Chapter Eight – Venom and Wine

The chandeliers dripped gold. Masks glittered, laughter echoed, and the masquerade ball at Roverthhood shimmered like a trap wrapped in silk. Elara wears a black mask concealing everything except her eyes asGowns swirled around her and jewels flashed; she pulsed at the edge of the hall though she could be seen even in the shadows. She felt each and every stare.

Alice holding a glass of wine flourished under that spotlight, she walked  through the crowd in a gown that spilled like molten silver.

 She spotted Elara instantly, smiling sharp as broken glass.

“Elara Vale,” she purred, voice carrying just enough for others to hear. “Roverthhood’s resident tragedy. I was starting to wonder if you’d bother showing up. After all, what’s a ball without a little pity?”

Laughter rippled. Elara didn’t flinch. She walked past Alice toward the table lined with crystal glasses. A servant offered her one. Before Elara could take it, Alice snatched another, pouring its contents smoothly into the one meant for her. She held it out with mock sweetness.

“Here,” Alice said, voice honeyed with venom. “You care for a drink?”

Elara met Alice’s gaze, then accepted the glass without blinking.

Her throat burned from the first sip. It was acid covered in sweetness, not wine.  skin felt like it tore apart  with a tightening on her  chest as pain rushed through her veins, she staggered gripping  the table, the mask slipped off.

“Elara?” someone murmured.

Robert rushed there before the crowd could see her break. He slipped his arm around her waist, steady, commanding and guided her swiftly behind the  velvet curtains, shielding her from collapsing as she gasped, coughing, her lips trembled.

“Breathe,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

She pressed against him, fighting the burn. He pressed a handkerchief to her lips, eyes blazing.

“What did they give you?”

“Wine,” she croaked. Her voice broke on the word.

Robert clenched his jaw whispering quietly. “No. Venom. “Alice will pay for this.”

She caught his sleeve, her grip weak. “No—don’t. Not here.”

“Elara—”

“Don’t.” Her eyes burned with more than poison. “They want me to be weak and they will never see me break”

He brushed a lock of hair from her cheek with trembling fingers clearing her face as his anger was burning cold, but his touch was gentle.

“Then we’ll play it your way,” he murmured. “But Alice won’t escape me forever.”

---

Later,  the music start again and Elara stepped into the gardens for air. The lanterns glowed faintly and the  marble paths full of shadows, she leaned against a column still shaky  when a voice cut through the night.

“You wear fire well.”

Derek emerged from the shadows, mask gleaming green beneath the lanterns. He carried himself like a king in exile, dangerous and magnetic.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Elara said.

“Neither should you,” he countered, stepping closer. “Yet here you are, choking on their venom and still standing. That’s why I want you, Elara.”

Her throat tightened. “Want me?”

He smiled, wolfish. “With me, they’ll all kneel. Every brat in this academy, every viper in your family. No one dares touch what belongs to me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I am not interested in you.”

He grinned  sharply. “Not yet.” He reached out, fingers brushing her arm. “But you will.”

She shoved his hand away as  he unsettled  near her tugging at something dangerous inside her. He leaned closer an inch from her  lips.

“Elara,” he whispered, “choose me. And I’ll burn the world for you.”

Before his lips could touch hers, Robert tore him back. The roses Derek had once offered scattered across the path, crushed beneath Robert’s boot.

“Stay away from her,” Robert growled, fists clenched.

Derek laughed, sharp and mocking. “Protective, Sinclair? Or possessive? You don’t get to guard her like some trophy.”

“She’s not yours to break,” Robert spat.

“And she’s not yours to save,” Derek snapped back.

They clashed beneath the lantern light, masks half torn, every punch echoing with fury. Gasps rose as students gathered at the edges of the garden, hungry for blood.

“Elara,” Derek shouted mid-swing, “tell him! Tell him you feel it too—that you’re fire, not ice. You belong with me!”

“Enough!” Elara’s voice cut the night.

The duel froze. Every eye turned to her.

But before she could speak, a new voice slid through the crowd like oil.

“Elara?”

Felicia. Her mask glittered pale pink, her smile sharp and cruel. She stepped into the garden, arms spread as though embracing an audience.

“Dearest sister,” she said sweetly. “Have you told them? That you begged Mother for forgiveness? That you wrote her letter after letter, pleading to come home?”

Laughter spread like wildfire. Whispers slithered: pathetic, desperate, ghost-child.

Elara’s chest tightened. Rage boiled, grief pressing close behind it. She could have broken. She could have hidden.

Instead, she stepped forward. The garden lanterns flickered. The candles along the path flared taller, shadows lengthening. The air grew hotter, heavier.

Whispers died. Laughter fell silent.

Every mask turned toward her. Not as a victim. Not as prey. But as something untouchable.

Her voice was steady, sharp as flame. “I begged no one. And I bow to nothing.”

The flames obeyed her, roaring higher for only a moment, before dimming again. Silence followed, trembling in the air.

When she left the garden, no one dared mock her again.

---

But the night’s poison lingered. Later, alone in her room, she learned the venom in her cup was no accident. A whisper slipped through the walls, from a servant too frightened to name her master.

Alice hadn’t acted alone.

The venom had come from Derek.

Her chest cracked with betrayal. He hadn’t sought to save her. He’d sought to test her—how much she could endure, how far her fire could be pushed.

She pressed trembling fingers against her lips where he had nearly kissed her. Revulsion and something darker twisted inside her. His obsession was no game—it was war.

That night, she dreamed again of the temple in  flickered fire across the ancient stone of a goddess cloaked in shadows.

The  voice of the goddess embers as she  leaned closer.

“Pain is your teacher,” she murmured. “Burn… or be consumed.”

Elara woke with fire curling at her fingertips.