The Serpentine Crown

As the power coursed through her body, Arinya thought she had only imagined it. The soldier’s laugh still rang in her ears when his eyes met hers. He sneered, raising his hand to strike her again, but he froze. Lips parted on an unfinished word, his skin shimmered, veins hardening into quartz while his pupils fractured into a thousand facets of light right there on the temple floor.

By the time she stumbled back, gagging on the taste of blood, he was no longer a man. He was a statue of blood-red garnet, veins webbed in glittering fire.

It should have been beautiful.

It should have been impossible.

Instead, it was monstrous.

The smell of myrrh and burnt resin clung to the air, suddenly foul, like smoke curling from charred flesh. The other priestesses pressed themselves against the walls, robes whispering like frightened moths. Their eyes darted from the garnet corpse to Arinya, and none of them reached for her hand. None whispered comfort after his assault.

The high priest’s voice broke the silence. “Cursed.”

That word clung to her, weaved its way into her skin. Cut deeper than the soldier’s strike.

They exiled her that night. No trial, no farewell rites. Just a shove through the temple gates and the hiss of torches sputtering in the wind. The gates clattered shut behind her like the lid of a tomb, and so the desert took her in, all fourteen years of her.

The moonless night smelled of loneliness and scorched herbs, bitter on her tongue. Sand rasped against her skin as if the earth itself wanted to strip her away. Something moved in the dunes, their scales whispering against stone and rocks as they slithered to and from life and death. She thought they would strike, finish what the priests had not. Instead, they curled against her arms, coiled in her hair, their cool bodies pressing into her fever-hot skin. Their tongues flickered against her cheek as though whispering, “We know you. You are one of us now.”

She wept into the silence, and the silence devoured the sound.

Word spread quickly.

Travelers whispered of the cursed girl who could make treasure from flesh. Some called her demon. Others, a blessing. Greed drove many to seek her. Men who thought they could avert their eyes until the last moment. Women who thought only of their desire to be glittering goddesses by sacrificing anyone but themselves. They all became the same jeweled corpses gleaming in the dunes: emerald, ruby, lapis lazuli. Her “garden of the dead,” as one wanderer murmured before running back into the nothingness of the desert.

Each time, it grew easier.

Easier to let her fury reign. Easier to stop seeing men, women, enemies, strangers. Easier to see only crystals waiting to be cut.

And yet, every night when she closed her eyes, she felt the phantom warmth of the soldier’s palm about to strike her face. Human touch. Cruel, but still human. Every gem she made was another reminder that she had erased that warmth forever.

One night, a girl stumbled into her cave.

Arinya woke to the sound. Uneven steps, a ragged breath, and then a body collapsing onto the floor. She froze, snakes stirring in her hair. The smell hit her first, sweat sharp, blood metallic and sour, dirt clinging like mildew to skin.

The girl was her own age, lip split, but her eyes danced in a way she wasn’t used to. Like they looked at everything and nothing all at the same time.

“You don’t scare me,” the girl said hoarsely.

Arinya hissed, serpents bristling. “You should be.”

“I’ve seen worse.” The girl dropped a satchel at her feet, its contents spilling out. Inside were figs, dried fish, and water skins. Sweetness filled the cave, so sticky and alive against the dust-dry air that Arinya’s throat ached. “You’ve been eating nothing but sand and venom out here, haven’t you?”

Arinya blinked. “Why?”

“Because you’ve only ever killed those who deserved it.” The girl’s mouth twitched, bitter as wormwood. “My brother… he never came back from raiding this desert. If he’s one of your gems out there, then good.”

Something twisted in Arinya’s chest, part hunger, part ache. For the first time since exile, someone had not called her cursed, but the way the girl’s voice cracked on brother made her wary.

“I didn’t mean to…” Arinya began.

“Don’t.” The girl cut her off. “I didn’t come here for apologies. I came because I was tired of being afraid. Just because I can't see anymore doesn't mean I deserve to die.”

Her name was Mara.

They traveled together, scavenging in ruins, sharing food and silence. At night, the cave smelled of figs and skin, a reminder that someone else breathed nearby. For the first time, Arinya did not sleep with her back to stone, yet every time her shoulder brushed Mara’s in the dark, she flinched. The touch felt like an echo of what she had lost, warmth she could never dream to keep.

Mara never asked about it. She never begged to learn the magic. She only said, “Don’t lose yourself to it.”

But every time Arinya walked among the jeweled dead, she felt a pang of hunger. The rubies gleamed like captured heartbeats. The sapphires glittered like frozen tears. Proof that no one would ever strike her again, no one would drag her by the hair and call her cursed. Proof she could rule the world if she wanted to.

She wanted to tell Mara that, sometimes, the gems looked more alive than the living, but she never spoke the words aloud, choosing to cling to the familiarity of the silence and shadows she knew so well.

The choice came on a night heavy with thunder and lightning.

A blood-thirsty mob found their cave, torches spitting against the wind. Boots thundered against the stone, each step a drumbeat of dread. The air stank of fear and oil, burning pitch mixed with hatred.

Before she was even awake, they dragged Mara to the front of the cave, a knife pressed to her throat.

“You want to save this one?” their captain jeered. His voice scraped like rust on iron. “Then turn your eyes away, monster, and we’ll let her live.”

Arinya’s hands shook. The snakes writhed, hissing for violence. She could sense Mara’s fear, the idea of losing her as electric as the bolts that hurled themselves from above. Her vision burned with rage, rage at the priests, at the mob, at a world that had made her body both a weapon and a prison.

She could turn them all to gems in this very moment. An entire kingdom’s ransom glittering in the cave. No one would dare come for her again.

But Mara’s gaze, steady even with the blade against her skin, anchored her.

“Don’t,” she whispered. Her voice was almost lost under the storm’s howl. “If you do, you’ll lose yourself.”

Arinya wanted to scream, I already have, but the words clung like grit in her throat.

She met the captain’s eyes.

He stiffened. Shimmered. Shattered into sapphire so deep the torchlight drowned in it. The knife slipped from his hands. His men froze, horror fracturing across their faces.

“Run,” Arinya hissed to the others. Her voice cracked like glass.

Most obeyed. A few did not. Those that didn't run became topaz, amethyst, jade. By the time the cave was silent again, the air was thick with the mineral tang of crystal dust and the ache of regret.

When it was over, Arinya sank to her knees. The snakes quieted, curling against her shoulders, cold against her fevered skin.

Mara crawled to her, touched her arm, fingers trembling. “You didn’t lose yourself,” she whispered.

Arinya looked at the nearest sapphire corpse gleaming in the cave. She wanted to believe her. She wanted to believe she was just a girl too, not a curse, not just destruction masquerading as a person.

But every time she had been vulnerable, to the priests, to her sisters, to her family, even now with Mara, she had been left alone, carrying the weight of the people she had turned into gems with no one but herself to lean on.

Her voice cracked in the silence. “Then why does it feel so good?”

Mara’s hand stilled. For a moment, Arinya thought she would answer. Thought she would break the silence that had swallowed them both.

But she didn’t. She only withdrew her hand, and Arinya knew, it was only a matter of time before Mara would leave too.

In that withdrawal, she felt the truth. Family, friends, everyone she would ever meet. No one could be counted on. Every time she risked softness, she found nothing but sharp edges.

People called her monster. The priests called her cursed. The desert called her home.

When she walked into the storm that night, eyes burning, she carried a crown not of gold but of serpentine rage. Scales and cold comfort writhed around her, and she swore right then, if the world wanted her to be a monster, it would have to worship the monster it had made.