Asphodelia spread out below us, a breathtaking kaleidoscope of dark buildings and glowing crystals. It was not a terrifying map of tangled fates. It was just… a city. Beautiful. Unusual. But real.
We banked, a graceful turn that aimed us toward the distant shadow of the Keres Spire. I leaned my head back against his shoulder, letting the wind whip through my hair. “Is flying always like this for you? I understand why you like it so much.”
To my surprise, Phonos shook his head. “I think it’s different now,” he answered, his voice so low it was almost inaudible. “Everything I did before, everything I was… I’m not sure how I feel about it now.”
The problem wasn’t flying. It was the fact that my death had challenged his entire worldview. I opened my mouth to reassure him, but the words died in my throat.
As we passed over the city’s center, my eyes fell upon a familiar sight. It was the massive, gaping archway carved into the earth, the main gate to the subterranean Agora of Echoes.
I went rigid, and Phonos instantly sensed it. “Daphne? What’s wrong?”
The simple act of speaking suddenly felt like a monumental effort. “The auction. It requires a death-touched bride. That is the binding condition.”
Phonos pressed his lips together so tightly they went white. “That doesn’t matter anymore, Daphne.”
I wanted that to be true, for us to be free of everything, like I’d said. But a worm of apprehension still wriggled at the back of my mind.
“Phonos, by their laws… we aren’t mated. We never were. Your claim on me is void.”
Phonos slowed, hovering in the sky, his gaze following mine to the maw of the entrance below. His grip on me tightened, and his expression hardened into something cold and possessive. “Then we will forge a bond that needs neither their laws nor their threads.”
He veered down sharply, and we dove straight toward the gates of the Agora. The wind shrieked past, tugging at our skin and clothes like a rabid beast. I snapped my eyes shut, overwhelmed by Phonos’s sheer speed.
Before long, the crisp feel of the open sky gave way to the damp chill of the Asphodelian underground. Phonos’s wings, powerful and sure, unerringly guided us through the corridors. But it was only when he slowed down that I finally dared to open my eyes.
Silent tiers spiraled past us, the dim light from death crystals casting ominous shadows over the walls. Every motion of Phonos’s wings seemed to twist the darkness into the ghostly shapes of the monsters who’d once screamed for me. But I hadn’t been afraid of them then, and I wasn’t now.
We landed with a dull thud, Phonos’s feet meeting the hard stone of the arena floor. Directly before us stood the bone rostrum. The auction block.
Phonos set me down, but he didn’t let me go. His hands stayed locked on my waist, his wings half-unfurled to block out the rest of the empty arena. “The Moirae told me something, Daphne. They said that every monster here craved you because they could scent death on you.”
The revelation settled like a cold stone in my gut. So that was why. The reason for their insatiable hunger. It made a sickening amount of sense.
“I failed you then. I couldn’t even see what they did.” His voice dropped to a low, dangerous growl. “But so did their laws and their ways. Those rituals… They are for those bound by threads. We are not.”
He cupped my face, his taloned thumbs stroking my cheekbones. The heat from his stare was a brand against my skin, a desperate, possessive fire. “You are mine,” he murmured, the final word a ghost of a touch against my lips. “That is the only law. The only claim that matters.”
The restlessness in my gut finally quieted. His words burned away the last of my misgivings. I had faced fate and let my fear of flying go. There was nothing left to be afraid of.
He seemed to sense the shift in me, the final, quiet surrender. With a soft rustle, a cascade of black feathers fell from his wings,settling into a thick pallet at the foot of the rostrum. “No cold stone for you,” he murmured against my neck. “Only me.”
As he gently laid me down, the feathers molded to my back, their living warmth seeming to hum against my skin. Phonos hovered above me. His eyes took in every inch of me with a look of raw, painful awe.
I knew exactly how he felt. After all, a part of me still struggled with the knowledge that we could have this. But if we were here, now, it was precisely because nothing could hold us back ever again. “Only you,” I told him. “And we’ll never lose each other again.”
My words broke something in him. A choked sound escaped his throat, and he lowered his head, resting his forehead against mine. For a long moment, he just breathed, and the warmth of it made me feel more alive than I’d ever been.
When he finally kissed me, the touch was so gentle it was almost painful. It was a soft, searching pressure, a desperate confirmation that I was real, that I was here, safe in his arms.
The gentleness of his kiss was a promise, but it left an ache for something more. It was proof that my new body was not just alive, but hungry. He’d been treating me like a priceless, fragile thing. But I was not made of glass. Not anymore.
I pulled back, just enough to meet his gaze. “Please, Phonos. I didn’t come back to you to be worshiped. I came back to be yours.”
For a heartbeat, his eyes widened, a flash of surprise. Then the shock was gone, replaced by something dark and primal. In complete silence, he reached for the fastenings at my shoulders and peeled the fabric away.
Time seemed to slow. Until then, it had been almost too easy to pretend things hadn’t changed at all, that my flesh was just as human as it had always been.
But the moment the material fell aside, something changed. It was as if his gaze awoke a secret hidden inside my new form. A thousand tiny needles prickled over my skin, but it didn’t hurt.
