The roar did not fade so much as it was absorbed, the sound swallowed by the ancient, hungry stones until the silence that followed was its own kind of noise, thick and heavy and vibrating with a promise of violence. It was the silence of a predator calculating, of infinite rage being compressed into a diamond-hard point of focus. Elara stood her ground, her heart a frantic, trapped bird against her ribs, the new and terrifying power in her veins a strange, humming counter-rhythm to her fear.
Valerius, the Serpent God, did not roar again. He slowly lifted his head, the molten gold of his eyes fixing on her with an intensity that felt like a physical weight. The fury was still there, a banked fire in the depths of his gaze, but it was controlled, honed. It was somehow more terrifying than his previous unbound rage.
"A husband," he repeated, the word a soft, venomous thing that seemed to slither through the air between them. "You presume to chain me with a word. You believe this… parlor trick… this twisting of forgotten rules, changes what you are?" He attempted a dismissive gesture, but the chains of solidified moonlight flared, restraining the movement to a slight, infuriating twitch of his fingers. "You are a mayfly. A speck of dust. A brief, flickering light. You have merely made yourself a more interesting speck."
Elara's fear began to curdle into something else—a sharp, defiant anger that burned away the last of her trembling. She had just rewritten her fate with a piece of forgotten, dangerous magic, and he called it a parlor trick? "It seems to have changed something," she said, her voice steadier than she felt, echoing slightly in the vast chamber. "You're not eating me."
A muscle ticked in his jaw, a minute betrayal of his simmering anger. "A temporary state. All bonds can be broken. Even marital ones." He said the last two words with exquisite distaste, as if they were a foul flavor on his tongue.
"Then we have something in common," Elara shot back, the defiance giving her strength. "I'd like to break this one as much as you do. I just preferred the method that didn't end with me being digested."
He fell silent again, his gaze intense, probing. She could feel it, a pressure against her mind, like a cold, insistent finger testing the strength of a pane of glass. It was an intrusion, a violation. She instinctively threw up a wall, a mental image of the unyielding binding circle that had held him, and the pressure receded, accompanied by a faint, sibilant hiss of frustration from him. The pact worked. She had access to the vast ocean of his power, and he was barred from hers, a prisoner behind his own strength.
"Who are you?" he asked, and the question was no longer a dismissal. It was a cold, clinical assessment. "No simple village knows the Covenant of Thorns. No mortal blood can quicken those runes. Your life force is… different."
Before she could fabricate an answer—because she truly didn't know what he meant—a shudder ran through the temple. It was different from the tremor his rage had caused. This was deeper, a groaning from the very foundations of the earth itself. Fine dust and pebbles rained from the ceiling in a sudden shower. The bioluminescent moss flickered violently, plunging the chamber into strobing patches of light and darkness.
Valerius's head snapped up, his expression shifting from intense scrutiny to sharp alertness. "The equilibrium is disrupted," he said, his voice holding a note of perverse satisfaction. "The pact… it has altered the fundamental flow of power holding this prison together. It is a flaw in the song of my binding." A cruel, beautiful smile touched his lips. "Congratulations, wife. Your wedding night brings the house down."
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through her. "What does that mean?"
"It means my jailer will have felt that. They will come to investigate why their carefully maintained cage is suddenly… squeaking." His eyes gleamed with a dark, anticipatory light. "I wonder what they will make of you. A new ornament on their wall? Or a stain on the floor to be scrubbed away?"
Another, stronger shudder rocked the chamber. A large block of basalt cracked loose from the ceiling high above and crashed to the floor not ten feet from her, shattering into dust and rubble that skittered across the stones. The temple was unstable, dying. The thought of being buried alive here, trapped forever in the dark with her furious god-husband, was a new and potent terror that eclipsed her fear of him.
She couldn't stay. But going back to the village was an impossibility. She was a sacrifice, her death a necessary part of their fragile peace. Walking out of the Blackwood would make her a ghost, a demon, or a target. Elder Brom would have her killed on sight to cover up the blasphemy of her survival, to maintain the convenient lie that kept their harvests safe.
Where does that leave you? a quiet, desperate voice in her head asked. You have all the power of a god and nowhere to go.
The answer came not from her, but from the bond. A pull, a faint, insistent tugging deep in her chest, like a silken cord tied to her heartstring. It was leading… out. But not toward the village. It led away, deeper into the unknown, cursed reaches of the Blackwood, toward the east.
Valerius felt it too. His eyes narrowed, the arrogant smirk fading into a look of intrigued annoyance. "What is that?"
"I… don't know," Elara whispered, her hand going to her chest, feeling the undeniable draw.
"It is the bond," he said, his voice laced with a grudging realization. "It seeks to complete itself. To find a place of power attuned to it. To us." He spat the last word. "It seems our marriage comes with a dowry. A destination."
A way out. Not back to the life that had discarded her, but forward. Into the unknown. The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach, but it was now intertwined with a wild, thrilling thread of hope. She had power. She had a direction. She had, however unwillingly, a partner in this catastrophe.
She looked at Valerius, truly looked at him. Not as a monster or a god, but as the other end of the tether that was now her life. He was her greatest danger and, perversely, her only asset.
"We need to leave," she said, the decision solidifying as she spoke.
His laugh was sharp, mocking. "We? Are you proposing a honeymoon, my darling wife? I am somewhat… indisposed." He rattled his chains for emphasis, the light flaring around his wrists.
"The temple is falling down. If your jailer comes, I'd rather not be here. And if this bond leads to a place of power, maybe it's a place where we can figure out how to… untie this knot." She chose her words carefully, offering him the one shared goal that might ensure her survival. Unbinding them was the only thing they might agree on.
He studied her, his head tilted. The crumbling temple around them was the ticking clock. He had no choices. She was his only variable.
"The bindings are tied to this place," he said finally, each word seeming dragged from him, a confession of weakness he despised. "If the place is destroyed, their power may weaken sufficiently for me to… slip a leash or two. But I cannot break them alone. Not while the primary circle holds."
He needed her. The magnificent, arrogant Serpent God needed the mayfly.
Elara didn't hesitate. She focused on the new power within her, on the vast, stormy ocean of his strength that was now hers to command. It was instinctual, like flexing a muscle she never knew she had. She pointed a trembling hand not at him, but at the cracked ceiling above them, at the most unstable-looking section where dust poured down in a constant stream.
"What are you doing?" Valerius demanded, a note of genuine alarm returning to his voice.
"Helping the process along," she said through gritted teeth.
She pulled.
The power surged out of her, a torrent of raw, concussive will. It wasn't a bolt of lightning or a beam of light; it was a wave of pure force, invisible and devastating. It struck the ceiling with a sound like a mountain cracking in half.
The world dissolved into noise and chaos. Stone screamed as it sheared apart. The entire section of the ceiling gave way, colossal blocks of basalt plummeting down like the fists of an angry giant. One massive slab, larger than a farmer's cart, struck the outer edge of the glowing binding circle. The ancient runes flared a blinding, white-hot intensity, let out a shrieking sound that seemed to tear at the fabric of reality, and then shattered into a million motes of dying light.
The chains of light around Valerius flickered, dimmed, and died.
For a heartbeat, he was simply there, free. The air itself seemed to bend around him, vibrating with his unleashed power. He stretched, his immense serpentine form uncoiling, rising to his full, terrifying height, filling the space with a presence that was both majestic and utterly terrifying. He looked at her, and in his eyes was not gratitude, but a pure, predatory triumph.
Then the rest of the temple groaned, buckling under the catastrophic damage. The archway they'd entered through cracked and collapsed. The walls began to lean inward. The entire structure was coming down.
Valerius moved. It was a blur of motion too fast for her eyes to follow. One moment he was across the chamber, the next he was beside her, the cool, powerful scales of his tail coiling around her waist with undeniable force. It wasn't gentle. It was possessive, firm, like a man seizing a valuable object that belonged to him—an object he fully intended to break later.
"Do not," he snarled in her ear, his voice the only clear, cold thing in the roaring chaos, "think this changes anything."
He surged forward, a god unbound, smashing through the crumbling temple walls as if they were dry clay, carrying his furious, terrified bride out into the choking darkness of the Blackwood. The world became a violent, roaring blur of wind and shadow, the temple's death cries fading behind them, replaced by the silent, watchful hostility of the ancient trees.