Page 274 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
My eyes narrow as I inch forward, trying to see beyond into that impossibly bright doorway. Azrael’s hands tighten on me, but I shake him off.
My father tips his head in the direction of the doorway before he makes his way up the steps.
“There is nothing here that will bring you harm.”
Why do those words sound so familiar?
My father makes his way up the stairs, and the bright archway of light beyond finally dims enough for me to see what lies beyond it.
My jaw slackens as my eyes take in the toweringaersyansand mountainsbeyond.
Just as the cervahnith steps forward and its silver, pupil-less gaze meets mine.
VIOLETTE
The cervahnith was the one who told my father we were coming.His previous words echo in my mind as the entire world seems to narrow as my father steps beyond the doorway.
“You are going to Sinsól.”
“Your father will be pleased to see you.”
I huff a sardonic laugh.
“Then you don’t know my father.”
The cervahnith’s strange look as he said, “You might be surprised.”
Amber orbs flicker to life with each step he takes further into the chamber that I can now see is most definitely a mausoleum. In the center of the room is a tomb sitting high upon a marble feretory platform carved with elaborate designs.
Even before my father speaks, I know who lies within. I can feel it in my soul.
The reverent look on my father’s face is tight with grief as he places one hand atop the tomb.
Again, the cervahnith’s words return to me.
“You might find sleep inside the chamber of corpses beside your milra kelyfis.”
Beloved carapace.
Akash-all-fucking-mighty. He was inviting me to sleep beside the ‘shell’ that once housed my mother’s spirit.
My mother’s fucking corpse.
Sure enough, after a few murmured words by father, the stone edifice falls away to reveal my mother's body beneath it, and I’m not even surprised to see it.
Quicker than they can stop me, I fold to the top of the staircase just as Lazarus, Azrael, and Levi growl in unison and rush to follow me into the chamber beyond.
Tears pour down my cheeks as I take in my mother’s face. Preserved by magic, unmarred by the passage of time or the touch of decay.
“Not a day has passed that I don’t visit her.”
My grief at the sight of my mother passes quickly. Her death is one of the few wounds that I have healed. Instead, my anger and frustration simmers to life once more, so hot that it threatens to boil me alive. My voice trembles from the heat of my rage.
“If you loved her so much—us so much—then why, oh why, have I spent my life without my father?”
The regret in my father’s tempestuous thunderhead eyes seems too real, too sincere for it not to dim my anger.
“Your mother was right to fear you becoming anything like me. I didn’t want you to become like me. Mother Jamila and the other house mothers were able to give you the maternal guidance–—the moral guidance that I never could. The other children there could provide you with kinship that I do not have. I had no family to give you, Raia. My father died by my own hands, and my mother abandoned us as soon as she could escape him. I am surrounded by courtiers I wouldn’t trust by giving them my back, much less access to my daughter.”
