Page 105 of Aïdes the Unseen
“And you didn’t say anything?” I asked. That seemed odd considering the rest of the documentation they appeared to be doing. Even outliers should have earned at least a footnote.
“I didn’t have proof,” she said. “You don’t challenge gods on instinct alone. Not even you.”
I wanted to press her. Documentation, reporting, testing the hypothesis—how were these challenges? But Graven stepped in.
“I built Thanatek totrackher,” he said, tone cutting now. “To record every tether, every echo. If there was something before even that—why didn’t Mnemosyne tell me?”
He reached into the hearth once more, this time not whispering, but drawing a symbol in the air. It shimmered like a sigil made of moonlight and nerve.
Mnemosyne answered immediately.
She didn’t so mucharriveas bleed through the corners of the room—tall, silver-cloaked, her skin etched with shifting glyphs. Her eyes were endless. I felt them press in against all of me, even those parts that remained a mystery. Yet, the connection was not unkind.
“You knew,” Graven said. Not a question.
“I knew,” Mnemosyne replied without hesitation. “And I held the silence.”
My chest tightened. It was one thing to know that Mara had been researching me. Another to know that Graven hadsearched, relentlessly. But this? I’d always read that the gods were capricious, but how self-absorbed did one have to be to overlook some fundamental detail? I couldn’t really be shocked, I didn’t know this being. But Graven’s disapproval and aggravation swarmed around us.
“Why?” Graven’s demand could have drawn blood with how razor sharp the word was. It slashed the air around us, but neither woman withdrew from the raw fury coating every surface.
“Because you weren’t the only one tracking her,” she said. “Demeter’s reach doesn’t end with sunlight and harvest. She is memory too, when she wills it. Especially the kind she wants toerase.”
Mnemosyne looked at me now. “She came to me once, just after you ‘fell’ the first time. After you chose the Underworld. She didn’t scream. She didn’t beg. Shebargained.Promised silence if I let you forget the first choice.” Something like an apology entered her voice.
“So you let her write over me?” As much as I might have wanted to, I couldn’t blame her. What did this being owe me?
“No. I protected you from her,” Mnemosyne said quietly. “But only half of you. The part she didn’t know how to reach. I hid it in your dreams, in soil, in stories. In the dog.”
I looked down.
The not-quite-puppy was watching Mnemosyne with too-human eyes.
“And me?” Graven asked. “You let me build a network to find her, but didn’t give me the full pattern. Youletme chase a lie.”
“No,” Mnemosyne said. Her composure in the face of Graven’s wrath was impressive. “I let you build a road. But the destination had to be hers. It always has been. Not yours.”
His hands clenched.
I drifted closer to him as much to offer as to receive comfort. The room seemed to be spinning, but not with fear. At least not yet. No, momentum surged around us like waves splashing against the rocks.
“This all started before I knew my own name,” I whispered. “Maybe even before Ihada name.” I slanted a look down at the dog. Existence didn’t automatically come with a name. Either someone gave you one or you chose it for yourself. So, this all happenedbefore. “Before Kore. Before anything. That first moment, the one Hecate told us about, where Demeter took me not because I was born, but because shemademe.”
“You always existed. Youwerereal before she interfered,” Mnemosyne said. “All she did was write a beginning that served her. But the truth is older. No matter what she’s done, it’s also immutable. Especially now you’re close to remembering it.”
I turned to Graven. His eyes were fierce, but hollow, too.
“You still want to protect me?” I asked.
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” Even now. Even after everything.
“Then stay,” I said. “But don’t hold back.”
He reached out and cupped the side of my face.
“I won’t leave your side,” he said, voice quiet. “Not again. But what comes next… I won’t soften it.”
The dog stepped between us, then sat.
