“Eons ago, we saw the end of our threads. All of them.” Lachesis’s voice hardened. “Billions of strands, all our work, severed. Because of you. Your power kept growing, far beyond what you were meant to be. A minor goddess of spring—flowers and fragility. You should have remained nothing. Yet you became the greatest threat any of us had ever foreseen.”
“You would command life, death, and fate itself,” Atropos cut in, her red eyes blazing. “You would unravel every balance we have woven. Destroy all we built.”
“We could not allow that,” Lachesis continued. “Could we?”
“No,” Atropos said, her voice final. “We could not.”
“So we crafted this curse. An elaborate cosmic design that required all three of us, working together for centuries. It was our greatest labor, our pride.” Lachesis’s expression shifted into something almost admiring. “However, we also did not wish your talent wasted. Your weaving surpasses even our own, my dearest. It would be a shame to destroy such a great gift.”
She smiled then, and it was the most terrifying sight.
“And thus one of us shall become you. We will take your body, your power. After much debate, that honor falls to me.”
They wanted to possess me. To steal my body, my power, my very essence. All that made me who I was.
“You would be trapped in my mortal form,” I said. “You would die.”
“Once I take hold, I will seize your divine power. The curse will lift because I willbeyou, and I will choose to end it.” Her gaze grew dreamy. “I will live as a goddess should. I will relish the pleasures of the flesh. As you have… tasted.”
She meant Nero. Hades. She wanted to fuck my mate.
The thought of that imposter in his bed made my skin crawl, my stomach turn, my blood run cold.
I fought back the nausea rushing to my head. “He’ll know it isn’t me. And he’ll tear you apart.”
“He will never know, dearest.” Lachesis grinned, a sensual, anticipatory light in her eyes. “You got all your memories back before you came here, but you never told him, did you? You hoarded your secrets, as you always do. And it will bite you in the ass, as mortals usually say.”
I swallowed against the icy knot in my throat.
Secrets destroying relationships. The oldest story there was.
“He cannot save you this final time, either,” she continued, clearly savoring the sound of her musical yet sinister voice. “Just as he was always one step behind when you died. But this time—your hundredth life—I will go to him as you. I will comfort him. Let him believe his queen has finally returned to him, whole and loving.” She sighed, content. “So take comfort, Bloom. In a way, you will live on. Through me.”
A fool would ask, “Why do you do this to me?”
A fool would whimper, would beg, would appeal to her better nature.
But the Fates had no better nature.
And I was no fool.
I attacked.
Chapter
Sixteen
Bloom
Fire and Stolen Threads
The three sisters wove in unison, their fingers dancing a ritual of possession. Threads of ink and silver spiraled from their hands, coiling around the single strand of my hundredth life. Once the weave was complete, I would be erased. One of them would wear my skin.
I’d struck first. The cuffs fell from my wrists, clattering against stone.
The sisters froze, their eyes widening in disbelief. That hesitation was all I needed.
I had unbound the spells in the cuffs hours ago, while being dragged through the forest. In silence, while I’d unraveled their magic thread by thread, I’d woven my own mimicry in its place. The sisters had failed to tell the difference.
