I wanted to say that I hadn’t bewitched Aion or driven him into a frenzy. But wasn’t that exactly what had happened? “So… all along? I was his damnation.”
“You were his mate.” Charon’s severe features softened, giving way to an ancient sorrow. “When you arrived at my shores, I felt the old pattern waking up. I saw the girl with the name of a killer, and I saw the bronze man I had built. I feared the ending. I thought you’d come to drain the life from my son.”
His lips twisted in a strange, sad smile. “But I also knew that destruction and creation are two sides of the same coin. Aion is not Talos, and you are not the Old World’s Medea. I believed the pattern could be reversed.”
“Reversed?” I repeated. “By whom? I’ve only ever made things worse.”
“You are only walking on the path set out for you,” Charon replied. “You won’t be able to follow a different current while your magic remains tethered to a necromancer.”
Of course. Jason had retreated, but he still held my leash. He commanded the binding that turned my power against Phix. As long as his tether existed, I was utterly helpless.
A dull, pulsing pain throbbed deep inside me. It felt like a vile parasite. A knot of Jason’s cruel necromancy had been infecting me since my creation.
“Tell me how to break it.” I dug my fingernails into my palms. “Every time I fight the pull, the spell only burns hotter.”
For a few priceless seconds, I thought Charon wouldn’t answer. He only studied my face, as if searching for something he didn’t truly expect to find.
“To sever the tether, you must look to the Medea of the world that was,” he finally said. “I told you she was his lover, but she was more than that. She was also the mother of his children.”
I shuddered. The mere concept made my stomach roil. But if Charon was speaking of it, there had to be a reason. “How does that help me?”
“When he ultimately betrayed her,” Charon pressed on, “Medea severed her bonds to him in the most devastating way possible. She murdered the children she had borne him. She destroyed the living legacy they shared.”
He leaned closer, his piercing blue eyes locking fiercely onto mine. “The pattern on Alia Terra remains true, though you aren’t his wife. Jason anchored the binding directly into your womb. He seated his necromancy where life is meant to grow.”
The shocking truth of Jason’s spell-work settled heavily into my bones. I had been a captive my entire life. My hands, my magic, my very flesh had always belonged to Jason. But never had I truly understood where and how the binding on me worked.
Now that I finally had an explanation, no matter how horrific it was, I couldn’t help but feel a small spark of hope.
“Must I end my own life to break it?” I met the ferryman’s gaze without a single tremor. If my death bought Aion’s return, I would gladly pay the toll.
“No.” Charon did not blink. “You must destroy the seat of the binding. You must enact the old Medea’s revenge upon your own flesh. You must use your own gift and kill the potential for life that Jason claimed as his own.”
Charon stood back, offering me the space to choose. “It will reshape you completely. You will be barren, Medea. You will never hold a child of your own. But by killing the future he anchored inside you, you will sever the tether permanently. And that barrenness will be your power.”
Phix watched silently from afar. “You can do this, child. You know you can.”
I looked down at my hands. For so long, I had lived in terror of what these fingers could do to others. I had watched them turn innocent men to ash. Now, I needed to turn that curse inward. I needed to hollow out my own flesh.
There was no hesitation. Untying the silk cord at my waist, I let my silver robes fall open. I placed my bare palms flat against the pale skin of my lower belly.
Pushing the death magic through my palms, I drove it directly inward.
Every muscle in my body exploded, alight with pain. Gods, please, why did it hurt so much? Was this the pain I’d inflicted on all the people I’d killed? The captives on Jason’s deck? If so, then I deserved to be punished. I deserved every single second of this agony.
I screamed until I tasted blood. My knees gave out. I collapsed onto the ground, blinded by the sheer, suffocating torment. I couldn’t keep my hands down. The burning forced me to jerk away. My fingers slipped from my own skin as I desperately tried to escape the rot. I was losing my grip on the magic.
But I was not alone.
Charon knelt in the dirt beside me. He didn’t force my wrists. He simply pressed his large palms over the backs of my hands, lending me his grounding weight.
A moment later, a solid, warm mass pressed against my spine. Phix slid her heavy golden flank directly behind me, offering me a physical wall to lean against.
“Hold the magic, Medea,” Charon whispered, his voice so kind it was almost painful. “Burn Jason out.”
I ground my teeth together, tasting fresh blood.Yes,I thought. Yes, I’d burn my father out of my body, out of my blood, out of the very marrow of my bones. No matter what I had to do.
The binding fought back. A sickening, boiling heat erupted from my insides. It shot up my spine like venom, seizing the muscles in my arms in an attempt to paralyze me. It felt exactly like Jason’s fingers twisting violently inside my guts.
