Ren and Viper sprinted—or rather, slithered and limped—through the ruins of the old guard post. The hallway was a graveyard of muck, ash, and sludge, the grim remains of the snake guards Ren had torched during her first escape attempt.
The air smelled of wet charcoal.
"Sorry," Ren whispered to the sludge, pressing her palms together as she trudged through the knee-deep muck. "I didn't mean to barbecue you guys. It was self-defense. I hope you reincarnate into pretty rainbow boas."
Viper swiftly and aggressively jammed the Jade Key into the slot on the heavy vault door. With a heavy clunk, the mechanism turned.
The Vault was exactly as Ren remembered it: messy and dark, but now filled with burn marks from her previous arson attempt. But mostly, it was cold.
It was freezing.
Ren, currently wearing little more than a tattered snake-skin skirt and a halter top held together by hope, immediately started shivering.
