Page 114 of Crowned In Venom

I have seen her do this before. A hundred times. A thousand.

Her games are always the same.

Break them slowly.

Make them think they have a choice.

And then take everything.

"I should have expected this," she continues, her fingers tracing the line of the knife as if admiring a piece of art. "You humans always think you are clever. You are pests. Nothing more."

She moves closer, slow, unhurried.

I feel every step like a hammer inside my skull.

Anya spits blood onto the floor.

"Go to hell, you miserable hag."

The room shifts.

The guards tense.

A sharp, biting silence swallows the air.

Then—

My mother laughs.

Low and dark. Cold enough to turn the marrow in my bones to ice.

"Hag?" she murmurs, tilting her head. "Is that the best you can do, girl?"

Anya grits her teeth, her entire body trembling, but not from fear.

From rage.

"You're a parasite," she hisses. "Clutching at power that isn't yours. Taking and taking, leeching life out of the people beneath you because you know if you ever stood alone, you would be nothing."

My mother stills.

For the first time, a flicker of something dangerous passes over her face.

Anya sees it.

And she smiles.

A slow, bloody thing. Defiant.

"You're afraid of me, aren't you?" she whispers, voice hoarse from pain. "That’s why you’re doing this. Because you know I can take something from you."

A sharp crack echoes through the chamber.

Anya’s head snaps to the side.

The slap is brutal, enough to split her lip wider, enough to make her sway.

I grip the arms of my chair, forcing myself not to move.

---