Page 278 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
“Love you more... Raia.”
The horror crushing me forces one singular word out of me.
“Why?”
Why, if you loved me, weren’t you with us?
A tear streams down my father’s cheek. “... Didn’t want to risk–” He gulps another mouthful of blood that I feel in my gut. “... You turning out to be like me.”
The last of the light in my father’s eyes flickers like a bolt of lightning being swallowed by a black cloud.
My father’s body grows limp.
The earring clatters to the stone floor as I drop to my knees beside him. Claws sinking into the flesh of his shoulders, my forehead drops to his chest as I finally mourn the father I wish I’d had.
The force of the full-bodied sob that wracks through me is an ugly, powerful thing that scarcely allows me to draw breath. Even the muscles supporting my ribcage cramp and burn in protest. It leaves me no choice but to finallylet go.
I couldn’t hold onto this hatred and resentment any longer even if I tried. Instead, it escapes out of the violent, choked, and hideous wail pouring out of me like a dam burst free. Through the tears running down my cheeks like liberated prisoners that I’ve spent my life holding hostage.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but my body eventually grows tired and weak. Warm hands rub soothing circles on my body, and I shift to see all three of my males kneeling beside me wearing similar looks of concern. One of my hands releases its grip from my father’s cooling chest, and reaches towards them with an upturned palm. Each of them wrap a hand around my hand or arm. That small action alone begins to knit the many jagged shards of my heart back together with soft, tender threads.
How I love them so.
The cervahnith appears in front of us, beside my mother’s tomb, and stares down at me with those large, silvery white pupil-less eyes. “Do you regret it?”
The question takes me by surprise. Like a stone dropped into the silent waters of my catharsis. The answer is instantaneous and clear, though it takes me a moment to lift from my haze and form the words. “The world is a better place without him.”
The ground beneath me shudders, and it’s only then I hear the distant screams.
Azrael & Lazarus’ people have arrived.
Time to go.
Still, I can’t seem to move—can’t bring myself to leave my father’s body.
Levi’s arms gently curl beneath me to lift to pull me against his chest as Azrael offers me words of reassurance. “If you wish to speak to him again one day, I’m sure Queen Mareina could be persuaded to let you visit Avernus, her afterrealm. She is... not without compassion.”
Lazarus remains silent but presses a kiss to my forehead.
The last thing I see before the portal closes behind us is the cervahnith kneeling on forelegs to collect my father’s body. My intuition and logic tells me the cervahnith isn’t collecting his corpse to return it to the sea or perform an ascension ritual, but my mind is already too overwhelmed grappling with everything I’ve discovered; the responsibility that has been thrust upon me this evening.
Namely... I’m a fucking queen.
VIOLETTE
Ifeel like I need to have a nervous breakdown, but there’s no time for that because after the drakonati warriors and the people of Vassileo descended into Sinsól, there is much to answer for... as Queen. A fiery tunnel in the ceiling of the warded dome that keeps the sea out, and the air in—the one my father erected specifically for my mother in the hopes of making her happy—looms above the faces of Vassileo’s former King and Queen. They ruled all of daemonkind beneath Azrael prior to Vassileo’s destruction, and will now be ruling in my stead as the Regents of Sinsól.
Thanks to whatever bargain Lazarus struck with Somnus, who acted as his messenger, Lazarus and Azrael were able to conspire with their people: help us overthrow Sinsól’s Nameless King, and in exchange, you will be given safe haven free from the dangers of Atratus—the region where virtually all of Azrael and Lazarus’ people were forced to seek exile when their realm was torn apart.
There have already been a number of casualties among my father’s people. Lazarus assures me they won’t be missed and were among the parasites whom my father controlled. The rest are currently in palladium shackles and being led towards thepalace dungeons by towering daemon and drakonati soldiers. Their concubines, however, are lined up as one of my father’s guards is forced to remove each of their palladium collars.
The eight-foot, bespectacled daemon king from Vassileo stands patiently beside his queen, a silver-haired, human-looking sanguinati. The fact that the God of Death now has two bodies seemed to be an inconsequential and unsurprising revelation to them—though we hadn’t explained how or why. Perhaps they assume one is merely an avatar of the other.
My eyes scour the vicinity in vain for Lucen and hissoulbound. Somnus, who should have been liberated from his incorporeal realm the moment of my father’s death, is nowhere to be found either.
Where have they gone?
The daemon king, Charon, peers down at me with a look of mild concern on his face. “You require rest, majesty..."
