Chapter 10 Already Unwoven #2
As Callista sat down on a nearby bench, I made my way toward the Moirae. With every step I took, the pressure in the air intensified, a metallic weight of pure power that stole the warmth from my lungs.
But I was too determined to stop now. Hellfire burned in my veins. My claws ached with the need to strike something, to leave a mark on the perfect, serene cruelty of the scene.
“Why?”
It was the same thing Zoe had asked, the same thing Phonos had screamed through every fiber of his being. Charon’s explanations felt less like an answer and more like a cruel joke. The Moirae… What little they had said made no sense.
“Why did you do this? Why would you lead her to her death?”
It couldn’t be just because they believed in the value of death. The Moirae had always seen far more than any of us did. They would realize the worth of Daphne’s life, if only for the sake of her bond with Phonos. But inexplicably, they hadn’t.
It all felt so… pointless.
Clotho released a deep sigh, and for the first time, she sounded almost as human as Callista. “She was not of the Weave, Cerberus. Her thread was not ours to command.”
“But Charon—“
“It’s true that I tried, Theron,” the Ferryman cut me off. “But it was foolish of me to even step in. The Moirae knew that. They accepted it. You must accept it as well. Fate wanted her dead, and so she died.”
I had my own grievances with the Ferryman after what he’d done to Callista. But after his apparent attempt to help Daphne, I’d somehow expected better. His callousness made my fur bristle in irritation, and my bond with Callista flared with outrage.
My mate shot to her feet and stalked toward us.
Her small frame was trembling with a rage that seemed too large for her body.
“Accept what?” she demanded, her tone raw with disbelief.
“That you all just stood by and watched her die? What kind of useless answer is that? Why would fate want her dead, when she was meant to be with Phonos?”
Atropos shot Callista a chastising look, but didn’t truly reprimand her for her loss of temper. “The Ferryman slightly misspoke, child. Fate does not want. It is. The gift of a seer is not to see the future. It is to be shown the path Fate has already laid.”
A heavy silence fell, thick with a truth I didn’t yet understand. I looked from Charon’s grim finality to the impassive faces of the Moirae. “What path?”
Lachesis raised her bronze measuring rod, and I already dreaded what she was about to say. “The path she was always on, Cerberus. The vision she received was true. It simply did not show her everything.”
Clotho raised her hands as if she were holding a thousand invisible strings. A low hum filled the air, a resonant power that emanated from her in waves. “See for yourself,” she commanded. “See the fragment she was given.”
And so I did. For the first time in my life, I saw them.
Threads.
Countless silver filaments, previously invisible, now blazed into existence in the air before us.
They were the raw material of Fate, the building blocks of which our entire world was made.
They gathered, twisting and coalescing, first into something incoherent and overwhelming.
But Clotho tugged on the threads, and they obeyed.
They wove themselves into a silent, moving tableau.
It was Agrion.
The ruins were there, the grass pushing through the cracked stones under a somber light.
A version of myself, a silent puppet made of thread, knelt beside Callista.
Her woven likeness was a mask of intense, hopeful concentration.
A blaze of my own hellfire, a silver-blue light, filled the image.
The black feather dissolved. The asphodel pushed through the earth.
My own likeness, a ghost woven from Fate, spoke. A distant, hollow echo filled my mind, as if coming from across a vast chasm. “You did it. You created lasting life.”
The image held for a single, perfect moment. Then, the threads unraveled, and the image dissolved into nothing. The air grew heavy again, the cold, hard reality of the walkway rushing back in.
Callista gaped in disbelief. “That’s... that’s it? That’s what she saw? But... it’s just a memory. From our visit to the village. Why is it important?”
I was just as confused. I’d demanded answers from the Moirae, and instead, they’d shown me a piece of my own past.
Oh. It was a piece. A fragment. And it was wrong. My mind raced, overlaying the woven image with the warmth and texture of my own memory. The flower. The feeling of Callista’s hand in mine. And then...
“It’s important because that’s not what happened,” I growled, the realization a cold dread that settled in my gut. “Not really.”
I turned my gaze on the Moirae. “We weren’t alone. Zoe was there. She spoke right after that.” In fact, the words she’d spoken in Agrion had been her very first. I turned back to the Moirae. “Why wasn’t she in the image? Why did the vision stop right there?”
“The vision is true, Cerberus,” Lachesis answered. “But as we said, and as you noticed, it is not complete. Daphne simply couldn’t see Zoe, because a seer’s gift, no matter how powerful, is flawed. In other words, she saw what she wanted to see. Whether she realized it or not.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Even for the predator inside me, this was just too cruel. “So Daphne was led here by a vision of creation... only for it to guide her to her own end? What is the purpose of a gift like that?”
Atropos shook her head, as if disappointed in a child who refused to understand. “A seer’s gift does not show the end, Cerberus. It shows the unavoidable way forward.
“You asked us why we could not help the Keres’s mate. It is because fate is absolute. Hers was already chosen. Trying to change it would have only brought disaster onto all of us.”
The words were no doubt a reprimand meant for Charon, but the Ferryman ignored her. Perhaps he was just too tired to care.
“Daphne herself knew it, Theron,” he told me, instead. “In her heart, she knew it was impossible to change fate. But… She was human. And it is human to yearn for something different. To hope.
“She loved her Keres. She wanted their bond to work. But in the end… She had no choice but to walk the path she was meant for. And Phonos had no choice but to be her prison.”
I felt sick with the horror of it all. Even now, I hadn’t forgotten how it had felt to be separated from my mate. I’d been trapped in a cell, kept away from a mate that had forgotten me.
But at least I’d had someone to blame. Someone to hurt. Someone to attack. Phonos had none of that. And there was no way to save someone who had already been damned by the gods.
There was no one to blame. No monster to hunt. There were only the perfect, indifferent mechanics of a system that used desire as a weapon.
“It was always going to be like this, then,” Callista whispered, wrapping her arms around herself as if to hold the pieces of her world together. “It was always hopeless.”
Clotho stepped forward, the movement a ripple in the stillness. She looked at Callista, her lips curving into a small, maternal smile. “No, child. If there’s one thing you should learn about Asphodelia, it is that here, there is always hope.”