Chapter 3
Charon's Trade
Callista
Ishould be dead. It was the very first thought that crossed my mind, the moment my awareness returned.
I remembered, with crystal clarity, the piercing pain of Syagros’s horn. An icy chill had spread through me as I’d bled out on the ground. I’d made my peace with it, with dying. But it hadn’t been meant to be.
I took a deep breath, and my lungs expanded with no discomfort. I pressed my hand against my front and found no trace of the wound that should have killed me. Only clean bandages, and surprisingly, crushed flower petals. What was going on?
“You’re awake at last. Welcome back.”
The female voice startled me from my stupor. My vision cleared, and for the first time, I could focus on where I was. I’d survived, yes, but what did that mean for me?
The chamber I was in would have put royal healers to shame. Its clean walls surged upward in graceful arches. Crystals pulsed inside the masonry, and beautiful white flowers bloomed in every corner of the room. My soft sheets were finer than any fabric I could have ever dreamed to weave.
But that wasn’t the strangest thing at all.
A woman sat beside my bed, and her terrible beauty scared me.
Her eyes glowed with a surreal light that seemed to reach into my chest and squeeze.
The girls in Agrion would have begged to have a skin as clear and smooth as hers.
And instead of hair, she had serpents. Slender bronze snakes that curled around her cheeks the same way they would around prey.
If I didn’t scream, it was because one serpent turned directly toward me. It blinked once in what appeared to be acknowledgment. Terror should have frozen my blood, but what I found in its gaze gave me pause.
“Don’t be scared.” The woman smiled and petted the snake who’d looked at me. “I’m Iaso, and you’re perfectly safe now.”
I gripped the sheets so hard my knuckles went white. “Where am I?”
“You are in the city of Thanatos.” Iaso brushed a hand over the pristine petals of the closest flower. “In my healer’s wing, in Asphodelia.”
I’d never heard of the city she spoke of, but that changed nothing. In my heart, I already knew where I’d been brought. “Is this… Is this the Blighted Lands?”
Iaso took my accusation in stride. “In the words of your people, yes. But we are anything but blighted. We are blessed. Like you.”
“Blessed?” Was this a joke? I was the broken one. The cursed one with a barren womb. My own friends and neighbors had tried to kill me, to make me pay for the misfortune I’d brought upon them. “Is this some kind of trick?”
Iaso shook her head. “Not a trick. But I can see why you might think that, Callista.”
A chill ran down my spine. This strange woman had just called me by my name. That couldn’t be a good sign. “How do you know who I am?”
“We know many things.” Iaso rose and moved toward tall windows. “Now, come. See what your barrenness has earned you.”
The words hit me almost as hard as Elena’s accusations had, back in Agrion. Decades of shame came crashing down on my shoulders. “You… You figured it out, too. My curse.”
Iaso released a deep sigh, and the snake hissed, as if echoing her. “Oh, Callista. It’s not a curse. It never has been.”
How could that be true? Iaso spoke it without disgust, while everyone in Agrion had spat at me. How could the two be so different?
Iaso didn’t insist. Instead, she opened the windows, letting the cool air in. “Understanding will come. You don’t have to force it. All you need to do is give your new life a chance.”
I couldn’t hope to refuse her. It wasn’t just that she’d saved my life, though that definitely contributed to it.
It wasn’t just her kindness, or her unusual nature.
Those two words. “New life.” It was what I’d been looking for, three years ago, what I’d failed to find in Agrion.
It might have been foolish of me, but I still craved it.
Like a woman in a dream, I joined Iaso by the large windows.
My breath caught at the surreal sight that met my eyes.
Asphodelia stretched below us, a tapestry of black marble streets, ghostly mist, and silver-blue crystals.
More white flowers lined every pathway, their strong perfume enveloping me in a familiar embrace.
Through those streets walked the terrible beasts every woodland child had been taught to fear.
The monsters of the Blighted Lands spread destruction wherever they went.
They had murdered everyone Syagros had gathered for his ritual and brought ruin to everything pure and innocent.
“You’re monsters of nightmare,” I croaked out. “Creatures of corruption and death.”
“Creatures of death, yes,” Iaso replied, not seeming in the slightest bit offended. “But, Callista, that’s not a bad thing. On the contrary.”
I turned away from the view and stared at her, trying to process what she was telling me. “You aren’t making any sense.”
Iaso hummed, as if considering a very difficult puzzle. “I know. Tell you what? Let me introduce you to someone who’s been waiting to meet you. Perhaps she will be able to help more than I.”
Iaso moved to a cushioned basket and lifted something small from inside. A tiny creature no larger than my palm rested against her fingers.
“This is Zoe.” Iaso approached me carefully, cradling the creature in her hands with infinite care. “She is a basilisk. And she was woven into existence a little over a week ago.”
A basilisk. I’d heard such beasts described. Huge monsters who could kill with a gaze. Zoe didn’t look like that. She looked… warm. Fragile. Sweet.
When Iaso placed the basilisk in my hand, Zoe immediately nuzzled my thumb. Her tiny body vibrated with a purring sound of pure contentment.
Something tight in my chest eased. Here was a creature who asked nothing except to exist in this moment of connection. I didn’t cry, but I came very close.
“She likes you,” Iaso said with a smile. “Most newly woven are cautious around strangers, but she trusts you completely.”
I stroked one perfect scale with my fingertip. “You said she was woven? What does that mean?”
“It is how Moirae create all new life in Asphodelia.” Iaso watched Zoe curl into my palm like a contented cat. “They weave souls and flesh from the power that flows through our city.”
After everything I’d recently experienced, I’d thought nothing could surprise me. Iaso had just proven me wrong. “That’s… That’s impossible.”
“Not in Asphodelia.” Iaso’s expression grew serious, her voice heavy with ancient wisdom. “I can see your fear, Callista. But you don’t need to be afraid of what sustains this place.”
“Death energy has killed countless people in Korinos.” I shuddered, remembering the dark plague that had forced Syagros into that accursed ritual. “It poisons whatever it touches.”
“It is also what brought us here, to Alia Terra,” Iaso shot back. “When the Shift happened, so many people died that it tore the world open. Thanatos heard. Thanatos answered. And we came to be.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “That’s… That’s insane.”
Iaso shook her head. “They say we used to exist in a different world before. But I don’t remember it.
No one does. The only thing I know is this.
Death energy flows through every stone of this city.
It powers our lights, feeds our gardens, keeps our very existence stable. We are happy. Thanatos-blessed.”
She took my hand and pressed it to the wall. The energy was there too, and it flowed around me, immense and profound, but not terrifying. It was not the cold, threatening corruption I’d expected. Instead, it almost seemed to welcome me.
“But Callista, such power drains human women,” Iaso continued. “Slowly sapping their life force until nothing remains but empty shells. Unless they are like you. Death-touched.”
These words knocked the breath from my lungs. Everything I’d believed about my broken nature suddenly seemed more fragile than glass. It was ready to shatter at the slightest touch.
“You’re saying I’m not broken?” I clutched Zoe closer, her warmth the only steady thing in a world gone mad. “Not defective?”
“Child, you were never broken,” Iaso murmured. “You were born for a different world than the one that raised you.”
Zoe hissed softly, and Iaso cupped my cheek with a gentle hand. “We are death-blessed, as you are death-touched. This is your home now, Callista.”
These words held the weight of absolute truth. But Iaso’s certainty aside, the city called to something deep in my bones. Something that recognized sanctuary rather than prison, safety instead of the corruption I’d been taught to fear.
Perhaps I’d have still rejected it. Perhaps I would have still turned away from the outlandish comfort Iaso and Zoe provided. But then, it happened.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the doorway, and then he walked into the chamber. Black fur covered a body built for violence, and his wolf-like head almost brushed the doorframe. Light caught on his claws, each one looking sharp enough to cut straight through bone.
He was terrifying, and not for a second did I fear him. He moved with the easy confidence of a predator, but not for a second did I feel like prey.
“Ah, I realize I forgot to mention something important,” Iaso said. “It was Theron who found you in your village and brought you here.”
I barely heard her. It had taken one look from the mysterious lupine beast, and all my memories had invaded my already overwhelmed mind. The trial, the massacre, Syagros’s horn driving toward my heart with killing intent. And then this creature had appeared in my dying mind.
Alien but comforting, he’d absorbed years of pain and had offered strength when I’d had none left. Iaso might have helped me heal, but I had no doubt that without Theron, she never would have gotten the chance.
“You...” My chest tightened, recognition flooding through me. “I remember you. In the memory, you took Syagros’s horn for me.”