Page 32 of Bought By the Manticore

“The sickness is awake,” he said, his voice laced with genuine sorrow. “I can hear the distress in your pulse, Ianthe. The fever is rising.”

He stepped closer, holding out the flask. “Drink this. It will mute the pain while I continue looking for a solution.”

I knew exactly what the icy draught would do. The cold would rush into my blood, freezing the parasite. It would also lock Skaros out, ensuring he couldn’t reach me even if he managed to tear the city apart trying.

But refusing the medicine wouldn’t break the wards of this cage. It would only leave me screaming on the floor while Eryxwatched, convinced I was breaking down. And Skaros wouldn’t want me to be in pain.

I reached out and took the flask from his hand.

Eryx let out a weary sigh of relief. He believed I had surrendered. He believed the shade’s influence was finally fading from my mind, leaving behind a compliant patient.

I pulled the cork free, raised the glass to my lips, and swallowed the draught in one quick gulp.

The cold hit me instantly. It was an unnatural chill that plunged straight into my chest, coating my veins in frost. The agonizing pressure of the Thorn-Sickness vanished, locked away behind a wall of ice. My limbs grew heavy, dragged down by the sheer weight of the numbness. I slumped back against the stone bench, my fingers going slack.

But I kept my eyes open. I stared directly at the dark silk covering Eryx’s eyes.

“Aion gave me a gift a few days ago,” I said. Every word was a struggle, but I forced myself to speak anyway. “He brought me a scroll written by his father. It explained the difference between a tool and a person.”

Eryx tilted his head, his brow furrowing above the blindfold. “Charon’s teachings are sacred. Why speak of them now?”

“Because you are treating me like a tool, Eryx.” I lifted my hand, letting the heavy parchment of the scroll rest on my lap. “You look at me, and you see a broken vessel that needs to be fixed. You believe you know what is best for my body, and you are disregarding my mind.”

Eryx straightened his back. The garden mists swirled harmlessly around his feet. “I am protecting you from a hunter. Skaros’s shade took advantage of your illness.”

“You brought me to this Temple against my will,” I countered. “You isolated me from the mate I chose. You are forcing your protection on me, stripping away my right to make my own decisions.”

“Your decisions were clouded—”

“They were mine.” I cut him off. “If Skaros was a shade, then he was my shade. If what we shared was a mistake, it was my mistake to make. I am a person, Eryx. I have a soul.”

Eryx stood perfectly still. The serpents in his hair ceased their restless movement, hanging motionless around his face. The accusation landed hard. I was looking at a man whose entire existence was dedicated to mending, and I had just told him he was breaking me.

“By locking me in here,” I continued, the cold creeping up my throat, “you are not saving my life. You are just killing me in a different way. Your draught freezes the thorns, but it freezes me, too. You’re numbing my pain, but numbness isn’t a life.”

Eryx flinched. He knew I was telling the truth. But he wasn’t one to give up so quickly. “I know this isn’t ideal,” he finally murmured. “But I swear to you, Ianthe. I will find a way. I’ll free you from the sickness, and from the parasite.”

Turning his back to me, he walked away, his boots silent against the basalt. The mist parted, swallowing his tall figure as he retreated from the sanctuary.

He left me alone in the freezing dark. And as the numbness pulled me under, all I had as an anchor was the scroll still clutched in my hand.

Skaros’s shade was persistent.

I stood in my research chamber, grinding a chunk of death crystals into dust. Normally, the repetitive process was soothing, the simple motions anchoring me in the reality I’d been cut off from so long ago. But today, few things could contain my fury.

In all my years as a healer, I’d never witnessed an entity as violent and vicious as Skaros the manticore. Truly, I’d never have expected a beast like this to emerge from the Moirae’s design. But after seeing what Skaros had done to Ianthe, I could only assume a fatal flaw had occurred during its creation.

In hindsight, I should have seen this coming long ago. The rabid shade had been stalking Asphodelia’s death-touched brides foryears. But I’d remembered the manticore who’d once wanted to join Thanatos’s Temple, and I’d thought,“It means nothing.”

I’d made a mistake, and an innocent had paid the price for it.

My snakes swirled and hissed around my head. I’d seen the brutal attack through their eyes, and they knew, as I did, just how gruesome it had been.

“Kill it,”they said.

“Hunt it,”they told me.

“Erase it,”they insisted.