He had loved her. He had waited for her. He had looked at her with the same worship, the same desperate hope, the same absolute certainty he’d shown me. He’d told her the exact same beautiful things, shown her the same kindness that once made me trust him.
If I’d had a body of my own, I’d have screamed. I’d have demanded some kind of explanation, anything to make sense of the madness.
But I didn’t get the chance to say anything, neither as myself nor as Callista. The wind howled, rising into a scream of unbearable chaos. The vision folded, and I was thrust back into reality, snapping awake in my bed.
For a few moments, I couldn’t move at all. My muscles ached, as if I’d had one of my old episodes. A crushing weight clamped around my skull, grinding bone against bone. The air tasted of stone and stale fear. And Phonos wasn’t there.
The nest lay empty. The warmth beside me had turned cold, leaving only a depression in the furs where Phonos had been. And in his place, the threads had returned.
Every single speck of dust in the chamber was teeming with them, with the intruders I’d thought I’d escaped. Glowing lines sliced through the gloom of the chamber, searing with a cruel intensity. They pulsed in time with the throbbing in my temples, weaving through the walls, through the air, through me.
I grasped for the silence. I grasped for the peace that I had found in the Weavers’ Hall, the quiet that Asphodelia had given me since the day of my arrival. Only agony awaited me.
A million whispering tones layered over one another until they became a single, agonizing shriek. I pressed my palms hard against my ears, but it didn’t help. The noise came from beyond, deeper than the marrow of my bones, all the way into my very core.
Denial lodged in my throat. “No… Why? Why is this happening again?”
Charon had taken this. He had gouged it out of me on his altar. The ritual should have been the end of the nightmare.
But the threads remained. They burned brighter, louder, more violent than they ever had. They seared into my skin, vibrating with a raw power that made my teeth ache.
I tried to feel for the bond that should have anchored me, but my search yielded only chaos. The steady presence that had been there only hours ago was gone, replaced by a cry lost in a storm. I couldn’t feel Phonos anymore. I couldn’t feel his certainty. I couldn’t feel his love.
The vision of Callista crashed back into my mind, so powerful I almost threw up.“You’re worth waiting for.”
The way he’d looked at her, the way he’d spoken to her… It had to mean something. The threads had never truly deceived me. If I’d had a vision of Phonos and Callista, there was something about them I needed to find out. Right now. And if Phonos wasn’t here to answer me, I’d find him myself.
The room pitched and swayed as I stumbled toward the door. Glowing filaments of light crisscrossed the air like a web of fire, pulsing with a grinding thrum. Unlike the threads in my dream, these ones didn’t try to trip me. I wished I could find that comforting.
I threw my weight against the door and the heavy wood crashed outward. As I stood in the doorway, two dark shapes moved toward me, blurring into defensive stances. Alecto and Megaera blocked the path, their wings half-unfurled.
“Daphne?” Megaera frowned, eyeing me from head to toe with a concern I now found grating. “What is it? Are you unwell?”
I blinked, trying to clear the haze from my vision. Phonos’s sisters looked solid, anchored in a reality I was rapidly losing grip on. They didn’t see the threads coiling around their ankles. They didn’t hear the screaming.
“Where is he?” I slammed my hand against the stone wall to stay upright despite the vertigo. “Where is Phonos?”
“He’s left the Spire, but he’ll return soon,” Alecto replied. “You should be resting. You’re perfectly safe here, with us.”
I bared my teeth at her, feeling like a wounded animal. “Am I? You know nothing. This is not about you.”
Megaera lifted her hands, as if trying to show she was harmless. “What’s it about then?”
Her level tone infuriated me. I didn’t want any more fake reassurances, fake promises, fake kindness. “Callista,” I snapped at them.
The name fell between us like a stone dropped in deep water. Alecto and Megaera only stared at me in confusion. “What about her?”
“He loved her. He wanted her. Before me.”
I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted to be wrong about this, about what my threads had told me. Even if Alecto and Megaera knew Callista, that meant nothing. Callista was probably familiar to almost everyone who lived in Asphodelia.
But after that first moment of surprise, Megaera exchanged a sharp look with her sister. She moved closer, her tone soothing, soft and careful. “Daphne, listen to me. That… that was a complicated time. The Weave holds many paths.”
“Many paths…” The roar of the threads rose to a fever pitch, drowning out reason. “Did he claim her?”
Alecto crossed her arms and pursed her lips in displeasure. “He wanted to. But none of that matters now, Daphne. It’s in the past.”
The past and the future were always two sides of the same coin. I’d forgotten that, when I’d thought I could leave my own behind. The threads had just given me a brutal reminder of how wrong I’d been.
