The Shroud

The Shroud
Caelth ran. 
Time whirled back, magic and life and light tumbled together through the infinite chaos of the universe. Thecara and Thryaon embraced for what seemed to be the first time in an age. Delphos dragged the three of them to the ground in an embrace, shaking off the lingering drain of the turns of the world and the lives they had lived. 
She skidded down the steps and streaked down the hallway toward the great hall that had been given to Zarantia to play at being a god. The walls of their domain shimmered, losing their darkness with each turn, just as planned, just as orchestrated, but there was still one last thing. 
She had never seen the end of Penelope’s scheme. It was beyond time, beyond her sight, but if she knew her daughter-in-law, knew the hardness of Persephone and how her fury could, would, and had torn the universe apart, she couldn’t let it pass without knowing. 
For all of her wisdom and grace, her love for Leandros had driven her to the unimaginable edges of what should have been possible. 
She had shed so much to be with him, changed in immeasurable ways, but at her core, had she changed so much to not lead them into a deeper, darker darkness?
“Penelope!” She called as she reached the door. 
In place of Zarantia’s stone-like constructions and the chisels that had once decorated the dark hall, there was only a wall of threads, a loom the size of the universe glimmering with the threads of fate woven with impossible dedication and precision. 
Slowly, she shimmered into presence as the aspect of Persephone she sent to the mortal world returned,  and Aseras, the weeping, furious wife, dried her tears, settling on Penelope’s chest as armor. The necklace of vowfire swayed as she worked, pulling a deep black thread from within the large tapestry. Her hand glimmered with a set of rings.
“Penelope, wait!”
But it was too late. The black thread cut a large section of the tapestry out. Caelth choked. She felt the Wheel melting away as Penelope continued to pull the thread. The section that had been cut out of the main tapestry, threaded through with the black, floated above her head. With each pull, the main tapestry began to pull together, stitching itself closed and seamless. 
Caelth’s eyes bulged as the black thread began to bleed into gold: the color of Aseras. As soon as the main tapestry had closed and the pattern flowed without a hint that anything had been there, the black and gold thread ran out. Penelope turned, drawing the section she’d cut out to her. 
“You can’t… just cut it out.”
Could she? 
Caelth could still see into those lives, but they felt distant, severed from the time she could see stretching forward.
Penelope didn’t look up as she continued to work on the border of the cloth with the black and gold thread. Caelth stepped forward to watch the pattern appear as she weaved it around the edges, using her hand like a loom. It was a marvel to watch, but even in her infinite sight, she couldn’t see or understand what Penelope was doing. The tapestry rolled by stopping in front of Penelope’s stool just as she finished the border of black and gold, depicting the Trials of Erebos. The images of Erebos first challenging her husband all the way to his final fate were rendered in such fine detail in black-gold thread. 
She realized moments later that it was a burial shroud. 
Penelope lifted her gaze, her head adorned with a shroud and diadem, then she rose, gathering the shroud in her arms. She said nothing as she passed, and Caelth could not find words to speak to her, baffled by her actions. 
She followed Penelope to the far wall that opened into a long descending staircase. The shroud shimmered in the darkness with flecks of light that looked like stars. The door above closed, leaving Penelope and the shroud as the only sources of light. The golden rays shifted the darkness subtly, just enough for Caelth to follow without problem. Their steps echoed through the vast space to where the cold was so deep it would freeze the blood of a mortal in seconds. The light expanded out, catching in the basins above. Twelve of them filled with blazing gold light. In the center, Erebos sat, shoulders bowed in defeat, head down. 
He looked up slowly, craning up to see first Penelope, then Caelth.
His eyes narrowed, filled with that familiar haunting, hungry hollow that reflected nothing. The abyss that could never be filled and would never be satisfied.
“The game is over,” Penelope said. 
“And… I suppose you are here to gloat?” He scoffed. “I have no desire to hear it.”
“I have a mind to destroy you,” she said, her voice echoing through the hall that reached up to a singular pinprick of light. She suddenly felt many times her size and much more ancient, leaning into the powers of her father. “We have no need of you now.”
He bared his teeth. “You will starve.”
“You may,” she said. A hole in the darkness opened, revealing the bright light over the field of reeds. 
Erebos gasped, staring out across the field all the way to the Hall of Souls. Caelth looked as well, smiling at how beautiful their realm had become, starting from Thryaon’s fussy tree and flourishing to reeds and cascades of lotus.
“That’s… That’s impossible.”
“It was my plan,” she said. “From the beginning of this mess. From the moment you turned on your brother and coveted his wife, I had planned to destroy you completely. To scatter your essence and lock each piece of you in some secret place that not even time nor magic could touch.”
He went still and looked up at her. Caelth nearly took a step back. The chill grew deeper as the hole began to close and the golden light filled the basins again. 
He set his jaw. “Do you expect me to beg for mercy?”
“What makes you think you’re worthy to beg for anything from me?”
“I—” He broke off, staring up at her. Caelth almost wished that she could see what he saw, but he didn’t dare to look. 
“You will not speak, or I will follow through on my wishes. You have hurt Him.” Her tone turned hard. “You have hurt my Eredes so many times over… You have betrayed your oaths, you have corrupted many and stolen more. There is not one among us you could count on for mercy… but Him.”
His eyes bulged. 
“No one deserves what they will not give: forgiveness, grace, peace, mercy… Yet He, in his grace, mercy, and capacity for forgiveness, has asked this of me.”
Caelth gasped, struck, stunned, and disbelieving. After everything that Erebos had done, after all the pain his selfishness had caused, there was no way in all the universe and the ever after that Eredes, Leandros, or Setusir asked his spear and stone-hearted wife to give any gesture of mercy to Erebos. 
There was no way that she had listened.