Page 288 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
When I look back up, Lazarus’ face is inches from mine. “Violette. You have to stop. Draw your magic back in. You can control this.”
Suddenly dizzy, I shake my head. “I don’t know how.”
The sound of distant screams reaches my ears.
Oh, gods, all of these people.
The desperation and terror coursing through me are making it worse. The water is almost up to my knees. At least half of Sinsól can’t breathe underwater or merelyfoldaway.
Akash, make it stop.
The realization that all of Sinsól is in peril because of me only causes my panic to surge further, and a moment later, a thunderous crack sounds and sends the floor beneath our feet splintering in a spiderweb of fissures that travel beyond the room.
No.
The sight causes my panic to reach its zenith.
Something inside me seems to burst in the same moment; the walls around us crack and give way. Icy water crushes us. My mer form bursts free just as a slab of marble slams into me and pins me to the floor.
My vision sways and narrows as my consciousness tries to leave me.
Until a familiar, bronze hand twined with shadows floats past my line of sight, causing a surge of adrenaline to push back the darkness threatening to swallow my consciousness.
Ifoldout from beneath the jagged hunk of marble to grasp an unconscious Lazarus.
Blood gushes in inky tendrils from a cut on his head.
Frantic, I quickly scan the vicinity for Levi and Azrael.
My eyes lock on a pair of motionless legs peeking out from beneath a splintered marble wall. The fact they aren’t tattooed tells me it's the only person in this room who couldn’t recover from such a blow.
A deafening roar fills my ears as if the sea itself is grieving what my mind refuses to accept, even as my heart fractures beyond repair.
A large hand grasps my shoulder from behind. Levi, eyes glowing with that dark, unsettling fractal-light. The water in my gills seems to still as the sea surrounding us trembles. The very fabric of reality surrounding us warps and bends as it rushes towards us, as it seems to collapse in on itself. Terror fills me as his magic consumes me, and everything around us. It feels like being swallowed whole by some cosmic entity—all reality as you know it transforming into something utterly alien as you free fall into the unknown. I feel like my soul is being ripped from my body, and though I have never experienced it, I somehowknowthat this is death.
Levi pulls me against him as his lips press a kiss to my forehead just as the hungry, collapsing structure of existence snaps its jaws around us, closing us in, and everything goes black.
VIOLETTE
The song of cathedral bells echoing in the distance stirs me to consciousness. Towering, spiralling columns and stained glass windows depicting the same moving shapes and patterns of someone’s eyes, though I can’t place whose, surround me. Distantly, I feel like this should be strange, but somehow it feels entirely natural... as I float here.
I have no idea where I am, though there is something impossibly familiar about it.
I find I don’t mind this not-knowing.
I simply am. Am simply here.
As I stare at one particularly mesmerizing stained-glass design, the air seems to vibrate. I focus my eyes further and realize I can see actual photons of light–they seem to hum and dance in coordination with the thunderous but soothing sound of the cathedral's bells ringing in some distant, sky-high tower.
As I focus further on each individual photon, I realize worlds—a universe—exist within each of them.
My lips part in awe, and I find myself leaning towards a specific one. I feel myself, my soul being pulled towards it. Images—memories—filter through my mind the closer I get, and I get a shock of pain that feels like a jolt of electricity.
“Violette.”
I know that voice.
That name.
