The Moirai

by Ali Winters

  “So, do I just stand here and wait for someone else or do I have to guess what to do next?” he asked.

  He hadn’t been dead long, but already he tired of it. He much preferred the rules governing the world of the living. At least those made sense.

  Lack of gravity, impossible stone skies, and strange yet intriguing landscapes were not enough to hold his interest when he had to deal with being sent on some journey he already knew he would hate, which insisted on playing mind games and giving him riddles without answers.

  He crossed his arms and waited.

  Kharon stepped off the boat and closed the distance in two long strides. Kain took an involuntary step back.

  “You must cross the rivers Acheron, Phlegethon, Styx, Cocytus, and Lethe.” Kharon lifted a hand and pointed a bony finger in Kain’s face in warning. “Do not deviate from your path until you reach the marsh at the end of the river Lethe.”

  Kain started to turn toward the first river. It was wide but the waters were slow and calm.

  “Each river requires a toll.”

  Those words stopped Kain in his tracks. “More coins?”

  “No. The river will decide what it will claim from you.”

  Kharon’s words sent a chill slithering over Kain’s bones. What kind of rivers were these? What could be worse than being dead? “What happens if I don’t cross them all?”

  “Then you will fade to nothing,” Kharon said, then pushed back his hood to look Kain in the eyes. “Don’t let the idea of fading fool you. It will be slow and painful, far worse than anything you will experience here, or have when you lived.”

  “What if the price is too high?”

  Kharon was silent for a long moment before he replied, “It will be.”

  He walked back toward the small boat but stopped to look over his shoulder one last time. “There is no going back, so do not linger more than necessary or all will be lost.” And with that, he boarded the vessel and drifted away.

  Kain rubbed the back of his neck.

  Everything in him told him to fight this journey across the rivers, to turn back and find his way out of these caverns that seemed to have come straight from someone’s nightmare.

  But he was dead. It wasn’t as if he had a choice in the matter. He’d told Nivian to cut his life thread, and Caspian hadn’t stopped her because he knew even his Hunter’s blood couldn’t heal him from Yeva’s hit.

  He needed to move on to whatever afterlife awaited him regardless of the cost. Though without Nivian, and knowing she would never be able to join him, it held little appeal.

  Maybe in time he would lose interest in his life and embrace what was to come. But he just couldn’t shake the feeling of the wrongness of being here.

  Kain stepped into the water with one foot, then the other. It was cool, but not unbearably so. He scoffed. Kharon had probably fed him a load of bull, he hadn’t seemed to warm up to him any and the way he’d called him something else had sounded a little bitter. Either the ferryman hated him for whatever reason, or he was messing with him out of sheer boredom.

  The water clung to his clothes, weighing him down, almost more than he’d expect was possible, making his movements sluggish. Each step grew heavier and heavier.

  He paused in the middle when he was waist deep and panted. He wanted to rest but Kharon’s words echoed in his mind. Do not linger.

  What did it matter though if he did? He couldn’t possibly fade that quickly.

  And it wasn’t as if anyone was waiting for him on the other side. Even if they could somehow be there, he doubted his parents, Nivian, or any of the people who thought they were his friends would want to be.

  He dropped his chin and blinked at his undulating reflection. The smile he’d worn in life was gone, but what was there to be happy about when you were dead?

  A shape caught his eye and he looked deeper into the water, past the surface.

  The ripples seemed to form faces. They danced in the waters, floating in and out of the shadows. But the more he focused on them, the harder they were to make out.

  Kain’s foot caught on a rock and he stumbled forward, splashing up water and soaking the last remaining dry spots of his clothes.

  “Great,” he muttered, his mood souring further.

  A quiet hum surrounded him, like the moaning of the wind through the trees at night. Though no wind brushed against his skin.

  The sky darkened as fog crawled toward him, slowly inching atop the river.

  Kain looked around. Night? Was it even possible to sense the days passing in a world within a cave?

  His energy drained, curving his spine and shoulders. Sleep pulled at the edges of his mind. He didn’t want to go on. He didn’t actually want anything anymore.

  The water’s edge wasn’t far off now. Maybe he would let his clothes dry a little before moving on to the next. Soaking in the water like this made him feel like crap, and only made it clear that his life hadn’t actually been much better.

  The moaning grew louder, grating on his ears.

  God, he’d been naive in life, assuming most people actually liked him, when they probably didn’t feel more than tolerance for him.

  Kain plopped down near the shore and sighed, letting the water sway him back and forth. The echoes of moans and cries were loud but fit the surroundings. It was a haunting song, full of sorrow and longing.

  He was tempted just to lie down and rest on the muddy gravel shore. He just wanted to stop. Stop moving, stop caring, stop fighting… he just wanted to stop everything.

  But as he leaned back, something tugged at his mind. Something deep, deep down inside of him. The river had calmed him, lulled him. He scanned his surroundings, but he couldn’t see or feel anything; that in and of itself wasn’t right. Perhaps it was that nothing was wrong that gave him the urge to get back up and move.

  He had been worthless in his life, burdening everyone he cared about with his presence.

  Nivian…

  Even she’d made it more than clear that she wasn’t interested in him, but he pushed and pushed until she felt guilty and gave in to spending time with him.

  He cringed inwardly.

  Kain couldn’t find a reason to put into words as to why he should even bother.

  Still, in spite of that, he stood on tired legs and left the river behind.

  TEN

  NIVIAN

  NIVIAN STARED AT the words, slack-jawed. The Moirai. They’d only been mentioned in passing in Reaper lore. She couldn’t remember what text she had seen them in.

  The Tome seemed to think that’s where she’d find the answers she needed. So she had to seek them out, whoever, or whatever they were.

  She closed the Tome with shaking hands. Nivian couldn’t manage to think of any more questions to ask it, her mind was too overwhelmed with the knowledge that there was a way to succeed without losing anyone else she cared about. The Tome had pointed her in the direction she needed to go, and she wouldn’t waste that gift or the limited time they had left.

  Nivian wrapped the cloth around the Tome and placed it back in its drawer. She wanted to run, but forced herself to walk out of the office on legs that had turned to jelly.

  Her hand gripped the railing of the stairs as she made her way down to the main level. Nivian stuck to the back halls leading to the library. She walked in through the massive, obsidian double doors.

  Dust motes danced on the air in the beams of light filtering in through the cathedral windows on the left and right.

  At one point in time, she had read through every book in this library. But that had been centuries ago. Now, only small, scattered fragments of information remained in her memory about their history. She was ashamed to admit she brushed aside the mythos and history of Reapers, caring only about how her powers worked and how she could become the most accomplished.

  There were so many shelves, finding what she wanted would prove to be a near impossible task. Nivian blew out a breath, puffing out her cheeks,
and set her jaw. Most of the books weren’t relevant to what she needed.

  When she’d first encountered Kain, she had come searching for answers then as well and found a hidden room with ancient texts she’d never seen before.

  Now, once again, Nivian headed straight for it and squeezed through the small gap and through the low door.

  A musty scent assaulted her nose as she felt her way to the table and ignited the oil lamp. Soft light filled the closet sized room, undisturbed from her previous visit.

  Not wanting to waste precious seconds, she carefully moved the books about Hunters to the side, stopping when she saw the title of an old book, beat up by time. Nivian plopped down against the wall, folding her legs under her, and dusted off the cover. She squinted at the cover but couldn’t make out the worn title.

  She opened the book with slow and deliberate movements. With each turn of a page, the parchment rustled like dry leaves. The air she’d let in from her last visit must have dried it to this delicate state. It took some time to get through the passages of simple history that could be found in most of the books.

  Nivian ground her teeth in frustration, wishing she could flip through it faster. Something in her bones told her to hurry.

  When there were only a handful of pages left, she started to lose hope of finding anything of use. She scanned the handwritten text as fast as she could, almost flipping the page again when her eye caught on a passage that was written in different handwriting than the rest of the book. A single word stuck out, slightly larger than any other on the page. Underworld.

  Her heart pounded in its cage and she reread the paragraph, slowly going over each word again and again. Death didn’t always last forever.

  What could that mean? Her hand trembled as she flipped the page.

  The purpose of the rivers in the Underworld are twofold; First, each river cleanses part of the soul, removing the traces of its previous life. The second is to reclaim the soul so it can return to Gaia and be given life anew once more. While traveling to the Underworld is rarely granted and requires a high cost…

  Nivian traced her finger along the words, her attention catching on four words.

  …traveling to the Underworld…

  Traveling to the Underworld was possible?

  Her mind flitted over the passages she’d read. The soul is cleansed, but it took a while. If travel there was possible then… her adrenaline spiked, flowing through her veins.

  “The Underworld must be a physical place.” Nivian’s breathing grew rapid as the implications of what she read took hold and ideas she’d never considered took form. “Then that means there might be a way to bring someone back.”

  She couldn’t control the trembling that washed over her.

  Nivian flipped the page and felt her heart stop.

  The pages crumbled in her hands. The first break set off a chain reaction, like a landslide, until nothing but crumbles of dust remained.

  “No… no, no, no, no, no!” she cried. Tears flowed down her cheeks in rivulets.

  She’d been so close to the answer she wanted, the answer she didn’t believe was possible… the answer she hadn’t dared to hope for.

  Nivian threw the remnants to the floor and scanned the remaining books, flipping through them and discarding the ones she had read before and knew didn’t have what she wanted, all but tearing the room apart. She snatched up a book she’d read once before, about to toss it into the reject pile, and stopped.

  The Either.

  There was something different about this small book. Almost as if the room itself was built as a way to hide it, to preserve it. The book was unique and had given her information no other had. Within its pages might be the last hope of learning who, or what, the Moirai were.

  Nivian flipped through the pages, continuing from where she’d left off. She forced herself to go painfully slow, refusing to let this book crumble into nothing.

  A hiccup forced it’s way free and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek as she found a short familiar passage.

  “What?” she whispered.

  This time they were given a name, a name that had been edited out in all other versions.

  The Moirai, the fates who, at the dawn of time, created the Tome of Fate, brought forth the Reapers, and gave them their scythes…

  Nivian’s mind reeled. But that was just legend, just an origin story… Had the fates been real the entire time? Nivian had always assumed that they were merely a force of nature—the natural order of things.

  Her mouth grew dry as sand as she continued to read. The Either spoke of the history she knew as if it were a physical location, in greater detail than she’d ever thought possible. How The Either was a place between the living and the dead. A realm of gods.

  The line on the bottom of the page was what she was looking for. Hope danced in her belly like a flurry of butterflies all taking flight at once, and it was all she could do to keep still and read.

  Since the creation of the Reapers, the Moirai stay in the Either, the entrance located only in…

  Nivian flipped the page. A picture of the fates was on the left; she’d examine it closer at a later time. Her eyes jumped to the right page and she frowned.

  The story didn’t continue. In fact, it started in the middle of an entirely new sentence. It spoke nothing of the fates, or locations, or even the Underworld. She flipped back and forth a few times, making sure she didn’t accidentally skip a page.

  Her shoulders sagged, but it was then that she noticed a jagged line down the center of the book. She ran her finger from the top to the bottom. It was the ripped edge of a page someone had torn out. Nivian let out a cry of frustration and chucked the book onto the table.

  With a wave of her hand, a wind blew out the lamp. Swirls of crumbled paper danced madly around her, then she rose to her feet and left the room, knowing she’d never return.

  She stood in the center of the library, fists tight at her side. Every inch of hope she gained was ripped from her again, and again, and again!

  A hot, angry tear slid down her cheek and she wiped it away roughly with her sleeve.

  No, she wouldn’t give up now, she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. There was too much to gain and far too much to lose. Her time spent in the hidden room hadn’t been for nothing. She knew it was possible to go to the Underworld and that the Moirai were real.

  Nivian decided to start with the history and mythos section, wondering if their lessons would hold a different meaning now knowing what she just learned.

  She hurried to the back of the library, into a cove with books coated in dust. Frantically, she ran her finger along the spines of the books, scanning the titles, and pulling out every one that might even hint at where the entrance could be.

  She snatched up the books, going faster and faster as she worked. Desperate to find the remaining pieces of this puzzle. Piles grew at her feet as she emptied the shelves.

  Satisfied she had every book that had any potential of holding a clue, she sat on the floor and reached for the first book.

  Nivian flipped through several before finding one of interest.

  Paper cuts soon lined her fingers, though she didn’t notice. She withdrew another book from the pile and paused as the gilded filigree on the spine of another caught her attention. Nivian picked it up and looked at the title. The Origin.

  Though she hardly remembered it. It was one of the first she’d ever read when she was newly created, and discarded its lessons as just story and unimportant.

  In it was the story of the fates creating life, weaving the fate of humans, and knowing when their life force must be returned. It told of the creation of Reapers and how life and death once dwelled within their cave. Silas and Yeva.

  The small book took on a whole new meaning for her. The Moirai were real. They lived! It had been told as myth for all of her existence. Her eyes blurred with tears she fought to blink away.

  The Moirai were living, breathing be
ings, not just legends. If anyone could tell her what she wanted to know, it would have been Silas. But she couldn’t ask him about it because he was gone, and she cursed him for allowing himself to fall for Yeva’s trap.

  She set that book aside and continued to flip madly through the others. Her determination spurred her on. More paper cuts marked her fingers, but she didn’t stop. Not even when she left behind faint pink trails, and not when every movement stung the skin of her fingers.

  She didn’t care.

  Nivian tossed the useless ones behind her. She had to find a location, a hint. Something.

  The location was real, if only she could find out where it was.

  * * *

  * * *

  CASPIAN

  * * *

  Caspian stopped at the bottom of the stairs in mid stride, one foot hanging in midair. The clatter of books caught his attention. He cocked his head to the side; curious who would have reason to be in the library. No Reaper had use for it in centuries.

  He turned and headed toward the commotion.

  “Useless.” The clunk of a book falling to the ground punctuated the frustration of the feminine voice echoing down the hall. “Useless…” Clunk. “Useless!” Clunk. Clunk. A low growl followed.

  Caspian walked down the main aisle until he reached the back to find Nivian standing before a bookshelf, flipping through the pages and tossing more than she set aside behind her onto the ground, as if she were possessed by an unknown force. Her hair fell forward in a tangled mess. A few short stacks of books were piled at her feet.

  “Nivian?” Caspian frowned down at her, but she didn’t respond. “Nivian!” he said again, more loudly this time.

  She pushed her messy tresses out of her face then lifted her head, looking at him with dead eyes. The ice blue irises that once glittered like an iceberg in the sun were now nothing more than two unpolished, glass orbs. Nivian blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice held the hint of an accusation.

  “Shouldn’t I be asking that of you?” Caspian cocked a brow and leaned casually against the end of an aisle bookcase.