And Ronan had heard it, the hitch in the Viper’s breath at the gesture. An acceptance. A thank you.
Verena had drawn her close, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other wrapping her tightly to her chest.
From a distance, it looked like a serpent suffocating its prey.
But it wasn’t. Not then. Not with her.
This Viper hadn’t been a monster. Not a curse. Not a predator.
He had strained to catch her words, spoken in affirmation:That even hearts that shatter can still heal, despite the cracks that don’t.
The girl had nodded, tight curls tumbling onto her salt-stained cheeks. Verena had pressed a kiss to her crown, her own eyes shut tight as a single tear slid free, glistening as it fell. It was a memory that would brand him.
The Viper, with venom in her veins, holding grief like it was sacred.
Liquid silver from the river rushed over stones, unbothered where his knees sank into the mud at its edge.
Terrain sucked at him, trying to drag him under while bloodied hands pressed hard against his eyes.
And for the first time in centuries—Ronan shattered.
A shockwave of grief battered his being, rattling his bones, prying apart the iron walls he had built around himself. His jaw locked, but it couldn’t hold back the years of restraint that broke in a flood.
In the vastness of the shadows he got lost, trapped.
He couldn’t kill her. Hewouldn’t.
In five hundred and thirty years of existence, Ronan had never felt terror like the fear of watching Verena’s life waver out. She had been nearly torn from the world in seconds, and there had been no triumph in it. No glory.
Only horror.
He told himself it had been a choice. That saving her from that cliff had been a decision. That somewhere between chaos and carnage, he’d looked at her and made the call.
Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t true. The part of him still pretending to be free had burned away when he had seen her fall. He’d gone to her before he even realized he had moved.
More than that, a deeper force had answered when their blood bound. Unbreakable to the world, fragile and tethering into his soul. A binding that felt like memory repeating itself.
One that could unravel itself thread by thread as quickly as it had been woven.
But when it pulled tight, it hesitated, a reminder of the oath he had once sworn to another.
He burned that too. Let it sear across realms. And he prayed that the dreadful witch who forced that vow felt the full weight of his hate against its sting.
Let the world choke on its own ruin. Let kingdoms fall to ash. He would not take Verena from it.
And that only meant one thing.
She was not the damnation of their world—she was the inevitable unraveling of his.
Elysian had hunted down the bastard who tried to end her. It was an unfortunate stab, not only for Verena, but him as well.
The instant her blood slicked his steel, his fate was written. The blade had caught his own skin too, spilling a drop of mortal blood into hers.
That was all Elysian needed.
The scent clung, so the hound had chased. Tracked him down with brutal precision, finding him miles away, kneeling in a stream, scrubbing her blood from his hands as though it could be washed away.
He had dragged him through the mud the entire trek back camp, the soldier thrashing, choking on his own dread, until he was thrown at Ronan’s feet.
