Page 27 of Craving Their Venom

KAELEN

T he air in the collapsed chamber is thick with the dust of ages and the raw, metallic scent of spilled blood.

Zahir’s blood. It drips from the gash in his arm, a slow, crimson rhythm that marks the seconds of this new, fragile reality.

He seems oblivious to the wound, his entire being focused on the small, trembling woman cradled in his arms. Varos is a statue of shattered pride at his side, his golden eyes, are utterly stripped of their cold, aristocratic armor.

They are filled with a raw, naked terror.

They have laid their souls bare, a desperate, chaotic confession of love and fear. And Amara… she looks at them not with relief, but with the profound, heartbreaking agony of a soul that has been lied to one too many times.

“It isn’t real,” she whispers again, the words a mantra against their impossible pleas. She pushes weakly against Zahir’s chest. “You don’t love me. You love what I represent. A key. A shield. A weapon.”

“No,” Varos insists, his voice a raw thing. He reaches for her, his hand hovering, afraid to touch her, as if she is a phantom that might dissolve at his touch. “The prophecy was a lens. It forced us to look. But what we see now… it is only you.”

“How can I believe that?” she asks, her voice cracking, the tears she shed earlier now replaced by a cold, quiet despair.

“Everything in this world has been a lie. My capture, my purpose, your… desire. It is all a part of a game I do not understand. A game where I am the board, not a player.” She looks from one to the other, her gaze lingering on me, and the accusation in her eyes is a physical blow.

“You will use me to save your kingdom. I don’t even know how to do it!

I don’t get it. How can I a mere human save Nagaland?

And when it is done, what then? Will the prophecy release you from this…

this feeling? Will I be discarded, a tool whose purpose has been served? ”

Her words are a surgeon’s blade, cutting through the raw emotion of the moment to the cold, logical heart of her fear.

She is not just afraid of them. She is afraid of the very cosmic forces that have ensnared her, afraid that their newfound love is just another, more beautiful, more terrible chain.

“Never,” Zahir growls, his voice a deep, guttural vow. He cradles her face in his massive, blood-stained hand, his touch impossibly gentle. “You are not a tool. You are the heart. The heart of me.”

She closes her eyes, a single tear escaping and tracing a path through the dust on her cheek.

“I cannot,” she whispers. “I cannot trust you. I cannot trust this feeling.” She takes a shuddering breath and looks at the three of us, her gaze sweeping over our desperate faces.

“I will… see. I will watch. And I will see if your actions match your words. That is all I can promise.”

It is not a yes. It is not an acceptance. It is a challenge. A sliver of a chance. And in this moment, it is more than any of us deserve.

I look at her, at this small, fierce, broken human, and a vow solidifies in my soul, a silent, unbreakable oath.

The prophecy be damned. The fate of Nagaland be damned.

All that matters now is the flicker of belief in her eyes.

I will not let it be extinguished. I will guard it with my life, with my soul, with every fiber of my being.

I cannot lose her. The thought is not a fear.

It is an impossibility. A world without her light is a world I refuse to inhabit.

The immediate danger, however, is not in our hearts, but in the shadows of this swamp. Zahir’s warriors, my Vipers and his trackers, are now filtering into the ruined chamber, their faces grim, their blades still slick with the blue blood of the Tikzorcu.

Zahir rises, his focus shifting with the fluid ease of a born commander. The lovesick beast is gone, replaced once more by the General. He gently places Amara into my care, his golden eyes locking with mine in a silent, urgent command. Protect her.

“Rhax!” he barks, his voice a roar that echoes in the shattered chamber. “Status report!”

“The outer perimeter is secure, General,” his second grunts, his massive form filling the ruined doorway. “We took two prisoners contrary to our plan. They’re going to be useful. The rest are dead or have fled back into the swamp like the rats they are.”

“There is no escape for them,” Varos says, his voice once again cold and precise, the Prince’s mask sliding back into place, though it sits less comfortably now, the cracks still visible beneath the surface.

He turns to me, his gaze sharp. “We cannot remain here. This place is compromised. The King…” He stops, the word catching in his throat.

And the terrible truth I carry slams back into the forefront of my mind.

The King. The true serpent. The architect of this entire nightmare.

I have kept his secret, a poison in my own soul, to protect Varos from the truth, to preserve the fragile unity we have just forged. But I cannot keep it any longer.

Every moment we delay, every step we take back toward the Capital, is a step back into the heart of the viper’s nest. The King did not just allow her to be taken.

He sanctioned it. He wanted her removed.

He will not be pleased that she has been recovered.

Her life, which we just risked everything to save, is in more danger now than it was in this subterranean cell.

“Varos,” I say, urgent. “Zahir. We must speak. Now.”

Zahir turns from his men, his brow furrowed with impatience. Varos looks at me, his golden eyes narrowing, sensing the gravity in my tone.

“The Vipers will stand guard,” I say, my gaze fixed on Amara, who watches us with wide, wary eyes. “No one enters. No one leaves.” I look at her, my heart aching with the need to reassure her, but the words I must speak are not for her ears. Not yet. “We will return shortly, Amara. I swear it.”

I lead them a short distance away, into a smaller, adjoining chamber, the air thick with the smell of moss and decay.

I need to do this now, before we begin the journey back.

Before Varos walks back into his father’s gilded cage, utterly unaware that the bars were forged by the very hands he has been taught to revere.

“The vision in the cavern,” I begin, my voice a low, steady thing, though my own heart is a frantic drum against my ribs. “The one that showed me the lower path. It was a lie.”

Zahir’s head snaps toward me, a low growl rumbling in his chest. “You lied to us? While she was in their hands?”

“I stalled,” I correct him, my gaze fixed on Varos. “Because the truth I saw was a weapon more dangerous than any blade. A truth that could have shattered our purpose before it was even forged.”

Varos is utterly still, his face frozen with cold, analytical focus. He is piecing it together. He knows. He knows what is coming.

“I followed the thread of her abduction back to its source,” I say, my voice becoming a quiet, relentless whisper. “To the moment of its conception. I saw the throne room. I saw the Tikzorcu leader kneeling before the King.”

Zahir’s breath hisses out between his fangs. But Varos… Varos does not move. He does not even blink.

“I saw your father, Varos,” I say, the words a physical pain to speak.

“I saw him sanction this. I saw him pay them. He wanted her removed. He wanted the prophecy broken. He wanted you and Zahir at each other’s throats, weakened and divided.

” I take a shuddering breath, the final, most terrible blow yet to come.

“He gave them one, explicit command. You were not to be harmed. She was the only target.”

The silence that follows is absolute. It is a silence so profound, so heavy, it feels like the world has stopped turning. Zahir stares at me, horrified. But Varos…

Varos’s cold, controlled facade does not just crack.

It disintegrates. It turns to dust. For a single, terrible moment, I see him not as a Prince, but as a fledgling, his world shattered by a betrayal so monstrous it is almost incomprehensible.

His golden scales seem to lose their luster, his posture, always so rigid with pride, seems to shrink, to collapse inward on itself.

He does not rage. He does not weep. He simply… breaks.

“Why?” he whispers, the word a raw, broken thing, the sound of a soul being torn in two.

“Because he is a king who fears his own heir more than any external enemy,” I reply softly. “He fears the prophecy not because it predicts the fall of Nagaland, but because it predicts the rise of a new Nagaland. A Nagaland that is not his.”

I step closer, my hand resting on his shoulder. He does not flinch. He is a statue of ice, frozen in the heart of his own personal hell.

“There is more,” I say, my voice a low, urgent whisper.

“The scrolls are ancient, their language obscure. I have only now, with the clarity of this moment, been able to decipher the final lines.” I look at him, shattered Prince, and I deliver the final, terrible truth.

“The prophecy does not just say that a new kingdom will rise. It says, ‘The old king must fall, his blood a sacrifice to the new dawn, so that the serpents may unite and the heart may be saved.’ ”

The words linger in the air, a death sentence and a coronation all in one.

Varos lifts his head, and the broken fledgling is gone. The coldness has returned to his eyes, but it is a different kind of cold now. It is not the cold of ambition. It is the cold of the grave. The cold of a son who has just realized he must kill his own father.

“I see,” he says, his voice flat, expressionless.

He understands what he must do. His path is no longer one of political maneuvering and strategic ambition. It is a path of blood and sacrifice. A path he must walk not just to save his kingdom, but to save the woman his own father condemned to death.

He turns and looks back toward the chamber where Amara waits, and in his eyes, I see a new, terrible resolve being forged in the fires of his shattered heart. The old kingdom is already dead. And we are the ones who must now bury it.