Chapter 35 The Third Marriage
The famine crisis spiraled out of control across the entire region.
Word traveled faster than any messenger. Entire provinces reported sudden, devastating waves of emptiness. Political leaders from three neighboring empires sent frantic riders with the same demand: Solis must be contained or destroyed before her influence hollowed out the continent entirely.
Assassins moved through the shadows like ghosts, hoping to strike before the third bond could be completed.
Darius stood with Solis in the center of the estate courtyard as desperate survivors screamed for answers or salvation. Veth gripped her axe tightly, ready for violence. Mara watched everything with sharp, calculating golden eyes.
"You do not have to do this," Solis said quietly, her voice trembling with emotion. "I have brought nothing but emptiness to everyone around me for centuries. You could still walk away from me. From all of this."
Darius looked at her steadily, refusing to step back. "I am not walking away."
Veth growled low in her throat. "They are coming. Hunters. Soldiers. Armies. We should fight our way out of here while we still can."
"Not yet," Darius said firmly. He took Solis’s hand in front of everyone present. "I understand you. I am not trying to possess you. I am not trying to fix you or use you as a weapon. I simply want you with us. As you are."
Solis stared at their joined hands. Tears slipped silently down her beautiful face. "No one has ever wanted me without wanting something from me. Not power. Not control. Not even satisfaction or distraction. You just… understood. Without demanding anything in return."
She stepped closer until they stood face to face. "Then I choose this. I choose you, Darius Valeborn. Not because you saved me. Not because you conquered my hunger. But because you saw me clearly and stayed anyway."
The third bond activated.
Power surged through Darius like a breaking dam.
Plague. War. Famine.
The three forces collided violently inside him. For one terrible, continent-spanning moment, every living person nearby felt overwhelming, soul-crushing hunger. Armies across the region stopped marching mid-step. Conversations halted in mid-sentence. Cities staggered as millions suddenly clutched their chests, feeling the same aching, hollow emptiness in their souls at once.
The continent itself seemed to pause and gasp.
Darius gasped sharply, his knees buckling under the strain. The three powers fought for dominance inside him, tearing at each other and at his body. His vision blurred. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and down his chin.
Solis caught him, eyes wide with guilt and wonder. "Darius!"
"I am here," he whispered, forcing himself upright through sheer will. "It is done. You are with us now."
Veth laughed wildly, exhilarated. "Three! He carries three of us! The whole world just felt that!"
Mara moved quickly to his other side, supporting him. "We need to move immediately. The assassins will not wait for us to recover."
They fled the estate under cover of the spreading chaos. Political leaders were already sending urgent orders to hunt them down with full military force. The Husband Hunters doubled their efforts. But for now, the group escaped into the wilderness, three Calamities and one man carrying all of them.
That night, in a small abandoned farmhouse far from any known road, Darius locked himself alone in a back room. The powers inside him spiraled violently out of control. Plague tried to contain the damage. War tried to burn through it. Famine tried to empty everything in its path.
He collapsed against the wooden wall, coughing hard. Blood splattered across the floor in dark droplets.
Outside the door, Mara stood listening, her expression tight with deep worry. Veth paced nearby, unusually quiet. Solis stood perfectly still, guilt etched across her face.
Then Mara heard something worse than the coughing.
Darius started laughing.
Quietly at first. Then steadily. A low, broken sound that carried through the wood like a confession. Not mad. Not triumphant.
Like he had finally understood something terrifying.
Mara pressed her hand against the door. "Darius?"
He kept laughing softly in the darkness, the sound growing more intimate and unsettling. Inside the room, Darius wiped blood from his lips, eyes wide as the three powers raged inside him like a storm with no center.
He understood now.
He was no longer just carrying them.
They were beginning to carry him.