Page 44 of Craving Their Venom
Then there’s Kaelen. He is my anchor in this turbulent new world. He does not try to teach me or to change me. He simply… is. He sits with me on my balcony in the long, quiet hours of the evening, the two moons casting our shadows on the stone. He brings me scrolls, not of prophecy, but of naga poetry, of their history, of the stories they tell their children. He teachesme their language, not just the words, but the subtle, shifting currents of meaning beneath them.
“Our word for ‘love’,” he explains one evening, his voice a low, melodic hum, “is the same as our word for ‘fate’. We do not see them as separate things. To love is to accept a shared destiny.”
He looks at me, his twilight eyes showing a profound, aching tenderness. “The prophecy did not create our fate, Amara. It merely gave it a name. It showed us the path our souls were already walking, a path that led, inevitably, to you.”
He does not touch me, not since that night in his Orrery. He is giving me space. He is letting me heal. But his presence is a constant, gentle warmth, a spiritual balm on the raw, wounded parts of my soul. He is not trying to decipher me anymore. He is simply learning me.
Today is the Festival of Shattered Light. The entire Capital is alive with a quiet, reverent energy. It is a celebration of the birth of their gods, of the moment the sky, once a single, reflective sheet, was shattered by a surge of cosmic power into a million stars. Tonight, the city will be dark, save for the light of a million hand-lit lanterns, a mirror of the star-dusted sky above.
I stand on my balcony, watching the preparations in the plaza below. A strange, unfamiliar feeling settles in my chest. Finally, since I was dragged into this world, I do not feel like a captive. I feel… a part of something.
They come to me as the sun begins to set, its last rays painting the sky in shades of bruised purple and fiery orange. They do not come as a King, a General, and a High Priest. They come as Varos, Zahir, and Kaelen. They are dressed not in the regalia of their stations, but in simple, dark silks that seem to absorb the fading light.
They do not speak. They simply stand before me, their presence a familiar, overwhelming trinity of power and a new, profound vulnerability.
It is Varos who finally breaks the silence, his voice stripped of its royal authority, raw and uncertain. “We have tried to show you, Amara,” he says, his golden eyes fixed on mine. “With our actions. We have tried to prove that what we feel is not a lie.”
“We have protected you,” Zahir growls, his voice a guttural thing, but the usual rage is gone, replaced instead by a desperate, pleading intensity. “We have honored you. We have… cherished you.” The word sounds strange, foreign on his tongue, but his eyes burn with a fierce, honest truth.
“Our world is changing,” Kaelen says, his voice a soft, melodic whisper that wraps around me like a cloak. “You have changed it. You have changedus. You have taught a King the meaning of justice, a warrior the meaning of mercy, and a mystic the meaning of a faith that is not written in the stars, but is found in a single, human heart.”
They move closer, forming a loose circle around me. The last of the sunlight fades, and in the deepening twilight, the first of the city’s lanterns begin to glow, small, hopeful sparks in the darkness.
“We are not asking you to be a key, or a prophecy, or a queen,” Varos says, his voice thick with an emotion I have never heard from him before. He takes my hand, his touch no longer a claim, but a question. “We are asking you to be our mate. Our heart. Our fate.”
“We love you, Amara,” Zahir says, his voice a broken thing. He takes my other hand, his massive, calloused grip a strange, comforting anchor. “And the thought of a future without you at its center is no future at all.”
“Be our shared destiny,” Kaelen whispers, his twilight eyes shimmering with an impossible, beautiful light.
The words hang in the air, a breathtaking, terrifying, and utterly beautiful plea. The walls around my heart, the ones I have so carefully, so painfully rebuilt, do not just crack. They crumble. They turn to dust.
I look at them, at these three terrible, beautiful monsters who have torn my world apart and then painstakingly, tenderly, tried to piece it back together again. I see the hope and the fear and the profound, absolute love in their eyes. And I know, with a certainty that settles deep in the marrow of my bones, that my own heart has been lying to me. It is not broken. It has simply been waiting.
“Yes,” I whisper, the word a tear, a laugh, a surrender, and a victory all at once.
A collective, shuddering sigh of relief passes through them. The tension that has held them rigid for three months finally breaks, and they are just three naga, their souls laid bare before the woman they love.
I step toward Kaelen first. I cup his face in my hands, his silver-blue scales cool and smooth beneath my palms. “I love you,” I whisper, and I kiss him. It is a gentle, soulful connection, a meeting of spirits, a promise of a shared, sacred peace.
Then I turn to Zahir. I wrap my arms around his massive neck, pulling myself up to meet his mouth. “I love you,” I say against his lips, and I kiss him. It is a kiss of fierce, passionate fire, a raw, honest claiming that is no longer a violation, but a joyous, welcome truth.
I face Varos. The King. My King. He does not wait for me to come to him. He closes the distance between us and frames my face with his hands, his touch a mixture of reverent gentleness and absolute possession. “I love you,” I breathe, and he kisses me. It is a deep, soul-stealing kiss, a king bowing to his queen, a promise of a shared throne, a shared future, a shared eternity.
As we break apart, the city below us erupts in a silent, breathtaking explosion of light. Thousands of lanterns, a galaxy of man-made stars, rise into the night sky, mirroring the cosmos above. A new era for Nagaland has begun.
And I am not a pet, or a captive, or a prophecy.
I am its heart.
30
AMARA
The air in my chambers is ripe with the scent of flowers and sacred herbs. It is a fragrance that is both calming and deeply, terrifyingly final. Kia stands before me, her warm, practical hands a comforting anchor in the swirling vortex of my emotions. She is fastening the last of a series of ribbons into my hair, her movements gentle, her face a mask of profound, tearful joy.
“Patience,” she whispers, her voice thick as she weaves a deep blue ribbon through a dark braid. “Strength,” she murmurs, her fingers tying a crimson one beside it. “Wisdom,” she breathes, her touch reverent as she adds a final, silver-blue strand. The colors of my mates. The colors of my new life.
I look at my reflection in the polished silver mirror. The woman staring back is a stranger, a creature of myth and legend. The traditional naga mating dress is a masterpiece of woven silk and intricate beadwork, the color of a pale, dawning sky. It is heavy, the weight of it a constant, reassuring pressure on my shoulders. It is a queen’s garment, and at last, it does not feel like a costume. It feels… right.
