The Viper's Auspicious Match
By @john1208
The breathless chase through the monsoon-drenched terraces of the Sunya Highlands ends with Dakhni in chains, shoved into a wedding palanquin. Her punishment for a failed escape? Replacing her cowardly stepsister in an auspicious marriage to Vorath, the comatose lord of House Oraphas. Vorath is afflicted by a demonic miasma that blisters the skin of anyone who approaches. But Dakhni is armed with a proud, unforgiving nature and the Pramana System - a magical, extradimensional medicinal garden. With cold precision, she draws out his miasma to secure her own sanctuary.
When Vorath awakens, he isn’t the stoic warlord the legends claim. Instead, he becomes fiercely protective, clinging to the only woman who didn’t abandon him and slaughtering anyone who insults his new bride. But as Dakhni delves into her system's locked archives, she uncovers a chilling truth. She didn't stumble into this fate. Her recent, pre-amnesia self planted the miasma in him years ago to use his body as a living incubator for a lethal revenge-toxin, intentionally orchestrating this very marriage to harvest it. What will her obsessively devoted husband do when he realizes his beloved savior is the architect of his torment?
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