CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Verena
THE AIR WAS COLD. EMPTY.
It seeped into my skin, filling the emptiness of my bones.
The dungeon reeked of mildew and old blood, every breath a mouthful of rust. Chains vibrated with each tremor in the stone around, the walls themselves carrying the screams etched into them.
Gemma’s blood clung to me, the memory of her voice still echoing. Though the curse, the Viper…there was only silence there.
Gone.
The haze cleared slowly—
“Welcome back, Verena.” Reve’s voice twisted out of the dark as he clicked his tongue, almost playful. “Gone so soon? Come now, we’ve barely begun.”
My head jerked up as he yanked it back by the roots. His hand was slick with blood, mine or someone else’s, it was impossible to know.
Time had become meaningless. I’d been strapped to this chair long enough for the stone to warm beneath me. Long enough for the thin shaft of light beyond the bars to wither and fade. But I couldn’t remember days or hours.
“Fuck you,” I rasped.
A fist split across my face as he laughed. The second blow landed before the groan left my lips.
Same angle. Same bone. He liked the pattern. He wanted me to remember.
I spat blood onto the floor, eyes watering as the ache swelled to more agony. “Ow.”
The word alone sparked more torture, sending shocks down my jaw. Talking hurt. Breathing hurt. Existing hurt. I refused to let him see any of it.
“You punch like a child,” I coughed, grinning through red. “No offense.”
The air shifted, becoming suffocating and thin. Both pouring from the glower across his face as he crept closer.
“Excuse me?”
I blinked sluggishly. “Why did it take you two punches to break my nose?” More tears threatened as blood streamed down my face. “Your magic is pain, congrats by the way, so that’s just embarrassing.”
Knuckles cracked as he flexed his hands. “It was broken the first time.”
Don’t say it, Verena. Don’t fuel it—
“Was it, though?”
The coldness of his stare never broke, but the whistle of air through his clenched teeth gave away what his body tried not to.
It was then I knew I had fucked up.
My throat cinched shut. Not from his hands, just crushing pressure. Air vanished as panic tore through me—black tunneling in, shackles rattling while my arms jerked against the chair, desperate to claw at what wasn’t there.
Five seconds. Ten. Thirty. A minute—
Then release.
My lungs burned, a jagged wheeze rasping free. He didn’t give me time to recover before fresh pain detonated up my leg, bones screaming as they shattered.
I screamed with them.
Like a wolf scenting blood, he circled me. “I have dreamed of all the ways to break you.” Breath seared across my cheek as he crouched low. “Like I said, beastie, we’re just getting started.”
What should have been a laugh came out strangled into coughs. When I caught enough air to shape words, I hissed, “Your worst is my foreplay. Even immortality won’t give you the strength you’re so clearly desperate for.”
His face flushed crimson but he played it off, stepping back, gesturing at me with a cruel sweep of his hand. “Yet here you are, the infamous Viper, her blood dripping from my fingers.”
Everything in me throbbed, but still I raised my chin.
“Untie me, then. Let’s see how powerful you feel with your blood under my nails.
” My head sagged back against the stone, what little strength my body lent me gone, eyes now begging to close.
“You’ll never be more than a small, mortal boy, Reve. No magic will change that.”
His pacing broke its stride, knuckles whitening by his sides. “Shut the fuck up.”
So, that was the crack in him.
“Make me,” I spat, regretting the words instantly.
The lamp swayed, an ecru flicker catching the cut of his grin. “My pleasure.”
No invisible grip this time, no fists. He drew the steel at his hip and my stomach plunged as the dagger glinted, moving across my arm with its flat.
“King Obrann was right,” he whispered. “It’s almost poetic seeing you chained up like this. Fitting, even. Where should we start, beautiful?” The blade circled lazily over the cursed mark written into my shoulder. “Here?” Then down, lower, pressing into the thin fabric covering my chest. “Or here?”
I wanted to sneer, to spit something sharp back. But fear had already gripped its hold on me. He could kill me. And no one would stop him.
Worse, he’d stretch it out, savor every tremor.
And my death would have meant nothing. I had changed nothing to help Elva. And that was where the fear was rooted.
Each frantic beat of my heart brushed the steel as the blade hovered just above it. On a last, hopeless breath, I reached for the ghost of the boy I once knew.
“Why are you doing this, Reve?” I let a tear slip, not for him, but for everything that had come before. Everything I’d already lost. It was the only one he’d ever see. “I thought you really did love me. At one point,” the words snagged on my throat, “I thought, maybe, I could’ve loved you too.”
He raised a brow, catching my jaw, thumb skimming my pulse. “Is that what you believe?” His eyes roamed my face, as if searching for truth. Or for the girl he’d already buried.
Lying, I said, “Yes.”
Now, move your head two inches lower please so the angle is perfect to shatter your nose next.
I wrenched free and he let me go, his hand falling to the chair’s arm, metal jingling at his hip as he angled closer.
“The delightful thing about immortality?” A pause as he inhaled.
“I can smell the lies you’re choking on.
” Godsdamnit. “And loving me isn’t the only one reeking off your skin now,” he murmured.
“You know what else our king was right about?” My pulse faltered, but only for a breath.
“The truth about those wretched Gods and their sacred chosen bloodlines.”
“Pick a damn side, Reve. You’ve prayed to those Gods your entire life.”
“I did, until Obrann taught me how they didn’t pick the rulers based on destiny or power. But chose the ones that would bend. Ones who shape the kingdoms exactly how the Gods wanted.”
I forced my stare up. “He’s wrong.”
He tapped one of the rings on his fingers, the metal humming. “I almost wish he was. The last thing Selvarra needs is Orion Morvath, God of death and war, deciding what’s best for our survival. But Orion isn’t who we should fear, is he?”
I threw my head back. “How should I know?”
“That’s exactly it.” He snapped his fingers. “You shouldn’t. Because all of your life, you’ve been lied to, led astray. Taught that Vivianna, our creator, had our best interests in mind.” He smiled, delighted by the tension he’d unearthed. “Obrann says the Gods feared her the most. That her Vyra—”
“Spare me the sermon,” I grumbled.
He tapped the ring again, teeth grinding together.
“That her bloodline burned worlds before ever ruling them. So, you see?” He spread his hands in mock sympathy.
“Our rulers weren’t chosen because they were worthy.
They were chosen because they were obedient.
And King Obrann? He’s going to fix the kingdoms.” His breath trembled with a believer’s conviction.
“It’s why he’ll succeed where they failed.
He’s not a rightful heir. Not a chosen ruler.
He carries no divine leash. The Gods, they can’t control him.
And that makes him the only one fit to free us from damnation. ”
I let the lie choke on the air between us as I stared at him, trying to decide whether he was brainwashed or just naturally unhinged.
“You’ll believe anything, won’t you? They’ve twisted your mind six ways to the damn stars.”
His face pinched, jaw snapping tight. “I didn’t believe him,” he snapped, “until he showed me another truth.”
A headache bloomed behind my eyes. “Oh good,” I muttered. “Let’s hear the revelation.”
He eased forward, back into striking distance. “I know you killed them.”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” I purred, angling my head, just a little closer. One blow to the face and I could knock him out for hours.
The dagger pressed in, point biting flesh. “My family.”
My heart plummeted, landing somewhere deep enough to count. Chains rattled as I struggled, shoulders jerking against iron. “I didn’t…” The words caught in my throat. “That wasn’t me, Reve.”
“Of course it wasn’t you.” His palm cupped my cheek again. For a heartbeat, softness wavered through, a reflection of who he had been. Gone in a blink as he snarled, “It was the Viper.”
The dagger buried between us.
A burn ran through me, straight into my heart, tearing breath from my lungs. Blackness bled into the edges of my vision as my body shuddered against the shackles.
Pain, there was only pain where I thought it had been drained dry. My head sagged to the side, too heavy to hold.
“I would have loved you too, Verena.” His words skimmed the air, softer than a whisper. “Before you became this monster.”
The blade stayed deep, its hilt jutting from my chest, red soaking around it. He didn’t even grant me the leniency of pulling it free and letting me bleed out.
Through the edge of my vision, I could see his hand reach into his pocket, lifting a folded parchment. It hit the floor at my feet, a cruel afterthought, before his steps faded into the dark.
Steel doors grated open, then came the scrape of a heavy object being dragged across the floor.
I didn’t look.
The wall’s bite pushed into my cheek, into my thighs, until I swore, I could feel the stone imprinting itself into me. Bitter air licked at my mouth, berries used in waking rituals, sharp and astringent.
His anger tasted like that now.
Whatever I’d tried before, yesterday? Last week? It had failed. The dagger was gone. The pain in my body dulled to only memory. Someone had healed me but not freed me.
I could taste something distant and spiced in my veins, my blood no longer feeling like liquid, but dragging in a strange warmth, sweeter than it had any right to be.