Page 30 of Crowned In Venom

30

ANYA

I am running out of time.

I know it.

I feel it in the way the air has changed, the way the shadows move differently in the halls.

The Matriarch is watching.

Varkos is watching.

And worst of all—I am watching him too.

That is the real danger.

Not the Matriarch. Not the Ghost lurking in the palace corridors.

But the way I hesitated tonight when I learned what he has been doing.

The way I let myself think, for a fraction of a second—maybe I was wrong about him.

Maybe there is a part of him that is worth saving.

That thought is poison.

A different kind of poison than the one he’s been feeding his mother.

This one is mine.

And I cannot afford to drink it.

That is why I am here now, slipping through the dim corridors beneath the palace, past the points of entry that I have memorized, past the guards who do not see me.

If I wait any longer, I will hesitate again.

And hesitation means death.

The first blow must be struck.

Tonight.

Before I second-guess myself.

Before I let him get inside my head.

I weave through the tunnels that lead to the lower cells, the ones reserved for the worst of them.

The ones even Varkos doesn’t bother looking at anymore.

And that is why this will work.

Because he will not expect it.

Because I need to remind myself of what I came here to do.

I am not falling for him.

I am not slipping.

I am here to ruin him.

The air is different down here.

Colder. Stagnant. Rotten.

The stench of old blood and unwashed skin thickens the deeper I go.

My fingers brush along the keys at my waist, the ones I stole from a guard too distracted by a wine cup and a pair of soft lips.

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.

But I also know that when he fell, others followed.

He is a symbol.

A symbol I can use.

I exhale, sliding the key into the lock.

"If you leave this place, you do not leave quietly," I say softly.

His eyes flash.

"I never do."

The lock clicks.

The first crack in Varkos’s empire is struck.

I do not wait to watch him leave.

I do not stay to see the way he will tear through the palace like a storm unchained.

Because I cannot afford to.

I have already done too much.

When the chaos begins, I will be exactly where I am supposed to be.

As if I had nothing to do with it.

As if I had not just set into motion the beginning of the end.

But before I slip back into the shadows, I do one last thing.

I leave a mark.

A message.

Not for the Matriarch.

Not for the guards.

For Varkos.

A single word, scratched into the stone beside the open cell.

Checkmate.

Then, I disappear.

And the war begins.