Eleanor caught my eye and nearly lost it laughing; I bit my lip hard to keep from joining her.
Lorian nudged her, and she turned to him with a smile as they delved into their own conversation.
Up ahead, Dimitri ran a hand through his hair, muttering, “Can you all ever focus on our studies?”
drecken
. . .
The venom sizzledin my enchanted vial. I lifted it toward the glow of the fae orbs lining the ceiling, watching the color shift as I swirled it. It flashed from neon green to obsidian to a dark mossy green.
Rune’s venom was unlike anything I’d ever catalogued. It wasn’t just corrosive. It took it a step even further.
Runes pulsed faintly over my workbench, their fire coaxing the venom’s molecules into revealing themselves. The metal stirrer shrieked as the venom ate through its tip in seconds, reducing steel to sludge. The smell was sharp, a mix of metal and sulfur, though underneath there was something pleasant, her scent, midnight orchid.
Bones, I thought with a shiver of delight. This venom didn’t just eat flesh. It ate the framework of matter itself. Surely, it would liquify more than just a supernatural’s insides.
I wondered briefly what interaction Rune had that involved her coming to know what this venom was capable of. Had she stayed long after the death of the drake? Perhaps melting the bone took slightly longer than the organs.
It made sense after all. I would have to check with her.
The crystal on my desk pulsed, Rowan’s voice crackling through with his typical clipped authority. “You’re in your lab again.”
“Where else would I be?” I muttered, scribbling down the reaction time as the finger bone I’d grabbed from my collection and tossed into the vial collapsed fully into venom.
Two seconds.
“You really should take the phone,” he sighed. “Or use the council-issued tablet you’ve been ignoring.”
“The crystals are easier,” I told him, eyes widening as I dropped in an inch of flesh.
Point-zero-five seconds.
“You should see this, Rowan. Her venom doesn’t stop at organs. It breaks down calcium. Bones dissolve in two seconds. Do you realize the tactical advantage of that? Most venoms paralyze, slow the blood, or maybe seize the lungs. Getting my hands on Sabine’s venom was revolutionary for our weaponry potions, but this? This erases the battlefield’s evidence into sludge, unlike Sabine’s ash. Similar but different. I need to get Rune the potion I made of Sabine’s venom as a gift. Surely, if she gets that, we can maintain a strong working relationship.”
“You’ve never talked about anyone like this before. You do remember who Rune is, don’t you?Sabine’s daughter.”
“And?” I adjusted the magnifier lens over the vial as I used a heavily enchanted dropper to grab one small drop. I dropped it onto the bench, watching it burn a pin-sized hole through the marble workbench. The hiss was beautiful. “She’s brilliant. Her mind, her curiosity, all of it. She talks venom and poisons the way most talk poetry. Don’t you dare reduce her to just whose daughter she is.”
Rowan sighed, the kind of sigh only an old councilman could do—not that I could say anything about that. We were aroundthe same age, after all. “Fates, save me. You’re insufferable when you’re excited.”
I grinned, unbothered, jotting down more notes as I experimented with it. Rune was very generous, giving me so much of her venom. There were plenty of experiments I could dive into with this amount.
Would she have given just anyone this much?
Rowan cleared his throat. “Onto other matters of actual importance…”
“Thisisimportant,” I scoffed.
“That’s why I saidother,” he assured me. “Word reached our council this morning. There’s a stormdrake and lavadrake in Blezen.”
My pen stilled above my notes. “What?”
“One of each. Twin brothers. They’d been in hiding with a group of drakes since before Roak’s fall, and now, after word of his death has spread, they’ve returned to the city of Blezen. I’ve opened communications with them.”
“Storm and lava?” My heart thudded. “Rowan, do you know what this means? What they are?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
