Chapter Two

Charon

Hermes and Dionysus.

I barely tolerated most visitors, wishing instead to be left to my work in peace, but those two… every interaction with them was my own sisyphean trial.

Hermes, in particular, constantly badgered me while escorting souls. If I didn't know better, I would think he was trying to provoke me—such an effort would be a fool's errand.

Most of the gods respected the Underworld and left us to our work, but these particular gods ignored the rules of this domain, flitting about and pilfering souls from beyond the Styx or dropping off living mortals.

We had a system in the Underworld. The living had no place here, and souls on the other side of the Styx were to remain there.

And yet, there she stood.

A living mortal.

I perused her from within my cowl, knowing she wouldn't be able to make out my face. The woman glared at me with dark brown eyes. The color matched the carefully braided hair around her crown. Lips pursed in disapproval as she took me in. Her scorn was misplaced; I wasn't the one to abandon her. It wasn't my fault she was here.

We might as well get to the crux of the matter.

"What noble quest are you after?"

She blinked at me, her glare turning owlish.

"Noble? I would hardly call my purpose here noble. I'm not on a quest. I'm just… here." She threw her arms up and spun in a circle. "In the Underworld. At the whims of a precocious god. Because Hermes is an asshole!" The last bit was shouted as if the god himself would hear it.

He might. But it was more likely he wouldn't. If he did, he wouldn't care.

"It is not my purpose to look after mortals."

"Well it wasn't in my plans to visit the Underworld, either."

I huffed. "That is not my fault, and also not my problem."

I turned towards the water. The lull of the river should've been enough to muffle my awareness of her presence, but no. Soft, sandaled steps grew louder until she was right beside the ferry.

From the corner of my eye, I saw her bunch her chiton and lift a leg to step in.

"Don't."

She froze as I turned to face her.

"What do you mean, ‘don't'?"

"You are not a passenger."

"Hermes left me here with you. You are in the boat. I should also be in the boat."

"You are not dead. You have no fare, no purpose here."

"Then what am I to do with myself?"

I sighed. "Wander the shore with the wraiths and hope Hermes returns for you in time or that Thanatos takes you quickly."

Her brow furrowed. "What do you mean by ‘in time'?"

My hand gripped the push pole harder with my frustration. Were all living mortals this stupid?

"You are in the Underworld," I growled. "This is not a land of the living. You will not survive here. You'll either age, starve, or do something like fall into the Styx, thereby losing your soul to the water. It matters not to me."

It should not matter. And yet the bob of her throat, the fearful glance of her eyes at her surroundings…

Her trepidation rankled within my chest. Why was she here? If not on some journey to pull a soul from the Underworld, why would she be dumped here to rot?

"I'll pay you." She spoke so softly I barely heard her words.

I extended my hand. The mortal shuddered, eyes fixated on it. This was why I covered myself.

Two fingers were exposed bone, the rest of my skin shades of nearly pearlescent white and the lightest blue mottled together. My appearance never failed to elicit shock and shudders.

From the kolpos of her chiton, she produced an obol and placed the coin in my hand.

It wasn't the thinner coin of a Charon's obol that had become more popular with the mortals. It wasn't tucked under her tongue as an offering for the dead.

Still, it was an obol. The correct fare. For an obol, a person could board the ferry. I slipped the coin under my chlamys and past my chiton to rest with the others.

"Get in… Mortal."

"Moira. My name is Moira." Her face crinkled with surprise. Why she was surprised at her own name, I did not know. She was… odd.

Interesting , my mind corrected. She was a fleeting presence that I had no business finding interest in. I pushed the useless intrigue to the recesses of my mind; the mortal should be of no importance to me.

Moira was more graceful than most as she slipped into the boat. Rather than sit, she stood, perfectly balanced as she gazed over the Styx.

"I can't believe you were going to sit here, leaning against that push pole, watching me wither away. All because a god was bored enough to kidnap me."

I snorted. "As if you would wither away."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I cut my eyes at her, but she met my glare with one of her own.

" That . You'll glare at a psychopomp, curse the only god who may spirit you away from here, all while precariously standing in a boat over a river that would gladly steal your soul."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It wasn't."

It wasn't supposed to be. But something in me reveled in her fire.

We settled into an irksome silence. It was a lingering thing that nipped at you, taking little pieces of your peace and replacing them with discontent.

I hated it. I hated her .

My life was peaceful, quiet. Predictable. Now it wasn't, all because of a mortal that dared to enter my realm and be interesting.