Someone was handling her body gently, but the dizziness wouldn't let Medusa make sense of her environment or figure out where she was. They laid her on a cool stone surface and swept her hair from her face to feel her forehead.

  She vaguely noticed how hard she was gritting her teeth. Despite the beads, the pain was climbing in leaps. An awful taste spread in her mouth, like blood and ash.

  They pushed up her tunic and briskly unclipped the bandages. A drawn-out groan escaped as they pulled apart the bandages.

  They tsk-tsked. “Bear with me, child.”

  “Clotho?” Medusa blinked languidly as she strained to make out the shadowy shape above her, but her sight remained stubbornly blurry. Even in her weakened state, she moved to push her hands away. “...no,” she slurred.

  “Rage at me all you want, but stay awake.” She patted Medusa’s shoulder before resuming her ministration.

  “You…” Medusa wheezed. She forced the words out with great effort. “You left me.”

  Clotho's hands stilled, but only for a second. “Hold on and hate me after you're fine.”

  Medusa clutched those words and gritted through the pain as needle after needle was pulled from the wound. There was the vague sense of the wound getting cleaned and stitched; after a harrowing stretch of time, the pain ebbed away, and her vision finally cleared up.

  The sky was a pale blue that intermittently warped into colourful swirls like the surface of a soap bubble.

  “They saw my disguise fail,” she whispered. “If you knew it would fail before so many eyes, why raise my confidence in your methods?”

  A heavy pause. The sound of her staff tapping stone ground. Her clothes ruffled as she pushed to her feet. Medusa still wouldn't directly look at her.

  “Well, in my defence, I thought you'd get here sooner,” she said. “And Atropos doing what she did with that boy ruined my calculations. I had to guard this place.”

  Medusa finally looked at the Moirai. She appeared much the same as the day they parted—embroidered cloak draped from slender shoulders, slim staff gripped in her right hand—but now a bobbing spool of golden thread hovered at her side. When Medusa glanced down at her wound, she realised the neat stitching had been done with that same thread.

  “You could have died no matter the methods they used.” A frown formed on her brow. “A possibility I didn't foresee.” She began muttering in theos tongue, appearing caught in thought.

  Medusa faced the sky again. Whatever treatment Clotho offered worked wonders. The pain had vanished, her mind was clearer than it had been in weeks, and she was beginning to sense aether. The air was dense with it to the point of feeling it like static against her skin.

  She took in the rest of the place. There were no trees despite the illusion she had seen outside; instead, it was a stretch of stone ground as far as her eyes could see until she caught a shadow at the edge of her vision.

  Craning her neck, she first gawked, then pushed to her feet in a disbelieving daze. “This…how?”

  Clotho said something, but she could hear nothing past the ringing in her ears.

  His kneeling form was a hill before her, but he was made of stone like the rest.

  “How?”

  He said I should find him, that he’s alive. He said he's alive… or did he? Medusa began to doubt her sanity. “What's happening?”

  “Seems different from the rest, huh?” Clotho said as she observed the statue as well. “When I found you on that cliff, another existence vaguely registered in my consciousness. Similar to yours but with the faintest flare. I followed their thread here and remembered… many things.”

  Medusa stared at his face. His eyes were shut, the orbit—now stone—still hovered around his forehead, and his hair stopped a few inches past his shoulders. At least, here he was shielded from the elements. But those chains. Her focus lingered on the massive chains that stretched until they abruptly disappeared a distance away.

  “I don't understand,” Medusa repeated. He said she should find him. Didn't that mean he was alive? Why play with my hope? “Why is Antonii a titan?”

  “Antonii?” The Moirai cocked her head and peered at her. “From what I gleaned from your memories, your husband is dead, no?”

  A bitter laugh escaped. “And I thought you knew everything.”

  The corners of Clotho's lips kicked up. “No child, I've never claimed to—”

  “He is Antonii,” she glared at the statue. “I think… I don't want to think he deceived me.”

  “You must be mistaken,” Clotho shook her head, appearing confident. “This is Prometheus, the first who revealed the path of immortality to humans.”

  So, that's your name? Anger and curiosity mixed. “Why did you call me here?”

  “Oh!” Excitement brightened Clotho's usually lazy tone. “I told you there were two ways you can kill gods? I wasn't certain at first, but now I'm sure of the second way.”

  All Medusa could think of was how to free him, if he's even alive.

  “You can use your curse to take his key,” Clotho continued excitedly. “And we can use it to—”

  “Who did this to him?”

  “Huh?”

  “Who turned him to stone and chained him like some… some beast?”

  Clotho shrugged. “There was a war and he lost… I think.”

  Medusa faced the Moirai. “Please, tell me the truth. What war? When? Who were the enemies? Why are titans so… large? How did they turn to stone?”

  She turned people to stone with her gaze. The similarity with the stone titans was too upsetting, and seeing Antonii like this stung.

  The Moirai's face grew grim. “If you want a simple answer, Zeus did this to him.”

  “Is Zeus that powerful?”

  Clotho shook her head. “Initially? No. Prometheus’ misplaced trust was the root of his fall. He underestimated Zeus’ ambition and paid dearly for that miscalculation.” She observed his face before clicking her tongue and facing Medusa. “Why do you think he's your husband?”

  The Moirai's golden gaze flickered as she studied Medusa unblinkingly. “Hmm. So that was a possibility,” she mumbled before refocusing on the statue.

  Did she just… did she just read my memories? Clotho's following words confirm Medusa’s suspicion.

  “He jumped souls despite his imprisonment. The clever human.” A spark of admiration lit her gaze. “Another reason to make my sister furious. Lachesis would be impressed, though.” She released a dry chuckle and shook her head. “Do not worry about that boy coming here. What you did to him would set Atropos months back… probably a year if we're lucky.” She touched her chin. “As for the key.” Her focus lingered on the statue's chest. “Your curse will be needed.”

  Medusa recalled the towering, snarky version of herself she encountered in her training. That curse?

  “Sit.” Clotho held Medusa’s shoulders, guiding her to obey.

  Though Medusa complied, her focus remained on the statue.

  “Remove the necklace,” Clotho said. “To do this, you must be in your true form.”

  The moment the jewellery came off, she reverted to her original body.

  “Good.” Clotho sat across from her and shut her eyes. The spool appeared once more. This time it spun as a line of thread came undone, snapped and curled around Medusa’s and Clotho's wrists, linking them.

  The Moirai's eyes flew open, blazing with amber light, and her dark skin shone as if golden fire was trapped beneath the surface. The air around crackled like sparks of electricity. Now, draw in aether.

  “Why?” Medusa asked, shaken by the change in Clotho's appearance. She looked on the verge of exploding, like volatile energy tightly contained in a fragile vessel.

  “Just do as I say, child,” Clotho said, voice low with exasperation but echoing with otherworldly reverberation. “Take your chance. The aether concentration here is dense thanks to the monolith's vein.”

  “What monolith?” This wasn't the first time she had heard that word, even Antonii—or Prometheus, mentioned it. And her racing heart wouldn't calm down. Am I scared? She had never seen the Moirai like this. She was even hovering inches from the ground as the connecting thread between them grew taut.

  “I promise not to hurt you.” Clotho focused on her with those terrifying beaming eyes. “Pull in aether, Medusa.”

  Gulping, she obeyed, and wonder stole her breath. If she pulled in aether through her pores before, now they rushed in like powerful waves, denser and purer than anything she had ever felt. The spinning aether wheel at the pit of her stomach returned and grew, condensed and grew again. The process repeated over and over until she felt a strain at the back of her neck.

  As if feeling it too, Clotho spoke, “That’s enough.”

  When Medusa opened her eyes, everything appeared in sharp focus, and this lightness in her bones. The urge to leap to see just how high she could go was near impossible to resist. Never in all her lives had she felt this untethered to limits.

  “What’s this?” Medusa asked, thoroughly impressed.

  “A fraction of what true immorality feels like.” She was back to her usual appearance, no glow in sight. Standing, she waited for Medusa to do the same.

  Together, they stood before the statue as if observing a moment of silence. As if he were dead. But that couldn't be. Even now, aether hummed around him. He was alive; he had to be alive so she could spit in his face and kick him for deceiving—no, he didn't deceive me.

  Clotho broke the silence. “There’s a creator who scatters worlds across his universe,” her voice was low and solemn, “but he is aloof, creating and relinquishing management to caretakers.”

  A sweep of her arm and the environment grew dim. A single thread winked into sight, burst into gold dust and formed a spinning sphere in a sea of golden stars.

  “My two sisters and I are caretakers. In the past, we had no tangible form, but our duty was established from the beginning—to enforce the laws of Cosmolith on all that possessed life.”

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  The glowing dust scattered before gathering to form a variety of living organisms. Humans joined in last.

  “But standing separate was another … burdensome creation of the creator, an entity we call the monolith. It has no conscience or predictable pattern of behaviour. It is the centre of this world, the very thing that holds it all together and makes it… make sense. Do you understand?”

  “No, but please, continue.” This was nothing like she learned in the Histories of Cosmolith, and she wanted to know what it had to do with Antonii.

  “We were aware that the monolith existed somewhere in this world, but the creator hid its location from our perception. Anyway, we trusted that the creator also shrouded the monolith's location from other beings as well, and as we carried out our duties, the monolith soon faded from our concern.”

  The sphere magnified and spun, with years counting down above it.

  “Humanity came, and we played our roles. Life, destiny, death. Repeat. We did not know days, years, or centuries. My sisters and I lived separately yet in harmony. Kingdoms rose and fell. We paid little attention outside of playing our roles and sticking to established tenets. Then rose a kingdom that progressed faster than anything we had observed in the past. Their children, and children’s children, were excellent in all they did and conquered without mercy.”

  Gold dust shifted. Formations of battle and a rising kingdom. Some innovations even resembled machines on Earth, but with a wildly different twist. Medusa was impressed to the point of gaping.

  “Then he arose, the brightest of them all.” She jutted her chin at Prometheus. “Unlike his predecessors, he wished to end wars, but his manner of approach was unexpected. Immortality.”

  The dust formed a round table with a child-king at its head. Many left, and a few replaced them.

  “He reasoned that if he and an upright few become immortal and powerful, war will cease at their mere interference. Naive, but fiercely determined, he pursued this goal from youth to adulthood. Perhaps, we should have interfered then.”

  She shook her head, eyes growing unfocused as she blinked ahead. “When I saw how brightly his thread shone, I pressed into my sister, Lachesis, curious about his destiny. But the thing with humans is that they’re aware of time, both driven and frightened by it; Prometheus was fiercely averse to it. In a turn that my sisters and I were unable to control or predict, he found the monolith.”

  As Clotho fell silent, the gold dust collapsed to a single line. “Everything—everything went off centre from that point. I don’t know how he did it, but he learned of our existence and blinded our eyes with the power of the monolith. His dream to end wars?” She laughed and shook her head. “He and his band of deranged loyalists actually fulfilled it.” Her fist tightened around her staff. “But the monolith is terrifyingly unpredictable. All it took was a slip in judgment, and power changed hands, war returned—more brutal than it had ever been, like the earth had been dying of thirst. Strange sorcery from the south, now called Olympus, melded with the power of the monolith to birth rampant… wrongness. It was a chaotic festival of death that spanned years.”

  Clotho waved, causing the golden thread to vanish. “It was in one of Zeus’ rampages that the seal over our eyes slipped and we saw what Cosmolith had become. Atropos, in her fury, was impatient.” The Moirai hugged herself, managing to appear broken yet firm. “That was the first time I witnessed rage like that. She was determined to teach a lesson, not pausing to ask how Zeus had come so far.

  “Zeus, that sly human, pretended weakness even under the protection of the monolith.” Her eyes remained vacant. “Pleading, even weeping and assuring us that he would stop all business with the monolith if Atropos holds back on death. She ignored his plea, and she took from him as he had taken from others. I—” She clamped her jaw shut and frowned up at Prometheus’ face. “We left, and I finally looked through the threads of these new immortals now that the monolith's covering was gone. I realised Zeus was too vengeful to take what Atropos did to him, but my realisation came too late; he came for us and desecrated the essence of who we are. Of all my sisters, only I escaped his watchful imprisonment, but at a cost.”

  She blinked and smiled down at Medusa. The action seemed strained. “But I learned some interesting things after finding the first troublemaker.” She nodded at the statue.

  “Like what?”

  “Your curse. Prometheus crafted it with the power of the monolith, but it was eventually used against him in the titanomachy. The monolith must have taken back what belonged to it. Yet, I wonder…” She narrowed her eyes. “Seeing what Athena and Poseidon did to you in your first life, they may know something about your curse we don’t.”

  Medusa’s mood soured.

  The Moirai suddenly clapped, a warm smile chasing away her sombre mood. “But we can take care of all that, if you do the needful.”

  Heart sinking, Medusa asked even though she suspected she’d hate the answer, “And what's the needful?”

  Clotho casually gestured at Antonii. “Turn him to dust.”

  Everything in her shrank from the notion. “I can't do that.”

  “Why?” Clotho looked genuinely confused, then understanding flickered in her eyes. “I say this very gently, your husband is dead.”

  “He is not!” Aether flared with the force of Medusa’s denial. “I just saw him. I saw him and I…” her voice cracked and she hated herself for it. “I know who I saw—what I sensed in my soul. He isn't dead.”

  “Child, I have no need to lie to you on this matter.”

  A sob escaped as Medusa collapsed to her knees. “Help me,” she whispered. The Moirai was a caretaker of an entire planet, literally coming after Cosmolith’s god in terms of power. There had to be something she could do. “Please, Clotho. I'll take the littlest chance… I'll take anything. Help him.”

  “I speak the truth—”

  “Even if he deceived me, I don't care.”

  “What you saw was a fragment of his soul performing a final duty.”

  Medusa wasn't listening. “You said we all have threads. What about his thread?” Desperation surged, ridding her of every other thought. “Can't you make him like you did my duplicate or…” Her voice faded as she massaged the spot over her heart. “Please, I’m begging you.”

  “That will achieve nothing,” Clotho said, voice apologetic. “Your memories with him are from your past life, not a time in Cosmolith. I am sorry, Medusa.”

  Biting back fresh sobs, Medusa hugged her knees to her chest. She was even fine with a single moment, to look him in the eyes and ask the questions incinerating her heart.

  Clotho settled next to her, a silent companion in her sorrow. Finally, she spoke, piquing Medusa’s interest. “You may get a moment, but it will be brief.”

  Medusa looked up. “How?” She asked with a hollow voice.

  The Moirai nodded at the statue. “You have to do that part first.” When Medusa’s face fell, she hurried to add, “That’s the only way I can think of. The key would hold some fragment of his soul after all.”

  “You aren't lying to me?”

  Clotho's gaze was steady. “I am not.”

  “Fine.” Releasing a shaky breath, she pushed to her feet and rushed over. Straining on the balls of her feet, she reached for his knee and touched him.

  “She said I'll meet him.” Medusa repeated the words over and over.

  Shutting her eyes, she recalled the feeling from that terrible day and the consuming desire to destroy Anthonii's killers.

  It happened in a breath with the feeling of aether leaving her absent. One moment, he was there, and the next he was nothing but a pile of dust at her feet. She had been expecting a small hill, but this… Is this all he amounted to?

  Clotho stared at the heap as well. “Even I feel the loss, child.” She patted Medusa’s shoulder. “Even I feel it.”

  The dust shifted and exposed a polished opal at least the size of her palm. As if pulled by an invisible string, it shot into the air and hovered before her face. When she took a step back, it followed. What resembled trapped fire flared at its centre, arresting her attention.

  “I think you should brace yourself.”

  The Moirai had hardly finished speaking when the stone flew forward and struck Medusa square in the chest, the force powerful enough to send her airborne.

  “Ugh.” Her groan echoed around her as her world spun and finally settled. She was back at the white hall and in her adult form. Someone was holding her hand. Wait, someone was holding her hand? She tugged her arm in a panic and froze when she looked up.

  “You...” She had meant to yell, but her voice came out weak and small. That curly hair, brown kind eyes. The effect of seeing Antonii’s face, and the effect was like another blow to the chest.

  “Forgive me.” He hugged her, but she stood stiffly in his arms, fists clenched at her side.

  “I thought we escaped.” He rocked from side to side as he cradled the back of her head. “Life after life, I looked out for them, then I let my guard down in the last one.”

  Medusa gulped but stubbornly refused to hug him back.

  “I was lost in the feeling of being mortal, happy to flee my chains as I guarded the curse.”

  Hearing that last word, Medusa shoved him off. “You bastard!” She yelled in Spanish. “Putting honey in my mouth to turn my stomach. Did you even love me? What was our baby I carried? What was our marriage? Did you laugh when I wasn't looking? This clueless girl, tossed about, cursed! Were you there? Did you see what Poseidon…” her voice broke, “...what Poseidon did to me? You know yours wasn't the first child I carried.”

  She wanted to hurt him back, make him feel these ugly emotions ripping her apart. But if he never loved her to begin with, it would have no effect. “Awful; the lot of you are vile—the evil in this world. Using me like that, like I'm some… some vessel for your ultimate agenda. Ah!” Enraged to near madness, she turned away and clenched her teeth hard.

  I will not cry. I will not cry at all. Please, tears. Stop. She swallowed thickly and blinked over and over as she strangled her vulnerability. She pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes when they grew misty.

  “I didn’t know.” She felt his presence behind her. “I didn't even know that the curse would turn you into a gorgon. You have to believe me.”

  “Even my sisters,” she mumbled, weak from the storm of her emotions. “Even my sisters are monsters. My parents are punished. This stupid stone gaze.” She whirled around. “This curse is the root cause, isn't it?”

  “I am sorry, May.” He spread his palms. “I didn't know the—”

  “I heard you the first time,” Medusa spat. Why did he have to call her May with his eyes pleading like that? Her heart wavered. “Don't call me May. It's Medusa.”

  “Fine.” He dropped his gaze, then lifted it after a beat of silence. “It's in your hands now. You can explore what I left. And I swear I didn't know Poseidon did that to you.” His expression darkened. “I was imprisoned and locked out of the affairs of Cosmolith. I had to explore other worlds not to lose my sanity. When I met you in Almonte, I…” He drew nearer and attempted to touch her face.

  When she flinched and pulled back, he dropped his hand. “My feelings weren't false. My life on that farm held the best moments of my too-long life.”

  “E-enough with the nonsense.” Medusa looked away, unable to bear the emotions in his eyes or how weak her heart was becoming. “How are you here? How can I…” Drained, she dropped her pride and asked the only question burning in her mind. “How can I save you?”

  When he shook his head, his images flickered. Her heart dropped as she subconsciously approached him.

  “Focus on finding the monolith.” This time, when he touched her face, she didn’t turn away. “For those who seek to harm you, go after them with even more brutality; never hesitate. Hesitating gets you chained like some idiot animal until death finds you.”

  Medusa nodded, unable to force words past the ball in her throat. This was goodbye, right? He’s leaving me for good this time.

  “Always go for your enemies before they come for you.” He patted her head. “And always confirm their death.”

  “You really are a spawn of war mongers,” Medusa muttered and sniffed. These stupid tears.

  “But I'm the softest in a long line of hardened conquerors. The disgrace who ended his prestigious line,” he added with a chuckle.

  He was beginning to vanish. She held on tighter. “Tell me there is a way. The monolith, can I use it to bring you back?”

  He gripped her shoulders, expression panicked and desperate. “Never do that. Promise me.”

  Before Medusa gave her word, he vanished like mist. Her surroundings wavered as she returned to the present, hand locked in an empty embrace.

  Clotho’s goblet stopped halfway to her lips when Medusa blinked back to the present. Her gaze lingered on Medusa’s face. “I see you met him.”

  Unable to find her voice, she could only nod as she dropped her arms.

  “Then we leave immediately.” As Clotho stood, the goblet vanished, and her staff replaced it. “And I thought up a plan to take care of your little identity problem in Drys Valon.”

  “You did?” She mindlessly trailed after the Moirai, barely present.

  He just vanished like he was nothing…

  After they walked a short distance, Clotho took her hand and pushed through an invisible wall.

  The boys were waiting on the other side, each springing to their feet when they made an appearance. Medusa looked at the sky, taking note of the position of the sun. An hour had passed? She wasn’t so sure. Her focus returned to the boys; they seemed confused, even Lonian’s usually flat expression was twisted in a perplexed frown.

  Akrivi was the first to speak; looking around, he asked, “Where’s May?”

  Medusa blinked down at her ten-year-old body. She had forgotten to wear the necklace.

  “Ah, you’re the handsome one who saved May from the bear.” She approached with that practised politician smile. “And you,” she sent the same smile Lonian’s way. “You helped her with the sleeping remedy.”

  They gawked at Clotho as if under a spell, hardly noticing when she took their hands in hers. “Sleep.”

  Like her aunt and Galene, both boys fell into a dead faint.

  “A moment, please,” Clotho said before strolling a distance to grab a nymph carcass.

  Dragging it over, she repeated the same process with the duplicate, but this time Medusa didn’t have to offer her hair. The eerie process repeated, birthing a replica of the disguise she had grown accustomed to.

  “As for the wounds. Hmm.” She tossed Medusa a change of clothes. “Give me your tunic.”

  Now the false body lay among the boys, bearing the same wound, bandaged torso and wearing Medusa’s blood-stained tunic. Her conscience twisted.

  “Isn’t this too—”

  “If anyone digs up the grave in five months, the ruse will be exposed,” the Moiai breezed on. “But who'd be crazy enough to do that?” Clotho laughed and passed her the necklace. “Time for another disguise.”

  Medusa said nothing, unable to catch the Moirai’s excitement.

  “Since we are heading for the red god, let's make you a redhead, no?” As she touched the necklace, Medusa vaguely sensed her body change. Not as tall or as flat as her former body. Wasn’t the goal to blend in?

  “There.” Clotho ruffled Medusa’s shoulder-length hair before leading her in the opposite direction. “Olympus is calling,” she said with a cheer.

  As they walked away, Medusa stole a final backwards glance.

  “I'm sorry,” she mumbled.