CHAPTER NINETEEN
Verena
SWEAT SLICKED MY SPINE, MY CHEEKS BURNING CRIMSON as I swiped the back of my hand across my forehead.
The crisp breeze that swept by did nothing to cut through the sun bearing down mercilessly, a tyrant turning me into a puddle.
Of course it chose training day.
“Alright—” Callum clapped, his voice carrying with all the authority of a war drum. His bare chest caught the light, gilded and glistening, and I hated him for it. “One hundred jump squats to start.”
My knees nearly buckled. I bent forward, palms braced against them, gasping like a mortal on their deathbed.
“One hundred,” I echoed, wheezing, “in a row?”
Twenty miles as a warm-up and now this? The Gods could strike me down and it would still feel more lenient.
The courtyard was eerily still today. No clang of steel, no snarled curses, no dust from sparring boots. Just a few guards jogging half-hearted laps along the perimeter.
Meaning Callum, Duke and I had the entire expanse to ourselves.
“One hundred,” Callum repeated, maddeningly calm as he hooked a foot behind him in another stretch, “for the first set.”
I straightened, spine stiff despite the protest screaming through it, and fixed my stare on him, hoping my eyes alone might light him on fire.
A finger tapped against my chin as I said, “Hm. I wonder who’ll take over after I kill you.”
He only smiled. Bastard.
A blinding ray of sunlight hit my face directly, and I raised an arm, squinting toward it. Midday already and it felt like we had only just begun training today.
Callum clapped a hand on Duke’s bare shoulder, squeezing once. “Duke will take my place.” Duke folded his arms across his chest, grin stretching ear to ear. “And if he can’t,” he released his grip, brow arching with smug delight, “Rook will.”
My eyes rolled so hard it was a miracle they didn’t lodge in the back of my skull. Of course, he’d not only thought of it, but he also had contingencies stacked in neat mental piles.
“Besides—” Callum strode closer, the sun vanishing as his body cut the light, a kindness that lasted all of two seconds as he came beside me. Fingers pinched a strip of skin at my back and I squeaked. “What’s this?”
“Hey!” I slapped at him like the pest he was, rubbing off the sting of the offended patch. “Everyone has one spot.”
Who cared about a roll or two? Certainly not me, and it hadn’t stopped me from handing these two their asses every time we sparred.
Well, except running. Running was hel.
Callum and Duke traded a look. Then, in perfect unison, began inspecting themselves, tugging, tensing beneath the fabric.
“Duke?” Callum asked, not even pretending not to flex.
I tried, barely, to keep my eyes from lingering, but Duke’s body was its own weapon. Rich, ebony skin, slick and sunlit, every muscle forged from his brutality magic.
Two, four, six…fates, how many abs did one man need?
My mind betrayed me, dragging me, uninvited, back to another body.
Ronan’s.
Rougher. Wilder. Hardened shadow clinging to every edge. The memory of straddling him throbbed like a fresh bruise, dagger pressed to his vein, pulse hammering beneath.
I could have ended him. I wanted to end him. Yet I hadn’t. Not out of mercy, but calculation. If I slit the heir before the kingdoms were bound, Elva would never be free.
Still, I remembered the taut stretch of him beneath me, the green fire in his eyes as our hate writhed between us.
Heat flared up my throat, and I waved a hand at my face as though it could cool me, pretending it was only vengeance that left me burning.
Pretending it wasn’t his eyes, his strain, the way he’d looked between my legs, the way he would look magnificent painted in blood.
How had he even known where I lived? No one had warned me.
He could have sifted, but you can’t sift to a place you don’t know. Which meant, if he had, he’d masked his scent, his power.
And he’d been in my home before.
If Ronan thought he was only flirting with danger, he had yet to learn who I really was.
Duke’s fingers skimmed down the ridges of his stomach, casual. “Nope. Nothing here.” His grin shot toward Callum. “You?”
Callum rolled a shoulder. “Nope.”
My patience snapped thin. At this rate, my eyes would roll so far back they’d get stuck somewhere in the cavern of my skull, right where my tolerance used to live.
I waved them off. “You two are insufferable.”
Duke dropped his shirt. “Come on. I’ll do them with you.”
“Please,” I scoffed. “Look at your godsdamned legs! You probably do a hundred for fun before dawn.”
His teeth flashed, white enough to blind. “Usually one-fifty, but…”
I spun to leave, my sore legs mocking the attempt. “Goodbye—”
He caught my arm, yanking me back between them, trapping me in the cage of their vanity. “You’re supposed to be our greatest weapon. How would our enemies react if they knew you wept over a few leg training workouts.” His voice was far too appealing for someone who wanted me to suffer.
My lips clamped shut, teeth grinding.
But dammit, I caved.
Fine. I could handle a few squats. They might have the bodies of warrior-angels and endurance built from stone, but I had a reputation to uphold.
The inhale dragged, but I mirrored their stance, dropping low. The exhale came easier than expected when I rose again. Too simple, I could do this.
A shadow loomed at my side. “That was easy,” Callum cut in, “because you’re not doing it right.”
Irritation flared, and I slammed my mental shields up so hard I knew he felt the rattle in his own.
“I know how to squat, Callum.” I lowered again, sharper this time, forcing weight into my heels, sitting in my invisible chair from hel.
“Then do it right.” He stepped in close, nudging my spine straighter, grounding my weight. “Restart your count. And actually jump this time.”
His attention was already back on Duke when he withdrew, because, of course, now they were competing, squatting like perfectly tuned machines. Smooth. Rhythmic. Effortless.
I tried to summon the Viper forward, praying the curse would lend me strength, or at least a distraction. Oh, wait. I had one better—
“I bet six coins Duke beats your ass in a spar.” The words slipped out, sweet and barbed.
No man alive could resist the urge to prove he was the dominant.
Duke froze mid-rep, brow cocked, a dangerous look sparking in his eyes.
Callum didn’t even pause, just huffed between jumps. “No one’s falling for that. We’ll spar after your rep.”
Duke held my gaze a second longer, temptation flickering. Then he smirked and sank back into rhythm with Callum, matching his pace.
Damn them both.
Alright. One hundred. Just get it over with.
I lowered again, my legs refusing to lunge back up.
“You have to go back up.” Duke’s laugh trailed down my neck. Too amused for his own good.
“I know that,” I hissed, forcing myself to spring skyward. My feet slapped stone as I landed, knees groaning as I sank again.
That incessant burn in my thighs, the fire clawing up my calves, it lit something. A flare I hadn’t felt in years, from when I had only been a dreamer, not a weapon.
That was what gripped me first, the vision of a better life, a better world, but it was the nobility that kept me.
Our meetings were hushed things, candles flickering, shadows pressed close, whispers about thrones and heirs and a kingdom that might one day be whole again.
I barely understood the significance of it, only that there was a girl who was meant for more.
A girl who would change everything.
I saw the poison then. Obrann’s venality seeping from his throne, bleeding into every corner of Luamis. I wanted to cut it out.
For her, for Elva.
At thirteen, I stopped only listening at the meetings. I started leading. My words weren’t childish anymore; they were wildfire. Fury and love woven into something they wanted to follow.
I painted futures worth bleeding for, a kingdom ruled by its true heir, where equality wasn’t just an expectation but a promise.
At fourteen Callum gave me a choice—stay a dreamer or become a warrior, part of the Awakened Order.
I chose both.
It had stopped being only the desire to tear Obrann from his throne; I wanted to obliterate him.
Words had their beauty—they could inspire, ignite, rewrite history. But steel, sweat, and the crack of bone…that was where the true fun lived.
Callum made sure I learned that thrill well. He pushed me until my lungs gave out, until my body was wrung dry of strength, until tears burned and blood slicked my palms.
Then he forced me to rise again.
I cursed him. Hated him. But I never tapped. Not once.
Every morning, for nearly four years, it was the same war—me against him, me against myself.
Some of his soldiers trained beside us, revolutionaries in secret. Others never realized the girl beside them was being designed into a threat far beyond immortal.
You’re going to be deadly, Callum had told me the first time I put him on the ground. He said it again, every time I forced him to yield.
But deadly didn’t cover it.
By seventeen, the girl who once puked at drills, who couldn’t lift a sword, was gone. In her place stood someone who could snap bones with her bare hands. Someone who could drop four full-grown immortal soldiers in the dirt and walk away with nothing but a scratch and a smirk.
The woman I became was dominant, powerful. Resilient.
Gemma made me feel. Callum made me fearless.
Together, they built a creature no one had seen coming. I wasn’t just a dreamer anymore. I wasn’t just a weapon. I was the beginning of something that couldn’t be tamed. A spark built to matter.
I became the force no one anticipated.
Until one choice was stripped from me when fate reached in with its poisoned hand and chose for me.
At eighteen, it was stolen.
All of it.
Torn from me the moment I awakened.
Suddenly the words I once spoke carried no weight. My strength no longer belonged to me. Verena was gone, not the visionary, not the elite.