The full moon dripped silver across the ancient stones of Delphi, washing the castle perched high on its cliffs in ghostly light. Once a sanctuary of oracles and whispered prophecies, it was now a mausoleum of faded grandeur, hollow as the promises of the gods who once reigned.
A cold wind slithered through the shattered marble halls, carrying with it the scent of night-blooming hemlock and the faintest trace of despair.
Inside her throne room, Rhodanthe fed.
The golden-haired handmaiden knelt at her feet, her head bowed like a sacrificial lamb. Pale fingers tangled in the girl's shining locks, cradling her as gently as a lover would. Blood trickled from two precise wounds along the maid's slender neck, painting her skin with delicate trails of crimson.
Rhodanthe's mouth hovered just above the wound, her breath cool against fevered flesh. She drank slowly, languidly, savoring the sweetness like one might savor the final notes of a dying song.
The girl whimpered softly—half in pain, half in pleasure—but did not resist. They never did. Not after the binding oath.
When Rhodanthe finally drew back, her lips glistening, she cupped the girl's chin and forced her to look up.
Eyes the color of the harvest sky stared back—wide, dazed, and glassy with devotion.
"You've served me well, little dove," Rhodanthe murmured, her voice velvet and venom. "Go now. Sleep."
The girl collapsed into the marble floor without protest, her golden hair pooling like sunlight against the stone. A delicate sigh escaped her lips as unconsciousness claimed her.
Rhodanthe rose with the slow, sinuous grace of a serpent uncoiling. Her black gown whispered against the ground, its tattered edges drinking in the moonlight.
Alone.
The word echoed in the vaulted chamber louder than any footstep.
A hundred years.
A hundred years since Nicodemus had found his fated mate—a fierce desert queen with eyes like burning opals—and abandoned Delphi without a backward glance.
Andreus had followed soon after, lured by a tempestuous nymph who had somehow survived the gods' culling.
Even Mavros, her most silent, her most faithful, had left her. He had found solace in a boy with laughter like summer rain, and in that mortal love, he found a peace Rhodanthe could no longer offer.
One by one, they had left her.
Not by betrayal. Not by hate.
Simply… by moving on.
She alone remained tethered to this carcass of a past. A relic of wrath and sorrow in a world that no longer remembered why it bled.
Rhodanthe drifted toward the tall arched window, the hem of her gown leaving faint trails of blood behind her. Her fingers, pale as bone and ringed with forgotten crowns, traced the frost-kissed glass.
Below, the valley of Delphi stretched in silence, silvered fields and crumbling temples sprawling like the corpse of a once-living god.
A growl trembled in her throat, low and bitter.
They had left her.
No fated mate. No sweet laughter to warm the centuries. Only the memories of suitors who once trampled temples for a glimpse of her smile—memories now rotted and soured with time.
A crack split the moonlight.
Her hand had pressed too hard against the window, spiderwebbing the ancient glass. A single shard broke free, slicing her palm.
Blood welled up, black and thick as ink.
She stared at it for a long moment, then let it fall, drop by drop, into the night air.
The blood hissed when it struck the frozen stone outside, a silent offering to gods long since deaf.
Rhodanthe closed her eyes.
She could still feel the ache of Persephone's hand upon her soul—the cold, spiteful mercy that had given her this undying existence. She could still taste Aphrodite's grief, staining the roots of her being with betrayal.
She was made from blood and sorrow.
And it seemed she was destined to end that way.
A soft shuffle behind her stirred the silence.
She did not turn.
"You should not be awake yet, little dove," she said without looking.
The handmaiden's steps were slow, faltering. Not out of fear—but exhaustion. Her blood had been taken too deeply.
"You called," the girl whispered, her voice a breath. "I heard you in my dreams."
A bitter smile ghosted Rhodanthe's lips.
Even now, even broken, they come when I call.
"I did not mean to," she murmured. "Sleep, child. Dream of gentler things."
The girl knelt again, forehead touching the hem of Rhodanthe's gown, as if in prayer.
And in that moment, Rhodanthe hated herself.
She hated the thirst.
She hated the silence.
She hated that no matter how far the centuries stretched, she was still that rose, still that foolish girl who had begged for release and received only damnation.
The bells of the old temple ruins tolled, hollow and broken, as the wind rose.
In the distance, she smelled something foreign riding on the air—something wild, something alive.
A heartbeat, steady and defiant.
A wolf's howl tore through the mountains.
The Hunter's Moon had risen fully.
And fate, it seemed, had stirred again.
Rhodanthe opened her eyes, blood and moonlight twin reflections in her gaze.
For the first time in a hundred years, her hunger was not for blood.
It was for something far more dangerous.
Hope.
⚜️
The woods at the edge of Delphi were blacker than pitch under the full sway of the Hunter's Moon.
Branches clawed at the sky like skeletal fingers, and the earth itself seemed to hum with a primal, restless hunger.
Rhodanthe moved through the forest with predatory grace, the wind winding her tattered gown around her like mist. The scent that had lured her from the castle—the vibrant, wild heartbeat—was stronger now. Close.
She should have known better.
But loneliness had a way of sharpening desperation into recklessness.
The underbrush cracked beneath her bare feet, and she heard it then—a low, rumbling growl, vibrating through the very bones of the earth.
Rhodanthe stilled.
From the shadow of a ruined olive tree, it emerged.
A wolf—but no natural beast.
Massive, silver-pelted, and crowned with a mane of darker fur like a storm encircling its neck. Its eyes were a molten gold, burning with something far older than animal rage—something almost human.
It sniffed the air once. Twice.
Then it lunged.
Rhodanthe twisted aside, her body moving faster than mortal sight. Her hand snapped up, claws of bone erupting from her fingertips, slicing toward the beast's throat.
But it was fast—unnaturally fast.
The wolf twisted mid-leap, jaws snapping closed around her arm.
Fangs like iron spears punctured through flesh and bone.
Rhodanthe hissed in agony, her knees hitting the frozen ground as blood, black and steaming, poured from the wound.
She struck out with her free hand, gouging deep furrows into the creature's flank.
The wolf yelped but did not release her.
Its weight bore her down, crushing her against the dirt.
Her vision blurred.
No mortal beast could harm her like this. Not after a thousand years of drinking blood, of living beyond death.
This thing—it was something else.
Her body spasmed as its venom burned through her veins like fire poured into ice.
For the first time in centuries, Rhodanthe felt the creeping fingers of true death clawing at her soul.
So this is how it ends, she thought dizzily, alone, unloved, food for a god's hound.
The wolf's jaws tightened.
And then—
A voice, low and commanding, cut through the night like a blade through silk.
"Enough."
The word wasn't shouted. It was spoken. Calm, clear, absolute.
The wolf froze.
Its ears flattened, and with a growl of frustration, it released her.
Rhodanthe slumped to the ground, breathless, her vision swimming in and out of darkness.
Boots crunched softly over fallen leaves.
A woman stepped into view, framed by the broken moonlight.
She was tall, statuesque, her skin pale as the moon and her hair dark as the abyss.
A black cloak rippled around her, the fabric catching the light and scattering it like a thousand tiny stars.
But it was her eyes that stole the world away—violet, deep and endless, filled with a sorrow that mirrored Rhodanthe's own.
The woman knelt beside her without hesitation, reaching out.
Rhodanthe flinched weakly—but there was no malice in the touch that brushed her blood-matted hair from her face.
Only tenderness.
"Easy," the woman whispered, her voice rich as dusk. "I have you."
Strong arms slid beneath Rhodanthe's broken body, lifting her as if she weighed no more than a sigh.
The world spun once, twice, and then steadied against a heartbeat not her own.
The wolf whined low in its throat, circling them anxiously—but the woman did not spare it a glance.
Her full attention was on Rhodanthe.
"You shouldn't be here," she murmured. "Not alone. Not tonight."
Rhodanthe tried to speak. Tried to summon her ancient pride, her withering contempt.
But all that emerged was a broken rasp of breath.
Tears—hot, traitorous—slipped from the corners of her eyes.
She hated them. Hated the weakness, the need, the aching terror of her own fragility.
The woman pressed her forehead lightly to Rhodanthe's, as if anchoring her to life by sheer will.
"You're safe now," she said, fierce and low. "I swear it. I won't let you fall."
And for the first time since the rose first bloomed, since the gods first cursed her, since her suitors had loved her and left her—
Rhodanthe believed.
The trees bent and whispered around them.
Above, the Hunter's Moon wept light across the two figures locked together in the frozen dark.
A queen of sorrow.
A stranger cloaked in night.
And the broken thread of fate, slowly stitching itself anew.