Page 7 of Bought By the Manticore

I knew what it was. I knew it in the way only something rooted and growing ever could. The thing inside her was alive like I was, a network of roots and stems pushing through soil that didn’t belong to it. Plant matter, tangled beneath her skin, feeding on what fed her. And it was finally waking from its dormancy.

The dead-walker shot to his feet, trembling with excitement. “Fifteen thousand death crystals! And I’ll outbid anyone who pushes further! Even you, Alecto!”

In the upper tier, the Keres sniffed in disdain. But I barely heard her. Ianthe was stumbling. Her weight shifted unnaturally, and her legs were growing weaker. The sweetness in her energy was disappearing, swallowed by the feverish growth beneath.

The lion-woman’s scent grew acrid with sudden stress, and she pivoted toward the stage.

I pushed. Every root I had in the amphitheater strained toward the stage. The asphodels at the threshold reached across the obsidian, stems stretching, growing faster than I had ever forced them. Growing through stone was slow, agonizing work, like forcing myself through a crack that was never meant to open. Each inch cost me something I couldn’t name.

“Eighteen thou—” someone started to say.

Ianthe screamed.

The thing inside her erupted. Dark, jagged thorns burst from her skin, splitting her arms and shoulders, climbing up her neck. I could taste them through the stone, bitter, sharp, and alive. The death energy permeating the air soured as everyone recoiled in confusion and fear.

Ianthe hit the obsidian. Her heartbeat stuttered once, twice, and went faint.

The lion-woman was already moving, her heavy paws striking the stage as she closed the distance to Ianthe’s side. The crowd was a chaos of shifting energy, monsters rising from their seats.

My asphodels were still crawling across the stage. Halfway there. Ianthe was at the center, bleeding, the thorns still sprouting from her skin. Just a little farther, just a little faster…

The lion-woman—Phix, the Sphinx, my mother—took my mate in her arms. And then they were gone, and I was left behind.

Everyone thought I was Skaros no longer, and that I had no right to claim a death-touched bride. I’d just have to prove them wrong.

3

The Damned Flowers

Ianthe

There was something sweet and almost comforting about pain. Pain meant you were still alive to feel, that your skin could still experience sensation. Pain could be as much of a gift as it was a curse.

Or at least, that was what the old shamans said. After all the time I’d spent in constant torture, I’d never believed it. Back in my village, I’d have done anything to be free of it.

Perhaps that had changed, because when the pain woke me, the first thing I felt was relief. The Thorn-Sickness had flared while I was unconscious, and the vines bulged under my skin, worse than before. Every breath ground them against my ribs, turning even shallow inhales into something I had to brace for.

But I was alive.

I didn’t know where I was. The room was carved from pale stone, lit by death crystals growing on the walls in graceful clusters. The bed beneath me was softer than anything I’d ever slept on. None of it was familiar. The last thing I remembered was the obsidian stage, the roar of the crowd, and then nothing.

“Easy.” A woman’s hand pressed gently against my shoulder when I tried to sit up. “The thorns are agitated. You’ll make it worse.”

I flinched from the touch before I could stop myself. The woman didn’t pull back. She kept her hand steady and waited for me to settle. “Calm yourself, Ianthe. You’re safe now.”

I turned and tried to focus on her, on anything else that wasn’t the Thorn-Sickness. It worked better than it should have. She was beautiful and monstrous in a way only the Blighted Ones could ever be. When I met her eyes, they glowed a soft silver.

Her hair moved on its own. Slender bronze serpents, woven into braids, swayed as she leaned over me. One of them turned its tiny head toward my arm and flicked its tongue against one of the straining vines.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“My name is Iaso. I’m the chief healer of Asphodelia.” She lifted her hand from my shoulder only when she was sure I’d stopped trying to rise. “You’ve been in my care since the Agora.”

“The Agora,” I repeated, trying to get my bearings. “I don’t remember what happened.”

“The amphitheater was full. Hundreds of monsters, all radiating concentrated death energy.” Iaso pulled a low stool beside the bed and sat. “Your body absorbed the surge, and your condition reacted. The thorns erupted through your skin on stage.”

I looked down at my arms. New lines traced the surface where the thorns had torn their way out. Thin, raised scars, tender and red. I ran my thumb along one of them.