He didn’t apologize to me, because that, he’d never do. His gentleness was reserved solely for his mate. In this, we were alike, but I wasn’t petty enough to taunt him for it.
Callista turned toward me, just as calm as before. “Phonos. I remember what it is to be new and alone in this city. We only came to ensure she had a choice.”
There was no deception in her tone, only genuine kindness. It was the same warmth Daphne had been talking about earlier, and it felt like a blade twisting in an old wound. Callista wasn’t wrong in fearing for Daphne, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but bristle at the implication.
Then, the impossible happened. Daphne brushed past my wing and faced Callista. “I appreciate the concern, but Phonos was the first one to give me a choice. I trust him.”
“Of course.” Callista smiled, undeterred by Daphne’s abruptness. “We didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m glad you’ve found a guide. May your path be a kind one.”
I expected Daphne to accept the olive branch, to stand back and allow me to end this. Instead, she went rigid. The line of her shoulders tightened, suddenly as tense as a bowstring.
As Callista turned to leave, Daphne rushed forward. Before I could stop her, she reached out, her fingers brushing against the silk of Callista’s sleeve. “Wait.”
The gesture was so unexpected, so contrary to the tension of the moment, that the world seemed to hold its breath.
Theron tensed, visibly unhappy that anyone had touched his mate. But Callista stopped mid-motion and didn’t turn Daphne away. “Yes? What is it?”
“You’re the one,” Daphne gasped, starting to shake. “You planted the asphodel field in Agrion.”
A sharp arrow of ice shot through my veins. Agrion. It was an echo of a past I’d left behind, the place where our family’s intervention had saved Callista’s life, only to have her torn from us. A painful knot of confusion formed in my gut. How could Daphne possibly know that name?
Callista’s mouth dropped open. “How did you...? Yes. It was me. I used to live there before… Before the village was destroyed.”
A distant memory tickled at the back of my mind. Once she’d reunited with Theron, Callista had become a weaver with the Moirae’s guidance. One year later, she’d gone to Agrion. Megaera had told me the whole story. “I heard… She used Mother’s feather to weave an asphodel,” she’d said.
A series of connections ignited in my mind, a beautiful and undeniable pattern taking shape. The surge of death energy from the Agrion massacre. My mother’s unweaving. The single black feather she had left behind, a concentration of her very essence. Callista’s magic, somehow weaving that feather into a path of flowers that cut through the Blighted Lands. A path that had led directly, impossibly, to my fated mate.
“Thank you.” Daphne collapsed against Callista, pressing her forehead to her shoulder for a brief, desperate moment. “I think... I think the flowers led me here. Thank you.”
She pulled back, a flush rising in her cheeks at her own outburst. Callista was speechless, her sorrowful eyes wide as she looked from Daphne to me, and back again. “You don’t need to thank me. All I’ve ever wanted was for the people dear to me to be happy.”
After a long pause, Callista gave a solemn nod and allowed the hulking creature to guide her away. They were swallowed by the shadows of the garden, leaving a heavy stillness in their wake.
As Daphne stared at the spot where they’d vanished, a sense of reverent wonder bloomed in my chest. “I finally understand,” I murmured, and it was perhaps the truest thing I’d ever said.
A year of chaos had finally snapped into perfect line. For so long, I’d deemed my choices a series of mistakes and drastic misunderstandings. But all along, I’d missed the point.
Everything I’d done had been a path. A guide toward what really mattered. And finally, I’d reached what I’d been aiming for. My path had led me here. To Daphne.
A few days later
This high in the Spire, the wind scoured the peak clean, a constant presence that tore at my hair and made my feathers sing. The harmony of home and power had filled my senses since my weaving, but after my failed mating with Callista, it had become a cage.
Now, the sprawling tapestry of Asphodelia’s dark foundations was no longer a map of my duties and failures. The slate had been wiped clean, leaving only a testament to our survival, intricate and beautiful.
I turned from the familiar view and sought out the reason for this newfound peace. My sisters were already here, standing before the grand relief of our mother. Her likeness emerged from the sheer basalt wall, her wings spread in a protective embrace I could still feel deep inside me.
Megaera reached out, her fingers gently tracing the chiseled edge of a single, perfect feather. “Mother. Phonos has found his mate. Like we hoped.”
Alecto stood perfectly still beside me, relaxed in the silent comfort of the aerie. “But of course, you always knew he would.”
My attention settled on our mother’s carved face, on the fierce loyalty etched there. Gratitude swelled in my chest, a physical ache that pressed against my ribs. “You left behind a path for me when I was completely lost,” I said. “And I know now, you must be so happy for me.”
Our mother might be gone in body, but her death energy lived on in me and my sisters. I had no doubt that she was watching us still, through Thanatos’s gift.
I only wished I’d inherited her patience. But every second I spent away from Daphne now felt like an age. “You’d like her a lot, Mother. She’s coming to the Spire today. She should have already arrived, but Aion moves like the mountain he is.”
Megaera lowered her hand from the wall, turning toward me with a look of fond exasperation. “He is being careful, Phonos. As he should be. In your heart, you know that.”
