Page 3 of Bought By the Manticore

I’d thought the one-eyed satyr had lied to me, but what if he hadn’t? Ever since the Thorn-Sickness crawled underneath my skin, I’d known I was damned. Where, then, could I belong, if not in the lands that oozed damnation?

I had no strength left. The vines had drained me dry a long time ago, and without Fera, I wouldn’t have been able to even feed myself.

Somehow, I managed to throw the blanket off my frail body and slide out of bed. I didn’t know where I was going, but perhaps I didn’t need to. The Blight had come for me. It might lead me in the right direction.

The asphodels lit a path through the Blighted Lands. I followed them over black rock and dead earth, into groves of petrified trees. I fell more times than I could count, but each time, I got back up. The asphodels kept blooming ahead of me, patient and unhurried. It was almost as if they understood I could only move so fast.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped falling. The deeper I went into the Blighted Lands, the stronger my legs became. The Blight was doing something to the Sickness itself. It pressed the thorns down, the way a heavy snow quieted a restless field.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the ground began to slope. The asphodels kept leading me forward, toward a distant, dark beach. Beyond it lay the water, a lake that spread as far as the eye could see.

The mere glimpse of it froze me in my tracks. But then, a woman’s voice drifted through the fog.

“Why are we waiting here, Charon? You said she’d come tonight.”

Charon. The name was unfamiliar, but it still made shivers rush down my spine. Each syllable carried a finality that threatened to bring me to my knees all over again. But I didn’t fall. Instead, I kept listening.

“She will come, or she will not,” Charon said, and somehow, his voice was both a whisper and a shout. “Either way, we do not leave this shore until the water releases us.”

He knew I was here. I could tell. But he wouldn’t come for me. I needed to step forward myself.

The woman huffed in frustration. “You’re talking in riddles again. You know that’s not an answer.”

“It is the only answer I have. The only one she needs.”

The woman fell silent, and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I followed the final echoes of the voices down the slope, half-walking, half-sliding on the loose rock.

The mineral smell of the lake rolled over me as the ground leveled out. My bare feet found the wet stones of the shore. I kept moving until the mist parted enough to show me what was waiting.

A barge sat on the water close to the shore. Upon first glance, there was nothing particularly ornate about its simple build. It looked deceptively harmless. But when I squinted, the wood itself seemed to twitch and twist underneath the barge’spassengers. It was almost like the way the Thorn-Sickness moved underneath my skin, and yet, it didn’t scare me.

The woman I’d heard earlier stood near the bow, her arms tightly crossed. She was silver-haired and pale, and her skin carried a glow that reminded me of the asphodels. The moment she saw me, something in her expression shifted. A flicker of surprise crossed her face, as if she’d been expecting something different. Perhaps… worse?

Next to her stood a massive, hooded figure. Ancient coins drifted in slow orbits around him, and his eyes glowed with blue fire. He held a pole the length of a ship’s mast in one hand. When he turned toward me, the coins moved with him.

“You are death-touched,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“So I’ve been told.” I stopped at the water’s edge. “And you are… Charon.”

“Indeed.” He tilted his hooded head. “I am the ferryman of the dead. And you have walked a long way to ask a question you already know the answer to.”

“I like to be sure.” My legs remained steady beneath me, which still felt like a small miracle after months of barely being able to stand. “A satyr in my village told me the city on the other side takes women like me.”

“Takesis perhaps… a poor word.” The woman smiled at me, a small twist of lips that somehow made her look more alive.“We’re welcomed on the other side of the lake. We have a chance.”

It was almost too good to be true. My skepticism must have shown, because the woman kept speaking. “Perhaps you feel afraid or alone now. But you should know… my name is Medea, and my touch used to kill everything it came in contact with. Flowers, animals, people. Anything living that brushed against my skin withered and died.”

I stared at her hands. They were steady and uncovered. They looked completely harmless. Just hands. “What changed?” I asked. “What did you find there?”

“A home.” Her hand drifted to her chest, the kind of gesture that came from habit. “People who look at me and don’t see a weapon. Someone who touches me and doesn’t—”

She stopped herself, and the softness that crossed her face finished the thought better than any words could have.

I thought about what Silenus had told me, about the pale girl who’d run away from the Argonauts. This was her, the woman who’d guided the Blight toward Colchis. But it didn’t matter, not really.

“Medea, I’m sure she’s heard enough.” Charon’s pole scraped against the deck with a low grinding that cut through the quiet. “We are not here to trade histories.”

“I know.” Medea didn’t look away from me. “But she needs to know it’s worth it before you tell her the price of the Bride Market.”