The Girl Who Belonged to the Sea by Katherine Quinn
Epilogue
The Return of a God
As the starstwinkled their approval, and the red-rimmed moon cast eerie light onto the two paramours, a tremor shook the sacred cavern of Azantian.
This tremor became a humming vibration that loosened the final stone imprisoning what had been locked away for a thousand years.
Barbed tails with silvery scales swam through the shattered crevice leading out to the sea, finally released into the humid air and into the world. With torsos of mortals and spiked fins of fish, they were creatures with onyx souls and merciless hearts.
While they escaped through the rocky portal of their gloomy prison, a king and the woman he loved fell asleep in one another’s arms.
Hidden in the shadows, a god who had worn many faces watched with eyes borne from sprays of sea foam and early mornings. This man drank in the woman who had stolen the heart he’d hungered to own for centuries.
The stranger observed as she shifted in the king’s arms, her brows growing furrowed as a nightmare took hold. On silent feet, the man approached, reaching out to stroke her exposed shoulder. She was soft, delicate, and unlike anything the ancient god had touched before.
Beneath his fingers, dark ink sprouted, thick spirals of obsidian stretching out to form a massive tangle of whorls and ever-shifting lines. He retracted his hand, eyes narrowed on the tattoo that now marked her bronzed skin.
Malum’s final gift to Margrete—
A mark of protection. A lock.
One Darius couldn’t open—even to take what was meant to be his.
A growl left his lips. He expected her to wake, but she only murmured in her slumber, exhaustion painting her every lovely feature.
The god drifted back to the shadows from whence he came, unable to peel his eyes from the woman who consumed his every waking thought. He would get what he needed from her, no matter the cost. He would find a way. He always did.
Still, the god felt something other than spite or hatred or anger. A foreign sensation that caused his beating heart to flutter. He’d never felt anything like it in all his many years.
He decided it was a feeling he desired to explore.
And, soon, he would.
The god watched as the king he failed to kill nuzzled her hair, muscled arms encircling Margrete’s waist as he tugged her ever closer. His tattoos were settling for the night, the ink he carried weary from the day’s struggle. The sea star tattoo danced across his forearm before resting beside the timid squid. The shark swam below the cover of a sleeve.
It was the tattoo on the king’s chest that roused beneath the moon, the treacherous nymera depicted across his skin opening her opaque eyes wide. She smiled, and the jagged edges of her teeth poked into her bottom lip.
As the king and Margrete slumbered peacefully, the curves and lines of ink on his chest blurred, the slithery beast of nightmares fading to a place beneath the flesh.
The Soul of Azantian had opened. A god had been reborn. And soon, the human world would know what wickedness truly was.
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And don’t miss more of the The Azantian Trilogy from Katherine Quinn coming soon!
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