CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Verena
IT HAD BEEN A WEEK SINCE SUNHAVEN. A week of the kind of walking that makes a body ache.
Gus had gone out to hunt, and when he didn’t return, I offered to search for him. Ronan insisted on coming along, and after my grumbling I realized it was a battle I wouldn’t win.
The forest was awake when we entered in search of him. Loud, beating with the sound of life. Aelia’s sun poured through the canopy, the familiar warmth catching my cheek as I twisted to look up.
Birds had begun their descent south, drifting in sweeping arcs as they followed above us. Small creatures rustled through the underbrush, scavenging, preparing for Luamis’ promised winter.
It was noisy, harmonious. Until it wasn’t.
The Viper always knew first, the presence of death, the way it drummed like a distant beat. But when the scent hit me, the rich, rotting flavor, I knew too. And I gagged.
The horses froze before either of us saw it. At first, it looked like another traveler, cloaked, mounted on horseback like we were. Until the sound reached us. The wet crunching, the agonizing moans.
If I was said to be a monster, then the thing before us was surely my rival.
Gus’s head lay separated from his body, but his mouth…it somehow still worked. It was gaped, dragging out the last sounds of his life.
The creature’s own mouth stretched open, rows of jagged, broken teeth framing an impossibly long tongue. Yellow eyes peered from its hood. Not toward us, but beyond, where it sat astride a stallion made of shredded flesh and bone, its flaxen eyes sunk deep into its skull.
We were close enough to see its fangs hanging past its skeletal jaw. Close enough to see them dripping with blood.
“Oh gods.” The words slipped out of me, barely more than a hushed breath.
The moans ceased but the thing, so horribly Fae-like, kept lazily scooping from Gus’s hollowed skull. Still staring through us.
Because it couldn’t see us. It was blind.
Ronan realized the same moment I did, motioning to me, to our horses, who had both remained alarmingly calm.
I eased the reins and Zyran, the black stallion I ultimately claimed, stepped back. One step, then another.
Niveus, Ronan’s mare, mirrored his movement.
But then a crack, a snap, as Zyran’s hoof crushed a rotted log.
My breath hitched, Ronan’s arm halting in the air. We both glared toward the beast as it let Gus’s head drop to the moss—
And lunged.
Fuck.
Ronan’s voice cracked as he roared, “Go!”
For a heartbeat, I almost obeyed. I didn’t know about this creature. Didn’t know how far Ronan’s strength would carry him. But the odds of him getting torn apart could be wonderfully high.
My body stuttered, muscles locked in as his heirloom flashed in the air in all its obsidian splendor.
I could come back for it after the monster drained him dry like it had Gus. My vengeance would still be fed, even if I was not the one to taste his death.
But then Ronan’s voice came again. “Verena, go!”
He charged as Niveus whinnied in delight, colliding with the stallion beneath the beast. The creature’s tongue lashed for Ronan, teeth multiplying as its mouth widened, endless rows shifting closer to his flesh.
Zyran stomped the ground, ready to defend his prince, as a yank dragged deep inside me. A pull, urgent and primal, unwilling to yield.
I cursed, hoping I would forgive myself for my witless choice as I let the curse fill me.
Its odious leash slackened as I turned to him, fangs pushing down my lips, and said, “I don’t flee, Ronan.” I drew my dagger, the ruby in its hilt glowing like sunlight drowning in blood. “I hunt.”
Another snap, not from Zyran this time, but my left. I sucked in a breath and twisted. The forest watched in threatening stillness...and then moved, all together and all at once.
Eight pale yellow eyes now peered from the brush.
Four cloaked shapes. Four more monsters.
My darkness coiled in rapture. I didn’t flinch when my eyes shifted in a blink, when the starved curse tore free of its chains and black veins bled down my fingers, lightning now crawling up my arms.
I dropped from Zyran’s back, the realm shuddering beneath me, the forest trembling at what had woken. And when I stepped forward, unlatching the cell door entirely, the monsters charged.
The first never reached me. It collapsed mid-stride, its body breaking apart in clumps of flesh, shredded by shadow-stained claws. Rotted blood stained my face, the taste slick and sour.
It didn’t frighten off the others. The remaining three, taller than Ronan and draped in tattered black cloaks, closed in, their sunken eyes never blinking.
I could hear Ronan in the distance, murmuring a chant to Niveus and Zyran. I couldn’t turn to him, not yet. Not as another lunged.
One moment its spiraled tongue whipped for my throat, ready to swallow me whole. The next, its neck yawned open as I tore its throat clean out, blood pattering the ground like rain.
Loose curls clung to my face as a wave of heat rose in me, stoked by the iron-rot tang. The crave to keep going.
Horses cried out in the distance as two stallions lay unmoving on the ground. I needed to look, to know if it was Zyran.
A beat was all I gave myself—
Time slowed as I swung my head, toward fangs hanging from mangled mouths and black holes staring toward absence. Zyran and Niveus circled the perimeter as wisps of unbridled air, their misted figures galloping in and out of trees and shadow.
Ronan had turned them to smoke. They were safe.
But we were not.
Three more emerged from the forest near him; one by one he cut them down. And one by one they kept trickling from the trees.
The last two circled me slowly. They couldn’t see me, but they knew. When I stepped left, they widened their arc. If I stepped back, they drew closer.
My fingers found my wrist by instinct, searching for my snake. Only a burned cuff met my touch, the reminder scorching through me. I shoved it down. Buried it deep in the hidden well where I hid all the rest.
Then I took a step forward.
I am resilient.
I flipped the dagger between my fingers, its noxious blade reflecting off the awakened demand in my eyes. A beast snarled, its tongue whipping out to coil around my limbs as I brought the blade down. A howl tore through the forest as its tongue hit the ground, twitching.
I am fearless.
Snarls, wet and furious, leaked from its mouth as it went to pounce, ready to devour me still. But the nix in my blade worked quietly, quickly. And the beast had lost before it even realized it. A savage scream ripped from my throat as my dagger split across its pitted hood.
I am the force no one anticipates.
Its veil came free in my grip, limp with my hand clasped around its severed head. Its body slumped to the ground at my feet, leaving its dulled eyes stuck on my stare.
I had felt its heartbeat die, felt every torn muscle, every gush of blood. The Viper drank deep, curling tighter inside my skull, vitalizing more with each kill. It urged me forward, whispering for another. Promising it would be enough.
Would it ever be?
I let the head fall as I tilted mine to the sky. My arms ached, like my veins were filled with lead instead of blood. I didn’t dare look down. I knew the truth I’d see.
The loss of control. Corruption bleeding through.
A growl sounded behind me as something tugged my braid, yanking me backwards, forcing my spine to collide with the cold ground. I reached for what held me—rough, spined flesh trailing against my palms as my nails tore through the creature’s tongue.
It dragged me across stone and splinter, melted silver beading off its needled teeth, the heavy liquid dripping over my face.
Ronan cursed, his sword cleaving the throat of another before hurtling for me. My name slipped from his lips in a desperate rasp, his smoke striking, tearing the air straight from the beast’s lungs.
It didn’t falter from the attack, just gripped tighter, lifting me to meet its face. But it didn’t know what it had caught.
And so, as it brought me toward its snarling gape, I laughed.
Not the sound of joy or humor, but something feral. Something cruel.
A sound I could not claim.
Because it wasn’t mine, but the venom in my veins.
The Viper struck.
Fangs met flesh, rage and vengeance pouring as we drained and we tore. I couldn’t stop, didn’t stop, not as the world narrowed to the taste of moonlit blood singing down my throat like something forbidden.
Each swallow pulled me deeper, until there was nothing left but the hunger that owned us both.
Until strong hands wrenched me back and all that was left was the shell of a monster collapsing from my hands to the forest floor.
I spoke the words, the ones that followed my nightmares. Once for wrath.
Once to haunt. And once for the gods who failed me.
Steel hissed as Ronan sheathed his sword.
So, I said it once more, this time for him. “I am death.”
I gathered Zyran’s reins, steering him back through the forest's churned path. My eyes locked with Ronan’s, sorrow glinting in them for a fleeting moment before the usual savagery forced it down.
Neither horse spooked as we passed the shredded remains, but my breath stuttered, careful not to inhale the stench.
An Eldritch, Ronan had said they’re called. Rare and unstudied. Because who lived long enough to learn about one?
I hadn’t known Gus for long; he had become part of the Order only six months ago. Still, I felt the force of his death. Which meant the rest of the group would feel it even deeper.
Niveus drew alongside me, her pale coat stained with mud as Ronan murmured, softer than I expected, “He was a good man. I’m sure he fought bravely.”
Zyran sidestepped, ears pinning, and I stroked the sleek line of his neck, black as a starless midnight. “No one deserves that death.”
A rough laugh broke from him. “I could think of a few,” he admitted.
His tone was light, but his jaw was stone as he guided Niveus behind me on the narrowing trail.
Not in front of me...