Aion would have liked to reply. He’d have liked to apologize for leaving her behind. But speech had become impossible. The energy required to form words was already gone. Holding the beautiful image of her face in his final, fading spark of awareness, Aion poured his last silent wish into the dark.
Live.
Ripping the core completely from his chest, Aion, the colossus of Asphodelia, succumbed to the nothing.
10
Hollowed Out
Medea
Aion’s chest was completely hollow.
The smooth bronze plates remained parted, exposing the dark crater where his core had burned with an impossibly bright light. The comforting hum of his magic was entirely gone. He had reached into his own center and ripped his soul out to keep me safe. Now, nothing remained but a cold metal shell.
Absolute, suffocating shock anchored me to the ground. I simply sat in the dirt, staring blankly at his motionless body. When he had first emerged from the den, a desperate hope had flared in my heart. Even after I realized his gentle mind was gone, the mere sight of his movement had offered a fragile lifeline.
He’s come back for me,I’d thought.
Now, the empty cavity in his chest severed that line completely, dropping me into a paralyzing stupor.
This time, I hadn’t been the one to hurt him. But I might as well have destroyed him with my death-touch all over again. He’d killed himself to make sure he wouldn’t kill me.
I rested my hands limply in my lap, too numb to even wipe away the tears sliding down my cheeks. Aion remained terrifyingly still. But I… I felt as dead inside as he was.
“Why?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Why did this have to happen?”
I wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular. No one could give me solace, not now, not ever. But Phix still answered. “Aion had an ancient duty, but he broke it. For you.”
The majestic sphinx looked diminished, still shaking with the aftermath of my corrupted magic. But when she spoke, her dark eyes held a profound reverence. “The man emptied the vessel so he could protect you. He gave you his death. That is priceless, Medea.”
“It’s not his death that I want,” I snarled. “I want him. Us. Together.”
“He wanted that, too, Medea. But a soul cannot simply be replaced.”
The words rolled over the ruined garden, carrying a terrible weight. They didn’t come from the sphinx. I turned and found Charon standing at the edge of the garden path.
Too late,a part of me screamed.Why could you not come sooner?
But Charon’s simple presence silenced the words on my lips. He ignored the wounded sphinx entirely, fixing his gaze firmly on Aion. Kneeling beside the massive bronze body, Charon placed his hand on Aion’s forehead. “I can close the plates, Medea,” he said. “I can polish the surface. The spark, however, is extinguished. He was never meant to possess a soul. His awareness was a miracle born of a death storm, and I cannot manufacture a miracle twice.”
Shaking off the last of my stupor, I shot to my feet and gripped the heavy fabric of the ferryman’s dark robes. “He is your son!” I cried. “There must be a solution. A price I can pay. Tell me what to do.”
Charon released a deep sigh. “It’s not so easy, Medea. You see, I forged Aion from a precious memory. The Moirae and I come from a different world, and in my old life, I knew a bronze giant. His name was Talos, crafted by the hands of a blacksmith god. He was the ferocious guardian of an island and a creature of absolute duty. A single vein, filled with the blood of the gods, ran from his neck to his ankle. As long as that vein remained intact, he was invincible.”
Charon traced the lines of Aion’s wounded chest almost nostalgically. “Do you know how Talos died, Medea?”
I shook my head, already afraid of what he was about to say. “How?”
“A woman killed him,” Charon replied. “A sorceress. Her name was Medea. In the Old World, she was the lover of Jason.”
Medea. The lover of Jason. An echo of what I was… of what I could have been.
Nausea clawed at my throat. Jason was my father. He’d created me, had raised me, had shaped everything that I was. But never, not in my darkest nightmares, had I imagined him touching me as a lover. The mere idea made my skin crawl. And to think Medea had killed this version of my Aion… It was even more horrific.
“I’m not…” I choked out, shrinking back from the ferryman. “I could never…”
Charon lowered his head, his expression grim. “I know that, child. But the patterns repeat themselves. In the Old World, Medea used her magic to bewitch the giant, driving him to madness. In his frenzy, he scraped his ankle against a sharp crag, dislodging the single bronze nail that sealed his divine blood. The life bled out into the sand, leaving him an empty shell. In this one…”
