Page 12 of What Sleeps Within the Cove

“Will they make it safely?” Nila asked, laying a hand upon my arm. She handed me a coin purse filled with gold with her other hand, having collected it from the families of Mab’s latest victims. Her eyes were filled with tears, from a combination of my unsuccessful attempt to get to the cove and the loss before her. Now that it was time to say goodbye in truth, Nila was overcome with the grief for the people she’d come to know. She’d had far more experience with the human mates than I had, often tending to them when Estrella didn’t need her.

She knew it was what Estrella would have wanted, but it was also just in her nature to care for those who were often ignored.

“Anyone who wishes to,” I said, removing her hand, taking a step away, and approaching the boat that waited for me. I needed to be on my way, but I also felt it was necessary to reaffirm the boundary of touch even with her. Though there was nothing romantic in her touch, it still felt like something I would have despised if it had been a hand on Estrella.

I grasped the oar in both hands, holding her stare as I pushed off the stone and guided the boat into the river. “But I cannot force a soul to follow me into the afterlife. If they wish to remain and tend to any unsettled business they may have, that is their choice. But they should bear in mind that moving on becomes more difficult the more time that passes, and the things that made them who they were will slowly fade until they’re mindless wanderers.”

I didn’t look back to see which souls chose to follow me, plunging themselves into the river and trusting me to serve as their guide. There was no reason not to, because in spite of all that Mab had forced me to become, this was my true purpose.

This was what the Fates had decided for me upon my birth, gifting me with a responsibility that most would never understand. Many would consider it a curse—the life of a nomad, traveling wherever death called me.

I could think of no better way to spend my life than seeing the world with my mate at my side, watching the awe of everything she saw settled over her adorably shocked expression.

I rowed myself downriver, watching as the jarring hills of Tar Mesa faded into the background over my shoulder. Shadows moved within the water, the banks filled with those who could sense my journey and the pilgrimage those who followed me made. They dove into the river itself slowly, one by one, filling the water with the souls of those who had been abandoned and damned because of my inability to do my job. The effects of Mab’s cruel tyranny extended far beyond those within her court.

It upset the very balance of nature itself. There were those of us who had duties to the world, who were needed elsewhere but keptat her side in a desperate play for power. When those duties were ignored, the consequences could be catastrophic.

A world was overrun with lost spirits, possessing the bodies of the living who were not strong of mind enough to fight them off.

I sighed in relief with each and every soul that jumped into the river, joining me on our path to the Void. It was one less soul left to wander and become nothing but instinct. To become vengeful and driven by hatred.

The gates of the Void came into view slowly, the gleaming white marble symbols of the ferryman arching toward the sky. The eyes beneath the hood seemed to glow with gold, shimmering in the sunlight. Two black doors were carved into the hill between the figures, clamped tight with the magic of the keeper of the Void that even I could not defy.

At the base of those gates, the ferryman waited in their boat. The river narrowed just before them, making it impossible for any souls to sneak past their guard.

This place, where the underworld met the world of the living, never failed to remind me of my father. Of what the Court of Shadows had once represented before Mab twisted it into what it had now become.

Evil with thorned edges, willing to wrong anyone and anything without remorse. According to our history, there had been a time when we were simply indifferent to the politics of the Fae.

When the Court of Shadows existed as a thing all its own, part of the Winter Court but still separate and entirely ignored by the others. Our work was done in the shadows that most preferred to pretend didn’t exist. That hadn’t suited the Queen of Air and Darkness, who lived for attention as much as she did pain.

I rowed my boat up to the ferryman, wincing back from the golden eyes they did not hesitate to settle upon me. We had always respected one another, always understood that our purposes were one and the same, and that we merely operated on opposite sides of the boundary between life and death. Something had shifted with the knowledge that the man who had once been Estrella’s father figure existed within the collection of souls that comprised the ferryman. That they still felt a semblance of attachment to my mate.

“How is she?” I asked, my desperation for news of her safety forcing me to ignore the customs that usually existed between us. They held out their palm, allowing the souls who had been fortunateenough to be given payment on the eyes of their corpse to rise from the river. The first corporeal soul raised herself up, the shadow of a golden coin gleaming in her hand. Water dripped off her, swirling around with the pure energy that a soul was made of to create a thing of beauty. The shimmering essence of her caught the light, allowing it to reflect off the water that clung to her as she dropped the coin into the ferryman’s hand. They nodded to her, waving the staff they held with a skull at the top.

I’d never dared to ask what unfortunate soul had been cursed to accompany them for all eternity.

“Have you seen her?” I asked when they ignored me again to tend to the next soul, allowing the first to pass through the small gap between his boat and the river’s edge.

They still didn’t answer, their expression softening for the soul who cried as she handed over her coin. I didn’t recognize her from Mab’s court, and I realized she must have been one of the human mates who had unjustly been harmed. It went against everything the Fae believed in, especially after centuries of separation from those who should have been with us all along.

“Kharon!” I snapped, forcing them to finally shift their attention back to me.

“We have not seen your mate, God of the Dead,” they said, their voice completely lacking all intonation. There wasn’t a hint of the man who cared for the child he’d raised, as if he’d vanished entirely. He’d been lost to the cumulative creature of the Fates’ making, the collection of souls trapped within a body for the purpose of remaining neutral to all destinies and plights.

I gritted my teeth through my frustration, knowing that if I’d had any way to get into Tartarus, I’d have moved heaven and earth to make sure I was able to see to her. Getting in through the cove would be a miracle with the daemon there to protect the passageway. Standing by while they tended to the souls, as was their duty, took every bit of patience I had and some I didn’t. When the last of the souls with payment had crossed over, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the coin purse filled with gold that Nila had given me. Depositing it into the ferryman’s hand, they waved their free hand and allowed the remaining souls to pass once they had their payment.

“Can you find her? See if she’s alright?” I asked, already knowing the answer. The Void might not have been Tartarus, but all dimensions of the Underworld were connected. I just didn’t know how.

“We alone cannot. Our purpose is to transport, not to spy…” they said, their voice trailing off. “But there is another way into Tartarus if you are brave enough, God of the Dead.”

“Bravery has nothing to do with it,” I said, because I would do anything to try to help Estrella in the prison. To shield her from all that would harm her in a place that was far worse than any nightmares I could conjure up.

“The only place where a physical form can enter Tartarus directly is the cove within the Shadow Court. But there is a back door, so to speak, within the Void itself,” Kharon said, glancing over their shoulder to the doors to the Void.

“Then take me to it,” I said, gripping my oar tighter. I would pass through if that was what was needed.

“Once you pay your way into the Void, you will not be able to leave the Underworld. You would die if you entered here,” Kharon answered, blocking my path meaningfully. “And you will be useless to your mate if you are dead.”

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