Chapter Five

Moira

Charon didn't fuck. He owned .

I was stretched, choked, and used. I loved every moment.

He was infuriating and demanding, but he was magnificent. There was no going back after this.

Charon had devoured me in a way I would never find on the surface.

I had had many lovers and none compared, none even came close.

For the first time in years, I felt alive, the high of euphoria and conquest thrumming through my veins. I felt sated.

Charon leaned back until he was sitting, a hand on each knee. Our heaving breaths raced against the rhythmic flow of the Styx.

His hair was mussed, a nest about his head. The white strands tangled in his horns and stuck to the side of his face and neck from perspiration.

As if matching my thoughts, his raspy voice filled the air. "You're a mess."

The words seemed harsh, but didn't match the tone of praise. "Fates , I love seeing your cunt dripping with me like that. I could watch you like this for an age. I'd have to fill you over and over."

I pulled my legs towards me and threw my chiton over to cover them.

"Too bad, Ferryman."

My eyes roamed his body. Like me, he was panting, perspiration dotting along his temples. His chlamys had fallen off during our joining. His chiton was even ripped; the tattered fabric draped along his chest, revealing the byrsa of obols I so desperately sought.

It wasn't tucked into the fabric.

It was inside of him.

The left side of Charon's torso was hollow, ribs gleaming in the pale light of the Underworld. Obols were massed together where a heart should be.

My eyes shot to his face, taking in the dried smear of silver blood. His eyes, the color of metal… the color of coins.

"The obols… They're a part of you?"

Charon froze. He slowly glanced down at his chest, taking in the exposed cavity.

"Yes. I believe I had a heart once, but with each passenger the obol joins the others. The metal flows through me like blood. It has been this way as long as I can remember, and will remain this way as long as I can foresee."

"That's why I couldn't steal one." I nodded. "Would it have killed you?"

He cocked his head in thought. "Doubtful. One obol would hurt, excruciatingly so, but I think it would take many more or the entire mass to truly end me. If that would even work."

He turned to look out over the water, the familiar gesture no longer infuriating as it once was.

"Can you not go home without the obol?"

Home.

Did I even have a home?

In the mortal realm I flitted from city to city. It was not safe to stay in one area for too long as a thief. People caught on. The job grew harder and harder until you'd inevitably get caught. I moved around, staying in taverns and inns, never having a settled place.

I hadn't considered how empty it all was… Not until now.

"Hermes said I would need the obol to return to the mortal realm, yes."

I couldn't bear to call it home. Not when it no longer meant that.

Charon turned back toward me. His silver eyes fixed onto mine. For once, his gaze was open and unguarded. It shone with need and understanding… then hardened to resolution.

His features scrunched with pain and a cry ripped from his lips. I yelped, eyes wide with shock.

Charon's fingers gripped a coin.

He had reached into his chest and pried one free. Metallic liquid oozed over his fit and down his arm. It seeped from his chest to drip from rib to rib, bone to bone, the trail interrupted with his pained, heaving breaths.

"What have you done?" I howled.

With a sad smile, Charon flipped the coin towards me. It was warm in my palm, slick to the touch with his blood.

I hated it.

Clapping from the shore interrupted the moment. Hermes and Dionysus had rejoined us. The former smiled wide with glee, the latter persisted in his bored perusal from earlier.

Charon scrambled to cover himself again with his chlamys; his vulnerable state only made Hermes laugh harder.

"Moira, you've outdone yourself. I thought I'd be collecting your corpse, but here you are! You did it!"

He focused on Charon with a smug look. "I thought nothing could shake you. I've spent decades trying to crack that impossible shell, but you've never wavered. If I had known all it took was a pretty little thief, I'd have had you broken centuries ago."

"All of this… was just to what? Elicit a reaction?" Rage coursed through my body as I stared down the god.

Dionysus had the good sense to take a step backward. Mortal I may be, but I was still a force to be reckoned with, and mortals had challenged the gods before.

Hermes, immune to my rage, smiled. "Of course it was."

"You kidnapped me… You threatened my life… You forced me to steal from him … just so you could disturb his peace?"

He shrugged. "I was bored."

I growled, scrambling to launch myself over the boat. I was ready to fight a god, no matter the consequences, but warm, strong arms wrapped around me and held me back.

"Moira, please. Don't push him. He's the only way you can leave." Charon spoke quietly against my cheek so that only we could hear.

"No. He's the reason you're hurt. He uprooted my life like it was nothing. He can't take a piece of your heart, Charon. He can't win in his absurd ploy."

He pressed a kiss to my neck, just above his bite. "I willingly gave the obol to you. It's yours. Use it to get home, to survive."

Hermes cocked his head as he took us in, an unwelcome presence in our intimacy.

"Oh, this is delightful. I see you did more than steal, Little Thief. You've bedded the psychopomp."

" Don't call me that."

I never wanted anyone but Charon to call me that from here on. It had become his endearment and his alone. It felt soiled and wrong from Hermes' lips.

The god tsked . "Touchy." He shrugged, then extended his hand to me. "A deal is a deal. Let's go."

Charon's arms slipped from around me, leaving me exposed and cold.

"No."

Hermes furrowed his brow. "You're always saying that. It's very rude. What do you mean, ‘no'?"

"No. I'm staying."

Charon grabbed my shoulders and spun me to face him. "You cannot stay."

"I'll find a way." I was incredibly skilled at finding a way to survive. And stubbornly ignoring the countless times Charon and Hermes had told me I would die here if I remained.

"I exist between mortality and the eternal," Charon said. "The place has honed me into a being specifically designed to thrive here. I am tied to the waters, anchored between life and death. I can survive here. You will not."

Charon said he was living when he blinked into existence, but the obols had gradually become what sustained him. Other beings did not rest here. The wraiths were harnessed by fate, wandering the marshy shore for a century to earn passage. Only the gods could come and go.

But that wasn't true.

Mortals, both human and demigod, had, on occasion, passed into this realm and returned. They were the names of legend, retold around evening fires and children's beds. If they could, I could. Charon dwelt on being caught between the two worlds. What if I could put one foot into death? The current of the river jostled the boat, interrupting my thoughts.

The gods and Charon had been bickering, but I hadn't caught a word. They were focused on each other; the distraction gave me just enough time.

With a feral grin I lept to the far side of the boat and plunged my face towards the Styx.

"No!" Charon cried. He grabbed my body and hauled me back, but it was already done. I turned, grabbed his cheeks, and pulled his mouth to mine. My palm pressed against the open area of his cheek as I spit water into his mouth. Even though he sputtered, I covered his lips with my other hand to stop him from spitting it out.

His eyes were wide with surprise, but I held tight until his throat bobbed, swallowing my offering.

"What have you done?" he rasped.

His hand clutched at his throat, then his chest, finally over his metal heart.

"I can feel you. In here."

"The Styx siphons the soul into the water that touches you. You told me many, many times. If I need ties to the Underworld, then I'll make them. It's no pomegranate, but a piece of my soul was absorbed in the water. Now it's in you. I'm forever tied to you, Ferryman. I hope we don't get sick of each other's company."

His features slackened with horror. "You can't. What if it's not enough?"

"Well, this is all very melodramatic and touching, but we need to go." Hermes snapped his fingers and reached forward as he approached the ferry. "Give me the obol, Moira. It's mine, per our agreement. Consider it your fare to the mortal realm."

Instead of complying, I glared at Hermes and popped the obol in my mouth where it would be harder for him to take.

I had had coins in my mouth hundreds of times before; it wasn't uncommon to store them in your cheek at the market. But this was not like those times.

Searing pain took over and blood flooded my mouth. I dared not lose the coin by spitting it out; instead I swallowed, praying to gods that the coin didn't enter my throat as I fought not to drown in my own blood.

Luckily, it was short lived. The pain subsided. The inside of my mouth felt… different. My tongue was swollen and tender from the pain, but there in the center, I felt it.

I smiled and stuck out my tongue, showing Charon and Hermes—and Dionysus, if he was even paying attention—the obol now embedded in my tongue.

"You carry a piece of my soul and I carry a piece of your heart." My words were jumbled from the swelling and my new treasure, but Charon still understood.

He stared at me in wonder, glancing back and forth from my chest to his.

I felt different. Something coursed through my veins, filling my body with something more . Something more than that of a mortal.

"Your eyes," Dionysus whispered from a distance.