CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE #3
“My father was not an evil king, but he knew order required fear. Authority.” He tried to hide the way his hands tightened into fists.
“And I was his blade. His enforcer. He thought the name sharpened the terror, but I’ve always despised it.
It’s nothing but a bad omen that I’ve been forced to carry. ”
A fate he had not chosen but was demanded to carry out.
That mask slipped then, unintentional or not, and for the first time, I saw him, who he was buried beneath the shackled scales.
And gods, it mirrored too closely to the thing that lived below my own skin.
It was the same ache. The same exile. The curse of being seen only for the terror you inspired. Not the soul that had been silenced beneath it.
And in that moment, I realized, if I could see him, truly see him, then he could see me. And that was the most dangerous thing of all.
I let my fingers move across his hand, the heat of his skin mingling with the cold I knew he felt back. He didn’t pull away. Just let me linger and trace.
The hush of sunrise touched him gently, hesitating before settling into his skin. It softened his heir mark, lingering over the ink he had chosen himself. As though the light alone dared to see both truths, his inheritance, and his defiance, without judgment.
His fingers twitched, retreating from mine, rising to rub the hair from his forehead.
“I kind of like it,” I said, desperate to secure myself in anything but the urge to memorize the patterns of light and shadows scribed into his skin.
His laugh rumbled out, rough and addictive as flame. “And you?” His gaze went to me. “Any childhood trauma nicknames you’d care to share?”
Just one. Words etched into my bones long before I understood them. And I couldn’t even remember who gave them to me.
Little bird, little bird...
I shook my head. “No.”
But the stutter of my heart, the stone in my throat, it all betrayed me. His eyes caught it, held it, even as I dropped my stare.
Even with the terror, Ronan was still someone. He still had his place in our world, was still needed. Even if he couldn’t see it.
But me? Who was I without my curse, without the venom?
What came from my mouth next was an admission so dangerous I wasn’t even sure what inside me let it free. It could have been the urge to see if he’d react to the wound.
Or because some traitorous part of me knew he would understand.
“You know,” I cleared my throat, tracing the faded burn on my wrist. “When I was first marked, I used to dream of the day I would be free of it.” My lips parted, closed, then I let the confession free.
“And then I attacked Wells...” My tongue went dry, breath catching on his name.
“I thought it was the worst moment of my life. I begged the Viper to just end me, to rip me apart, crawl into someone else. As if it was that easy.” A bitter laugh cracked up my throat.
“I just couldn’t live with what I had done.
Ever since that day I’ve woken up praying it would be my last. That death would finally remember me.
But the truth is,” I forced my eyes up, not expecting to see his already locked in, “death had been by my side long before I hurt Wells.
I think it's only been waiting for me to greet it.”
The words poured from me, secrets I’d buried so deep even I had forgotten where I’d hidden them. Secrets meant to rot along with me.
Ronan’s gaze held mine, and something in me knew he would not turn away. That he would see me. So, I let it all free...
“I didn’t know it was temporary at the time, but in the dungeon, the shackles.
..” The memory dragged a shudder through me and the creature in me hissed at its return.
“They didn’t just dull the curse. It vanished.
I couldn’t feel the Viper at all. I was finally free from it.
And it was the most terrified I had ever been.
Worse than that day with Wells.” The admission scalded, leaving nothing behind but raw and blistering shame.
“I had grown so used to its company, I forgot how to live, how to feel, without it. I forgot who I was before it.”
I dragged my knees to my chest, folding myself small enough to take the words back. To bury them again where no one could ever reach.
Ronan said nothing. Just watched me, eyes shifting between smoke and fire, letting it sink in. Maybe he was trying to decide how best to tell me I was a coward.
But the silence stretched, and I almost wished he would cut me open with words instead of letting me bleed shame into the space between us.
When he finally went to speak, I braced for the gutting blow, for the confirmation of every fear I’d confessed.
Instead, it didn’t slice as much as unravel when he leaned forward and said, “I don’t think relying on your strength is something to be ashamed about.”
My strength. Not my curse. Not my infamy.
“Losing my smoke or wings would bring me equal grief.”
That didn’t comfort the way he had hoped. His power was revered as much as feared. Mine had never been that.
“Maybe.” I shook my head, arms tightening around myself as if I could hold in the thing beating beneath my ribs.
“I think I’ve always been terrified of the power it gave me.
I didn’t need it. That kind of force is unnatural.
But when I was locked in that cell, stripped of it, and then it all came rushing back—” The Viper purred, delighted at its newly established freedom.
“I’ve let that force devour me since. And what if that’s what they wanted?
What if they knew I would crave it, that once it returned, I would become the monster everyone already thinks I am? ”
Ronan studied me for a long, unguarded moment, the kind that saw too much. Then quietly he said, “You’re no monster.”
A dark pulse rippled awake, the curse stirring like it wanted to hear him say it again.
Not a monster? A hiss pressed against the inside of my teeth. Liar.
A humorless laugh scraped out of me. “You don’t believe that.”
He exhaled, deep, like he was deciding with care what words to say next. “I’ve seen enough corruption to know the difference.”
My chin fell against my chest. “You’ve seen me.”
His eyes locked on mine. “Exactly.” It didn’t waver, not once. “That’s how I know.” Smoke crept out from his palms, and I half expected it to lunge for my throat. But it only fed the fire, coaxing more flames but not amplifying the heat. “Monsters don’t question who they are.”
The curse purred again, threadlike and venomous. Monster.
There was a sharp pinch where I bit the inside of my cheek, then a metallic heat rolling down my throat.
“You’re right to hate me.” My lips tilted in a mockery of a smile as my fingers worried the frayed hem of my tunic.
“I can’t blame you for that. I do think,” I whispered, eyes fluttering closed, “that if we’d known each other in another life, if I weren’t who I am now, I don’t think we would have hated each other. ”
His answer came immediately. “I don’t hate you.”
I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t let myself hope. So, I leaned back into the soil, its flesh cool and damp against my palms.
“Well,” I breathed, watching the clouds part as the sun rose, “I hate you.”
Ronan chuckled, the dangerous sound moving through me like a forbidden essence I dared not inhale. But I bathed in the sound anyway.
Then, softer, he said, “You’re not who they claim you to be, Verena.” His elbows fell to his knees, eyes reflecting the amber-glow. “You’re not a monster.”
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Because as the firelight trembled, I wasn’t sure if the lie I could taste was from his words, or the way hope tried to surface from where I had buried it.
Ronan’s fingers trailed a blade, blacker than pitch, less steel, more a strip of void forged into form. The serrated edge didn’t gleam like normal metal, but drank, shimmering with an illusion of absence.
There and then gone. Like it could slip through the seams of reality if you blinked too long.
I wondered if that’s why he held it with such admiration, scared it could slip into nothing at any moment.
My palms dragged down the worn fabric of my pants as I rose, extending my hand toward the dagger. “May I?”
There was a tick of hesitation that passed over his face, but then he placed it in my palm. The weight surprised me. It was heavy, solid, built for a warrior. But the hilt was narrow, crafted for a hand much smaller than a dragon prince.
My fingers outlined its frame, siding over initials carved along the steel. “Who’s N.V.?” I lifted my stare to him.
His eyes flicked between me and the dagger, like he was seeing something he shouldn’t. Then, with a forced shrug, he snatched it back, sheathing it in one smooth motion. Something like hatred flaring in his eyes as he said, “No one.”
My brows arched. “Odd reaction for no one.”
He didn’t bite. Just leveled me with that impenetrable look of his. “I owe you nothing.”
“Well, fine,” I muttered. As if we hadn’t just spilled our deepest secrets minutes ago.
His mouth quirked, but the amusement didn’t reach his eyes.
He was already shifting, turning his focus elsewhere.
“We’ll be crossing Ryuu’s border in a few days,” he said, the dominating command in his voice returning in all its brooding glory.
“We’ll need to talk about what lowland routes we need to keep to. ”
The horizon split open then, trickling its first light across the forest. Not gentle, not golden, but burning through the branches in spears, forcing me to lift an arm to shield my eyes.
“Oh, right—” I started.
But Ronan interrupted. “And your hands.” The words were a demand and nothing less.
“What’s wrong with my—” The lie stuck in my throat when my eyes focused on them. Well, fuck. “Oh.” I forced out a laugh. “That.” I wiggled my fingers, as if it was only soot and soil clinging to me.
But Ronan wasn’t buying it. He glared at the blackened stain twisting up my wrists. “Yeah,” he fumed. “That.” His arms folded across his chest, every inch of him returning to the fire that lived below his smoke. “Talk.”
My shadow moved before I did, the Viper wishing to answer for me as my stomach knotted.
I probably could have come up with a lie to feed him, had his eyes ever left mine.
But they were as merciless as the morning light, and filled with an undiluted anger that choked me to death as he said, smoke thickening around my throat—
“Now.”