Page 120 of Aïdes the Unseen
GRAVEN
She moved forward like the spiral had always been hers. Like the ground itself remembered her shape.
I should have followed, but I paused. While I didn’t doubt her, I did owe someone else a moment—a truth.
Melinoë was already dimming. Her form flickered at the edges, folds of her shadow-blurred robe loosening into the walls of this in-between place. The spiral chamber breathed around her.
“Is it done?” I asked her.
She turned her head slowly. Her face was not beautiful in the way mortals meant, but terrible and sacred in the way old gods were. Eyes like the dark between stars. Mouth soft as the hush before sleep.
“Almost.”
“She remembered her name,” I said.
Melinoë inclined her head. “The name beneath the names. The truth before the roles.”
I studied her for a long moment. “You knew. This whole time.”
She didn’t smile though her voice held the weight of something gentler than pity. “I knew only what I was allowed to know. Memory is a temple with many locked doors. I hold a torch. I do not hold the keys.”
“But you guarded hers.”
“Not out of obedience.” While she owed me no explanations, I was honored she shared any information with me. “Out of respect. She was more than a maiden. More than a queen. She was never meant to belong to either.”
Silence pooled between us. Deeper than thought.
“Despoina,” I murmured, tasting the name on my tongue. Not a name I expected, yet it didn’t surprise me either. “It’s not a name the others speak.”
“Because they fear it.” Her gaze sharpened. “It unravels the stories they built to contain her.”
I glanced toward the path Irina had taken. I could still feel her presence, pulse-light in the air. The dog barked softly up ahead, as if guiding her forward.
“You stayed here for her,” I said.
Melinoë nodded. “I am the bridge. I do not cross. I do not remain. I hold the passage while others forget, and release it when they remember.”
“Then this is goodbye.” I swallowed.
For the first time, Melinoë looked… uncertain. Not frightened. But exposed.
“I have not witnessed the key retrieved in many, many lifetimes.” Her eyes found mine. “You have no idea what it cost her each time it was denied. What it costyou, waiting.”
My chest felt suddenly hollow. There was no cost I would not pay for her. “I would have waited forever.”
“You nearly did.”
Her form shimmered again, flickering along the edges of space like candle smoke. She turned to follow Despoina’s trailbut did not take a step. Instead, she looked back at me one last time.
“Stay beside her. Even when she forgets again. Even when she doubts the truth of this moment.”
The warning lay in her words.Whennotif.“I will.”
She nodded, soft, solemn. To my surprise, she lifted one hand to my chest, just above my heart. A whisper of cold. A small, bright pressure. Somethingsettledthere.
“A final gift,” she said. “From one who walks the boundary, to one who guards it.”
“What is it?”
