Callista’s eyes widened, and she took a half-step back. “Loved? Daphne, what are you talking about? Phonos—“
“Don’t say his name.” The threads around my heart tightened, squeezing the air from my lungs. “You don’t have the right.”
Except she did, didn’t she? She’d known him first. She’d been his real choice, not me.
“Daphne, I don’t understand,” Callista hesitantly offered. “It’s true that your mate and I know each other. We’re friends. He helped save me, when I first came here, to Asphodelia. There’s nothing else between us.”
She was trying to respect my anger, and for that, I should have been grateful. But behind the mask of her caution, I could see the cascade of countless betrayals.
A memory crashed over me, as potent and vicious as my earlier vision. The smell of blood and scorched earth. The phantom sound of a hammer striking bone. The terrified, disembodied screams I’d heard in the ruins of Agrion. They weren’t just echoes anymore. They were here, in this moment, clinging to the air around Callista. And beneath it all, the high, keening shriek of a Keres.
“You’re not friends. House Keres claimed you through a battlefield his family made.”
Callista’s face went white. The blood drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin as pale as the asphodels at her feet. “You’re right. They tried. But in the end… That’s not what happened. I didn’t really belong by his side.”
“Because of the Cerberus,” I sneered. “Yes, I already know that.”
Callista released a deep sigh. “Listen, Daphne, I understand why you might be confused. You have no reason to trust me, not really. But this isn’t about me, or about Theron, or House Keres. The only two people who matter in your bond are you and Phonos. And you told me yourself, when we first met, that he gave you a choice. You felt at ease with him. Nothing’s changed, has it?”
I blinked, trying to clear the fog in my head. Her words made sense. Thinking back, so had Megaera’s. If our bond had been a lie, the Great Loom would have never blessed it. If he’d wanted Callista and not me, surely I’d have noticed by now. Right?
The flicker of hope vanished as quickly as it appeared. Another memory snapped through me, impossibly crisper than before. My vision blurred, and suddenly, Theron was standing in front of me.“She’s mine,”the Cerberus growled.
“She’s mine,”I snarled back, except it was Phonos speaking.
It hurt. Far more than my vision of Callista, far more than what Alecto and Megaera had said. It hurt, because at that moment, I could truly feel him, feel what he’d felt. I couldn’t deny it any longer. I’d chosen him, but he’d chosen her.
I looked at her, at the woman who was his true north, and a sound came out of my throat. It was a dry, humorless laugh that felt like it was ripping me to pieces. “That’s right, Callista. Nothing’s changed. He only ever really loved you. As for me… The only thing I am is a cure for his loneliness.”
“Daphne, no!” Callista tried to protest, but I couldn’t bear another word.
The threads tangled around me, and I didn’t even bother fighting them any longer. My own rage was a foreign thing, a puppet master pulling my limbs. I raised my hand, not knowing what I intended to do. To strike her? To grab her? It didn’t matter, as long as I could somehow tear this ugly truth from the Weave itself.
A threatening hiss echoed in my ears, freezing me in place. “Leave Callista alone, outsider!”
A flash of silver-green erupted from the depths of the canal. A spray of cold water hit my face as a serpentine body slammed onto the path between us, coiling into a defensive posture. Its scales shimmered with an inner light, and its reptilian head rose, poised to attack.
I stumbled back, the shock of the monster’s appearance a momentary crack in my rage.
And then I met its gaze.
For a single, silent heartbeat, there was no sound, no light, only a pair of ancient, reptilian eyes. They were a void, a power that saw beyond the screaming chaos clinging to my soul. They did not attack. They simply unmade.
A sound like a thousand harp strings snapping at once echoed in the marrow of my bones. The deafening noise in my mind cut to absolute silence. And I knew no more.
9
The Gift of Thanatos
Phonos
There was something to be said about trying the same thing twice and expecting a different result. The definition of madness, people called it.
I knew more about madness than most. My screech had driven plenty of people insane with rage, and I’d felt the weight of my mate’s struggles during our claiming ceremony.
But the moment my eyes snapped open, my consciousness latched onto a single, impossible thought. He’d cut her away from me. And right then, I felt like I’d lost my mind.
“You’re awake,” Charon commented, and it didn’t help at all.
