“It was me!” My throat burned as I screamed it. “All me. I led the rebellion. I killed Perseus. I am the Viper. Killme.”
Ignored. All of it.
The masked executioner stepped forward, not Ronan’s trick this time, no smoke and mirrors. This was real. Bile rose, thick and sour, hovering in my throat. I was going to be sick.
This was a dream, a nightmare. My mind refused to believe anything else. My body refused as I tore against the shackles, skin splitting, muscles screaming, desperate to be closer to her.
To bury my face in the lavender oil on her skin. To hear the hum she made when she taught me how to heal, how to survive, how tolive.
We didn’t share blood, didn’t share eyes, but she was mine and I was hers. In every other way.
Another guard forced her to her knees, and I reached for the Viper where it hovered, watching as I burned. I clawed inward, dragging nails down the door in my mind, screaming for it to rise.
It refused.
Gemma’s voice wisped through, steady, holding together what I no longer could. “My son and daughter are innocent. They had no knowledge of my actions nor were they ever part of the rebellion. You’ve seen it for yourself.”
My head shook, curls sticking to lashes, to tears that refused to stop drowning me before the blade could as I tried to memorize her, every line, every breath.
She turned to me. “My love.” Her voice was a tender, unshakable thread. I tried to memorize that too. “Remember who you are. You are our light. Our courage. And you are worthy of the life you know you deserve. I am so proud to have raised you. To have loved you.”
A sob broke from my chest. Loud, uncontrollable and shattering. The Viper waited. Even as I begged.
“Do not forget,” her focus locked to mine, “some find solace in the darkness. Don’t hide behind yours, Verena. Not when you were born to wield it.” Tears streaked the pink in her cheeks, but her eyes—her eyes burned with certainty. “I’m so proud of you.”
Fuck waiting for the Viper. I charged for her.
Chains slackened, ripped from the guards’ hands as if my fury alone had snapped them. And I was free. Two strides, three, almost there—
A grip seized my braid, yanking so hard stars burst behind my eyes. My scalp screamed, my hiss turned feral and before they could realize what had happened, I spun, my canines sinking into the soft flesh of their neck.
Servants reared back in horror as I turned back to Gemma, only for a fist to land directly across my face, splitting my lip as bone shattered.
My head turned, eyes catching on the guard, an inhumane growl working its way up my throat—but it caught when Gemma, still steady even as the enforcer stood above her, whispered her last to Callum. “Protect her, like you always have. She is still everything.”
I was nothing. Only doom. Only the promise of an end.
“Enough!” Obrann roared. “Kill her. Now!”
My body went fever hot as I reached for more of that venomous quiet. For power. For anything—
It never came. And as the sword came down in one clean arc, Gemma’s body collapsed forward, where blood ran red across ivory stone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Verena
IT WAS SILENT IN MY HEAD. Absolute, maddening silence.
And nothing good ever came from being trapped inside your own mind.
A distant scream broke it, splintered echoes across my skull, then sobbing, fading when the noise returned.
My noise.Myscreaming.
Blood spread across the marble, seeping into every polished layer, staining my hands, my knees.
It’s not real. Another nightmare. Open your eyes.
