Epilogue
Ianthe & Eryx
The young woman had arrived two nights earlier from a northern province of the Korinos Wilds.
She stood beside me in the shadowed alcove overlooking the Agora of Echoes.
The dark Asphodelian silk hung loosely over her narrow frame.
I knew her story because it was a common one.
She had caught a winter sickness and survived, but the illness had left her barren.
The woodland clans valued only women who could bear children, so they had simply packed up their camp and left her behind in the snow.
She had walked to the lake, paid the Ferryman’s toll, and chosen Asphodelia.
Today, she had to face the Bride Market.
Down in the underground amphitheater, the air was thick with the heat of the bronze braziers and the restless energy of the crowd. Hundreds of bidders packed the carved galleries. They shifted their bulk, their guttural rumbles vibrating up through the stone floorboards.
The young woman gripped the edge of our stone archway, her knuckles turning white. She stared at a scaled brute in the closest tier as he fidgeted impatiently, his unblinking eyes locked on our alcove.
I stepped closer, covering her cold hands with my own.
“Look past their size,” I told her, pitching my voice softly to slip beneath the noise of the cavern. “The Blighted Ones are more than what they seem.”
She blinked, tearing her gaze away from the brute to look at me. “They haven’t stopped staring.”
I pressed my palms flat over her hands, offering her the anchor she needed. “They use their death crystals to prove they have the strength to harvest. They’ll want to show they can provide for you in a world that cast you out.”
She swallowed hard and bit her lower lip in obvious anxiety.
“But the crystals don’t mean anything, not for you,” I continued, making sure she heard every syllable. “Every monster out there is bound by the law of the Moirae. They offer. You make the final choice. You hold the power. Just like in the bride markets in Korinos.”
Out on the central stage, Phix rose to her full height. The sphinx stretched her golden wings, and the low growls faded into a tense, expectant silence.
I let go of the girl’s hands and stepped back into the shadows.
The young bride took a slow, deep breath. She smoothed her palms down the front of her silk tunic. Without looking back, she stepped out of the alcove and walked into the bright light of the braziers to join the sphinx.
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.
It was exactly why the Moirae had summoned me.
“The Blighted Lands expand, and the people of the Wilds are panicked,” Lachesis told me two nights ago, her voice echoing over the rhythmic clack of the Loom.
“They do not understand the shifting borders, and fear breeds war. We do not need a soldier to slaughter them, Eryx. We need an envoy who knows their brutality, who has suffered their panic, and who still possesses the restraint to offer them peace.”
I dropped my hand from my blindfold.
“If the mortals had needed medicine, the Moirae would have sent you,” I told my sister, turning my face back toward the invisible expanse of the lake. “But it’s not our healing talents that will serve me on this journey.”
A hollow thud resonated through the thick fog, the sound of wood grinding against the stone pier. The metallic whispering of ancient coins drifted over the slow murmur of the waves. As always, the massive prow of the Ferryman’s barge had stopped perfectly against the edge of the docks.
“The currents are shifting, Eryx of Asphodelia.”
Charon’s voice seemed to rise directly from the dark water. The Ferryman stood at the helm of his barge, leaning his weight against his ceremonial pole.
“They are,” I agreed softly.
“Asphodelia can no longer exist in absolute isolation. A bridge must be built. The Moirae believe you are the one who can do it. Do you have the strength for this task?”
This was not about strength. My sanctuary in Thanatos’s Temple had been quiet and safe.
But I had failed my last patient inside those walls.
My penance and my true purpose lay beyond the safety of the city’s wards.
I had to step into the chaotic expanse of the Wilds.
I had to become the Ambassador of Asphodelia.
I didn’t answer Charon. Instead, I turned toward my sister and hugged her one last time. “Stay safe, Iaso. Heal them the way I never could.”
“Speak to them, the way I never could,” she replied. “Safe travels, Ambassador.”
I stepped off the edge of the stone pier and onto the wooden deck of the barge.
My snakes showed me Iaso’s figure so clearly. Would I see anything at all in the Wilds? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t let that scare me.
The vessel swayed slightly under my weight, then settled. Charon did not offer any further words. The Ferryman drove his pole into the dark water, pushing the wood away from the docks. I kept my face turned toward the thick fog, leaving Asphodelia behind as we drifted out into the unknown.
Ianthe’s terrifying moment on the auction block turned out to be the gateway to a beautiful life with Skaros.
Now, the Monsters’ Bride Market is calling another soul.
Eryx bids a fortune in gold to claim a mortal political sacrifice, fully intending to treat their union as nothing more than a solemn duty.
But his isolated estate is about to get a lot brighter, because his new bride isn't about to let the ghosts of his past win.