Charon watched her, still and grey as stone.
‘Where are the Asphodel Meadows?’ Each word was punched from her gut.
The ferryman raised a gloved hand and pointed all around them. Danae twisted, scouring the misty plain, then turned back in confusion.
‘This can’t be … Where are the dead?’ she shouted. ‘Where are they?’
When he made no further attempt to answer, she clambered back over the twisted roots crying, ‘Alea!’ over and over again.
She did not know if Charon followed her. She did not care.
She ran across the plain, pushing herself back up each time a root tendril tripped her, still calling her sister’s name. Flocks of strange birds soared up from the fog at the sound of her cries, and the marvels that had fascinated her on the journey to the lagoon were blurred into meaningless smudges by tears. After a while her sister’s name became a barb in her throat, rasping out as a pitiful croak.
For a time desperation sustained her, driving her onwards across that vast, misted desert, until she tripped again, and this time her body failed her. She lay on the red earth, the fog a blanket of grey around her, unable to do anything but suck in one ragged breath after the other. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and the ferryman heaved her off the ground.
‘Please …’ she whispered, ‘this isn’t the Asphodel Meadows. It can’t be.’
Charon reached into the mist and plucked one of the pale flowers.
‘Where are the …’ The words faded on her tongue as she looked at the white petals tinged with pink, like drops of blood melted into fresh snow.
Asphodel.
They had spent hours traipsing past the very plants that gave the meadows their name, and she had not realized. She’d always envisioned the Asphodel Meadows as rolling green hills peppered with vibrant flowers – the way her mother had described them. But like everything else she’d been taught, it was a lie.
‘There are no dead here,’ she murmured.
Everything she’d seen was alive. Strange and unnatural butliving. Not a single ghost, not a whisper of those who had come before. She could barely bring herself to voice the words, but she knew she must.
‘Are there any dead in the Underworld?’
The ferryman shook his head.
She felt as though the rock above them had crumbled and the entire weight of reality was crashing down upon her.
Prometheus had been right. There was no afterlife in the Underworld. Hades’ kingdom was the same rock, dirt and air as the land above it.
She had fought the Titan’s truth with every breath, had spent almost a year constructing walls of adamant in her mind, protecting her hope that somehow, someday, she would be reunited with her sister. Now, in a single heartbeat, her fortress vanished like a sandcastle toppled by the tide. Alea’s soul was gone, and Danae would never see her again.
She lay down on the earth and let the mist swallow her. A moment passed and then what felt like a lifetime.
She was aware of the ferryman tugging at her arms, butit did not matter. Nothing mattered any more. She felt as though her chest was slowly peeling open from the inside out. She was capable only of lying on the ground, unable to form any thought as she waited for the pain to end.
Charon eventually gave up trying to pull her to her feet and scooped her into his arms, carrying her like her brothers had carried Alea home from Demeter’s temple all those years ago.
The landscape changed around them. Creatures clustered to the edge of Charon’s light as the ferryman trudged on, Danae watching it all through glazed eyes, unable to sleep despite her body crying out for rest.
She no longer wept. What use were tears, when she had already drowned?
Alea had never liked going out in their father’s boat because she suffered from sea sickness. The concept was strange to Danae, who often felt more at home on the water than land. She had once asked her sister what it felt like. ‘As though my insides have become untethered,’ Alea had replied, ‘and while the waves surge beneath me, I cannot imagine ever feeling well again.’ Now, Danae finally understood.
Eventually, they reached the curved rock that had been their camp, and Charon set her down against the obsidian stone. He lay the waterskin and a piece of flatbread in her lap. She remained unmoving, staring ahead. The ferryman nudged her. She did not respond. Then he picked up the waterskin, removed the stopper and tipped it to her lips. Water dribbled down her chin, soaking the bread in her lap.
He stopped trying to feed her after that.
Finally, weariness overcame her, and she slipped into sleep. Alea ran through her dreams, her sister’s laugh a song Danae could never catch. When she woke, she wished she could fall unconscious and never again open her eyes.
When he judged it time to leave, the ferryman lifted heragain and carried her across the midnight dunes. He stopped only once, setting her down to draw the waterskin from beneath his cloak and drink. Then, before Danae could protest, he grabbed her hair and pulled back her head. She gulped on instinct as he poured the liquid over her mouth. He released her and she fell forward onto the black sand, spluttering and coughing. When she had regained her breath, she wiped her spittle-flecked mouth with the back of her hand. Charon knelt on his heels, watching her. A tiny spark of rage flared in the cavern of her misery.
