Page 179 of Crowned In Venom

It is not a vision, not a dream, but something deeper—a tether, a pulse of energy just beyond the surface of my mind. Like a whisper at the edge of hearing, a shadow at the corner of my sight.

She is there.

I inhale sharply, focusing, pushing through the haze of exhaustion. My body is still weak from the ritual, but this new sensation demands my attention.

"Anya?"

Varkos’s voice grounds me. His hand is on my wrist, his touch firm but gentle. I exhale slowly, nodding.

"I can feel her," I whisper.

A silence falls over the war room.

Kareth stops his pacing. The Ghost shifts where he leans against the stone wall, unreadable beneath his mask.

Varkos’s fingers tighten slightly. "What do you mean?"

I close my eyes again and reach.

Pain. That is the first thing I sense.

The Matriarch is weakened, the poison still in her veins. I can feel its slow, insidious grip tightening around her magic, disrupting the unnatural strength that has kept her alive for so long.

But she is not dying.

Not yet.

She is angry.

"She knows she’s been poisoned. The poison in her system activated when the Ghost used the ritual on me," I murmur, my voice distant. "She’s trying to burn it out of her system, but it’s not working."

A pause. Then Kareth lets out a low, impressed whistle. "Interesting."

"Where is she?" Varkos demands.

I push deeper into the connection. The further I go, the more I feel—rage, suspicion, flickers of pain.

"She’s in her chambers. She's trying to heal herself, but it’s slow. The poison is stronger than she thought."

Varkos nods, calculating. We have time—but not much.

"If she realizes she can’t purge it herself, she’ll start looking for an external source," The Ghost says, arms crossed. "We don’t want to know what that looks like."

No one argues.

We need to act.

"We poison her using my heartblood," I say, opening my eyes.

Kareth raises a brow. "She already knows she’s been poisoned, little human. She’ll be watching everything she eats or drinks."

"Not if it comes from her own stock," I counter.

The Ghost tilts his head, considering. "Her blood supply."

Varkos stiffens beside me. I know he hates the idea, hates knowing his mother consumes human blood to keep herself strong. But he doesn’t speak against it.

"We replace her next dose," I continue. "But this time, it won’t just be poison—it will be the final dose, the one that incapacitates her."

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