Page 321 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
I do not wish to cause anymore suffering, nor do I wish to endure it.
Still, I hesitate, as something new forms in the back of my mind.
The edges of it are blurry at first, but it brightens like a beam of light carving a memory with crystal clarity into my mind.
A tall, well built male with dark skin and pale eyes hands me a pin—this one gold and humming with a benevolent energy, dare I saylove, that seems to transcend time and space. His smile is soft, but his ethereal eyes glitter with promise.
“I was instructed to give you this by someone whose love for you is so powerful that no matter what you do, you cannot escape—not even in death. No matter your sins or karma. No matter what fate has planned, you belong to her, and she will find you. Your union with her is inevitable as entropy. You just need to be patient.”
My burning eyes drop from the male in front of me, to the gilded pin in my hand. Vertically along its length, written in a fine script are the words,Even in death...
The memory fades but a cord seems to trail from that moment, all the way to the present, and from it a sense of knowing.
Of love.
Of destiny in waiting.
Of destiny unfolding and blossoming to deliver me this female—this person who loves me beyond measure and without condition.
A pair of violet eyes appear in my mind, though I can envision no other detail.
I drop Mareina’s pin like I’ve been scalded, and without consciously knowing how,willit away. The guilt and despair I’d felt at witnessing the unforgivable violence I’d committed remains, but its sharp edges have dulled. Have made room for something else.
Hope.
LAZARUS
“No.” Brows furrowed, Violette stares down at the scroll as though it were nothing more than a stain, or a bit of shit on her shoe. She seems surprisingly... okay? The color has even returned to Levi’s cheeks as he reads the scroll from over her shoulder.
My eyes narrow with uncertainty. “No?”
Violette looks up at me from Azrael’s letter. “No.”
When Levi straightens, finished reading, she crushes it in her delicate fist.
In a flash of flame, the scroll burns to ash that flutters to the ground in the same moment that Violettewillsher fighting leathers to be replaced with one of her gowns. She turns towards Levi, gently patting his cheeks. “Look alive, darling—we ride at dawn.”
What?
Ride at dawn?
Is she... joking?
She stares up at Levi, a small smile tilting her lips with a sparkle of hope in her eyes.
By some miracle, Levi’s mouth actually twitches before curling in a grin. “As you wish, my queen. I shall ready the bugle and trumpets.”
Bugle and trumpets?
Violette’s grin splits wide to accompany unrestrained laughter. Levi chuckles, wrapping his arm around her and presses a kiss to her head. It’s clear they have some kind of inside joke that I’m not part of, and it makes some small, lonely, petty part of me sink.
As if sensing it, their attention shifts to me—and the confused frown on my face.
To my surprise, Levi is the first to extend the proverbial olive branch. “And what of the horses?”
Encouragement sparkles in Violette’s eyes.
It’s clear they’re speaking in universal literary tropes, but for some reason, memory—no pun intended—fails me.
