Page 100 of Crowned In Venom

He never even saw me take them.

The torches burn lower here, casting flickering light through iron bars, illuminating gaunt faces and hollow eyes.

Some of them look up as I pass, but most do not.

They know better than to hope.

Except for one.

A single figure does not cower.

Does not look away.

Instead, when I stop in front of his cell, he smiles.

A slow, knowing thing.

"I was wondering when you'd come," he murmurs.

He is not like the others.

His posture is too straight.

His eyes too clear.

Even after what must have been weeks—maybe months—of captivity, he has the air of someone who knows his chains are temporary.

And for the first time, I wonder if this is a mistake.

If I am setting loose something I cannot control.

But it is too late to stop.

"Why are you here?" I whisper.

His smirk does not falter. "Because your dark prince put me here."

A strange feeling curls in my stomach at those words.

Prince.

Varkos is not a prince.

He is something worse.

"You must have deserved it," I murmur.

The dark elf only chuckles, his voice rough, sharp as steel.

"Perhaps." He tilts his head. "But you wouldn’t be here if you believed that."

He’s right.

I don’t know his name.

Only his reputation.

A fighter. A leader. A dark elf whose rebellion was crushed under Varkos’s boot.

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