With that, he turned and disappeared back into the shadows of the trees. And I knew, like he did, that I had no choice but to follow.
Of all the impossible things I had seen since Daphne’s death, Charon’s barge was the most terrifying.
It rested on the dead shore of the Blighted Lands, anchored against the lifeless soil. Before it, the Acheron stretched out, a silent expanse of death energy. Nothing I hadn’t seen a million times before. Except for one significant difference.
Charon was gone. And standing at the tiller was Aion, his bronze form an unmoving sentinel against the mist.
“Why are you here?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “Where is the Ferryman?”
Aion tightened his hold on Charon’s pole, but didn’t otherwise react. “Father is… busy. Just for today, I’ll be the one carrying you over the lake.”
The Ferryman was neverbusy. His sheer existence revolved around his duties to the lake. What would possibly be more important than that?
I turned to the Cerberus, desperately trying to suppress another outburst of temper. “Theron, what is going on? What is this?”
The blasted hellhound just shook his head. He would not be the one to speak of it. The silence was his answer. And here I’d thought he had no secrets. Maybe I’d given him too much credit.
Fine. I’d followed him here of my own accord. I would see this final act through to its conclusion.
Stalking past them, I stepped onto the barge. The ancient wood groaned under my weight. I braced myself for the lake’s unavoidable rejection. After all, I’d rejected Asphodelia. There was no reason why it’d take me back.
Instead, as Aion pushed us off from the shore, the barge slid over the water with ease. The Acheron welcomed us, the same way it had whenever we came from our old harvesting trips. Even if Aion was the one guiding us back now. Even if we were no longer the people we’d been.
I wished I could make some sense of this. Charon always had good reasons for his actions, but those reasons often didn’t align with other people’s wellbeing. Aion was perhaps the Ferryman’s sole exception. He’d tried to help Daphne, but… Why? And what would he do now that she was gone?
A part of me ached to ask. But Aion had always been his father’s protector. That wouldn’t have changed now. And so I waited.
The journey across the lake felt too familiar and comforting for my liking. I’d have loved to hate it, to reject it with every fiber of my being. But my instincts were determined to go against me, and they were practically screaming,“Home.”
A tense anticipation gnawed at my gut, and amidst it all, my grief anchored me in a way I hadn’t deemed possible. I was coming back here only for her sake. She was still the only thing that mattered. Not Charon’s schemes. Not Theron’s pity or Aion’s silence. Just Daphne.
After what seemed like forever, a shadow manifested in front of me. It was a sheer cliff face of volcanic rock, rising from the water with the firm brutality of Atropos’s shears. Carved into it was a single, dark opening and a narrow ledge of stone. Aion steered us toward it without a word.
The barge slid against the hidden dock with a soft, grating scrape. The sound echoed once, then died. We were sealed in.
“This is not the Stygian Docks,” I said, my voice flat in the dead air. “Where are we?”
“My father’s private entrance.” Aion left his father’s pole in the barge and stepped onto the ledge. “This way.”
He moved toward a heavy, iron-bound door set into the rock face. I followed, only to pause when Theron made no move to get off the vessel. “My part in this is done,” the Cerberus said. “The rest is for you.”
It was probably for the best. Even if he’d come to find me in the Korinos Wilds, he was no friend of mine. And I had a feeling that whatever I found here, I wouldn’t want Theron anywhere near it.
Nodding, I turned away from Theron and entered the workshop. Almost immediately, waves of warmth washed over my skin, carrying the sharp scent of hot metal and quenching oil. A low, resonant hum vibrated up through the stone floor, the sleeping breath of immense power at rest.
This was where Charon crafted all of his creations, from Aion to his barges. Daphne had presumably seen it when she’d stayed with Aion. Somehow, I could have sworn I felt the ghost of her perfume in the air.
Looking completely at home surrounded by all the metal, Aion led me through the main chamber. “Daphne was curious aboutmy nature, Phonos,” he rumbled. “She asked what it was like to be free of the loom. To not have a thread.”
I turned away from him, every word a new stab of pain in the gaping wound of her loss. “What does any of that matter now?”
Aion simply stopped before a second, smaller door at the back of the main workshop. He placed a hand on its surface, then looked back at me, his eyes holding a hesitant solemnity. “It matters more than you know. Now go. Father has been waiting. And… Good luck.”
Good luck? I liked the sound of that even less than I’d liked Charon’s absence from his barge.
Aion pushed the door inward. It moved with a whisper of sound, revealing a chamber beyond. He stepped back, gesturing for me to enter.
The room was different. It was cool and clean, the air crisp with a sense of power I recognized as the Moirae’s. In the center of the chamber, on a flat table of polished stone, lay a single figure, covered by a simple linen sheet.
