Epilogue
Callista
One Year Later
The village of Agrion lay in ruins.
Vines choked the abandoned market stalls where I’d once sold my weavings. Wild grass pushed through cracked stone where neighbors had gathered for festivals. Nature had reclaimed what violence had destroyed, covering bloodstains with new growth.
I stood at the edge of the clearing where my life had ended and begun. The death energy here still pulsed strong after a full year, calling to those who could sense it. Today was Shift Day again, and we’d returned with purpose.
Today would be my first weave, and by all the gods, I wouldn’t fail.
Theron’s hand found mine, his claws gentle against my palm. “Are you ready for this, Callista?”
I pressed my lips together, fighting the tightness in my throat. “As ready as I can be. But I need to say something first.”
The others all gathered around us. There was Aion, now recovered, his bronze skin carrying no signs of his ordeal. Skaros and Loxias stood by his side, watching. They were Theron’s family, but through him, they’d become mine.
Zoe slithered through the grass at the clearing’s edge, her serpentine body now thick as my thigh.
She’d chosen to come on her own, drawn by something I didn’t fully understand.
Perhaps the energy called to her, or perhaps she simply wanted to be near us.
She came to me so often these days, seeking my company. Having her here felt right.
This was my moment, my choice. I turned toward the village ruins, addressing the empty houses and silent streets. My gaze fell on the abandoned forge, and I barely managed to suppress a flinch. “Melos. You always paid me fairly for my needlework, even when times were hard.”
He’d also been among the first to spit in my face when the news of my curse had come out, but that didn’t matter anymore.
“Elena.” I faced the direction of her old cottage, now barely visible underneath the climbing ivy. “Your wool was the finest I ever worked with. You trusted me with your most precious fleeces, and I was honored to weave them into beautiful things.”
My chest tightened, but I forced myself to continue. These people deserved acknowledgment, no matter what they’d said and done.
“Syagros.” The name came harder, weighted with understanding I’d gained through months of painful growth. “Your cruelty exposed my shame, but it also freed me from lies I’d carried too long.”
Theron’s grip on my hand tightened, his hellfire warmth flowing through our soul bond. “Thank you all for three years of kindness before the end.” I bowed my head toward the ruins. “I was never the curse you thought I was, and I’m grateful you gave me shelter when I needed it most.”
The power swirled stronger around us, responding to my words. Ancient pain and fresh peace mingled in the air, creating something new from something broken.
I reached into my satchel and withdrew the single black feather I’d carried here. Enyo’s last remains, the gift Phonos had entrusted me with after the disaster at the spire.
I’d spent many nights thinking of this feather, of the questions I’d have liked to ask Enyo, but would never get the chance to ask. I didn’t dare to address the remaining Keres, not after everything, but coming here… I’d finally known what I needed to do.
“Enyo,” I whispered. “You and your daughters killed everyone in this village. You tore apart everything I knew, and you saved my life. Then you welcomed me into your family when I felt I had nowhere else to go.”
The feather trembled in my grip as emotion tightened my throat.
“I don’t understand all the choices you made, but I understand love when I see it.” I held the feather against my heart, feeling its softness against my palm. “I know you loved your children very much.”
A moment of silence stretched between past and present. I closed my eyes, thinking of those strange days I’d spent at the Spire, remembering the way her hand had felt in my hair. I didn’t yearn for a future where I could have belonged to her family, but I did wish things had been different.
“I think you’d be happy to know that they’re fine now. Phonos, Alecto, and Megaera. A little sad, I think. They miss you. But they’re proud of who they are. Who you were. So… thank you. Thank you for showing me that mothers will sacrifice anything for their children, even their own existence.”
“It’s time,” Loxias announced. “The Moirae are ready to guide you.”
Skaros positioned himself at the eastern edge of the massacre site, and Aion moved to the western boundary. Loxias took the northern point. He didn’t usually take harvesting jobs, but he was as prepared as the rest of them to assist me.
Usually, they’d have had death spheres and would have carried them to Asphodelia, to be used for the city’s benefit. Not today. Today, they all knelt in the grass and pressed their hands against the ground.
The death energy in Agrion had been harvested once before by Theron’s team, and it had been one full year since the massacre. But this kind of event left traces, and deep within the earth, Thanatos’s power still lingered.
Skaros plunged his tail into the ground, and just like that, it started. Slowly, energy spiraled out of the ground, wispy and thin, reminding me of the mist on Lake Acheron.
Zoe moved closer, her tongue flicking out as she sensed the forces gathering. She settled near where I’d once lain bleeding, watching with unblinking focus.
Theron remained next to me, in the center of the formation. He took a deep breath, and his hellfire blazed out of him, brighter and more potent than ever before. This was where we’d first met, where he’d found me dying. His power resonated with every drop of blood that had been spilled here.
As the silver-blue light condensed around me, Clotho’s voice echoed in my mind. Begin.
I felt her hands guiding mine, her ancient knowledge flowing through our connection. A part of me still couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe the Moirae had chosen me of all people to teach such a sacred craft. But they had, and their trust humbled me.
I reached for the power Theron offered, letting it flow through my fingers. The power wanted to create, to build, to transform death into life. I followed its pull toward the exact spot where I’d lain bleeding, Enyo’s feather clutched in my other hand.
Here. Where endings become beginnings.
The energy responded to my will, taking shape under my hands. Enyo’s black feather dissolved into silver threads that wound upward through the soil. They grew and brightened, transforming into something new.
A small asphodel pushed through the earth where my blood had fallen. Its stem emerged pale and perfect, followed by delicate petals that glowed with inner light. The flower of Asphodelia, blooming in the soil of Agrion, carrying the essence of sacrifice within its ethereal beauty.
“You did it.” Theron released the last of the channeled energy, wonder threading through his voice. “You created lasting life.”
Zoe approached the flower slowly and curled around it in loose coils. Her pupils contracted to vertical slits as she studied the glowing bloom. “Life and death,” she hissed.
It was the first time I’d heard her speak. I’d known she would, eventually, like every other basilisk in Asphodelia. But somehow, it still came as a surprise.
She curled against my leg, studying me with those eerie, glowing eyes. “Like you. Like us.”
I nodded, my heart aching with countless, overwhelming emotions. Crouching beside the flower, beside Zoe, I remembered who I’d been only a year before.
I’d been so convinced that my broken body made me less than whole. I’d never imagined I might be precious to someone, might be chosen for my scars rather than despite them.
“She was wrong about so much.” The words came quietly, weighted with a year of understanding. “The woman who died here.”
“You couldn’t see past your shame.” Theron lowered himself beside me, his massive form gentle in the filtered light. “You thought being barren made you worthless.”
“But my barrenness made me death-touched.” I touched the asphodel’s stem, marveling at its solid reality. “It made me perfect for your city, perfect for you.”
Theron’s eyes held mine steadily. “No. It wasn’t being death-touched that made you perfect for me.
It was your capacity to love despite everything that tried to break you.
Your willingness to keep weaving beauty even when the world told you that you were worthless.
That’s what I recognized. That’s what called to my soul. ”
I felt the truth of his words settle into my chest like warmth. My shame had broken me, but his clawed hands had put me back together. And death-touched or not, barren or fertile, he’d have wanted me, regardless.
“Ready to go home?” Theron asked, helping me to my feet with infinite gentleness.
Home. The word finally sounded right. Asphodelia waited for us across the mists of Lake Acheron, and its secrets no longer scared me.
“Ready.” I smiled up at him, our soul bond humming contentment through the brands that marked us as eternal mates.
We left Agrion to its ghosts and growing things, carrying the memory of what we’d built together. Behind us, the asphodel would continue to grow. Beautiful and strange and permanent, life and death wrapped into one.
One day, perhaps we’d come to see it again. But I belonged to a different world now. That lone asphodel was the last thing that remained of the old Callista, and that was just the way I liked it.
THE END