“It matters. I need to know.”
“There’s nothing more to know, Daphne,” Alecto answered. “Callista chose the Cerberus. Phonos accepted the loss. And then he found you.”
Perhaps she meant it to be a reassurance, but I understood the truth. He didn’t choose me. He lost her.
This was what the threads had been trying to tell me. I wasn’t the destination. I was the consolation prize. I was the creature he had settled for because the golden-haired woman who understood his loneliness had walked away.
“He told me… He told me I was his fate.”
“You are.” Megaera reached for me, her feathers twitching in anxiety. “The bond is real, Daphne. You saw the mark appear. It’s right there, on your hand.”
I didn’t need her to tell me what I already knew. Right now, I couldn’t even bring myself to think about the mark I’d taken such pride in. “Believe me, I saw plenty. Far more than I would like. What does a simple mark mean, if his heart belongs to someone else?”
“Daphne, you can’t honestly believe—?”
A thick, golden thread snapped into existence in the air, distracting me from whatever Alecto was about to say. It didn’t pulse like the others. It pulled. It tugged at my navel with a physical force, dragging me toward the stairs, toward the city. “I need to find her.”
Megaera and Alecto spread their wings, forming a barrier in front of me. “It’s too dangerous, Daphne. Just be patient. Phonos will come home soon.”
I had no interest in waiting. They couldn’t keep me here, not if I didn’t want to be kept.
With an angry huff, I swept past them. A human shouldn’t have stood a chance against two Keres warriors, but I’d never been an ordinary human. For once, that worked in my favor.
Alecto and Megaera stumbled, their legs tangling in glowing lines they couldn’t see. They still tried to grab me, but theirhands stopped inches from my arm, as if held back by iron chains. “Daphne, wait!” they called out.
But their words fell on deaf ears. I ran, following the threads that had been honest with me. I’d get my answers, or die trying.
8
Severed Threads
Phonos & Daphne
The Stygian Docks were waiting for me.
The moment I landed, I could feel it. The momentum of my flight carried me forward a few steps before I forced myself to a halt, my wings snapping shut behind me. But a presence was already fixated on me, alerted to my arrival. Mist coiled around my ankles, the same way it had around the coin. The stillness pressed on my eardrums, a dead, hungry thing that swallowed sound whole. The Acheron was watching me, and with it, so was Charon.
The Ferryman stood at the edge of the pier, his back to me, staring out at the placid water of the lake. He was unnervingly still, his ancient ferry pole held loosely in one hand. He didn’tturn. He didn’t need to. In this place, he was the mist, the stone, the water. He knew I’d answered his call.
A strange pressure settled behind my eyes. My thoughts felt heavy, arriving a split-second after my intent, as if the air itself were fighting to keep me from focusing. It was his magic, a subtle tide meant to erode my balance before the confrontation even began. I narrowed my eyes, pushing through the resistance.
I stalked forward, my steps heavy on the pier. “You have a talent for insults, Ferryman. Sending your tokens into the heart of my home. Demanding Daphne’s presence. Explain yourself.”
For a long moment, he didn’t respond. The black water lapped softly against the stone. Then, his voice rolled out of the gloom. “I’ve been asking the lake for days if it was certain. About this. About her. It knew what she was. But I couldn’t stop it.”
I refused to be drawn into his maze of riddles. It was a power play, nothing more. “You’re the one who needs to stop. She is my mate. If you don’t—“
Charon finally turned. His eyes were blank, empty of any emotion I could name. “I’m not the real danger here. I just wish you could see that. But you are too blinded by your own greed for her.”
“Greed?” The accusation struck a nerve, raw and sharp. My desire for Daphne wasn’t greed. It was the only thing that had ever made me whole. For so long, I’d felt like an anomalysurrounded by my female family, but with Daphne by my side, I’d known I didn’t need to fear that any longer.
The drone in my skull grew louder, a wall of white noise rising to drown out my thoughts. He was doing this. He was using the connection he had forged on that altar to poison us. “I will not let you touch her mind again.”
A flicker of something, pity, perhaps, crossed his ageless features. “I am not touching anything.”
“Liar.” The screech began to build in my chest, a familiar fire only a Keres could ever understand. Rage, frustration, and protectiveness came together in a single, cohesive whole. The power welled up from my core, a vibrating pool of energy that made the bones in my chest ache.
This was the core of my Keres identity, the weapon that had humbled armies. For Daphne, it was a song, but against an opponent, it was an unstoppable force. I would shatter his focus. I would shatter this cursed pier. I would shatter him.
