I supposed he did. Lifting my head felt like hauling a weighted boulder. My neck cracked from being hung for so long.
“You became what you did because of it,” I said, meeting his eyes.
“Not quite,” Phaedrus denied, glancing at his reflection. “It took many years for my optimism to die entirely. I think knowing a piece of her was still out there helped, somehow.”
“Me?” I said, staring at my reflection, trying to imagine my mother’s face. “But there won’t be anything left of Aethra,” I murmured. “Probably not even a corpse to bury.”
I leaned down and found a rock. Taking one last look at my reflection, I threw the stone into the water, breaking the image apart.
Phaedrus fell silent.
Strange. I never would have imagined his company would be comforting. He stood by my side, waiting for me to feel ready to speak again.
“It’s not . . .” I floundered for a word and settled on something childish. “Fair.”
“No, it’s not,” Phaedrus agreed. “But look around you. What in life is? Your mother didn’t deserve to die. Neither did your sister. Nor has Percy earned his illness. Their fates, however grim, only brush the surface of the unimaginable pain the people of this world endure.”
“Why does it always seem like the people who do deserve death get to live on?”
“Didn’t you also reach the conclusion the gods were dead or had long abandoned us?”
Rubbing my eyes, I inhaled sharply.
I took back everything I’d said to Seth. Every chastisement of his recklessness, every disapproval of his actions.
What route was there for us to take but to force death upon those who deserved it?
Upon those the nonexistent gods would never punish? Those who would never know suffering like they inflicted, because there was no afterlife to torment them.
“I . . .” Phaedrus cleared his throat and shifted awkwardly. “I read something in Aethra’s thoughts. Something you told her,once.”
Curious, I looked up.
“You admired people who labored on buildings they’d never see completed. People who gave their lives for their children.” Phaedrus tilted his head. “The people who carried hope upon their shoulders.”
“I did.” I swallowed.
“They suffered. Their lives were not fair. But they did the one thing they could: made of their lives what they wanted. Grasped their fates in their own hands.”
Seraphim had said something similar, once.
Your life is your own. That which makes you,you. Carve a path that you’re proud to look back upon, at the end.
I closed my eyes. How could I be proud if I let Aethra die? If I failed to save anyone?
If the Empty remained, and suffering continued?
. . . Did it matter? Should we destroy the Empty, the gods of Duath Nun would lose their immortality, but the lords of the Merchant Isles had never needed it to rule over the people.
That day in Red Bluff had made everything in my life clear. I’d been faced with a decision—save the lives of three innocents, or Aethra.
The scholar intent on saving the world was my mask. The real Eleos was a selfish bastard who only cared about himself.
“Do you think,” I asked, “there’s a way to seal the Empty, and for Aethra to survive?”
Phaedrus shook his head sadly. And I knew my question had been futile.
No Elpis maidens had ever returned from the Acheron.
