Page 86 of Crowned In Venom

Because of me.

The past slams into me like a dagger to the ribs.

A memory—vivid, searing, inescapable.

I see flames licking at the sky.

I hear screams breaking the night.

I smell the acrid stench of burning flesh.

I am seventeen again, hiding in the hollow of a tree as my village turns to ash.

Bodies litter the ground—women, men, children—all left for the crows.

The dark elves had taken everything.

Slaughtered. Pillaged. Destroyed.

And among them?—

Varkos’s clan.

The crest on their armor, the colors they bore—I remember it all.

I had buried it deep, locked it away where it could not touch me.

But now, with Mira’s lifeless body before me, it crashes back with brutal force.

Varkos’s people.

Varkos’s men.

Varkos.

His empire was built on the bones of mine.

And I?—

I kissed him.

I let him touch me.

I let myself want him.

The taste of him turns to poison in my mouth.

I close my eyes, pressing my forehead to Mira’s cooling skin.

I do not cry.

There is no one left to cry for.

But something inside me breaks.

Something that should never have been whole in the first place.

I force my breath to steady, my hands curling into fists.

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