Chapter 11 The Stygian Vessel
The Stygian Vessel
Phonos
A few weeks later
The vibrant green pressed in on me, alive and hateful.
A chaotic noise of buzzing insects and chirping birds beat against my eardrums. Too rich and sweet, the air scraped my lungs, thick with the scent of damp earth and blooming flowers. This world of endless, pointless growth felt almost obscene to a creature woven from death energy.
I sat on a bed of soft moss and hated myself more than ever before. My fingers found the base of a primary feather on my right wing. I gripped it tight and pulled.
A clean, white-hot line of pain seared through me, a welcome focus in the swirling chaos of my grief.
The feather came free with a wet rip of flesh.
I dropped it onto the moss and waited. For a glorious moment, there was only the wound.
A breaking. A vulnerability. A sign that in this place, I, too, could be unmade.
A chorus of murmurs, like the rustling of a billion dry leaves, slithered into my mind. No... Not here. Never.
The hateful healing began, a familiar tingle at the root of the feather. Pure death energy, drawn from the rot in the soil and the decay of fallen leaves, seeped into the wound. The torn flesh began to knit itself together, a new feather starting to form against my will.
“Damn you. Even here, you follow me.”
“You do not belong here, Phonos of House Keres. Death will always find you, no matter where you go.”
Was I losing my mind? Or was Thanatos himself taunting me? I didn’t know, but at this point, I didn’t even care.
A fresh wave of fury washed over me. I reached back and tore more feathers free, this time more violently. Chunk after chunk came out of my wings. I crushed each feather in my fist, though the momentary pain gave me little satisfaction.
Usually, I could detach my feathers and use them as projectiles in battle.
But tearing them out by hand was different.
It was supposed to leave behind an injury, some kind of gap in my wings.
But nothing I’d tried since I’d left Asphodelia had worked.
Today was no different. Mere seconds later, all the feathers I’d destroyed had grown back.
Why? Where did I have to go, to find my mate? How far did I need to fly, to escape Asphodelia’s power?
The sudden rustle of the undergrowth broke me out of my trance. A single, heavy tread cut through the roar of my anger. I was on my feet in an instant, my wings flaring wide, my talons extended. A massive, black-furred shadow emerged from between two ancient oaks. Theron.
The sight of him, whole and unburdened, set a new fire in my blood. “Come to gloat, Cerberus?” I sneered at him, half thankful that he’d given me a new target for my fury. “To see how far your enemy has fallen?”
Theron didn’t rise to the bait. He remained motionless, a solid wall of black fur and quiet resolve that made my own ruin feel sharper. “If you were my enemy, you’re not anymore. Surely you must know that, Phonos.”
His words were a dismissal of the rivalry that had once cost us both so much. Maybe once, that would have bothered me. Instead, it only made me laugh. “Everyone in Asphodelia is my enemy now. You, my sisters, the Moirae. Maybe even Thanatos himself.”
Theron’s muzzle wrinkled in a ghost of a grimace. “I thought that, too, when my bond with Callista was almost broken. But things are rarely that straightforward with the Moirae.”
The bitter chuckle died in my throat. Was he actually claiming we were alike? What a joke. “Are you trying to comfort me, hellhound? Don’t bother. You didn’t really lose your mate. Not like I did.”
“Maybe not.” Theron took a single, heavy step forward, his gaze unwavering. “And I won’t insult you by claiming I understand how you feel. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.”
“Help?” I gestured at the scattered remnants of my feathers lying at my feet. “Nobody can help me now. Except maybe this accursed place, if I can manage it.”
“If that’s really what you want, I certainly can’t force you to come back,” he answered, barely even acknowledging the damage I’d done to myself. “But you should know, I spoke with the Moirae. About her. About Daphne.”
My breath caught, and I almost lunged at him like I had at my sister. My fury boiled over and I opened my mouth to unleash a death screech.
It hadn’t worked on Charon, but it would on Theron. Let him lose his mind, too. Let him suffer. Maybe if I got lucky enough, he’d go into another rampage and actually succeed in erasing me this time.
Before I could attack, Theron spoke again. “There may be a way. A chance. For her, and for you.”
For a few moments, silence fell between us. Theron waited, visibly wary. No doubt, Phix had already told him what I’d done. Perhaps he didn’t want to push me further.
I heaved and swallowed past the lump in my burning throat, suppressing my screech. “A way to what? To reverse it? To bring her back? Don’t peddle their poison to me, Cerberus. I know what I saw. There’s no way to bring someone back once they are gone.”
The simple idea was anathema in Asphodelia. It was a place of death, and new existences could only be woven from death energy. But the Moirae would never bring back a person who had already died.
And yet, there was a reason why I hadn’t turned him away. One I barely dared to acknowledge.
“Callista believes you deserve more,” Theron insisted. “She believes there’s hope.”
“Your mate’s pity is an insult.” I spread my wings wide, my feathers sharpening like daggers. “Take it, and your false hope, and leave me be.”
He shook his head, his eyes burning with the certainty of a monster whose bond was unbreakable. “It’s not false. Daphne isn’t lost to you, not yet. Not if you haven’t given her up.”
I would never. That was exactly why I’d come here, because even in death, I didn’t want her to be alone.
But Theron thought there was another solution. He was not a creature of twisted riddles, like Phix. He didn’t have ancient secrets like Charon. He dealt in the currency of action and hard, simple truths. He wouldn’t offer a lie.
Theron held my gaze, and for a second, I saw traces of his old power lurking in the depths of his eyes.
“I have delivered their message. The choice is yours.” His claws flashed with sparks of hellfire, but it didn’t feel like a threat.
“Stay here and look for your end in Korinos, or return with me, for a future in Asphodelia.”
With that, he turned and disappeared back into the shadows of the trees. And I knew, like he did, that I had no choice but to follow.
Of all the impossible things I had seen since Daphne’s death, Charon’s barge was the most terrifying.
It rested on the dead shore of the Blighted Lands, anchored against the lifeless soil. Before it, the Acheron stretched out, a silent expanse of death energy. Nothing I hadn’t seen a million times before. Except for one significant difference.
Charon was gone. And standing at the tiller was Aion, his bronze form an unmoving sentinel against the mist.
“Why are you here?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “Where is the Ferryman?”
Aion tightened his hold on Charon’s pole, but didn’t otherwise react. “Father is… busy. Just for today, I’ll be the one carrying you over the lake.”
The Ferryman was never busy. His sheer existence revolved around his duties to the lake. What would possibly be more important than that?
I turned to the Cerberus, desperately trying to suppress another outburst of temper. “Theron, what is going on? What is this?”
The blasted hellhound just shook his head. He would not be the one to speak of it. The silence was his answer. And here I’d thought he had no secrets. Maybe I’d given him too much credit.
Fine. I’d followed him here of my own accord. I would see this final act through to its conclusion.
Stalking past them, I stepped onto the barge. The ancient wood groaned under my weight. I braced myself for the lake’s unavoidable rejection. After all, I’d rejected Asphodelia. There was no reason why it’d take me back.
Instead, as Aion pushed us off from the shore, the barge slid over the water with ease. The Acheron welcomed us, the same way it had whenever we came from our old harvesting trips. Even if Aion was the one guiding us back now. Even if we were no longer the people we’d been.
I wished I could make some sense of this. Charon always had good reasons for his actions, but those reasons often didn’t align with other people’s wellbeing. Aion was perhaps the Ferryman’s sole exception. He’d tried to help Daphne, but… Why? And what would he do now that she was gone?
A part of me ached to ask. But Aion had always been his father’s protector. That wouldn’t have changed now. And so I waited.
The journey across the lake felt too familiar and comforting for my liking. I’d have loved to hate it, to reject it with every fiber of my being. But my instincts were determined to go against me, and they were practically screaming, “Home.”
A tense anticipation gnawed at my gut, and amidst it all, my grief anchored me in a way I hadn’t deemed possible. I was coming back here only for her sake. She was still the only thing that mattered. Not Charon’s schemes. Not Theron’s pity or Aion’s silence. Just Daphne.
After what seemed like forever, a shadow manifested in front of me. It was a sheer cliff face of volcanic rock, rising from the water with the firm brutality of Atropos’s shears. Carved into it was a single, dark opening and a narrow ledge of stone. Aion steered us toward it without a word.
The barge slid against the hidden dock with a soft, grating scrape. The sound echoed once, then died. We were sealed in.
“This is not the Stygian Docks,” I said, my voice flat in the dead air. “Where are we?”
“My father’s private entrance.” Aion left his father’s pole in the barge and stepped onto the ledge. “This way.”