Chapter 11 The Stygian Vessel #2
He moved toward a heavy, iron-bound door set into the rock face. I followed, only to pause when Theron made no move to get off the vessel. “My part in this is done,” the Cerberus said. “The rest is for you.”
It was probably for the best. Even if he’d come to find me in the Korinos Wilds, he was no friend of mine. And I had a feeling that whatever I found here, I wouldn’t want Theron anywhere near it.
Nodding, I turned away from Theron and entered the workshop. Almost immediately, waves of warmth washed over my skin, carrying the sharp scent of hot metal and quenching oil. A low, resonant hum vibrated up through the stone floor, the sleeping breath of immense power at rest.
This was where Charon crafted all of his creations, from Aion to his barges. Daphne had presumably seen it when she’d stayed with Aion. Somehow, I could have sworn I felt the ghost of her perfume in the air.
Looking completely at home surrounded by all the metal, Aion led me through the main chamber. “Daphne was curious about my nature, Phonos,” he rumbled. “She asked what it was like to be free of the loom. To not have a thread.”
I turned away from him, every word a new stab of pain in the gaping wound of her loss. “What does any of that matter now?”
Aion simply stopped before a second, smaller door at the back of the main workshop. He placed a hand on its surface, then looked back at me, his eyes holding a hesitant solemnity. “It matters more than you know. Now go. Father has been waiting. And… Good luck.”
Good luck? I liked the sound of that even less than I’d liked Charon’s absence from his barge.
Aion pushed the door inward. It moved with a whisper of sound, revealing a chamber beyond. He stepped back, gesturing for me to enter.
The room was different. It was cool and clean, the air crisp with a sense of power I recognized as the Moirae’s. In the center of the chamber, on a flat table of polished stone, lay a single figure, covered by a simple linen sheet.
My vision went blurry. The hollow ache in my chest tightened into a knot of pure, agonizing shock. I knew, with a certainty that defied all logic, who was under that sheet. I took a step into the room, and the door closed behind me, sealing me inside.
I approached the table, my hand trembling as I reached for the edge of the sheet. I hesitated for a single, heart-stopping second. It almost seemed too good to be true. Surely, it couldn’t be so easy. Surely, she couldn’t be here.
I pulled the sheet back, and there she was.
Daphne.
She was perfect. The gentle curve of her cheek, her fair skin, her bright red curls. Exactly the same as she’d been the morning I’d left her in our nest.
The nightmare was over. She was here. She was whole. But how? She’d withered away in my arms.
I reached for her hand, desperate to feel her warmth again, to make sure she was solid. What I found made dread and horror coil in my gut. Her arm was heavy. Beneath her soft skin, something else was hiding. Something inhuman.
“What is this?” I stumbled back, my wings flaring, knocking into a stand of tools with a harsh clang. “What have you done?”
Charon stepped from the shadows and stared at me with his typical impassive disregard. “I have forged a vessel.”
“A mockery,” I snarled, the death energy in my veins screaming to be released, to attack. “A soulless effigy to torment me. A lie, just another weapon against me.”
Was this really why Charon had summoned me back? To taunt me with the face of my failure?
Charon arched a brow at me, and if I hadn’t known any better, I could have sworn he looked exasperated. “You forget, Keres, that I am not like the Moirae. I do not make weapons. Only possibilities.”
What in Thanatos’s name was that supposed to mean? “Stop speaking in riddles, Ferryman. Why am I here? What did you do to her?”
“This vessel was forged from Stygian iron, using the coins in her ritual as a basis,” Charon answered. “Her own essence is its foundation. The Moirae could not reweave her anew, as I’m sure you must have known, but they lent me their power to recreate her flesh.
“She is now something new. A being with no thread. Just like Aion.”
At that moment, the very foundation of my reality seemed to crack. The searing rage vanished, replaced by sheer, ringing silence. And in that silence, a terrifying thought took root. This is real. And Charon expected it the whole time.
After all, he’d claimed the lake had accepted her offering. But the first thing he’d done after the ritual, the day I’d met Daphne, was set the coins aside, in a wooden box. Back then, it hadn’t struck me as odd, but now… Now, I understood.
“But you are not wrong, Phonos,” Charon continued, barreling over my shock. “Right now, the vessel is inert. A body without a soul. It needs a spark, an animating force that only one being can provide. You.”
Instantly, I knew what he meant. A memory flashed through my mind, that of the Great Loom coming to life during our mating ceremony.
“My screech,” I croaked out. “Our soul song.”
I’d deemed the bond severed. I’d felt it die. And yet… Could something as powerful as connection vanish just like that? No, I refused to believe it.
“Your screech is the music that kept her here,” Charon confirmed. “It is the song that wove a soul bond on her skin. For a being never born, it can also be the sound of a beginning. Wake her up, Phonos.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I opened my mouth and screamed like I never had before.