The Sphinx of Asphodelia was the first creature woven from raw death energy—a conduit of immense, ancient power. With Phix's pelt draped over my shoulders, I would command every thread of the dead.
Medea flinched and turned to face me. In the pale light of the asphodels, her skin looked ghastly. “Jason,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
I walked toward her, my men fanning out behind me. “Now, Medea… It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. I think you can call me Father.”
She clenched her jaw and shook her head. “That’s not what you are. I’ll never be your child.”
Except she was, no matter how much she hated it. “Regardless, I’m quite proud of you. You performed flawlessly, Medea. You broke the city’s walls exactly as I designed.”
Medea’s eyes went wide. “You… You did all of this on purpose? All along. You meant for me to come here.”
“Of course I did.” I chuckled. “You didn’t really think you could have escaped without my permission? I created you. You’ll never outsmart me, foolish girl.”
At that, the sphinx finally moved. She stepped gracefully in front of Medea, her obsidian wings unfurling with a sound like sharpening steel. “You are the one who is foolish, human. You have no right to walk these stones. What little power you think you wield won’t protect you from the Moirae.”
For a creature meant to be wise, the sphinx was awfully naive. “I don’t kneel to your Moirae. They can't touch me, nor can they save you. While your home bleeds, I will take your pelt to crown my ascension.”
Phix narrowed her eyes at me. “My pelt. You would go so far, you'd pervert the sacred energies of death, for something so trivial? How pathetic. You will find nothing but your own end here, necromancer.”
It was the only warning I got before Phix lunged. She was a terrifying blur of golden muscle and razor-sharp obsidian, and she closed the distance between us in a fraction of a second.
I stood my ground. Reaching into the very depths of my core, I seized the silver thread connecting me to Medea. “Kill,”I commanded.
The connection flared violently. Medea’s body snapped rigidly upright. A choked, horrified gasp tore from her throat as her hands flew up entirely out of her control. She tried to claw the power back, to shut down the conduit I had built inside her flesh. But the binding was anchored deep within her flesh, and she had no way of fighting it.
A torrent of silver-blue energy erupted from her palms. It struck Phix mid-leap, hitting the sphinx in the chest.
Phix let out a sharp cry of pain, her massive golden body flying backward. She crashed hard into the garden, crushing the white flowers beneath her weight. Where the corrupted death magic had touched her, her golden pelt briefly lost color and turned grey. But as I’d hoped, it quickly began to recover, fed by the ambient energy of Asphodelia.
She got up again and started to circle me, as if considering a new angle. “You would use your own child against me? For your wretched scheme?”
“Didn’t you hear her?” I drawled. “She’s not my child. She’s a weapon. And she was made to do this.”
When Phix attacked me again, I yanked the binding a second time. Medea screamed. Another concentrated blast of puredecay erupted from her palms. This time, I was a little more careful when aiming her, just in case.
The attack caught Phix in the wing. The sound of obsidian shattering echoed across the terrace as black shards rained down onto the silver stones. The Sphinx collapsed onto her side, her ruined wing dragging heavily on the ground.
Medea fell to her knees, her arms still locked rigidly in front of her Tears streamed down her face. She kept her eyes fixed on her hands, watching the lethal energy pour out of her. “Please,” she sobbed, her whole body shaking. “Jason, please. I will go with you. I will do anything. Just stop making me hurt her.”
I stopped just a few feet away from her. Reaching down, I grabbed a handful of her silver hair and wrenched her head up. “You are already going with me, Medea. But you were never what really mattered.”
I turned my gaze to Phix. She was panting heavily, her golden frame shuddering with every breath. There was absolutely no fear in her dark eyes, only a cold, ancient hatred.
“You are a scavenger,” she rasped. “You are a maggot feeding on the unweavings of a world you did not build.”
Her empty defiance only made me laugh. “The maggot is the one who survives the feast. The world I build with your gifts will be far greater than this rotting sanctuary.”
I raised my staff. The black wood began to pulse with a sickly, jaundiced yellow light. I wanted to feel the life leave the sphinx myself. I wanted to carve the golden pelt from her bones while her ancient heart still beat.
“Telamon, take the girl,” I commanded.
Telamon stepped forward, his hands locking over Medea’s shoulders. She tried to thrash away from him, her bare feet scrambling against the silver stones as she reached desperately toward the dark den. “No. Leave me alone! Don’t take me away from him.”
Him. Again with the mysterious monster she’d apparently fallen for. I’d have to teach her a new lesson once we were back on theArgo. Weapons weren’t allowed to feel.
But for now, it was Phix who demanded my full attention.
I stepped closer to the sphinx, leveling the glowing tip of my staff at her chest. “Now, let us see the might hidden beneath that golden pelt.”
