I eased in front of Callum, jabbing my heel into his shin. His mug tipped, ale spilling down his chin, soaking the front of his tunic. Oops.
“I’ve been looking for you,” the evenness of her voice slicked between us, “for a very long time.”
Eight years. That was how long I’d worn the Viper’s skin. Hardly an eternity.
“If you know who I am, then you know how deadly I can be.” The curse slithered against my skull. I prayed it wasn’t answeringher. My breath slipped past my lips, fangs sliding free. No point in hiding them. “I suggest you choose your next words carefully.”
Her eyes widened, strictly in wonder. “Verena,” she whispered. “There is nothing to fear.”
I laughed, the sound catching on my teeth. “I do not fear you.”
“No,” she murmured. “But you fear what you want to do to me. You fear the darkness in you will rise too quickly. That you won’t be able to stop it.”
She knew too damn much. About the curse. Aboutus.
“I have the answers you’re looking for, little bird.” She stepped closer. “Haven’t I proven you can trust me?”
Little bird, little bird…
It rang through my mind like a bell from another lifetime. Not spun from her tricks, only my own tragedy. I shook the echo from my skull.
“Mind tricks are an easy hand to play,” I said, using the tip of my blade to aim toward her hand. “You’ve obviously dabbled in witchcraft. The runes carved into your palms are a practical touch.” She flinched, just barely. Though I wasn’t sure what part of what I guessed shook her. “And showing me the Gods who abandoned us?” My fangs grazed my lip. “It doesn’t exactly screamtrustworthy.”
The lights quivered, shadows stretching thinner, like time was a string being pulled too far.
“Tricks,” she purred, “are not my game. I prefer honesty.” Her gaze slid to the raven, then to Callum, then back to me. “It gets you further.”
Another step. The raven launched from the rafters, landing against her shoulder, one eye pulsing, the other nothing but dusk.
“I’ve just opened your cage door, little bird. Would you like to fly free?” A beat of time returned. “Fly home perhaps?”
She finally closed the distance, close enough for me to see the charred skin mottling across her shoulders. Close enough that, with a single breath, I could bury my dagger into her gut.
“Let me lead you there,” she whispered. The dagger trembled in my grip, a shiver running down the blade like it felt her too. “Stop being afraid of who you are.”
Before I could so much as inhale her words, she turned, her steps as smooth and fluid as her voice as she drifted toward the door.
Before crossing the threshold, she looked back once, eyes locking on mine. Then her hand raised, tapping against her temple—
Once. Twice. Three times.
Just like that, the tavern drew breath. Voices collided, mugs clinked, ale sloshed. Heat returned to my skin like a tide rushing back. Along with the verse that unfurled at the edge of my memory—
Little bird, little bird… the shadows all bend.
You breathe out beginnings and swallow the end.
Someone had sung that to me, long before tonight. Iremembered. It was my first recollection that I was someone else, once. That maybe I belonged somewhere. To someone.
Callum cursed beside me, looking down at the brew soaking his tunic.
Reve blinked up at the bar, dazed, like a man surfacing from deep water. “She left?” he asked.
I nodded, still trying to ground myself. “Yeah. You don’t remember? She finished her final song and said it was her last night here.” I tipped my head. “Unfortunately for you.”
He scratched at his temple, brow creasing. “Weird. I remember her singing…then I blinked, and she was gone.”
Good to know the entire tavern wasn’t now privy to the catastrophe of finding out the very Viper from Nezra’s song stood beside them.
