Page 30 of Craving Their Venom
He leaves me there, with the stories of my lost home in my lap, and the terrifying weight of his words settling in my soul. I am a shield. I am a target. I am a weapon. I am a person.
I am trapped between a Prince who sees a vision of the future in me, a General who sees a memory of kindness in me, and a Mystic who sees the salvation of the world in me. They are all forging bonds with me, but each bond is another link in the chain that holds me here. And I do not know if this chain will be my salvation, or my doom.
20
AMARA
The Prince’s garden is my only sanctuary, a beautiful lie I tell myself each day. I am permitted to walk here, in this sterile collection of black-leaved flora and blood-red blossoms, and pretend it is a kindness. It is not. It is merely a larger, more aesthetically pleasing cage. The high stone walls are a constant, suffocating reminder of my reality.
I trace the edge of a flower with my fingertip. Its petals feel like cool, dry silk. It is a perfect thing, bred for its beauty and its lack of scent, a flower with no soul. Like everything else in this palace. I have become a part of the collection. The human pet, now a living, breathing scandal, kept behind closed doors, polished and fed and utterly, completely alone.
My gaze drifts upward, to the high, arched balconies that overlook the garden. And I see them.
The sight freezes the breath in my lungs. Varos, Zahir, and Kaelen. They stand together on the Prince’s private balcony, a tableau of impossible unity. The Prince, a column of gold and black, his posture rigid with authority. The General, a crimson monolith of raw, contained power at his side. And the Mystic, a river of silver-blue, his presence a calm, steadying force betweenthem. They are not fighting. They are not posturing. They are speaking, their heads inclined toward one another, their conversation a low, serious murmur I cannot hear.
It is the first time I have seen them together without the crackle of imminent violence in the air. They look… like allies. A council of naga. And the sight of it, this strange, terrible peace between them, sends a tremor of unease through me. A peace forged in the crucible of my violation.
My traitorous mind supplies the memories, unbidden and sharp as shards of glass.
Varos. The cold, calculated cruelty in his eyes as he named me his property. The way he forced my surrender, my body arching to meet his even as my soul screamed in protest. I remember the feel of his smooth, cool scales against my skin, the shocking, unexpected gentleness in his hands that warred with the brutal possession of his body. My mouth saysno, but my body, my wretched, traitorous body, remembers the dark, coiling pleasure and weeps for it. I hate him. I hate the way he made me feel like an object. And I hate myself more for the secret, shameful part of me that craves the touch of my master.
Zahir. A storm of raw, savage heat. The brutal, punishing force of his claim, a fire that threatened to consume me whole. I remember the terror, the feeling of being torn apart, possessed by a creature of pure, primal instinct. But I also remember the secret of his carved animals, the desperate, lonely kindness he hides beneath a mountain of rage. I remember his hands, the ones that have ended countless lives, gently cleaning the small cut on my arm. He is a monster. But he is a monster who cradles broken things. And my body, damn it to all the gods, remembers the savage, honest truth of his passion and aches for its return.
And Kaelen. His touch was not a violation, but a merging. A gentle, reverent invasion that bypassed my body and went straight for my soul. He did not take from me. He… joined withme. I felt his ancient sadness, his cosmic loneliness. He saw the girl I was, the home I lost, the fears I carry deep in my bones. It was beautiful. It was a union of halves. And it was the most terrifying intimacy I have ever known. He laid my spirit bare, and I do not know if I can ever piece it back together again.
I look up at the three of them, these architects of my ruin and my strange, twisted salvation. A cold, sickening realization washes over me, a wave of icy water that leaves me breathless.
The prophecy.
It is not me they see. It is not Amara, the girl who loves the scent of pine and hums her mother’s songs. It is the “heart of humanity.” The key. The fulcrum. Their protection, their possessiveness, their strange, burgeoning tenderness—is it for me? Or is it for the role I play in their cosmic game? Am I just a more sacred kind of tool? A holy relic to be guarded and used for their own salvation?
I’ve known all along but I haven’t entertained such truth. I haven’t thought about it fully.
The idea becomes a physical pain, a shard of ice that pierces the fragile, foolish hope that had begun to grow in my heart. I have been telling myself that I see the men behind the monsters. The lonely Prince. The gentle General. The sad Mystic. But what if there is no man? What if there is only the prophecy, and I am merely the lens through which they have begun to see each other?
My hand flies to my mouth to stifle a sob. The truth is a bitter, burning poison on my tongue.
I turn away from the balcony, a choked, desperate sound escaping my lips. I cannot bear to look at them. I stumble down the path, away from the main courtyard, toward a more secluded section of the garden where the shadows are deeper, where the black-leaved trees grow in a thick, tangled canopy. I need tohide. I need to be alone with the wreckage of my own stupid, broken heart.
The air changes here. It is cooler, the scent of the flowers replaced by the damp, earthy smell of moss and stone. The path narrows, winding around a large, gnarled blue-barked tree. I lean against its trunk, my forehead pressed against the cool, smooth bark, and let the tears come. They are hot, silent tears of rage and shame and a grief so profound it feels like it might tear me in two.
A twig snaps behind me.
I freeze, my body going rigid. My tears stop instantly, replaced by a jolt of pure, cold adrenaline. It was not the sound of a guard’s heavy boot. It was a soft, stealthy sound. The sound of a hunter.
I turn slowly, my heart hammering against my ribs. The path behind me is empty. The shadows are deep, unmoving. But the feeling of being watched is a physical thing, a prickling on the back of my neck.
“Who’s there?” I call out, my voice a thin, reedy thing.
Silence.
And then, the scent hits me. It is not the clean, sterile scent of the palace. It is the smell of stagnant water, of rotting vegetation. The smell of the swamp.
Shadows detach themselves from the deeper darkness beneath the trees. Two of them. Naga. But they are not like the naga of the court. Their scales are not the vibrant jewel tones of crimson or gold or silver-blue. They are a dull, mottled green-brown, the color of moss on a decaying log. They are built for stealth, for the fetid marshes of the south. They are from Jalma.
My blood runs cold. I take a step back, my hand flying to the small, jet-black stone Kaelen gave me, which I now wear on a cord around my neck. A foolish, useless gesture.
They move with a speed that is utterly terrifying. They do not charge with the honest brutality of Zahir. They flow, silent and serpentine, their movements a blur of mottled green and dark leather. One moment they are twenty feet away, the next they are on me.
