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Will Solace was dying. Again.
Which was, frankly, starting to piss Nico off.
It had been a minor quest. In and out, they said. No monsters, they said. Just grab some druidic herbs from a cave upstate and maybe dodge a couple of harpies. Nico had only come along because Will had insisted that shadow-traveling would “cut the trip in half” and Nico hadn’t been able to say no to that stupid, sunshiney face.
And now?
Now Will was lying on the mossy ground, pale and sweating and seizing up from some kind of magically poisoned vine that had wrapped around his ankle. A vine Will had definitely stepped into on purpose, after declaring it “kinda sparkly.”
“‘Ooooh look at this, Nico, it’s glowing!’” Nico muttered bitterly under his breath as he cut the vine off with a celestial bronze dagger. “Yeah. So does lava, dumbass.”
Will groaned faintly. Nico dropped to his knees beside him, cupped Will’s face in both hands, and tried to keep the panic from swallowing his voice.
“Will,” he said sharply. “Hey. Look at me.”
Will’s eyes fluttered open. They were glassy, unfocused.
“Hi,” he whispered, voice barely there. “Did we win?”
“We’re not fighting anyone.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Did I win the plant war?”
Nico made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and nearly shook him. Instead, he stood, scooped Will into his arms, and shadow-traveled so hard they landed halfway inside the infirmary cot.
Kayla screamed. Austin dropped a tray. Will threw up in a bowl someone thankfully shoved under his face.
---
He didn’t die.
Which was great.
It took two healers, three ancient elixirs, and a venom extraction spell that hadn’t been used since the Trojan War, but Will pulled through. He stayed asleep for a while—still breathing, still color slowly returning to his cheeks—but that didn’t stop Nico from sitting beside his bed for six straight hours, motionless, refusing to eat, barely blinking.
At some point, Chiron came in and gently tried to get Nico to lie down.
“I’m fine,” Nico said, not looking away from Will.
“You haven’t moved.”
“Because he hasn’t moved.”
“Nico—”
“I said I’m fine.”
Chiron backed off. Smart of him.
Nico didn’t feel fine. He felt like there was something clawing around in his chest. Something heavy and sharp and wild. And it was all centered around one very specific, very stupid boy lying comatose in front of him.
He was so tired of this.
Tired of Will risking his life like it was nothing. Tired of having to wonder if this was the moment he’d lose him. Tired of feeling helpless.
He stared down at Will. “This keeps happening,” he muttered, voice rough. “And I’m sick of it.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dagger.
---
It wasn’t just any dagger.
Stygian iron. Enchanted. Etched with something old—older than Greek, older than language. Nico had taken it from one of Hades’ vaults and hidden it away, deep beneath his pillow at camp, where not even Will had found it.
He had never meant to use it.
He didn’t even fully understand what it was. But now—
Now he did.
---
When Will woke up again, it was to the warm afternoon sunlight on his face and the feeling of someone holding his hand.
His first thought was: Oh, cool. I’m not dead.
His second thought was: Why is my hand wet?
He blinked, turned his head, and found Nico sitting beside him, staring intently at their joined hands. Both their palms were wrapped in gauze, slightly soaked with blood.
“Uh,” Will croaked, “hey.”
Nico looked up.
Will smiled weakly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why does it look like we had a blood sacrifice moment?”
Nico didn’t smile back. “We did.”
There was a long pause.
Will blinked. “You... what?”
“You almost died,” Nico said, voice steady. “Again. So I fixed it.”
Will stared at him. “Nico.”
“It’s a protection pact,” Nico said quickly. Too quickly. “It links our life forces. If you get hurt, I’ll feel it, and I can get to you faster. It stabilizes your soul. No more near-death experiences.”
“You made us soul-bonded?!”
“I saved your life.”
“You stabbed me!”
“I nick-ed you. It barely bled.”
Will groaned and covered his face with his other hand. “Nico. Buddy. Sweetheart. Baby boy. This is not how normal people solve problems.”
Nico crossed his arms. “I’m not normal people.”
Will opened one eye to glare at him. “How permanent is this?”
Nico hesitated. “...ish?”
“Nico.”
“Well, I didn’t read the whole spell, obviously,” Nico said, defensive now. “There was a glowing seal. It felt final. And there were ghosts.”
“Ghosts.”
“Yeah, three of them congratulated us.”
Will sat up slowly, wincing. “You accidentally married me via blood magic.”
“I wouldn’t say married—”
“You bound our souls. That’s a wedding with extra steps.”
Nico looked away. “Okay. So maybe it’s a little married.”
Will just stared at the ceiling.
After a minute, he said, “Does this mean I have to call your dad ‘Father-in-Law’ now?”
Nico groaned and shoved his face into the pillow.
---
Will didn’t talk to Nico for a full hour.
Which, for them, was unheard of.
Not because they were clingy—well, maybe Will was a little—but because they’d gotten used to orbiting each other constantly. Like the sun and the moon. Like gravity.
So Nico sat there, arms crossed tight over his chest, pretending he didn’t care, while Will glared at the ceiling like it owed him money.
Finally, Will sighed.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Let’s start over.”
Nico tilted his head. “Start what over?”
“This. The blood pact. The... marriage.”
“It’s not—”
Will sat up straighter. “Nico. There were ghosts. There was a seal. You bled on me. I’m from a healing lineage and even I know that’s magical commitment.”
Nico made a face like he’d just bit into a lemon. “I panicked.”
Will stared. “Your panic response was to tie your soul to mine.”
“It seemed like the logical option at the time.”
“Oh my gods.”
“You were dying!”
Will ran a hand through his hair, wild and exasperated. “I would’ve been fine! I had antidotes in my pack!”
“You didn’t,” Nico said flatly.
Will paused.
"...Okay. But I would’ve!"
Nico just raised an eyebrow.
Will groaned and flopped back down into the cot, dramatically throwing an arm over his face. “I can’t believe I’m metaphysically married to a sixteen-year-old who thinks ‘communication’ means psychic vibes and stabbing.”
“I didn’t stab—”
“Don’t care. Married.”
Nico flushed and looked away. His cheeks were red. “I thought you’d be... madder.”
Will peeked out from under his arm. “I am mad. Just... not surprised.”
“You’re not?”
Will looked at him, serious now. “Nico, I love you. And you’re the most dramatic person I’ve ever met. Of course your idea of a romantic gesture is accidentally invoking a cross-pantheon wedding ceremony.”
Nico fidgeted with the bandages on his hand. “I just didn’t want to lose you.”
Will’s voice softened. “I know.”
---
By the next day, things start to get weird.
And by weird, we mean: magical chaos weird.
---
The first few days after the soulbond are tolerable.
Annoying, sure. A little too sparkly. But tolerable.
Will gets discharged from the infirmary after only one day of bedrest. Nico pretends not to be waiting outside the door the entire time. They’re back in their usual rhythm of “aggressively pretending they’re normal” by dinner.
But on day four, things… shift.
And then they break.
---
It starts with the canoe.
Will was just trying to relax.
That’s all he wanted. Five minutes. Maybe ten. Some sunlight. Maybe hum a dumb tune while he floated on the lake and imagined a world where none of his friends had chronic trauma.
Instead, the dock was slippery. He stepped wrong. His foot skidded. The pain that stabbed through his ribs wasn’t even that bad—just a minor twist.
But across camp, Nico dropped mid-swing like someone had knocked the breath from his lungs.
Kayla screamed.
“MEDIC! DOWN!”
Nico blinked at the sky, confused and furious. “What the hell was that—?”
Will, half-soaked and still holding his soda can, sprinted into the sparring arena five minutes later, panting and panicked.
“You—” Nico jabbed a finger at him from the dirt. “You injured yourself.”
“I slipped!”
“And it hurt me?!”
Will hesitated. “Like... a little.”
They both turned slowly to look at Chiron, who was sipping tea by the bleachers.
“I did warn you,” he said, not looking up. “Soulbonds are notoriously porous. Emotions, sensations, sometimes dreams…”
“Dreams?!” Nico barked.
Chiron gave them a pitying smile. “Have fun, boys.”
---
Dreams arrive that night.
Nico opens his eyes to sunlight.
That’s the first sign something is wrong.
There’s grass beneath him—soft, wild, golden. A sky so blue it might punch you in the teeth. He sits up, dazed. Blinks again.
Will Solace is there, wearing a soft cotton tunic and holding a basket of fresh strawberries.
“You made it,” Dream-Will says with a grin.
Nico tries to speak but the words taste like honey and affection. The horror blooms slowly.
He looks down.
He’s in a flower crown.
---
He wakes up gasping, heart pounding, sheets tangled like seaweed. The shadows on the ceiling curl protectively around him.
From his cabin window, he can feel Will’s emotions three buildings over—confused, warm, half-asleep. Dream contentment echoing off the bond like an aftershock.
Nico shoves his head under the pillow and screams into it.
---
It gets worse.
Two days later, Will blushes when Nico compliments his knife-throwing stance.
Just a little blush. One second of heat on his cheeks. That’s all.
And in response, Nico shadow-travels mid-step against his will, pops into the air four feet above the Pavilion table, and crashes directly into Will’s mashed potatoes.
Camp goes silent.
Will’s got gravy on his face. Nico’s sitting in his lap like he teleported into a bad sitcom.
“Why,” Nico says in a tone so flat it might bury a ghost, “did I just get summoned by your feelings.”
Will, stunned: “I—I don’t know?! I was just thinking about—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Your mouth—”
Nico lunges.
Chiron throws a scroll labeled ‘SOULBOND STABILIZATION FOR DUMMIES’ onto their table and leaves.
---
Then comes the prophecy.
It’s a Thursday. The sky is clear. Rachel Elizabeth Dare is working on a mural near the Big House, humming to herself and covered in paint.
Then she drops her brush, goes stiff, and says in a voice that echoes with ancient, rattling bones:
> “From sun and shadow, bound by blood,
The tether forged in desperate flood—
Shall wake the brides of endless years,
And draw the blade of what each fears.
If love survives through cursed flame,
Two hearts shall rise. One final name.”
The mist dissipates. She blinks.
“Did I just—” she turns. Sees Nico. Then Will. Sees the way they’re standing slightly too close and vibrating with unspoken chaos.
“Oh,” she says. “Oh no.”
---
Camp explodes.
Everyone has opinions.
Clarisse swears and says she knew this would happen. The Stoll brothers start selling “Team Shadow” and “Team Sunshine” hats. Austin makes a very intense spreadsheet about whose soul will implode first.
Chiron assembles a war council. Will shows up with snacks. Nico shows up with a sword.
“We are not doing this,” Nico says. “We’re not fulfilling a prophecy. We’re not starting a ghost cult. We’re going to undo this bond, erase the whole thing, and maybe dimension-hop to a universe where this never happened.”
Will just leans back in his chair, legs crossed, sipping lemonade.
“Why would we do that?” he says sweetly. “You love me.”
Nico hurls a dagger at the wall. It misses Will by an inch.
Will smiles wider.
---
It starts with the earth cracking open beneath Cabin Thirteen.
Because of course it does.
Nico wakes to cold wind pouring through the floorboards and the scent of rose petals. Real ones, wilting and brittle. They swirl in the shadows like confetti at a funeral.
He bolts upright. Shadows recoil. The bond pulls taut like a violin string.
Will.
He's out of bed and halfway to the Apollo cabin before his boots are even on.
---
Will’s already waiting outside when Nico arrives, barefoot in pajama pants and clutching a knife.
“Are you okay—?”
“Are you okay—?”
They stare at each other, breathless.
Then the ground splits again, right between them. A slash of glowing bone-white light tears the grass apart, and six figures rise slowly, hovering just above the surface.
They're women — or used to be.
Now their veils are soaked in blood, and their dresses move like smoke, and their eyes burn blue-white with cold, ancient hunger.
One lifts a hand and speaks in a voice that rattles the sky.
> “The Bond is made. The Flame is lit.
We have come for what was promised.”
Will takes a step backward. “Okay. No thank you.”
Nico groans. “I knew this was going to end in necromantic bridal kidnapping.”
---
The Brides of Endless Years
Turns out, they were real.
Somewhere in the deep back corners of the Underworld, where forgotten deals fester and gods forget to update their contracts, a vow was made centuries ago:
If a soulbond was forged on cursed land — land soaked in blood and death and divine chaos — then the first match of that bond would awaken the Brides.
Undead spirits of abandoned oaths and cursed love. Ghost queens. Veiled horrors. Wedding-themed poltergeists.
And now they’re here.
And they want to claim the bonded.
---
“Claim?” Will repeats, half a second before a Bride lunges at him.
Nico tackles him out of the way just in time. Her clawed hand scrapes through air where Will’s throat had been a moment earlier.
The other Brides begin to fan out. One sings. One weeps. One simply stares at Nico with a look like recognition.
“You summoned us,” she says.
“I absolutely did not.”
“You lit the bond. You fused the flame. You are ours now.”
Will stares at Nico. “Did you accidentally propose to me via death magic?”
“I—WHAT—NO?”
“You kind of did.”
“WILL—”
The singing Bride lunges again.
---
Camp goes full chaos mode.
Demigods come running with weapons. Chiron rings the warning bell. Clovis from Hypnos gets woken up for the first time in a month and immediately regrets it.
But it’s clear: the Brides aren’t here for camp.
They’re here for them.
Nico and Will move like orbiting stars — pulled together, moving apart, circling. Every time one of them gets cornered, the other crashes in like a wrecking ball of divine fury.
The soulbond hums — literally hums — when they fight near each other. Power leaps between them like static electricity.
Will’s healing magic flares too hot. Nico’s shadows hiss and bend in unnatural ways.
And when Nico takes a blow to the shoulder, Will gasps like he felt it himself.
“We need to break the bond,” Nico pants, pressing a hand to the wound.
Will growls, eyes glowing faintly gold. “Later. After we kick their ghostly asses.”
He grabs Nico’s wrist.
“Ready?”
“Gods, I hate you.”
Will grins. “Mutual.”
And they launch themselves into the fray.
---
The Brides draw a circle of blue fire.
They begin a chant — ancient, twisted, filled with dead languages and broken promises. The bond between Will and Nico starts to pull toward the flame, like a string being reeled in.
They stagger, caught.
One Bride raises a skeletal hand. “Come to us. Be joined. Be devoured. Love eternal, love erased.”
Will breathes hard. “You know what? That’s enough wedding metaphors for one lifetime.”
And then he turns and kisses Nico.
Mid-fight. Mid-fire. Mid-prophecy.
It’s messy and fast and electric. Nico yells something muffled. The bond ignites.
Literally.
Light bursts out of their chests — sun and shadow colliding. The flames roar back. The Brides scream.
And the circle shatters.
---
The Brides vanish with a wail that echoes across the hills.
The bond, now fully stabilized and glowing faintly gold-and-black, settles into their chests like a second heartbeat.
Camp stares.
Someone claps. Probably a Stoll.
Will leans on his knees, panting.
Nico is standing very, very still.
Will glances up at him, a little nervous. “Hey.”
Nico doesn’t speak.
“You okay?”
“You kissed me in front of thirty people during an undead wedding battle.”
“Technically you kissed me back.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“You’re in love with me.”
Nico exhales like he’s giving up a fight that was already lost. “Yeah,” he says.
Then: “Still want to break the bond?”
Will leans into him, warm and smug. “Not a chance.”
---
Nico knew it was coming. He’d felt it the moment the bond flared — sharp and sudden — the moment he’d chosen the only thing he could to pull Will back from death.
But hearing it said aloud was worse.
His father’s voice echoed inside the shadows around him:
> “Nico di Angelo. Come to me.”
He stepped through a veil of darkness and found himself in a place made of stone and silence, the air thick with weight and judgment.
Hades stood at the center, eyes dark with something more than anger — disappointment, fear, a father’s protection twisting into fury.
“You forged a pact,” Hades said, voice low and unyielding. “A soulbond ritual. You bound your soul to the son of Apollo.”
Nico swallowed. “I saved him.”
“You made a sacred vow. You married your soul to his.”
Nico’s throat tightened. “It was the only way.”
---
Will appeared beside him then, blinking against the gloom like he’d just stepped out of a dream.
“I—” Will started, then looked at Hades. “If this is a trial, I’m involved. I want to be.”
“You weren’t the one who lit the bond.”
“No,” Will said, voice steady. “But I was the one who nearly died. And Nico—he didn’t hesitate.”
Hades turned his glare to Will, like Will had broken a fragile thing. “You are bound to him for life. Do you understand what that means?”
Will glanced at Nico, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “I’m... learning.”
---
Zeus’s booming voice broke the tension.
“Let the court hear the evidence!”
---
The trial unfolded like a storm.
Nico had summoned the bond in a moment of desperation — a ritual older than memory — not to marry Will, not to chain him, but to save him from death’s grasp.
But by divine law, the bond was a marriage. Soul marriage. Permanent. Unbreakable.
Hades read the prophecy aloud, voice heavy:
> “When flame and shadow bind as one,
a bond is forged that can’t be undone.
Should it be severed by mortal hand,
the gates of death will swallow the land.”
Nico looked at Will.
“This was never supposed to be easy,” he said.
Will reached for Nico’s hand, his fingers trembling.
“If I had the chance to choose again... I’d do it. With you.”
---
Hades’s voice softened just a fraction, the iron in it bending toward something like understanding.
“You did what any father fears,” he said. “You gave a piece of yourself away.”
Nico nodded.
“I didn’t do it to lose myself. I did it to keep him alive.”
---
Zeus banged his gavel.
“The bond stands. The marriage is true. May the gods be kind.”
---
The courtroom faded.
Back outside the Apollo cabin, Nico and Will sat close, the weight of the bond settled between them like a quiet promise.
Will smiled softly. “Just so you know... I would’ve said yes a thousand times.”
Nico leaned against him.
The bond hummed — steady, eternal, and real.
---
The morning sunlight spilled through the leaves outside the Apollo cabin, casting dappled gold over the two of them.
Nico stretched, feeling the faintest warmth bloom from the sun sigil on his chest, a gentle pulse synced with Will’s heartbeat. The bond hummed quietly beneath their skin, no longer a threat, but a strange comfort.
Will was already awake, sitting cross-legged beside Nico with a mug of something hot — probably way too sweet for Nico’s taste — and a goofy grin plastered across his face.
“You look like you just woke up from a nap in Tartarus,” Will teased.
Nico grunted, burying his face in his hands. “That’s because I basically did.”
Will chuckled and bumped his shoulder against Nico’s. “Well, Mr. Underworld Prince, now that you’re soul-married to the sun, maybe you can lighten up a little.”
Nico scoffed but didn’t move away.
Will leaned closer, brushing a stray lock of hair from Nico’s forehead. “Hey, I’m serious. We’re bonded now — souls tangled like old vines. We have to live like it. Sleep like it. Maybe even... eat breakfast together every day?”
Nico blinked, surprised at how easily the thought settled in his chest.
“Breakfast, huh?”
“Yeah. You don’t have to admit it, but I bet you like my pancakes.”
Nico gave a crooked smile. “You’re lucky I’m starving.”
---
They spent the morning teasing and talking about everything and nothing — Nico quietly marveling at how ordinary it felt to be close like this, and Will playfully pointing out the small ways their bond was already affecting them.
Like how Nico suddenly found himself craving sunlight, or how Will sometimes caught flashes of shadow when he looked at Nico.
“It’s like we’re... syncing,” Will said, eyes shining. “In a weird, magical way.”
Nico laughed — a sound soft and rare, and it made Will’s heart skip.
“You’re not so bad,” Nico admitted.
“High praise coming from you,” Will winked.
---
Later, when the sun started to dip low, they found themselves lying side by side on the porch steps.
Nico’s hand found Will’s, fingers curling together without thought.
“I don’t know what’s coming next,” Nico murmured. “But I know I’m not afraid.”
“Good,” Will said, his thumb tracing lazy circles on Nico’s knuckles. “Because I’m stuck with you now. Soul and all.”
Nico smiled against the fading light.
“Guess that makes us a team.”
“Best team ever.”
---
They stayed like that, quiet and warm, letting the bond hum softly between them — two souls tethered by choice and fire, ready to face whatever came next.