As if sensing the shift in me, Phonos’s screech changed. It was a song of grief and hope, of endings and beginnings, and it began to feel tangible. It reminded me of a phantom embrace of feathers, a promise of warmth in the encroaching dark. It was the same feeling from my vision, the one I’d yearned to reach for, the safety I’d desperately needed but had, in the end, failed to accept.
A sharp, biting chill erupted through me as my soul was slowly dragged from its peaceful state. A final, soft whisper filtered through the pain.“Go to your mate, little seer. And remember. You are free now.”
I braced myself and surged toward life, toward the pain, toward him. For once, it wasn’t silence that I sought, but the sound. The music of his breath and of his heart. I finally had my freedom, and this time, no one, not even fate, could take it away.
As the final notes of my screech died, silence slammed back into the workshop. I sagged against the obsidian table, my throatraw, my lungs burning. Every muscle in my body trembled with the aftershock of the power I’d unleashed. I stared at her, at the perfect form on the stone, and despair began to settle in my bones.
It hadn’t worked. Everything had been for nothing.
Before I could surrender to my grief all over again, Charon shot me a look of approval. “The anchor holds. The metal sings. Well done, Keres.”
Any other day, I’d have been shocked Charon could approve of anything or anyone except Aion. Today, the weight of his words practically paralyzed me.
“W-What… What do you mean?”
Charon didn’t answer. He didn’t have to, because that was when I heard it.
Thump.
The vibration traveled up from the stone table, through my hands, and into my very bones. A rhythmic, metallic beat. The driving cadence of a new heart beating.
Thump. Thump.
Daphne gasped. Her back arched off the table as her lungs drank in the air. Without a word, Charon slid out of the workshop, but I barely registered his departure.
My world had shrunk to this table, to the impossible sight of her turning her head. Her eyes found mine.
“Daphne... You… You’re here.”
“You called to me,” she rasped. “How could I not come?”
The simple truth of it shattered the last of my shock. But with it came the horror. I hadn’t saved her. I had stolen her from her rest, trapped her in an inhuman body, all to soothe my own selfish grief. A wave of shame hit me, so strong it made me physically recoil.
“I... I’m sorry,” I choked out, my gaze falling from hers. “I dragged you back. You were... at peace. I just... I couldn’t let go.”
She reached up, her fingers closing around my wrist. Her skin burned with a steady, living heat, and her grip was firm. She pulled my hand toward her until I had no choice but to meet her eyes again.
“It’s all right, Phonos. I don’t want you to let me go. Not ever. Just... hold me.”
I couldn’t have denied her to save my life. I pulled her close, burying my face in the curve of her neck, breathing in the impossible, familiar scent of her skin.
She was whole. Not a ghost. Not a memory. But I’d still failed her, still allowed my own home to hurt her.
“I’m so sorry, Daphne,” I whispered, the words muffled against her hair. “I was supposed to keep you safe. And instead…”
She wrapped her arms around me, holding me just as tightly. “No,” she murmured, her breath warm against my ear. “It was never your fault, Phonos. It was my path. I just... I didn’t see the end of it. Not properly.”
I pulled back, just enough to see her face, to search her eyes for any sign of pity. I found none. Only a steady certainty that stole the breath from my lungs.
“But I pushed you.” I had. I’d been so desperate to claim her, to have her as my own, that I’d missed the obvious signs that something was wrong.
Daphne shook her head. “You were you. And I wanted what you offered just as much as you did. But I let the threads twist my fear into something that wasn’t there.”
My entire body went rigid. I’d never gotten a real explanation of what had chased Daphne out of the Spire. I’d been too trapped in my grief to ask. But now, the only person who mattered could give me my answers. “What happened, Daphne?”
She pulled back slightly, looking away from me and clenching her jaw. “I saw a vision,” she whispered. “It was… of you and Callista. I saw you offer her the sky. The same promise you made to me.”
A vision of Callista and me together. Of course. I should have known the past would somehow come back to haunt me, even when I’d long let Callista go.
