didn't want to leave her alone.

Despite everything, she had to face that pain to go on, but not for herself. For Marilyn, who still had some hope of being able to defeat those bleeding creatures.

"I could not suspect that Vanessa also wanted to see me die of a broken heart. She snatched the person I cared about the most from my arms: my beloved daughter Silene, the future princess of this kingdom."

Marilyn was speechless. She had seen a certain resemblance between her and Silene but she never dared to ask if it was true.

However, by now she had confessed and didn't hesitate to ask more questions.

"How did Silene, who was a princess, become one of those evil creatures and then turn around and be able to escape? How is this possible?"

Serena sighed once more and managed to find the strength to finish her story.

"I was married to my first love. He was a kind and big-hearted man who wasn't born a noble, but my parents did not oppose any objection because of his courage and loyalty. They believed he would have been a just and noble king."

"I've always been a faithful wife and would never cheat on my husband, but Vanessa managed to make it seem otherwise with her tricks. This is what killed me. To this day I can't forgive myself for my naivety and for not paying attention to the warning signs I felt inside."

"Vanessa's trap had been a success because she had managed to plot in the shadows and once again with her subtle cunning as always came out innocent. When a creature begins to take pleasure in killing, it can hardly stop continuing."

"This time, Vanessa's desire to harm was without mercy or limits."

"She had always been envious that I was the firstborn, that I had found my true love, and that I had become a mother before her. All of this made her feel hatred toward me because I had what she never had."

"There were times when I tried to comfort her about this. I wanted her to know that she would be happy to one day, but a person who is envious would rather see the world burn."

"To steal my daughter, she used my husband and convinced him that I wasn't a faithful wife. She planted the idea in his head that Silene wasn't his daughter at all, that I had cheated on him with someone else."

As soon as Serena finished speaking, she tried to dry her tears with the back of her hand. Even with them wiped away, the pain she was feeling remained.

"Because of those devious and treacherous lies, my husband had become a jealous and suspicious person. When I tried to talk to him, he would accuse me of going behind his back. I tried to ask him who was telling him these lies, but he always denied it and indeed, he had even stood up for Vanessa."

"In the meantime, Vanessa was enjoying the show. She let me suffer in my marriage while she spread the most disgusting rumors about me to the rest of the Kingdom."

"Vanessa dared to blame me for trying to defend my mother. She told everyone that I was happy our father was dead so I could take his place in the castle and become the queen. She even told people that I was the one who drugged our mother to make her kill him."

"I do not believe that I have ever seen so much evil in our kingdom. Destruction had begun and my family was the starting point of the tragedy."

"All the suspicions continued to accumulate and the more that people repeated them, the more they gained strength. It seemed like an avalanche that became more powerful as it fell."

"My husband was completely ruined by those rumors. Vanessa managed to convince him to get rid of me and take revenge on all the things he had accused me of. And he had the citizens on his side."

"I still remember the night he tried to kill me. My husband offered me a glass of wine to celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of a new chapter of all of us and the kingdom as we sat down for dinner. He put a powerful poison inside, one that was lethal. I eyed the glass and refused to drink it. To prove to me that it was safe, he sipped his instead. But that was his deadly mistake."

My husband died in an instant and he did not know that the two glasses of wine were prepared with poison already inside.

I could not believe that my husband was going to kill me like this. Looking down at his lifeless form in front of me sent tears pouring out of me. But the worst thing was yet to come.

"Vanessa rushed into the room and accused me of killing my husband to have the whole kingdom for myself. She suggested that I was having an affair this whole time and would marry them instead, the lover I had kept a secret."

"All my attempts to prove that I was innocent didn't work. No one believed me because of Vanessa's rumors. Once I had been the queen of the kingdom, but not even a day later I had become accused of murder and treason."

"The guards locked me in the same cell as my mother. I rushed over to her, only to see her deteriorating from the poison. With all of her strength, she managed to tell the guards that she had been poisoned by Vanessa."

"With that, the guards found the bottle that contained the poison in one of Vanessa's coats Before they could capture her, Vanessa shot the guards and retrieved the evidence."

"The sight that my mother and I saw from our cell chilled us to the bone. Somehow, Vanessa had poisoned the rest of the citizens. The kingdom was falling apart and the citizens fought each other with malice. My mother died from the pain, the civil unrest out the window the last thing she saw."

Serena fell to her knees and sobbed. "I looked out the window to see Vanessa with my little girl in her arms, an evil smile curling her lips. And she said: 'Dear sister, I managed to kill our parents and your foolish and gullible husband. Now is the next step of the plan. With your daughter, I will make you suffer the pains of hell.'

"Vanessa had also brought the music box that I had given to my daughter. When she cranked it to begin the song, a different song played. An evil song with a horrible melody instead of the sweet music I chose. She was singing to my daughter about how much I hated her, and how I wanted to hurt her. Vanessa sang to my daughter until Silene hated me and loved Vanessa instead."

"Oh Marilyn, for me to know that not only had I lost my kingdom, my beloved family, my love, and my daughter as well, it was enough to give me the coup de grace. While I was dying, I heard the evil laugh of Vanessa mixed with the cries of my daughter."

"My spirit was still alive even after I died, and with the last remaining strength, I managed to protect Silene as much as I could. I appeared to her in a dream when she was older, trying to assert how much I loved her and how I continued to watch over her."

"But then why didn't Silene defeat the Snakes? Why did she pass the task along to me and other princesses?" Marilyn asked.

Serena replied, "Vanessa was still her aunt, even after everything, so she didn't dare to defeat her. But you do. You can win because you don't have the weakness of being a relative.

We were weak and naive, and that's why Vanessa won. You don't need to have the most powerful weapons to win against her. All you need is courage. If you use that with your strength, not even the cruelest Snakes can do anything." "Why don't you try out this little trick?" an evil voice said.

Marilyn was bewildered when she heard it, praying the voice belonged to someone else who would help.