Page 38 of Crowned In Venom

ANYA

The walls of the palace breathe in silence.

It is late, just past the second toll of the city bells, and the air carries the bustle of a world that does not sleep, but waits.

Servants move like ghosts, their footsteps quick, their voices hushed. No one lingers in the halls longer than they must.

Not with The Ghost lurking.

I have heard the whispers.

The murmured fears that something unseen watches in the dark, that there are eyes where there should be none.

It should scare me.

And yet, I am the one slipping into the shadows tonight.

I keep my steps light, my breath measured as I move toward the lower halls.

Not toward the dungeons. Not toward the fight pits.

Toward something worse.

The place I should not return to.

The place where the wrongness still clings to my skin like an old bruise.

Two nights ago, I stumbled into a nightmare.

A corridor lined with whispering horrors—flesh that was not flesh, voices that did not belong to a single throat.

The Matriarch's secret.

Varkos's greatest fear.

I should leave it alone.

But power is not in caution.

Power is in knowing.

And tonight, I will learn.

The door is still where I left it—heavy, iron-bound, a wound in the stone.

But this time, I am not careless.

I press my ear against the cold wood. Listen.

No breath. No movement.

Still, I wait. Count to five.

Only when the silence remains unbroken do I move.

I slip inside.

The air is thicker than I remember.

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