Chapter 27 Drecken
drecken
. . .
The venom sizzled in my enchanted vial. I lifted it toward the glow of the fae orbs lining the ceiling, watching the color shift as I swirled it. It flashed from neon green to obsidian to a dark mossy green.
Rune’s venom was unlike anything I’d ever catalogued. It wasn’t just corrosive. It took it a step even further.
Runes pulsed faintly over my workbench, their fire coaxing the venom’s molecules into revealing themselves.
The metal stirrer shrieked as the venom ate through its tip in seconds, reducing steel to sludge.
The smell was sharp, a mix of metal and sulfur, though underneath there was something pleasant, her scent, midnight orchid.
Bones, I thought with a shiver of delight. This venom didn’t just eat flesh. It ate the framework of matter itself. Surely, it would liquify more than just a supernatural’s insides.
I wondered briefly what interaction Rune had that involved her coming to know what this venom was capable of. Had she stayed long after the death of the drake? Perhaps melting the bone took slightly longer than the organs.
It made sense after all. I would have to check with her.
The crystal on my desk pulsed, Rowan’s voice crackling through with his typical clipped authority. “You’re in your lab again.”
“Where else would I be?” I muttered, scribbling down the reaction time as the finger bone I’d grabbed from my collection and tossed into the vial collapsed fully into venom.
Two seconds.
“You really should take the phone,” he sighed. “Or use the council-issued tablet you’ve been ignoring.”
“The crystals are easier,” I told him, eyes widening as I dropped in an inch of flesh.
Point-zero-five seconds.
“You should see this, Rowan. Her venom doesn’t stop at organs.
It breaks down calcium. Bones dissolve in two seconds.
Do you realize the tactical advantage of that?
Most venoms paralyze, slow the blood, or maybe seize the lungs.
Getting my hands on Sabine’s venom was revolutionary for our weaponry potions, but this?
This erases the battlefield’s evidence into sludge, unlike Sabine’s ash.
Similar but different. I need to get Rune the potion I made of Sabine’s venom as a gift.
Surely, if she gets that, we can maintain a strong working relationship. ”
“You’ve never talked about anyone like this before. You do remember who Rune is, don’t you? Sabine’s daughter.”
“And?” I adjusted the magnifier lens over the vial as I used a heavily enchanted dropper to grab one small drop.
I dropped it onto the bench, watching it burn a pin-sized hole through the marble workbench.
The hiss was beautiful. “She’s brilliant.
Her mind, her curiosity, all of it. She talks venom and poisons the way most talk poetry.
Don’t you dare reduce her to just whose daughter she is. ”
Rowan sighed, the kind of sigh only an old councilman could do—not that I could say anything about that. We were around the same age, after all. “Fates, save me. You’re insufferable when you’re excited.”
I grinned, unbothered, jotting down more notes as I experimented with it. Rune was very generous, giving me so much of her venom. There were plenty of experiments I could dive into with this amount.
Would she have given just anyone this much?
Rowan cleared his throat. “Onto other matters of actual importance…”
“This is important,” I scoffed.
“That’s why I said other,” he assured me. “Word reached our council this morning. There’s a stormdrake and lavadrake in Blezen.”
My pen stilled above my notes. “What?”
“One of each. Twin brothers. They’d been in hiding with a group of drakes since before Roak’s fall, and now, after word of his death has spread, they’ve returned to the city of Blezen. I’ve opened communications with them.”
“Storm and lava?” My heart thudded. “Rowan, do you know what this means? What they are?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
I was already tearing through my shelves, pulling down tomes bound in cracked animal hides and stitched parchment. Dust scattered across my desk as I flipped the pages of an old journal Blair, the council’s seer, had given me.
My eyes flew over the words of old prophecies she’d written until I found it.
There it was in half-faded ink, scrawled hastily.
I read it aloud for Rowan to hear,
“Born under comet rain,
To cease the dead corruption again.
Lightning strikes a starlit sky,
Earth rises to meet the storm’s eye.
Wickedness looms to drag dragons under,
Twin souls opposed by thunder.
Finding their mate will seal their magic,
Burying corruption with the Fates, inevitable yet tragic.”
I let the words hang, the air thick with the weight of it. “Rowan,” I said softly, “these aren’t just drakes. They’re the prophecy made flesh. It’s about a war to come. Have you talked to Blair about this?”
“Not yet. Blair has been avoiding any talk of Roak with me.” Rowan cursed under his breath. “Do you realize what this means? If the Dragon Cult catches wind—”
“They will,” I cut in. “Obviously. They’re already whispering Roak’s name as if he were the Dragon God.
The cult will attempt to kill the brothers if they can, since clearly this affects them.
Which is why, listen to me, we need them trained.
Four years of basic instruction and knowledge of our world while they’re still mostly in hiding, then enrollment into Blezen Academy.
If anyone can survive what’s coming, it’s assassins forged by Blezen. ”
Rowan groaned. “They were raised hidden in peace, not to be assassins.”
“Give them four years to learn before they go into the academy to train to be assassins,” I told him. “Without proper training, they’ll be killed.”
“…Fine. Four years. I’ll talk to Blair.”
“Good idea. Are you good?”
“Sabine and I killed him,” Rowan croaked. “He was exposed to her venom, but he didn’t break into ash immediately. I lit him on fire as he was turning to ash…all that is left of him is ash. No bones. No brain to be resurrected.”
“He can’t be resurrected by just any old necromancy,” I said with a frown. “But there’s always a way. Especially if there was a scale of his lost somewhere before that.”
“Let’s put this conversation on hold until I speak to Blair.
” The tension cracked. “Remind me again why you agreed to teach at Apex Elite Academy? Being the headmaster of Fate Hollow is enough to drive me mad, but being a professor? Alister and Lachlan still teach, and it’s a lot.
How are you managing research and lectures? ”
I swirled Rune’s venom in its vial, watching it lap at the glass like a tide. “Because it’s worth it. For Sabine’s venom. For the potions this venom will unlock for our agents. Not to mention, now I have access to Rune’s. In four years, we’ll have an arsenal no one can predict.”
“Glad to hear you’ve come to terms with it,” he said.
“It’s only four years.” I hesitated, then admitted, “You know…when Rune gave me her venom, her fang dripping the venom into the vial I was holding, I felt butterflies. Me. Butterflies.” I scoffed at the ridiculousness.
“You like her,” he said flatly.
“She’s Sabine’s daughter.” I shrugged, going back to my work. “Of course I do.”
“No, Drecken. You like her. Romantically. Trust me, I know.”
I snorted, shaking my head. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never liked anyone like that. I’d never like anyone that wasn’t fated to me.”
“Exactly.” Rowan’s voice sharpened. “When I heard Wren’s name, before I ever met her, I knew she was special to me because I couldn’t stop thinking about her and worrying for her safety.
I’d never worried about anyone like that before.
Bonds don’t snap the way they used to. They’re rarer, slower.
Even dragon and drake bonds wait years before the threads reveal themselves.
The last case of an instant bond in Blezen was twenty years ago. She could be your fated mate, Drecken.”
I went still again, staring at the photo on my desk of my parents, smiling brightly. Before they’d had me.
My hand hovered, tracing the frame. They’d been so happy. They were fated.
“Rowan…I’m too old to find my mate. I’ve been alone too long. Maybe the Fates don’t think I am meant for one.”
“I thought the same before Wren,” Rowan said softly. “And yet…”
The silence stretched between us.
I turned back to my workbench, uncorking the vial I’d barely remembered to seal before grabbing Blair’s journal.
“Let’s see what her venom does to me, then.” My hand didn’t shake as I tipped a single drop onto my tongue.
“Drecken, don’t you dare try her venom!” Rowan barked, sheer worry threading through his tone.
Fire blazed down my throat, then, nothing. No collapse. No pain. No organ or bone liquifying. Just warmth, spreading through me like when my parents used to hug me before bed.
I laughed, astonishment swelling through me. “It didn’t kill me.”
“Thank the Fates you’ve been poisoning yourself for centuries,” Rowan muttered. “You scared me.”
“Or maybe,” I said quietly, “it’s because I was meant to survive Rune’s venom because…”
“She’s your mate,” he finished for me.
The crystal went silent.
I returned to my notes, Rune’s venom glistening under the fae light and her smile seared into my mind long after the call ended.
Could Rune Bloodwyne be fated to be mine?