Phonos
“I need to see him! Now!”
I stood on the Stygian Docks, shaking with helpless anger. If this continued, I didn’t know what I’d do.
It had been almost two years. Two years since I’d lost the woman I’d thought was my mate. The loss was a wound that had scarred over but never truly healed, a constant ache in my soul. For months, I’d been adrift in a sea of cold emptiness.
Then, the Moirae had granted me an audience. I remembered the soaring hope as their words echoed in the Weavers’ Hall.Your true match. The soul meant to be entwined with yours.That was what they had promised me, and it had become my new purpose.
But that purpose was currently stalled, trapped on this Thanatos-forsaken pier, waiting for a ferryman who kept his own time.
Aion’s massive form moved to block my path again. Of course it would be him. Crafted by Charon’s own hands, not by the Moirae, and imbued with all of his father’s infuriating obstinance. A gleaming, impenetrable wall of placid logic, he was the bronze shadow of the Cerberus who had stolen Callista. “He will not be rushed, Phonos.”
“It is not a whim, Aion,” I spat at him. “My mate is out there, somewhere. The Moirae themselves have set me on this path, and I’m trapped here because your father cannot be bothered to perform his function.”
“His function is not so simple as you believe,” Aion shot back. “Passage is a transaction with the lake itself. It requires balance.”
I ground my teeth, the harsh sound grating in the oppressive quiet. Now I had Aion lecturing me about the nature of the Acheron. As if he’d been the one woven out of the Moirae’s hands, not me. “Then let him balance it and be done,” I snapped back.
Without another word, I finally shoved him aside and started down the long, empty pier. Aion fell into step behind me. “Your frustration will not—“
He stopped mid-sentence, his glowing gaze fixed on the far end of the pier. I followed his line of sight, the argument dissolving in my throat. We were not alone. There, in the unwavering light of the bronze braziers, Charon stood beside the circular obsidian altar.
The air around the altar still hummed with the residue of a powerful ritual. He held four worn, ancient coins in one palm. With the other, he produced a small, dark wooden box. He dropped the coins inside, the soft clinks barely audible in the heavy silence. As he secured the lid, the finality of that small click sent an involuntary shudder down my spine.
But there was someone more important on the pier. A human woman sat on the edge of the black stone. Her frame was so slight her rough tunic seemed to swallow her whole. Her shoulders were slumped with weariness, and even from this distance, I could see the tremor in her hands. A messy circlet of white asphodel flowers was woven into her crimson hair, a splash of life against the dark stone of the dock.
The moment my eyes landed on her, the world fractured.
It was an absolute shift in the foundation of my soul. An essence of wildflowers and rain flooded my senses, an impossible and perfect truth that burned away the Acheron’s mist. My universe narrowed to a single, fragile point. “It’s her,” I whispered, not even recognizing my own voice.
For a long, stunned moment, I couldn’t move. The connection to Callista had been a thread I could feel in my soul. This slammedinto me like an iron chain, locking into place with a permanence as real as the Moirae’s weave. Soul bond recognition. The true kind that couldn’t be denied.
She had just paid Charon’s price. The memory trade to enter the bride market. The thought sent a wave of possessive relief through me. She was a death-touched bride of Asphodelia. Finally, I’d found her.
I began to move, my steps feeling both heavy and weightless. As I drew near, my entire body vibrated with the knowledge of her closeness. My feathers hissed and ached, the way they did whenever I flew too long. Aion’s concerned questions dissolved into a distant, metallic buzz at the edge of my hearing. “Phonos? What is it?”
I ignored him. My entire focus was on her. She was my mate. I knew that as surely as I knew my own screech. But she was also human, and right now, she didn’t know me.
Taking a deep breath, I lowered my head in a bow. “Well met. I am Phonos, of House Keres. Welcome to Asphodelia.”
It was a formal greeting, too formal for what we were to each other. She didn’t seem to mind. A fragile whisper answered me, laced not with fear, but with a dawning awe. “You… I know your song.”
Song. The moment she spoke the word, I felt blessed. My screech was for killing, for shattering minds. It was not, and had never been, a song. But it was supposed to be.
A Keres’s mate saw the world in shades of wonder. For such a woman, our screeches were never deadly. It was one of the reasons I’d thought Callista would be my match. She’d been immune to my family’s screeches. And I’d truly thought she’d been the one who’d match me, who’d hear my soul song. But she hadn’t, and I’d never felt more grateful for it.
My true mate offered me a quick smile. “I’m Daphne,” she said, and nothing I’d thought about Callista mattered anymore.
Daphne. What a beautiful, perfect name. Just like her.
I extended my hand toward her, more than ready to leave Charon and his son behind. “Come. You’re safe now.”
Charon stepped between the two of us, his towering figure more ominous than ever before. “She goes nowhere with you, Keres.”
I turned my full attention to him, to the ferryman who dared to stand between me and my fate. “Her business here is finished. She has paid your price.”
Charon didn’t deign to look at me. His gaze was fixed on the middle distance, as if he was addressing a law of nature rather than my fury. “You assume the only price paid on this dock is for the market.”
