CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
What rose in her place was everything we had sworn to destroy. Venom wearing my skin. Darkness disguised as destiny.
As a child, I had been a dreamer. Then the world turned me into venom.
But even now, I remembered her, the girl who carried ambition like it was sacred, who believed the kingdoms could be saved.
Who swore Elva would be free.
I closed my eyes, reaching, calling her back. A beat answered, beneath my skin, singing up my veins, unrestrained. It struck against the chains locking me down, beating against them, demanding to be released.
My body trembled in response, my heart kicking once, twice, then dark uncoiled, thrashing against its own cell, rattling more than just my thoughts.
I panicked, my knees buckling, and I dropped into the dirt.
Neither Callum nor Duke noticed, both too busy pounding through pushups like machines.
I dragged myself upright, brushing grit from my palms, fingers still buzzing with that strange new current, body locking back into position.
Ninety-nine more squats to go. I could survive that.
I’d slipped from training by the skin of my teeth, ducking out before Callum or Duke could tack on another twenty-mile cool down.
For once there was no summons for Elva, no duties nagging at my heels. Just the village center, spread open before me, humming with market chatter and a rare calm I could almost call peace.
Almost.
Scales slipped across my eyelids, never quite content with the quiet.
A melody floated across the square, winding itself through shafts of sunlight. I followed it, drawn as if by spell, to where a woman stood near the ruined statue of the king, still half drowned in the fountain’s pool.
How terribly tragic.
The singer's coiled hair sprang from the plum fabric draped around her head, her olive skin blushed and aged.
Disappointment pricked when I realized it wasn’t Nezra, the ache of questions still unanswered lodging in my gut.
Her song brightened while she spat on the exposed marble face of Obrann, not missing a note.
My mouth curved, but only when I was certain no guards had noticed.
Good.
Rebellion wore many faces, and this one sang beautifully.
The grin lingered as I turned away. Let them try to smother fire like that, it would only find new voices, new flames.
A bell chimed just ahead, tugging my attention from the fountain and toward a crooked sign swinging above the doorway: Pastries…& wine. The & scribbled in like a drunk’s afterthought.
Oh, it was a glorious day.
The jingle came again as I stepped inside, the air lavished in cinnamon and vanilla, stitched with the tang of fermented berries. The scent hit like a joyful slap to the face.
This was where Duke had gotten a cinnamon bun the other day. My stomach roared awake, erasing the ache of training. I kissed three fingers, lifting them skyward, and thanked the gods for their rare generosity.
Gemma and I sat outside her cottage, the little home tucked into bricks and forest, swallowed by green. It sat farther back than most, giving her garden the space it demanded, rows of herbs and roots, each sprouting in tidy lines.
Around it shimmered a faint dome, light catching just right to show its thin, delicate film. A shield of safety. A necessity, so Gemma’s remedies could survive the winter.
Obrann had allowed her that much. Only because one day he might need her if he fell ill, or if he was poisoned.
Gods forbid. The thought was as sweet as the pastry melting on my tongue.
The icing left a faint sheen on my fingertips, a subtle glaze that I licked clean as my head tipped back, sunlight seeping into every scrap of skin the chill hadn’t stolen.
Gemma chuckled low, a hand sliding across mine, thumb pressing three soft taps before slipping away. “It has been a long while since I’ve had something so delightful.” She rose, smoothing the folds of her skirt, tugging her fur-lined cloak closer around her frame. “Thank you, my girl.”
I blew her a lazy kiss in fondness.
A pounding shattered our peace, a fist hammering at the door, hard enough to shake the frame.
Gemma stilled, her hand braced on the back of her chair.
I was already moving, a shroud between her and the sound. “Were you expecting a patient?”
Silver strands slipped loose across her cheek. “No, not for hours.”
The pounding came again, rattling the hinges. She slipped past me, calm as ever, through the back door and into the honey-warm kitchen.
I caught her arm. “No, wait—”
She shushed me, shaking free. “Please.” A glance over her shoulder, eyes lit with patience as she unfastened her cloak. “There are no bounties on my head.”
The door rattled again, louder, the sound scraping at my bones. A pulse, not my own, quickened, stretching inside its cage. Fangs brushed my lip as I hurried to her side.
Gemma lifted a finger, stopping me cold. “This is a safe place, Verena.” Her stare stayed on the point of my teeth, her own clicking softly as her hand fell to her hip. The finger still pointed at me, unwavering. “That is not needed here. Ever.”
My spine loosened, posture fracturing, jaw slackening as if she had swiped the air from my lungs. Even the creature laughed cruelly inside me.
Her nod was small, approving as the mask fell, and she finally turned, leaning close to the door, one eye framed by the tiny hole in its center.
Fingers lifted, reaching for the iron latch, then paused as she whispered, “Though, you are not the worst horror some will ever see.”
The lock unfastened, and the door swung open.
Even when screams shook her walls, Gemma would stand unbroken, unfazed.
I had learned that from her, not to react, not to let it sink too deep.
They never sounded like misery, the screams coming from Gemma’s cottage. To us they were melodies, proof that life still clung, that hope was still possible.
But the silence that sat with us now...it was unforgiving.
The girl before us had not been stabbed, no blade had carved her open. Though blood still slicked her porcelain skin, bruises still marred her limbs.
She had been broken, shattered from the inside out.
Her eyes, once bright and eager, now stared empty toward nothing, light dimming with every unblinking second. As if her soul were retreating, trying to understand the cruelty done to her.
Her mother sat close, weeping into her hands, pleading with Gemma in a hoarse whisper. “Tell no one. Not a soul. Not even the walls.”
She was right. To speak of it meant death. Innocence hung around the girl’s neck like a noose, and if the palace knew, the rope would tighten.
Gemma’s hand rested on the mother’s shoulder, a gesture of reassurance in a world stripped of it. With her other hand, she offered a small vial—liquid red, glowing in the lamplight.
The same color as the stains blooming across the girl’s dress where her trembling hands clutched at her lap.
Gemma’s eyes glistened as she cupped the girl’s chin, steadying the fragile thing she was at just thirteen years old. She lifted her face until eyes met hers.
“This does not define you. What he took cannot be replaced. But it can be rebuilt.” The girl’s focus wavered, a dead thing searching for life.
“Men like him count on our obedience, our fear. They expect us to yield and call it survival. But they forget, women are not built for surrender.” Gemma leaned closer.
“He will suffer. But first,” her thumb brushed the girl’s damp cheek, “you will heal.”
The clink of porcelain jarred me, dragging me out of the memory I had gotten lost in of a girl carrying a tray to Elva’s table, yellow and brittle hair falling into her eyes as she tried to balance the weight.
Mina.
That’s who sat in Gemma’s kitchen, broken in a way no one should ever be.
She hadn’t spoken the man’s name. She didn’t need to. Some guards flirted, brushed fingers, sought out distraction in boredom, and though foul, it was a game played between equals, adults who knew the rules.
But this wasn’t that. And there was only one predator in Luamis who favored golden hair and those who wouldn’t fight back.
Prince Perseus.
My nails tore into the leather armrest, splitting seams when I saw him in my mind’s eye, smirking, polished, sipping wine.
Then I saw him breaking. Splintering bone by bone, pride shattered first, until he begged for death.
And gods help me, I would grant it.
Gemma didn’t look up as her finger skimmed the rim of her mug, round and round, a napkin crumpled in her palm.
“You have to let it go, Verena,” she said, sniffling softly. But I caught the pink in her nose, the damp glint in her lashes. I should’ve brought wine instead of pastries. “We can help them. Heal them.” Her eyes leveled on mine, honed thin. “Not avenge them.”
I blinked away my vindication, throat still thick with the words I wanted to spit. Quiet hung between us, not surrender, not even close. And when Gemma looked back down, I knew she assumed my fury had ebbed.
She was wrong.
“You and I both know who did this.” My jaw clenched when she looked back to me, letting her see the shiver rattling inside. “He’s doing this openly. To a child.” My head shook. “What’s he going to do to his bride, Gem?”
The thought, Perseus’s poisoned hand clutching Elva’s arm, sent my rage careening. The room tilted, color drained.
Gemma’s body flared radiantly in the Viper’s sight while the rest of the world dissolved away.
Fingers rubbed my wrist, dragging across the scar. If I still had my serpent, Perseus’s veins would already be black tar, and Mina’s troubled eyes would be repaid in his blood.
A hiss threaded through me, a lash of mourning, of unforgiving anger. So fierce that my body jerked back, and I fell, tumbling into a pit inside of my own mind while it consumed me from the inside out.
Gemma blurred at the edges, retreating as though through water. Her eyes were shaped into terror as her face smeared into shadow. I reached for her with arms that weren’t there, with fingers that no longer belonged to me.
I became nothing. Empty. Stripped of breath, of self.
The curse moved unhurried above me, the way darkness inevitably crept in, and my heart skipped a beat, then caught another—not mine.
Still, I reached, desperate for the tether, the invisible cord binding me to the world. My hand closed around it in one frantic grasp, and I slammed back into my body.
The obscurity smiled before hiding back in the pitch. The chill it left behind was worse than the flame.
Gemma’s hands were already on me as I collapsed into the chair, stroking down my arms, coaxing warmth back into limbs gone cold.
“Was that the first time?” she asked.
I nodded, dazed, skin still carrying the imprint of what lived in there.
She sighed, pushing a rogue curl behind my ear only for it to spring free again.
“Elva has Callum. She has Fritz.” Her hands moved to cup my face.
“And she has you. That poor girl had no one,” she murmured.
“No magic to shield her. That is why he chose her. He likes them weak, defenseless. Elva’s magic will come when she accepts the throne.
The prince will not dare lay a hand on her.
Not when she becomes who she’s meant to be. ”
Gods, I had nearly forgotten. Elva’s wedding loomed only days away. Days.
I had promised her freedom. Promised I wouldn’t let her become a pawn.
She’d sworn to sacrifice herself for the kingdom and I’d sworn to stop her, two vows snarling against each other.
Somewhere in the whirlwind of dragon princes, sleepless nights, and the shards of myself breaking loose, I’d let the time slip through my fingers.
Weeks had become days. Barely enough to plan, barely enough to act. Barely...but still some.
Gemma would forgive me. Eventually. When the smoke cleared, she’d see it was worth it.
Everything I’d done for Elva, every sin, every bargain, was all worth it.
She said nothing else as she squeezed my arm once, collecting the empty tincture glasses. The kitchen heightened with a rising cinnamon haze, winding down my throat like a memory trying to choke me.
Déjà vu struck, hard.
Wells’ face. Blood in his eyes. My hands slick with it.
Bile burned the back of my tongue, tears threatening at the corners of my eyes where rage should live before I could stop them.
I really needed to punch someone soon.
“Why did he survive?” The words came out too vulnerable.
Gemma’s spoon clinked against the pot simmering on the stove. “Hm?”
“Wells—” I pushed off the chair, crossing to her side. She stilled. “I know that’s for him.” We both stared at the pot, amber swirls bubbling, foaming. “How did he survive me?”
She rummaged through a drawer, metal clinking against glass, before tipping another liquid into the basin.
“You were new to your curse,” she muttered, hissing when water snapped back at her hands.
“You didn’t inject enough venom—” Leaves crushed to powder fell from her palm.
“He wanted to live.” Another stir. “The antivenom helped.” She fanned her flushed face, sweat gathering at her temple.
“Take your pick. It doesn’t matter why he lived.
Only that this,” she nodded to the brew, its surface turning from honey to rust, “keeps working for him.”
“And it is?” I questioned, my eyes narrowing at the edge of her tone. “Working for him?”
Her hands slowed, then stilled. “It is. But the illness is…progressing. Taking more from him every day.” Quieter, she said, “I’m working on something stronger.”
Exhaling hard, I watched the elixir darken. “I just feel overridden with guilt. That I didn’t even know.”
Her head snapped up, stare piercing clean through me. “Good.” She dropped a pinch of rouge powder, the liquid blooming crimson beneath the stir of her spoon. “Not because you should be. But because it means you’re still with us.”
The bitter dust hung in the air, stinging my nose. I coughed, spitting flecks off my lips. “Why?”
The Viper brushed across my skull, listening as it had been the entire time.
She tasted the brew, swallowed, and then looked at me. “Because, my love, I fear no one will survive when you’re gone.”