They Left Him to Die in Chains… but the River Creature Had Other Plans

A chained fugitive is abandoned in a forest as part of a carefully orchestrated trap set by a cruel king. A lamia rescues him and leads him back to the palace, unknowingly following the trail of the daughter stolen from her at birth. There, they discover that the protagonist’s wife is actually the lamia’s lost child, raised as a human and unaware of her true nature. After confronting the king and freeing her mother, the young woman begins to show the first signs of her inheritance, revealing that she was never entirely human.