Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Bloom
Into the Spinners' Lair
They cuffed me first, the cold metal infused with spells so potent they seemed to leach the strength from my bones. I felt the dark magic crawling over my skin, binding my power. Then they pulled the enchanted hood over my head to prevent me from seeing anything.
A small army of minor gods surrounded me, their footfalls heavy on the forest floor. I stumbled over roots and debris, but hands on either side yanked me upright before shoving me forward again.
“Move faster,” one called. “We’re not dragging this out.”
I didn’t bother to ask where we were going. But I marked the changes—the fade of familiar forest sounds, the shift from soft earth to unyielding pavement. I was forced into a vehicle, driven for what felt like an hour, then hauled back out into cool, still air.
Then, voices. A new group had been waiting. A transition, efficient and cold. I was being handed over like sealed cargo.
These new captors were different. No mockery, no curiosity. They asked no questions but simply took hold and began to move.
It was a portal. A leyline jump.
Hands pulled me forward without warning, and the ground vanished beneath my feet.
I was spinning, tumbling through a vortex of distorted space, the hood tightening until each breath was a struggle. My stomach lurched; I nearly lost the breakfast I’d eaten hours before.
Just as suddenly, the spinning stopped. I was spat out onto soft, damp grass, landing hard on my tailbone. Shaking off the disoriented feeling, I let my senses stretch into the space around me. The cuffs stifled my power, but not my perception.
I was no longer in the mortal realm, and with cold clarity, I knew that I’d never walked this particular realm before—not even as a goddess.
It dawned on me why they’d brought me here. In this realm, Hades would not find me, my presence erased from his senses. Had he realized I was gone yet? I forced the thought down. I could only hope Morrigan reached him in time—her betrayal didn’t erase her need to heal him for her own ends.
Magic was potent in this realm, saturating the air in a way that was absent in the mortal world.
The air smelled of heavy blossoms and aged wine.
A distant melody from a flute wove through the breeze, singing of lost time and longing.
This had to be the Fae realm, a place that ran on magic alone, where human technology was not just absent but impossible.
It was the one place Nero could not follow. The Fae had warded their entire world against the gods. That explained the handoff at the portal: the minor gods could not cross. This new, silent crew were the ones permitted entry.
And I was certain, with every refined sense I possessed, that they were all Fae.
For over an hour we walked, across grass, then stone, then what felt like a wooden dock. I was guided into a boat. The wind carried the scent of mist and strange blossoms that had never grown in mortal soil.
As Persephone, plants and creatures had always answered my call. I could have turned the forest against my captors back in France. Could have broken free. But I had chosen this: to enter the snakes’ pit, to learn the final, dark truth.
A Fae pressed me onto a bench. Water lapped the hull.
I kept silent, observing, filing each detail away—the scents, the textures, the distances. This intelligence would mean survival later.
The boat moved, propelled not by oars or engine but by magic. It glided swiftly, and time itself seemed to blur within this realm. Eventually, we slowed, docking with a soft bump.
I was hauled from my seat onto solid ground.
We entered what felt like a natural cave, vast and echoing. The delay of our footfalls returning—seconds long—spoke of caverns of impossible scale.
We moved through what felt like corridors—I could tell by the shift in formation around me, the way my escorts adjusted their steps. Though the hood stole my sight, I could feel the pulse of magic from each being, could count their number by their magical signature.
Then, the groan of a heavy door swinging open. Around me, the nervous gasps of my escorts, struck with awe and fear.
A single hand took my wrist, pulling me forward. The others remained behind, not daring to cross the threshold.
I understood why immediately.
Bottomless, ancient power slammed into me, unlike anything I had ever felt, even in the presence of the King of Gods. A wind, born of no air, whipped my hair and pressed my clothes tightly against my body. For a moment, I froze, unable to step further.
This power did not come from a being, but something else that I couldn’t put my finger on.
As I stood there, unmoored, the Fae tugged my sleeve.
“You must go,” she said, her voice quiet and flat. “Be careful of the stairs.”
She led me down a winding stair that spiraled deep into the earth. We descended for what felt like an age, until at last we reached the bottom.
Forward again. The roar of rushing water filled the space, and a cool drizzle kissed my skin—rain inside a cavern.
I stood at the heart of the core power now. It brimmed in every atom of this place, pressing against me from all sides, a weight that threatened to buckle my knees.
“Was the trip eventful, Eve?” a female voice asked—musical, strange and familiar at once. It echoed from some deep chamber of Persephone’s memory, from an eon ago.
“No,” Eve, the Fae beside me, replied. “She’s the most cooperative prisoner.”
“She isn’t known for fighting back,” a second female voice chuckled.
That stung. Persephone was always perceived as a weak minor goddess.
“You may remove her hood, Eve,” the first voice commanded.
Eve pulled the hood away, and brilliant light flooded my vision. I shut my eyes against the glare, waiting two heartbeats before daring to open them again.
The cavern was immense, a palace hall carved from rock, its ceiling lost to heights that might as well have been sky. And every surface was veiled in threads.
Millions of them.
They crisscrossed the space in elaborate, ever-shifting patterns, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, each humming with its own distinct vibration.
Some gleamed gold, others silver, some the deep red of blood, others black as the void.
They moved constantly, flowing, being woven, measured, and cut all at once.
It was awe-inspiring. Oppressive. The sheer scale of it sucked the air from my lungs.
My gaze flickered to the Fae beside me, and I blinked.
She was utterly blind, with milky white eyes scarred over as if burned. Her face held the frosty beauty of all Fae, with pointed ears and skin that seemed faintly luminous. She wore simple gray robes, and her movements were graceful, despite her sightlessness.
A sliver of arcane knowledge from Persephone’s memory surfaced. Of course she was blind. That was why the others had stopped at the door. No one could keep their sight after looking upon the Fates and their threads.
“Hello, Bloom.”
The first voice called me by the name I’d worn in this life. I turned toward the sound.
My heart skipped an icy beat, but it was too late to unsee what I had already witnessed. The hood was gone.
Before me sat three females. They were not goddesses. Not immortals. Not mortals. They were unlike any other beings—singular, existing outside all hierarchies, beyond every law that bound the rest of creation.
The first sat at a spinning wheel that turned of its own accord.
She appeared youngest, her features soft, almost unfinished, as if she were still becoming.
Her hair was silver-white, a cascade down to the ground Her eyes glowed the pale blue of a morning sky. A robe of pure white pooled around her.
The second sat at a measuring apparatus, a vast frame with countless notches and marks. She looked middle-aged, fully formed, with sharp features and dark hair pulled tightly back. Her eyes held the deep amber of late afternoon sun. She wore golden robes trimmed with unreadable symbols.
The third sat at a worktable laden with shears, some small as sewing scissors, others large as swords. She appeared the oldest, though not frail; mature, with silver streaking her blonde hair. Her eyes glowed a sunset red. Her robes were crimson, edged in black.
They were the Three Sisters. The Fates themselves.
Clotho, the Spinner, wove the thread of life from her distaff. Lachesis, the Allotter, measured its length and breadth. Atropos, the Inevitable, held the shears that would cut it.
A tremendous relief washed through me—I hadn’t gone blind. I stared directly at them, into the heart of their power, and my sight remained.
Before the relief could settle, a burning question rose, sharp on my tongue.
But I bit it back.
These beings were not my allies. I would need to tread carefully, revealing nothing.
The one who had greeted me was Lachesis. She could spare a moment while her sisters wove and cut, their fingers moving with magical speed in a blur of intent and power.
“The quiet one,” Clotho the Spinner chimed in, her voice devoid of inflection. I couldn’t tell if it was complaint or observation.
“The quiet one finally bites,” Lachesis remarked, a dry snort in her tone. “And this time, she’s shown her teeth and tipped the balance.”
So they dragged me here, unkindly. Yet I kept my tongue still, waiting. The more you speak, the more you expose your weakness.
Before them, the threads stretched across the cavern like immense, horizontal harps, flowing and shifting at lightning speed. Every mortal’s breath, every immortal’s reign, every choice and its consequence—all were woven into those luminous, complex strands.
In the center of the chamber lay a sea cave, its water lapping at a stone bank with the sighs of a distant ocean.
The sisters noted my attention drifting from the threads to the swaying water.
“The musical water soothes us,” said Atropos, without looking up from her shears. “As you see, our work never ceases.”
“The tidal pool is a marvelous design,” I said, speaking for the first time since my capture. “One could even swim after a day’s labor.”
“Now she speaks,” Atropos purred. “And she wants a secret.”
“Do not tell her,” Clotho warned.
“Do not fuss. She is bound by our power.” Lachesis smiled faintly. “No one breaks these cuffs. Not even the gods.”
“She will not leave this place.” Atropos chuckled in agreement. “The least we can do is satisfy her curiosity.”
“You may go, Eve,” Lachesis said.
The blind Fae turned without a word. The quiet tap of her footsteps faded up the stairs, leaving me alone with the three sisters and the hum of a billion threads.
Atropos moved to cut a single thread, her shears closing with casual efficiency.
The gesture was a message: she could sever the thread of my life just as easily while I stood before them.
My pulse spiked, and cold sweat dampened my armpits.
I took a moment to steady my breath. I would not panic. I needed clarity, not fear.
I watched, nearly wincing, as she continued—snipping not one but hundreds of threads in one smooth, sweeping motion. Countless deaths, now unfolding somewhere in the mortal world. While humans grieved, the Fates culled mortals like a tailor trimming cloth.
The severed threads coiled away from the loom. My eyes followed as they drifted toward a cave wall and faded through it.
“They go to the archives,” Atropos said with a satisfied sigh. “That part of our work is complete.”
“So, Bloom, what have you learned so far?” Clotho, the middle sister, asked.
They knew who I was, yet they kept calling me Bloom.
I was betting they realized that my power had awoken, but they did not know I remembered I was Persephone.
My body was still mortal, though the goddess within had awakened.
That was one of the big reasons I stood here, seeing them, without going blind.
I was both mortal and divine, a loophole in their ancient law.
The Fates wove destiny, but they were not all-knowing. Even they had to follow rules. And one of those rules, where I was concerned, was that no one was allowed to speak my true identity in front of me. It kept the game in motion.
And I would use that against them.
“Learn what?” I asked. “I’m nobody, a student at Reaper Academy. Why have you brought me here?”