Chapter 10 Hollowed Out
Hollowed Out
Medea
Aion’s chest was completely hollow.
The smooth bronze plates remained parted, exposing the dark crater where his core had burned with an impossibly bright light. The comforting hum of his magic was entirely gone. He had reached into his own center and ripped his soul out to keep me safe. Now, nothing remained but a cold metal shell.
Absolute, suffocating shock anchored me to the ground.
I simply sat in the dirt, staring blankly at his motionless body.
When he had first emerged from the den, a desperate hope had flared in my heart.
Even after I realized his gentle mind was gone, the mere sight of his movement had offered a fragile lifeline.
He’s come back for me, I’d thought.
Now, the empty cavity in his chest severed that line completely, dropping me into a paralyzing stupor.
This time, I hadn’t been the one to hurt him. But I might as well have destroyed him with my death-touch all over again. He’d killed himself to make sure he wouldn’t kill me.
I rested my hands limply in my lap, too numb to even wipe away the tears sliding down my cheeks. Aion remained terrifyingly still. But I… I felt as dead inside as he was.
“Why?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Why did this have to happen?”
I wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular. No one could give me solace, not now, not ever. But Phix still answered. “Aion had an ancient duty, but he broke it. For you.”
The majestic sphinx looked diminished, still shaking with the aftermath of my corrupted magic. But when she spoke, her dark eyes held a profound reverence. “The man emptied the vessel so he could protect you. He gave you his death. That is priceless, Medea.”
“It’s not his death that I want,” I snarled. “I want him. Us. Together.”
“He wanted that, too, Medea. But a soul cannot simply be replaced.”
The words rolled over the ruined garden, carrying a terrible weight. They didn’t come from the sphinx. I turned and found Charon standing at the edge of the garden path.
Too late, a part of me screamed. Why could you not come sooner?
But Charon’s simple presence silenced the words on my lips.
He ignored the wounded sphinx entirely, fixing his gaze firmly on Aion.
Kneeling beside the massive bronze body, Charon placed his hand on Aion’s forehead.
“I can close the plates, Medea,” he said.
“I can polish the surface. The spark, however, is extinguished. He was never meant to possess a soul. His awareness was a miracle born of a death storm, and I cannot manufacture a miracle twice.”
Shaking off the last of my stupor, I shot to my feet and gripped the heavy fabric of the ferryman’s dark robes. “He is your son!” I cried. “There must be a solution. A price I can pay. Tell me what to do.”
Charon released a deep sigh. “It’s not so easy, Medea.
You see, I forged Aion from a precious memory.
The Moirae and I come from a different world, and in my old life, I knew a bronze giant.
His name was Talos, crafted by the hands of a blacksmith god.
He was the ferocious guardian of an island and a creature of absolute duty.
A single vein, filled with the blood of the gods, ran from his neck to his ankle.
As long as that vein remained intact, he was invincible. ”
Charon traced the lines of Aion’s wounded chest almost nostalgically. “Do you know how Talos died, Medea?”
I shook my head, already afraid of what he was about to say. “How?”
“A woman killed him,” Charon replied. “A sorceress. Her name was Medea. In the Old World, she was the lover of Jason.”
Medea. The lover of Jason. An echo of what I was… of what I could have been.
Nausea clawed at my throat. Jason was my father.
He’d created me, had raised me, had shaped everything that I was.
But never, not in my darkest nightmares, had I imagined him touching me as a lover.
The mere idea made my skin crawl. And to think Medea had killed this version of my Aion… It was even more horrific.
“I’m not…” I choked out, shrinking back from the ferryman. “I could never…”
Charon lowered his head, his expression grim.
“I know that, child. But the patterns repeat themselves. In the Old World, Medea used her magic to bewitch the giant, driving him to madness. In his frenzy, he scraped his ankle against a sharp crag, dislodging the single bronze nail that sealed his divine blood. The life bled out into the sand, leaving him an empty shell. In this one…”
I wanted to say that I hadn’t bewitched Aion or driven him into a frenzy. But wasn’t that exactly what had happened? “So… all along? I was his damnation.”
“You were his mate.” Charon’s severe features softened, giving way to an ancient sorrow.
“When you arrived at my shores, I felt the old pattern waking up. I saw the girl with the name of a killer, and I saw the bronze man I had built. I feared the ending. I thought you’d come to drain the life from my son. ”
His lips twisted in a strange, sad smile. “But I also knew that destruction and creation are two sides of the same coin. Aion is not Talos, and you are not the Old World’s Medea. I believed the pattern could be reversed.”
“Reversed?” I repeated. “By whom? I’ve only ever made things worse.”
“You are only walking on the path set out for you,” Charon replied. “You won’t be able to follow a different current while your magic remains tethered to a necromancer.”
Of course. Jason had retreated, but he still held my leash. He commanded the binding that turned my power against Phix. As long as his tether existed, I was utterly helpless.
A dull, pulsing pain throbbed deep inside me. It felt like a vile parasite. A knot of Jason’s cruel necromancy had been infecting me since my creation.
“Tell me how to break it.” I dug my fingernails into my palms. “Every time I fight the pull, the spell only burns hotter.”
For a few priceless seconds, I thought Charon wouldn’t answer. He only studied my face, as if searching for something he didn’t truly expect to find.
“To sever the tether, you must look to the Medea of the world that was,” he finally said. “I told you she was his lover, but she was more than that. She was also the mother of his children.”
I shuddered. The mere concept made my stomach roil. But if Charon was speaking of it, there had to be a reason. “How does that help me?”
“When he ultimately betrayed her,” Charon pressed on, “Medea severed her bonds to him in the most devastating way possible. She murdered the children she had borne him. She destroyed the living legacy they shared.”
He leaned closer, his piercing blue eyes locking fiercely onto mine. “The pattern on Alia Terra remains true, though you aren’t his wife. Jason anchored the binding directly into your womb. He seated his necromancy where life is meant to grow.”
The shocking truth of Jason’s spell-work settled heavily into my bones. I had been a captive my entire life. My hands, my magic, my very flesh had always belonged to Jason. But never had I truly understood where and how the binding on me worked.
Now that I finally had an explanation, no matter how horrific it was, I couldn’t help but feel a small spark of hope.
“Must I end my own life to break it?” I met the ferryman’s gaze without a single tremor. If my death bought Aion’s return, I would gladly pay the toll.
“No.” Charon did not blink. “You must destroy the seat of the binding. You must enact the old Medea’s revenge upon your own flesh. You must use your own gift and kill the potential for life that Jason claimed as his own.”
Charon stood back, offering me the space to choose. “It will reshape you completely. You will be barren, Medea. You will never hold a child of your own. But by killing the future he anchored inside you, you will sever the tether permanently. And that barrenness will be your power.”
Phix watched silently from afar. “You can do this, child. You know you can.”
I looked down at my hands. For so long, I had lived in terror of what these fingers could do to others. I had watched them turn innocent men to ash. Now, I needed to turn that curse inward. I needed to hollow out my own flesh.
There was no hesitation. Untying the silk cord at my waist, I let my silver robes fall open. I placed my bare palms flat against the pale skin of my lower belly.
Pushing the death magic through my palms, I drove it directly inward.
Every muscle in my body exploded, alight with pain. Gods, please, why did it hurt so much? Was this the pain I’d inflicted on all the people I’d killed? The captives on Jason’s deck? If so, then I deserved to be punished. I deserved every single second of this agony.
I screamed until I tasted blood. My knees gave out.
I collapsed onto the ground, blinded by the sheer, suffocating torment.
I couldn’t keep my hands down. The burning forced me to jerk away.
My fingers slipped from my own skin as I desperately tried to escape the rot. I was losing my grip on the magic.
But I was not alone.
Charon knelt in the dirt beside me. He didn’t force my wrists. He simply pressed his large palms over the backs of my hands, lending me his grounding weight.
A moment later, a solid, warm mass pressed against my spine. Phix slid her heavy golden flank directly behind me, offering me a physical wall to lean against.
“Hold the magic, Medea,” Charon whispered, his voice so kind it was almost painful. “Burn Jason out.”
I ground my teeth together, tasting fresh blood. Yes, I thought. Yes, I’d burn my father out of my body, out of my blood, out of the very marrow of my bones. No matter what I had to do.
The binding fought back. A sickening, boiling heat erupted from my insides. It shot up my spine like venom, seizing the muscles in my arms in an attempt to paralyze me. It felt exactly like Jason’s fingers twisting violently inside my guts.
I curled my hands into claws, digging my nails deep into my stomach. Warm blood welled up around my fingertips, but I ignored it. Pushing past the blood and muscle, I forced my lethal magic deeper, driving the decay directly into the boiling knot of his necromancy.
As I flooded my abdomen with pure rot, I felt the potential for life inside me wither. The sacred space meant for creation was turning to ash and ruin. I was winning.
Deep inside my body, a sickening tear ripped through my core.
The parasite of Jason’s magic finally gave way. It dissolved completely in the flood of my death-touch. The suffocating leash snapped.
Charon immediately pulled his hands away. Phix shifted back to give me space. I curled into a tight, trembling ball and retched violently, gagging on sour bile. My entire body seized with uncontrollable spasms.
The agonizing pain slowly receded, leaving behind a vast, echoing emptiness. The space behind my ribs felt hollowed out. I was permanently barren.
I lay in the dirt, resting my forehead against the crushed asphodels, and wept. Not out of fear, regret, or loss. Out of pure and simple relief.
Slowly, I wiped the spit and tears from my face and pushed myself up.
I dragged my shaking body forward, collapsing against Aion’s metal shoulder.
The deep, burning ache of my ruined womb throbbed with every beat of my heart, but the oppressive weight of Jason’s ownership was entirely gone.
The magic pooling in my veins belonged solely to me.
I was free. I had mastered my own death. Now I needed to pull a soul back from the dark.