Page 29 of Craving Their Venom
“Come,” is all he says, and he pulls me from the room.
We do not go to the training yards. He leads me down a series of narrow, little-used corridors in the center of the barracks, a place that smells of old leather, sweat, and metal. He stops before a heavy, iron-banded door and unlocks it with a key he produces from a pouch at his belt. He shoves me inside and follows, the door closing behind us with a heavy, final thud.
The room is small, and it is not what I expect. It is not an armory or a cell. It is a workshop. The air smells of wood shavings, of oil and polish. Carving tools of every shape and size are laid out in neat, ordered rows on a long wooden bench. And on shelves that line the walls, from floor to ceiling, are his creations.
My breath catches. The shelves are filled with hundreds of carved animals.
They are impossibly, heartbreakingly beautiful. A tinysuru, its head cocked, its long ears alert, its fur rendered in such exquisite detail I can almost feel its softness. A soaringkarasu, its wings outstretched, every feather perfectly defined. A family ofiypin, their cunning, fox-like faces filled with a playful intelligence. They are carved from a pale, creamy wood that seems to glow with an inner light.
I take a hesitant step forward, my fear warring with a sense of profound, bewildered awe. These are the work of the General? Of this creature of brutal, savage violence?
“They are… beautiful,” I whisper, my voice filled with a reverence I cannot hide.
“They are dead,” he says, his voice coming from behind me.
I turn to look at him. He stands by the door, his massive arms crossed over his chest, his face chisled in defensive pride.
“Where… where did you get them?” I ask, my gaze returning to the shelves. I see a tiny bird with a broken wing, its head tucked beneath its other wing as if in sleep.
“The forest,” he says, his voice rough with an emotion he tries to conceal. “The mountains. I find them. The ones the world has broken. The ones with a leg caught in a hunter’s trap. The ones alikarhas mauled and left for dead. The ones too weak or too slow.”
I stare at him, my mind struggling to reconcile the image of this brutal warrior with the words he is speaking.
“I do not let them suffer,” he continues, his voice dropping lower, the words a confession dragged from the depths of his soul. “The world is cruel enough. I give them a quick end. No pain.” He looks at his hands, at the massive, clawed weapons that they are. “And then… I try to remember them as they were. Before the world broke them. I try to give them a life in the wood that they were denied in the flesh.”
I look back at the shelves, at the silent, wooden menagerie. I see them differently now. They are not just carvings. They are acts of mercy. Each one is a story of a life cut short, of a pain that was eased by the hand of this unlikely savior. This is his secret. This is the softness he hides from the world. He is a killer with a tender heart, a monster who cradles broken things.
The thought is both terrifying and deeply, profoundly moving. The animals on the shelves are preserved, yes, but they are also trapped, their forms frozen forever by his will. It is a beautiful, possessive kind of mercy.
“They are not just beautiful,” I whisper. “They are… kind.”
He flinches at the word, as if it is a physical blow. He does not know what to do with it. He gravitates toward violence, and I have just called him kind. The power dynamic between us shifts,a subtle realignment of the earth beneath my feet. In this small, secret room, I am not just his captive. I am the keeper of his most vulnerable secret.
Later, it is Kaelen who finds me in the garden. He appears as he always does, a silent shimmer of silver-blue scales in the purple twilight. He carries with him a small, woven basket.
“I have brought you something,” he says, his voice the calm, melodic hum that both soothes and unnerves me. He sits on the bench beside me and opens the basket. Inside are scrolls, but they are not the ancient, crumbling texts from his sanctuary. They are fresh, the parchment a creamy white, the ink a deep, rich black.
“These are stories,” he says, handing one to me. “Human stories. From your world. I have had my acolytes transcribe them from the memories of the oldest texts.”
I unroll the scroll. The script is alien, a series of elegant, flowing lines, but as I look at it, the meaning seems to bloom in my mind, a strange, intuitive understanding. It is a fairy tale, one my mother used to tell me. The story of Cirsheco the Wild, a brave girl who outsmarts a monster.
“How?” I whisper, my fingers tracing the impossible script.
“The prophecy connects us, Amara,” he says softly. “It allows me to share not just my words, but my understanding. Read.”
I read the stories, my heart aching with a homesickness so profound it is a physical pain. They are stories of courage, of kindness, of clever girls who defeat monsters not with swords, but with their wits.
“Why are you showing me this?” I ask, my voice thick with unshed tears.
“Because you must understand what you are,” he says, twilight eyes filled with their familiar, ancient sadness. “You believe you are weak. A human in a world of monsters. But your humanity is not a weakness. It is a weapon. Your compassion,your resilience, your ability to see the man inside the monster—that is a magic more powerful than any sorcery we possess.”
He gestures to the stories in my lap. “Our world has forgotten these tales. We have traded them for histories written in blood and ambition. The serpent that nests in our halls, the Tikzorcu of Jalma, they thrive on this forgetting. Their poison is hatred, despair, the belief that power is the only truth. The only antidote is a force they cannot comprehend. Your heart, Amara, is a weapon they have no defense against, because they do not believe it exists.”
I look at him, at this wise, sad mystic who speaks of my heart as a weapon, of my soul as a prophecy. It is too much. It is a burden too heavy to bear.
“I am not a weapon,” I say in a choked whisper. “I am not a prophecy. I am a person.”
“I know,” he says, and his voice is filled with a gentle, heartbreaking sorrow. “And that is the cruelest part of all. The cosmos has chosen a person to be its sword. Whether you believe it or not does not change the truth of it. But you must understand this: this prophecy is the only thing that keeps you alive in this court. It is the reason the Prince and the General have not simply destroyed each other, with you as the collateral damage. It is your shield. And it is the very thing that makes you the most hunted creature in this kingdom.”
