Page 45 of Bought By the Manticore

I stayed where I was, watching her go.

The damp chill of the cavern barely had a second to creep back into the empty archway before the darkness behind me shifted. The freezing air was smothered by a familiar warmth as a thick arm wrapped securely around my waist.

I let myself lean back into the immovable wall of Skaros’s chest. He pulled me flush against his side, his furred fingers coming up to cover mine. The thick pad of his thumb pressed directly over the golden mark on my hand, his sharp claws resting carefully against my skin.

The mark flared with sudden heat.

You are hovering,Skaros’s voice rumbled directly inside my mind.

“I’m guiding,” I murmured aloud, turning my hand over to lace my fingers through his. “I thought you were helping Aion harvest today.”

We finished early,he replied through the bond, shifting his weight behind me. His leathery wings tucked closer against his back to accommodate the narrow walls of our archway.And I had to come see you. I realized you had been standing in the cold for hours.

“She needed someone to explain the ritual,” I said.

Skaros looked out over the amphitheater. His amber eyes analyzed the bidders with the innate precision of a predator. He watched the scaled brute in the lowest gallery and shook his head. “That one wants to look wealthy, but he smells desperate. He won’t be chosen today.”

“He’ll be chosen when he finds the right bride for him. After all, you never had to stand on the auction block for me.”

“No,” Skaros agreed, his grip tightening securely around my fingers. The blunt edge of a claw brushed gently over the silk at my hip. “I avoided the bidding entirely and sneaked into your infirmary room. And I chose you anyway.”

Light from the braziers flickered across the central stage. “If you had stood out there,” I asked, “would you have wanted to look wealthy? Or would you have waited to place your bid?”

I wouldn’t have played their game at all,Skaros answered, the mental rumble laced with absolute sincerity.

“I would have buried the stage in death spheres,” he added aloud, leaning down to drag his muzzle along my temple. “And if they had tried to outbid me, I would have fought every beast in those galleries until the Moirae threw me out.”

I smiled, letting my weight settle fully against him. We stood together in the quiet shadows, watching the spectacle of the Bride Market unfold on the other side of the archway.

Below, Phix introduced the new bride. The moment she finished speaking, bids exploded from the crowd. Some monsters threw fistfuls of death crystals onto the stage, practically begging for the attention of the death-touched woman. It wasn’t quite as overwhelming as the brief moments I’d spent on the auction block, but it was close.

The bride took it in stride. She bypassed the scaled brute and the posturing monsters in the upper rings. She scanned the tiers until she stopped, lifting her hand to point at a quiet, winged shade sitting motionless in the lowest gallery.

The Moirae’s magic flared through the cavern, a brief flash of silver-blue sealing the choice. The crowd settled into deferential acceptance.

The circle was complete. The Bride Market was no longer a nightmare defined by my own failing body, but simply a doorway to a new life. I turned my face into Skaros’s shoulder and let the warmth of his hold anchor me to my home.

The mist of Lake Acheron clung to the edge of the Stygian Docks, cold and dense.

I stood at the very end of the basalt pier. The dark water churned below me, the waves slapping a relentless rhythm against the stone pilings. I kept my hands folded loosely inside the sleeves of my dark robes. The damp wind bit through the fabric, carrying the sharp scent of deep water and distant earth.

I didn’t turn my head back toward the city. I knew what lay behind me. Asphodelia was quiet, its black marble avenues bathed in the familiar flicker of death energy.

Somewhere in the heart of that peace, a human woman walked freely beside a manticore. Today, they were no doubt watching over the newest Bride Market. But there was no room for me in the Agora of Echoes. Just like there was no room in Asphodelia.

Beside me, Iaso pulled her woven shawl tighter around her shoulders, her bronze serpents hissing in discomfort at the chill. “You are truly taking nothing with you? No tinctures? No salves?”

“I am an ambassador now, Iaso. I do not need the Temple’s tools for this.”

For centuries, my entire existence had been defined by the isolation of Thanatos’s Temple. I had measured out preservation and peace according to ancient texts. I’d believed in a clean divide between life and death, and I’d clung to those rules so tightly that I’d nearly destroyed a miracle.

Ianthe and Skaros had shattered my narrow world entirely. They’d proven that the line between a curse and a cure was razor-thin. Skaros’s feral hunger had saved her, while my perfect adherence to the law had nearly doomed her. I didn’t need the Temple’s wisdom to forge peace with the living.

The obsidian serpents of my own hair settled around my forehead, tasting the moisture in the fog. I lifted my hand, my fingertips brushing the edge of the dark silk tied securely across my eyes.

A Korinos clan ambushed me at the border centuries ago. Their weapons had fractured my weave. They had twisted my gorgon gaze into something impossible, a lethal weapon that was a threat even to my own people.

Iaso’s eyes were harmless against Thanatos’s children. My own? They always destroyed. The blindfold was a cage, the only thing keeping the city safe from my sight.