Page 184 of Crowned In Venom

And I cannot let her win.

I close my eyes as I run, summoning everything I have left.

I reach into the bond—**into the poison inside me—**and I pull.

Slow her down. Make her weaker. Disrupt her magic.

I feel her snarl of fury in my skull.

She knows what I’m doing.

She fights back.

A force slams into me like a physical blow, knocking me to my knees.

Pain erupts through my skull, through my veins, like fire cracking my bones apart.

I bite back a scream, my fingers digging into the bloodstained floor.

The Matriarch is trying to cut me out.

She is trying to rip me from the bond.

"NO!"

I fight back.

I dig in my nails, hold the connection steady, and pour everything I have into her poison.

The throne room is ahead.

I will not stop.

Not now.

57

VARKOS

The throne room is bathed in blood-red light. The great obsidian pillars stretch toward the vaulted ceiling, casting monstrous shadows, twisting like the arms of something reaching, grasping.

And there, at the center of it all—the Matriarch.

She stands before her throne, tall and unshaken, her presence as suffocating as ever. Death clings to her. Magic hums through the air, vibrating in my skull. The shadows around her pulse and breathe.

She is waiting for me.

"My son," she coos, voice dripping with false affection. Mocking.

I don’t speak. I can’t.

The weight of everything crashes into me at once—my father’s face, my mother’s laughter, my own stolen past.

My fingers tighten around my sword.

She tilts her head, a soft, knowing smile curling at her lips. “Did you really think you could win?”

She raises a hand—and the air around me explodes.

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