‘Never fear!’
‘The end is near!’
The Moirai, humbling to behold, unfold in a triptych of light and shadow. Wizened Aisa steps out from Shepherd’s left side, motherly Lachesis from the right. And in the middle, starry-eyed Clotho lifts up her fingers over Shepherd’s head, the red threads following her obediently.
‘You … All this …’ I’m losing my ability to form coherent thoughts, full sentences. Tiredness sinks into my shoulders like another metal rod, and I fall on the floor. In exhaustion, or in a show of respect, who’s to say. They hardly pay attention to me anyway, all three of them circling Anassa. ‘Your cloak, your cloak, your cloak,’ they keep saying, and I can tell my curious raven needs more time to think, to understand their machinations and use themto her advantage, but for once, I would like her to do less thinking and more obeying.
Just in case we can get out of this alive.
‘Anassa, give them your damn cloak,’ I manage, before my eyelids grow so heavy I must close them for a moment.
I force my eyes open, fighting this uncanny need to fade away. Anassa sits beside me on the floor, fiddling with both our keys, eyebrows furrowed. She doesn’t wear her cloak.
‘Have you noticed –’ she starts, but I drift to sleep again.
Raindrops fall on my closed eyelashes, on my cheeks, my lips. I hope they’re sweet like the rain in that meadow, though I don’t have the strength to taste them.
‘Wake up. And witness what you’ve done to me.’
Shepherd’s voice in my head jolts me awake. I must have only drowsed for seconds, because the rain still falls and Anassa is still by my side, still playing with our keys, turning them this way and that. And in front of me, the three Moirai spread out Anassa’s cloak among them. It stretches, softens, turns pearlescent. Chthonic night and holy light dance on a fabric that’s no longer fabric but the birthplace of new gods, new stories. Lovingly, the three Moirai guide it under Shepherd’s bound feet, and her suspended body falls on it with a splash.
I only realize Shepherd was screaming in my head when she stops.
In silence, I sleep again. The rain has stopped.
When I wake up, my head is clear – and the world around me different.
Anassa is still beside me, but the broken floor hassprouted wheat, golden stems high enough to mingle with her hair. I think I see a raven beak emerge, bite on a few wheat kernels, then withdraw again. ‘They’re hungry,’ she tells me with a smile. ‘Come, sleepyhead. Time to get up and finish this.’ She stands up smoothly, offers me her hand. One of her fingers has turned black again, proof of her recent fight with that wraith, but she’s all right. Unharmed.
I grasp her hand, find my balance, then lose it again when I wrap her in a hug so tight the force of it almost has us tumbling in stalks of wheat. She laughs but pats me on the back in a way that tells me I should pay attention.
Then, her words hit me. ‘Time to finish what?’
She takes my hand and guides me forward. We’re still in the same room as before, the remnants of the dining hall, only now nature has taken over. The head of a broken column to the side is lost amid the golden growth. Whatever walls are left seem liquid, permeable, like waterfalls made of spring air. I can see beyond them a crowd gathering, towards where the chasm of the staircase used to be. Is Helene among them?
Anassa tugs on my hand, drawing my attention right in front of me. We’re standing near the spot where Shepherd’s body fell. The pool of darkness that consumed it is no more – in its place, a serene lake sparkles, its waters sky-blue and mirror-still.
And on its other side, the three Moirai stand, prismatic and transparent.
‘Welcome, daughter of Zeus and Leda.’
‘Welcome, morning spawn of The Morrigan.’
‘Behold your new queendom.’
No, I was wrong, my head is not clear. Nothing makessense. ‘Oh, wise and inescapable three, I do believe you are mistaken. My father was Tyndareos, Anax of Sparta.’
Clotho – or is it Aisa? It’s hard to tell, their features shift quicker than I can catch them – smiles. ‘Denial doesn’t suit you, Klytemnestra. Claret. Whatever else you choose to call yourself next. Think on this: the cloaks we gifted you could only have protected you so far. The rest, your refusal to die, even when death knocked on your door so many times, even when you rushed on it headfirst, comes from that little divine thunder within you. That anger, flooding your blood, causing the world to shake … Does that sound like the Anax of Sparta, or the Anax of all skies, the ruler of lightning, the Olympian of the weather? You, and your sister Helene, both his spawns, both blessed with divinity. Not a lot. Not by itself. Yet when mixed with chaos magic …’ She lifts a starry finger towards Anassa. ‘Enough to bring forth change.’
‘That much makes sense,’ Anassa says, startling me. ‘I’ve seen Claret about to catch fire from within, turning metals hot to the touch. But,’ she adds, green eyes inquisitive as always, ‘The Morrigan was an Irish goddess. How could I be the spawn of anything but Shakespeare’s pen?’
‘Ask your ravens, child,’ responds Aisa – or is it Lachesis? ‘They chose you. That man has tapped into so many pantheons, both in his waking life and in his travels here, he often does not know what he knows. What are we in his Scottish play, us three and you yourself, if not a convoluted allegory for The Morrigan? The goddess of war and fate, bringer of death, friend of all corvid creatures?’
Anassa shakes her head but she says nothing, silently considering, consulting birds I cannot see. I’m cut from more impatient ilk. ‘So you found an obscure spark ofdivinity and a potential offshoot of fate magic, chaos magic or whatever you may call it. And you bound us together, against our will or knowledge, to do what – dethrone Shepherd?’
I don’t know where my sudden insolence comes from. Perhaps they’re right about who my father was. It would be nice if I’d inherited more than bushy brows and precision with blades. I merely wish that thunderbolt had struck Shepherd sooner.
‘Seshat,’ Lachesis corrects me, ‘strayed from her purpose. She was supposed to guard stories, shepherd the written word, not smother it. Not pick and choose authors to influence, by granting them access to this realm while turning others down. And definitely not hold on to so many keys she had to make a necklace out of them, refusing stories their deserved new doors, driving them mad, eating their essence. No. Seshat held her post for too long; she did great things but also great damage. And when gods do great damage, they must be stopped – even divine threads can be cut, with some effort. Now her death will restore this world, whose marrow had been sucked dry. And thus it’s time for a new regime. As you may have gleaned by now, this realm needs someone older than the written world to rule it. Someone unmarred by ink, unfamiliar with books. Someone who’ll see these stories not as stories, but as people.’
