Page 13 of Craving Their Venom
“You will not be forgotten,” he says,voice solid like a solemn vow. “Your name will be sung by the stars themselves.” He pulls his hand back, and in it, he holds a small, smooth stone of polished jet. A single, silver rune is carved into its surface. “This is a ward of protection. It will not stop a blade, but it will shield your spirit from the despair that festers in this palace. It will keep your heart from being broken, even if your body is not spared.”
He places the cool, heavy stone in my palm and closes my fingers around it. His touch lingers for a moment longer than necessary, a gentle pressure that is a stark, shocking contrast to the brutal grip of the General or the cold, clinical touch of the Prince.
“I must know you, Amara,” he says, his voice dropping to an intense whisper. “I must understand the shape of your soul. The prophecy is a locked door, and I believe the key is not your courage, or your defiance, or even your fear. It is the very essence of what makes you human. Your capacity for kindness in a world of cruelty. Your memory of a home you have lost. Your fear of being forgotten.”
He rises to his full height, once again a towering, otherworldly figure. The moment of intimacy is shattered, and I am left with the cold stone in my hand and the terrifying weight of his words.
He sees me. Not as a pet, not as a tool. But as a living embodiment of a cosmic force he is desperate to understand. I’m no longer a simple captive. I am a sacred text, and he is the high priest who would decipher me, verse by verse, until all my secrets are laid bare.
It is an entirely different kind of overwhelming, a different kind of cage. A cage made not of stone and steel, but of destiny and prophecy. And as I sit there in the cold, alien beauty of thenaga garden, clutching the small, dark stone in my hand, I do not know which is more terrifying.
9
VAROS
Two days have passed since I threw Zahir from my chambers. Since I caged the human, ostensibly for her own protection. The silence she leaves in her wake is more disruptive than the General’s rage. It follows me from my chambers, a quiet, persistent ghost that clings to my scales and whispers in the hollow spaces between my thoughts.
The court is a nest of vipers, and the human’s scent is on me. They can all smell it. They see the disruption she has caused, the unprecedented clash between myself and the General. They see her not as a person, but as a shift in the balance of power. A new weight on the scales. And they are beginning to press.
I stand on the Grand Balcony overlooking the central plaza, a goblet of chilled rirzed wine in my hand. The evening air is cool, carrying the scent of the Capital’s strange, night-blooming flowers. Below, the nobles mingle, their silks shimmering like beetle wings under the light of the crystal lamps.
Lady Xaliya approaches, her violet scales a river of amethyst in the dim light. She moves with the fluid grace of a predator that knows its own beauty is its most effective weapon. She stops beside me, her fan fluttering with a soft, dry hiss.
“Your Highness seems… preoccupied,” she murmurs, her sharp eyes fixed on the plaza below. She can’t look at me, but her words are aimed with the precision of a dart.
“The duties of the crown are a heavy burden, Lady Xaliya,” I reply, my tone clipped and formal.
“Indeed,” she says, her lips curving into a smile that does not reach her eyes. “Especially when new,unforeseenduties arise. One hears your new pet is quite spirited. A creature that saves its master’s life. How very… novel. It must be a great comfort to have such a loyal thing tucked away in your chambers.”
Her words are silk-wrapped razors.Pet. Thing. Tucked away.She is reminding me of the creature’s station, and by extension, my own folly in elevating it. She is testing me, probing for the weakness she is certain she has found. The whispers I have been hearing for two days are now given a voice, and it is as venomous as I expected. They do not see a savior. They see a vulnerability. My vulnerability.
“Loyalty is a rare and valuable commodity,” I say, my voice dangerously soft. “I would not expect you to understand its worth.”
Her fan snaps shut. A flicker of anger in her slitted pupils. “Of course, Your Highness. A Prince must have his… commodities.” She gives a slight, mocking bow and slithers back into the crowd, leaving her poison hanging in the air behind her.
The rage that builds in me is a cold, familiar thing. But it is not directed at her. It is directed at the situation, at the weakness she perceives. The court sees the human not as a sign of my strength, but as a chink in my armor. A soft spot they can press until I break. They think I am growing sentimental. They think I can be manipulated through her.
There is only one way to quell such whispers. There is only one way to reassert the truth of the order. An object cannot be a weakness. A pet cannot hold power over its master. I mustdemonstrate this truth, to them and to myself. I must reinforce the cage, not just with stone and steel, but with the undeniable reality of my claim.
Later, when the palace is shrouded in the deep, star-dusted silence of the night, I find myself standing before the door to her chamber. The two guards outside my own quarters stiffen as I approach, but do not move to stop me. I am the Prince. I go where I will.
I dismiss the guards at her door with a flick of my hand. They bow and retreat, their heavy footsteps fading down the corridor. I place my hand on the door. It is not locked from the outside. I had it changed. She is not a prisoner of the palace; she is a prisoner of mine.
The door opens without a sound.
The room is dark, the only light a sliver of purple moonlight from the high window. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. She is asleep on the pallet of furs, curled on her side, facing away from the door. She looks impossibly small in the vastness of the bed, a fragile island in a sea of darkness.
I move into the room, my steps as silent as falling ash. I am a shadow within shadows. I stand over her, watching the slow, even rise and fall of her back. The simple grey tunic she wears has ridden up slightly, exposing the gentle curve of her hip and the pale, vulnerable skin of her lower back.
The air is permeated with her scent. Not the cloying perfumes of the court, but the clean, warm scent of her skin, her hair. It is the scent of life, pure and undiluted. It fills my lungs, a strange, intoxicating poison that both soothes and inflames me.
She makes a soft sound in her sleep, a quiet hum. The same tuneless melody she sang in her cage at the menagerie. A song from a world I cannot imagine. A song of a home she has lost. The sound is a physical blow. It strikes the cold, ambitious part of me and leaves a hairline fracture.
I see the crescent mark at the base of her neck, a faint, dark shape in the moonlight. I have the sudden, overwhelming urge to touch it, to trace its shape with my claw, to feel the beat of her pulse beneath it.
This is madness. This nocturnal vigil. This obsession. She is a tool. A pet. A means to an end. But as I stand here, watching her sleep, the lines between asset and desire blur into a dangerous, intoxicating haze. The rumors of the court were right. Sheisa weakness. Because she is making me weak.
The decision solidifies in my mind, cold and hard and absolute. I cannot afford this weakness. I must conquer it. I must dominate it until it is nothing more than another tool in my arsenal. I will not be ruled by this strange, soft feeling. I will rule it.
