CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Verena
I DREW THE RESENTMENT BACK INTO MY VEINS when Maerin summoned me to her tent.
I shifted on the plush stool, choosing it deliberately over the faded pillows she had offered as the tea kettle screamed, a cry that filled the space.
Porcelain rattled as she set the cup before me. Steam danced, fragrant with mint and juniper, chased by a subtle slip of honey that lingered on my tongue as I risked a sip.
She only cradled hers, inhaling, but never tasting, one finger tracing circles along the rim.
I cleared my throat, setting the cup down too quickly, trying to ignore the lump that had formed there.
How stupid was I, to drink without question?
My pulse staggered, a whisper rushing the back of my mind.
Foolish, it spat.
I tried to ignore it. Elysian had been right after all. The food, the drink, it had all been safe. Everyone had indulged, laughing and unscathed.
But pixies were clever. Resourceful. Survival taught them tricks kingdoms never would.
My eyes kept darting between her untouched cup and mine. My throat felt tight, sweat had begun beading at my temples. The fire whispered in the corner, snapping up through the tunnel above it.
Suddenly the room felt smaller. Hotter. My stomach churned. Though that might have been from nerves.
At last, she dipped the tip of her finger into the mug, humming a note softly to herself. Only then did she bring it to her lips—sipping, swallowing, and then smiling.
“When you’re as old as I am, the heat burns worse,” she said. “Have to wait the extra minutes, or it’ll scorch my throat clean through.”
Relief sighed through me, the tightness in my throat at last loosening. Whatever danger I had braced for, it wasn’t in the tea.
Still, I couldn’t figure out why she’d requested me. Ronan was in charge the same as she was. Never assigned, just assumed. Yet, it had been me she sought before the sun could even rise. Postponing our hope of leaving before they took notice.
I took another sip. “So, how long have you been here?”
Her eyes drifted to the rug beneath us, its thread dulled, its pattern all but erased by time. “This family, or this forest?”
I blinked, realizing I hadn’t known which I meant. “Both, I guess.” Though I didn’t miss the way she called them her family.
The wrinkles in her face eased, fingers tightening around the handle. “We don’t stay long in one place. It’s in our blood to move with the world, to shift as it spins us. But this family?” She paused. “All my life.”
It would be easy to sink into a life like this. Free of kings and crowns.
“You were born a pixie?”
Mae was kind, too gentle, to have ever been anything else. But when her eyes focused on me, her irises swirling in a mystical pattern, I knew she was not what she seemed.
She took the seat mirroring mine. “I was born to be free.”
The words hit. Because in truth, she was born to slavery. All her kind was. Hunted from the moment their magic awakened. Their lives bartered so others could carve futures.
The silvered hair, the eyes so pale it was as if they had fogged over. Her wrinkled skin like snow, untouched by even the harshest sun. She was what I first thought Nezra to be.
Yet, where Nezra pulled you into memories, Mae dragged you where anyone had yet to go.
“I’ve read about your kind.” I placed the cup on the saucer between us, inclining toward her. “You’re a Veyari, aren’t you?” Her eyes blinked into a smile. “How have you stayed hidden for so long?”
“My fate is not one taken lightly,” she voiced. “Sooner or later, I know it will catch up to me.”
“You know because you fear it, or because you can see your own future?”
“Both,” she breathed, placing her cup beside mine. “I have watched my reaping a thousand times. The gift was never sight, it’s learning how to walk toward the inevitable.”
That sounded...ominous. I knew my fate didn’t end happily, but at least I didn’t know the exact day and time I would be ripped from the world.
“So, you’ve just always been waiting for the end to find you?”
Mae chuckled, the sound soft but edged dull. It struck me then how foolish my question must have sounded.
The vortex in her eyes churned, drawing me in as she braced a hand on the table, drifting forward. My pulse faltered when she slid her hand to mine. It was cold. Not the chill of winter, but deep enough to reach my veins.
“I do not fear death’s face. I am exactly where I am meant to be.”
The words should have comforted me. But they couldn’t. Not with the way her touch leeched the warmth from my skin, the way her eyes flickered, briefly, into shapes I couldn’t quite name.
The words weren’t a reassurance, they were a prophecy. And I wasn’t so sure she was speaking of herself anymore.
When she pulled her hand away, the cuff of her sleeve slipped back, showing ink marked along the thin skin of her wrist. A black crescent moon, split down its center with a single line.
Though, it wasn’t ink alone.
The mark seemed to breathe, and for the briefest heartbeat, it glowed. A symbol of the most unbreakable bond in existence.
A reminder. A devotion. Or maybe a curse of her own.
My palm rose to my heart. “You found your mate?”
A light broke through in the opal of her eyes, but the smile she pulled together was not from bliss. Her thumb traced the mark, her fingers curling against her palm as though she could still feel his hand in that space between moments.
“I did.”
To be bound like that, it wasn’t just your hearts, it was everything. Your souls. Your power. All intertwining, becoming one. Once the bond was accepted, it wasn’t just a tether, but a law.
Thoughts, feelings, even pain, shared until the end.
And if that end came, if you lost the other half of your soul, the agony was eternal.
I reached for my cup, drinking deep, the sweep of the tea soothing more than just my throat. A soft heat claimed space into my bones, impossible to refuse, not only easing the tension in my body, but stirring up something else.
My heart beat stronger. My thoughts sharpened. A boldness pushed from the dark and woke in my chest.
Mae’s smirk turned up, catching the shift, her thumb dragging slowly across her palm, tracing invisible lines.
I should have caught it. I should have known. “Starflower.”
It was subtle, always subtle. My nerves quieted, calm coaxed where there was none earlier.
“My secret to ambition, my sweet girl,” she said, eyes clouding as she reached for my hands again. I surrendered them both to her. “Now, ask me.”
The skin of my hands blanched as she squeezed harder, the Viper surged within me, rattling my bones, crawling up my spine.
The pupils of her eyes were gone, vanished, turned to frosted pearls, like a swarm of opal and smoke.
“Ask me,” she dared.
The words tore from me, firm, inevitable, like they’d been waiting centuries to be spoken. “What is my purpose?”
Her head tilted. “Yours, or the curse?”
“Do I even have my own at this point?”
Right before she closed her eyes, they shifted. “Is it the Viper who protects the princess?” Frost formed on the surface of our cups. “Who reaches for her freedom?”
“I just want to know,” my voice broke, “that I’m on the right path. That all of this isn’t just for Selvarra to end in collapse anyway.”
Mae’s eyes shot open, the shadow behind her moving a heartbeat slower than her body. “It will be wise for you to remember that when the monster hiding amongst your mind comes knocking, you will have only two choices.”
More frost formed along the mug, splintering out along the table. I lurched back, nearly toppling off the chair, but her hands held me steady.
“You can lock the door. Keep it caged. But know this...” She looked at me, past me, beyond where my future lay.
“Sooner or later, it will break free. And when it does, it will not simply destroy the door. It will crush you beneath it. Or,” her lips moved into the promise of a smile, “you can open the door yourself, look your monster in the eye, and show it fangs of your own.”
My hands remained glamoured, but unease blew through every polished line. Some part of me wondered if she saw through the glamour anyway, if she already knew.
Was she telling me to fight back against the curse? Or to embrace it?
“I don’t—”
She rose from her chair, gliding to a small dresser, her breath extinguishing each candle until the tent dimmed into dawn light.
“Do not mistake this fate for punishment,” she spoke.
“You were chosen for the part of you that still remembers the light. Your heart will not withstand what approaches. Yet your soul will endure. It was built to.”
I didn’t have time to decipher what any of that meant. A clatter sounded outside, steel against steel, Ronan’s voice bellowing through the shelter.
I jumped to my feet, hand flying to my dagger, already halfway to the exit when Mae’s voice rooted me in place.
“You remind me so much of your mother.” It was gentle but spoken in a thousand voices. “I feel her in you.”
I turned, every wisp of air leaving my lungs. “You...knew her?”
She nodded, the ice along the table moving, crystallizing along the floor, the tent walls.
“She came to me when trust had abandoned her, when deception was but a breath from her heart. I showed her what could be.” Her hand pressed flat to her chest, then lifted, drawing an unknown shape through the air.
“I see them both in your eyes, Verena of the Fallen. And though I do not condone what fate will demand of you, I understand it.”
My chest heaved, a sob clawing upward, my vision blurring with tears. In a moment, Maerin had made her real, whoever she was.
“Take your rightful name—” She shivered. “Let it weave itself into your bones. Remember,” the ice crawled toward her feet, up her legs, “she fell, so you could rise.”
I broke then, choking, the taste of grief fresh on my tongue.
She knew them. My parents. My family.
Outside, the clash of swords screamed. But inside, only silence. Only Mae’s eyes on mine as I asked, “What is my rightful name?”
Three fingers pressed to her lips before she said, “Let them feel the ascension of your Vyratheon blood.”