Chapter 7 Wearing Her Skin
Wearing Her Skin
Phonos & Daphne
One week later
For as long as I could remember, the Spire had been home. We Keres built our nests in its towering heights, so far above Asphodelia only the Moirae could ever reach us. Our Spire was beauty, freedom, and pride, wrapped into one. But I didn’t need any of it now.
As I lay in the dark, the crushing load of the Spire’s heart pressed down from above. It was a weight that could grind armies to dust, and it should have stifled me. But Daphne slept by my side, in our nest, and she was all the freedom I’d ever need.
I turned my head against the furs, taking in every line of her body with greed. In the dim light coming from her asphodel crown, she seemed to glow more brightly than any death crystal.
A fierce, possessive fire ignited in my chest. She was so beautiful. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve her, but I’d happily spend an eternity earning the right to be her mate.
My thumb traced the delicate bones of her wrist. Sometimes, as much as I hated to admit it, I couldn’t help but feel that she was fragile, that I’d forced her into something she wasn’t quite ready for.
“I already made my choice,” she’d said the day of our bonding, and I wanted nothing more than to respect that. But a part of me wished I could have given her more time.
This place, this nest, was meant to be a sanctuary. A perfect, living space, shielded from the void. But could it be more?
A memory of the marketplace drifted to the forefront of my mind. She’d been intrigued at first, before the wall of noise and scent had forced me to pull her away. But there had been something there… Something I could give her.
Daphne didn’t need mortal food. No one in Asphodelia did. We were all sustained by Thanatos’s gift. But death-touched humans undoubtedly found this way of living strange, which was part of the reason the market even existed.
The thought of her tasting something sweet, something that bled juice and smelled of the sun... it was a simple, mortal pleasure I could give her. An experience, this time without the chaos.
I had to be careful not to wake her. I began to ease my hand from hers, replacing the pressure of my palm with a heavy fold of the fur blanket.
The bond fluttered with her brief, sleepy sense of absence, a question mark in the dark.
I pushed a wave of reassurance back down the line. Rest. I am still here.
She murmured something unintelligible, her body settling deeper into the nest. I rose silently and padded across the bare rock to the heavy wooden door. I paused at the threshold, looking back. She was a small shape in the vastness of our nest, but she filled my entire world.
I slipped out into the corridor, the soft click of the latch sealing the peace behind me.
The staircase greeted me with its familiar, rough-hewn lines.
I hadn’t quite gotten the chance to put the finishing touches to our home, but that was all right.
Daphne didn’t seem to mind, and we had all the time in the world to make adjustments.
I wasn’t impatient any longer, not now that I had Daphne.
My sisters weren’t quite as lucky as I was. When I got to the ground floor, I found them waiting for me, visibly keyed up. “You have buried us deep, brother,” Alecto commented. “The wind screams for you up in the aerie, and yet... you hide here in the roots.”
“I do not hide, Alecto. I build.”
Megaera pushed off from the opposite wall and smiled, the curl of her lips softening Alecto’s sharper words. “We know that, Phonos. And we’re happy for you, for your bond. But allow us this one selfishness. We miss you.”
It wasn’t precisely an accusation, only a kind reminder.
Since our mother’s unweaving, we’d become closer than ever.
The pulse of her energy flowed through our veins, tightening our bond.
They’d suffered every second of my confusion and my anxiety alongside me.
It stood to reason that they’d want to share in my happiness.
“I’m trying to give Daphne a little more time to adjust. But I’ll remember to take her out of the nest more often. How’s that?”
“You know her best, brother,” Megaera replied. “Don’t push her, or yourself. We’ll be here, regardless.”
“I have to say, I’m a little jealous,” Alecto drawled. “The digging was worth it. We were worried the rock would stifle you, but you seem... settled.”
I gave her a single, sharp nod. “I am. Far more than I thought was possible.”
Alecto grinned, a flash of sharp, white teeth against the shadows. “Good. And your mate is perfect for you. Just like we knew she’d be. I—“
A dissonant chord struck the very weave of the Spire, cutting my sister off mid-sentence. Mist, white and cold, began to coil up from the bare rock, swirling in the center of the corridor into a churning vortex.
Megaera stiffened, her feathers sharpening into metallic points. “It… It can’t be.”
“What is it, sister?” Alecto asked, already prepared for combat. “What’s happening?”
“Can’t you feel it? The air... it smells of Stygian iron and lost memories.”
Megaera was right. A distinctive scent had invaded our home, very different from the Spire’s own. I knew exactly where it came from and what it meant. Who had brought it here.
Reality itself parted, and a single object struck the floor with a heavy thud. It didn’t bounce. It struck the stone on its edge, spinning lazily with a grating scrape before toppling at my feet.
Alecto took a step forward, her hand dropping to the hilt of her blade. “How?”
I stared at the object. It was a coin. Pitted and dark, it radiated an unnatural stillness that seemed to absorb the warmth from the air. Megaera crouched, her eyes narrowing as she studied the mysterious item. “It is as I thought then. Charon.”
The mist around the coin pulsed, as if responding to Megaera’s words. A rasping whisper echoed from the metal itself, like the skittering of a thousand panicked satyr hooves on loose shale. “The work... is unfinished. The unburdened... belongs to the silence.”
The threat hung in the air, toxic and heavy. I hated that it didn’t surprise me as much as it should have.
Charon was the ultimate guardian of the Bride Market. He should have been the last person in Asphodelia to interfere with a result. But as my family had once proven, nothing in Asphodelia was absolute. Except, perhaps, the will of the Moirae.
“He dares?” Alecto took a step forward, her boot inches from the artifact. “He sends a personal token into the heart of the Spire?”
“This isn’t a payment for one of his trades, Alecto,” Megaera said, already beginning to stand. “Listen to the resonance. It’s... hungry.”
A fierce anger, sharper and deadlier than anything I’d felt in my life, crystallized in my chest. “There’s no need to listen to anything. He thinks he owns her.”
“He thinks because he took her gift, he has a claim on what remains?” Alecto asked in disbelief. “But that makes no sense.”
And yet, it was exactly the situation we were in now. “He never wanted me to approach her. He made that clear from the beginning. Why bid a memory of the Old World? Why send this now? He views her as an artifact he altered, not a customer he served.”
“He believes he has the right to finish what he started,” Megaera murmured. “It’s some kind of obsession.”
My sisters and I looked back the way I’d come, toward the nest I shared with my mate. Daphne was still sleeping, unaware that the creature who had taken her gift was scratching at the walls of our home. She was helpless before the Ferryman’s machinations.
“Let us remind him that House Keres does not yield its treasures,” Alecto hissed, her bloodlust filling the corridor. “We will burn the pier to the water. We will scatter his coins into the abyss.”
I held up a hand, stopping her. “No. This is my fight, sister.”
“You cannot go to him alone, Phonos,” Megaera warned me, stepping into my path. “The Ferryman on his own dock... You can’t possibly beat him.”
“Perhaps not.” I met my sister’s worried eyes without flinching. “But I doubt this will come to a fight. Charon’s existence has only ever been about what he can take and trade. If he bothered to send us a message now, it’s clearly another trade he’s interested in.”
“And if he demands a price you cannot pay?” Megaera asked, her voice trembling.
I looked at the dark coin on the floor. “Then I will introduce him to the only thing a Keres has left when the silence breaks.”
Alecto hesitated, the lines of her face sharp with worry. “Phonos… I’m not sure about this.”
I didn’t bother listening to what else she had to say. I’d already made my decision, and it was the only one that made sense. “Guard the door. Let no one enter. Let nothing disturb her sleep.”
Without another word, I walked past my sisters, out of the Spire. As I launched myself into the air, the fire of my fury settled into cold determination.
No doubt, the Ferryman had his own schemes and goals. But some things were more powerful than Charon’s trades. Now that I’d finally found my mate, I wouldn’t let anyone separate us.
The barley felt rough in my palm, a familiar, grounding texture. Sunlight slanted through the tall pines, painting warm stripes across the packed earth of my small yard.
Penelope clucked contentedly at my feet, her head cocked in that expectant way that always made joy bubble inside me. This was peace. An uncomplicated reality I’d bled to find.
I let the grain fall from my fingers, a small offering to the quiet of the morning. Penelope chirped and began to peck at the ground with a single-minded focus I desperately envied.
A sudden chill passed over my skin, raising goosebumps on my arms despite the warmth of the sun.
As I looked up, the world plunged into an unnatural twilight.
The air, once heavy with pine and warm earth, turned sharp and thin, carrying the scent of a cloudless storm.
The forest around me began to groan, the earth vibrating through the soles of my feet.