CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Verena
IT HAD BEEN DAYS SINCE THE TAVERN, since Nezra’s song and the past she had shown me.
Callum had been scarce, only a handful of brief run-ins in the palace halls.
It felt deliberate. Every time our paths crossed, he was suddenly gone again, rushing somewhere that didn’t matter.
I squeezed my eyes shut, leaning against the boulder. The view overlooked the brook running through the Roux Forest’s heart, silver water slipping over stone, shaping its way toward the Indra Mountain.
One day, I would follow it to its end, beyond the peaks, beyond the edge of what everyone feared, to whatever waited once the water was finally free enough to become something grander.
Wind whipped through the trees, slicing across my cheeks until they burned red and raw. The winter singers had begun harmonizing, a more relaxed trance than Nezra’s, soft enough to draw me toward sleep. They circled the peak in the distance, suddenly making it feel not so far away.
The unknown of the wood never stirred dread in me. Not even when it maybe should have. For a brief, heartbreaking moment, this place had been my home.
The shadows everyone else was afraid of, they had shielded me.
I wondered if the forest had been this calm on the day I was left here. If the birds sang, if the brook whispered. If the woman I often dreamed about had hesitated with me in her arms—
Or if she never looked back.
My eyes shot open when the birds had gone quiet, their songs swallowed by fog that settled in the gaps of the trees.
The air was crisp enough to raise chills along my skin, yet the fog carried a strange warmth, wrapping me, chasing them away.
I rose cautiously. There was no movement, no sound. I was abandoned. The same as that day.
The land beneath thudded as I leapt down, leaves crunching far too loudly in the silence. The fog did not waver. It clung, step for step, moving with me as I cut through its hazed form.
I felt it immediately, the quiet gravity, the pull. Not the forest creatures, not the usual hum of magic in its roots, but an intentional force.
My pulse staggered, venom beading as fangs slipped free, unbidden. The pressure rose, too much to contain as my eyes began rolling back when the Viper struck its bars.
Its rage became my pulse. Its hunger, my breath.
No. The scream tore internally through me.
I forced the curse down, locking the door, shoving the fangs back into hiding. My hand flew to the bracelet at my wrist where it pulsed.
It was an enduring strength that wound into my skin and whispered: You are not lost.
It reminded me that I was still in control, even when I felt I wasn’t.
When I reached for the pull again, it was gone. Replaced by a sound that split the forest in two. A horn.
My head snapped up. It came again, sharp and brutal. Like an axe cleaving against its mate. Then a third time.
Gods, no.
Four.
I knew at that moment exactly what the king had planned.
Four horns from the town meant only one thing. Obrann had made his move—and someone was about to bleed for it.
I prayed whatever Callum had planned could rival Obrann’s scheme. That hope dissolved the moment I reached town.
The air was quiet, the streets empty. There was no music or clamor, only an eerie stillness, the horns stopping the world entirely.
A thud shattered the hush where I rounded the corner as a door slammed against its hinges in the wind. As though everyone had fled in a rush.
Mud sucked at my boots as I trudged into the town’s center, each step leaving a gaping impression where the crowd grew thicker.
My hands tensed, fingers curling and uncurling, vision blurring as colors bled together, before a hand caught my shoulder.
I spun, dagger already unsheathed, already pressed to a throat where startled brown eyes stared back at me.
My stomach dropped. “Shit.” I yanked the blade back. “Sorry, Wells.” I flipped the dagger, retreating a step. Eagerness stirred beneath my skin, a tongue lashing, remembering him.
Not a fucking chance. I shoved the urge down. Buried it.
Where I expected fear on Wells’ face, I found only kindness. But it was a thinner version of it, frayed at the edges, pulled taut by what was left unspoken.
“How’s the dagger?” he asked, fingers twitching at his sides.
“A dream.” My thumb grazed the smooth hilt. “Thank you again.”
Hair bounced against his brow as he gave a short bow. “My pleasure.” He turned, scanning the center where the crowd clotted. “Have you seen Callum?” he asked, rummaging absently in a worn satchel. “Or Gemma?”
My eyes shot to his trembling fingers, subtle, but there, shaking like they were trying to hold something back. My jaw tightened. “Not yet.” I searched for auburn curls or a silver braid. “But the king hasn’t arrived either.” I lowered my voice. “Do you know who’s being chosen?”
I looked back when he hadn’t answered.
He had gone still, eyes clamped shut, lips moving in a whisper too faint to catch.
“Wells?” I stepped closer, reaching for his arm. “Are you okay?”
No answer. Just the rock of his heels, his hands pushed to his mouth. I hesitated before reaching for him. I didn’t want to jolt him, just hoped to draw him out of the daze. I brushed my fingers against his—
—and hissed, yanking back.
Fire. His skin was on fire.
Not warmth. Not heat. But absolute burning. The veins along his hands had darkened, spidering like black vines.
“Wells?”
His head hung against his chest, hands and hair shielding me from whatever he hid. But then he looked up, the world shifting when his eyes met mine.
Crimson strains laced through every inch of the white in them. His pupils had shrunk, sinking under the weight.
And there, beneath it all, was the pain.
A metallic sting coated my tongue, straight to the curse where it lashed against my temples. I fell to the ground the same moment he did, our knees slamming against muck.
Any light he had left broke from him, flooding into red then black.
And I had no idea how to stop it.
Scarlet speckled his hands, dripping from his nose, pooling in the creases of his fingers. My breath faltered as my mind ran through every possibility of what could have caused this. I only ever landed on one thing.
This wasn’t just blood. This was a result. Evidence. The tic in his hands. The shudder in his bones—
The one thing Gemma never prepared me for. But the crucial thing she should have...because it didn’t come from outside this world. It was a consequence. Of me.
A whisper crept up my throat, hissing its verdict, lashing toward the spill of red. Mine. Mine. Mine.
He never healed. Not fully. Not truly. And they had kept that truth from me, probably too afraid the guilt would consume me. Or worse, that the curse would demand I finish what I had started.
Wells whimpered, “I need…fuck.” The words came ragged from his throat, his palms pressing into his eyes, smearing blood across the sockets.
Panic sprung on me, every thought fracturing. But I needed to do something. I forced my eyes closed. Took one breath. Then another, drifting back, past the curse, past the venom. Past the girl they feared.
And I found her. Verena Vale.
Not the Viper, not the monster, but the girl who wanted to heal. The girl who saved before she slayed. And I dragged her forward.
Quickly, I scanned the crowd again, desperate for a glimpse of Gemma. But everyone was pushed shoulder to shoulder, backs turned, bodies forming a wall between me and the world. Shielding what I shielded.
Behind me, Wells’ voice cracked again, too weak. “No,” he said. “My pack.”
His body shuddered. Blood no longer trickled but gushed, pouring from his nose. I ripped a piece of fabric from my shirt, pressing it beneath it, trying to halt the flow.
The cloth soaked instantly. Useless.
I dropped it, cursing, and made the mistake of looking into his eyes.
My heart sank.
They weren’t just bloodshot anymore. They were drowning.
He’s going to die. I’m too late.
The words echoed repeatedly in my head as tears streaked his face, the same shade that glinted at the base of my dagger’s hilt.
Ruby red.
Power rippled over my skin, rising from the core, vibrating through every vein, matching the phantom pulse of the darkness in me searching for release.
All while Wells’ body began to surrender.
A memory cut through me, as unforgiving now as it was then. I shook my head, trying to banish it. But it gave me no compassion.
We were in the Roux Forest, sunlight threading through the trees. Callum was laughing with Elva, swooning as he tucked a wildflower behind her ear. She twirled another between her fingers, spinning, glowing.
Wells and I sparred in the clearing, blades in hand. He hadn’t awakened his magic yet, but his parents had just left on a voyage, and Callum could never resist strays.
He had practiced with every blade he and his father forged. It showed in the way he moved. He was born to be a soldier, maybe forced to be a welder.
I wasn’t watching him, not really, I was watching Callum and Elva. The way their laughter wrapped the air. Wells caught me off guard, his blade screaming across my cheek.
Screaming. That’s all there was. Elva screaming.
That’s all I remembered until the world steadied. Until my vision returned. When it cleared, Wells lie unmoving beneath me, blood leaking from his throat.
From two marks.
It seeped down onto his chest as it rose, weak and shallow. Black veins had already begun threading outward from the wound.
From where I had bitten him. Where I had lost control. He had become marked, become doomed.
And me, the girl fated to be a monster, I had made her real.
The curse had claimed him from that moment, biding its time. Waiting…
No. I shook my head, vanishing the image from me. Not this time.
Not fucking again.
My skull throbbed like it wanted to split.
“Where, Wells?” I couldn’t think clearly, only enough to ask, “Where is it?”