Aric was gone—lost to the mist—and whatever he’d left behind lingered like a bad smell, clinging to the air. His story, whatever it was, now hung like a void in the ledger, a blank space where there should’ve been closure.


    I reached under the seat and grabbed the spare oar, knuckles white, like it was the only thing tethering me to this cursed river. I shoved it into the water, the blade slicing through the murky black with a muted swish. The mist peeled back just enough to show the endless dark ahead. My boat. My river. Yet, for the first time in centuries, it all felt foreign. Like I didn’t belong here anymore.


    “You’ve ferried the dead for so long, you’ve forgotten what it means to be alive.”


    Aric’s words gnawed at me, the kind of burn that didn’t go away. I wanted to bury them, shove them down where the other regrets lived. But the shadows in the mist didn’t let me. They pressed closer now, darker and more deliberate, creeping at the edges of my thoughts.


    I kept rowing, each stroke dragging me through the suffocating silence. A sliver of land emerged from the fog—bare, jagged rocks against a sky that looked as dead as I felt.


    Normally, I wouldn’t stop for anything. The ferryman doesn’t leave his river. But tonight, something had changed.


    I steered the boat toward the shore, the hull scraping against jagged rocks. The bite of cold air hit me as I jumped out, boots crunching on gravel. Everything here looked as dead as I felt. Twisted trees clawed at the sky, skeletal and barren. It felt like this place was waiting for something to end.


    I reached into my coat and pulled out the ledger. Its weight felt heavier than usual, dragging on my chest like the guilt I refused to name. I hadn’t looked at it since Aric disappeared. Didn’t want to. But I knew I had to.


    The black leather was smooth and worn, the pages inside thick with the lives I’d ferried. Every soul I’d ever taken across the river was written here, their stories a testament to balance. It was the only thing that kept the river, and me, in check.


    But when I flipped to the last page, it was empty.


    Aric’s story wasn’t there.


    The ledger always recorded the stories, even when I didn’t want to hear them. This blank space was a void that shouldn’t have existed.


    I hadn’t noticed her until it was too late.


    Charys.


    The seer. The liar. The woman who always knew more than she let on, always had that look in her eyes like she was holding back everything just to watch me flail.


    Her cloak hung around her like smoke, pale face sharp and angular, hair long and unruly, as though time had forgotten her. But it was her eyes that unsettled me—silver, glowing faintly in the mist. They always knew too much. Too much for me to ignore.


    “I wondered when you’d show up,” she said, her voice like the first breeze of autumn—cold, but familiar.


    “Don’t act like you weren’t waiting,” I shot back, tossing the oar into the boat with a thud and shoving the ledger into my coat. “You always know the script before anyone else.”Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    “You see everything,” I added, voice rougher than I meant. “So tell me, Charys—what the hell just happened?”


    She stepped closer, the mist curling around her feet like it belonged to her. Her skin was pale, but her eyes were dark, like she hadn’t slept in years.


    “You met a ghost with a story,” she said, as calm as if she were discussing the weather. “And the river heard it.”


    “Yeah, figured that much,” I muttered, trying to mask the tremor in my hands. “But why the hell did it feel like my story?”


    Her gaze sharpened, cutting through me like a blade. For the first time, I saw something in her eyes that wasn’t pity. It was something worse—something I couldn’t name.


    “Because it is,” she said bluntly.


    I let out a bitter laugh, dry as old whiskey.


    “That’s not how this works. I ferry the dead. I hear their stories. That’s all I do.”


    Charys tilted her head, eyes studying me like I was the puzzle she couldn’t quite solve.


    “Kaelith,” she said slowly, like testing a name she hadn’t spoken in too long, “Do you remember how you came to the river?”


    My stomach twisted, and I felt something sink low in my gut.


    “What kind of question is that?”


    Her silence was the answer I didn’t want to hear.


    “Charys,” I growled, stepping closer, “if you’ve got something to say, then say it.”


    Her silver eyes met mine, unblinking.


    “You’ve been ferrying the dead for so long, Kaelith, you’ve forgotten who you were before. But the river hasn’t.”


    Her words hit me harder than I expected—harder than anything had in years.


    “What are you talking about?” My voice cracked despite myself.


    She sighed, the weight of it heavy in the still air.


    “The river down here isn’t just water, Kaelith. It’s memory. It’s balance. Every soul you ferry keeps it alive, keeps it whole. But you…you cheated it once. You took something from it and never gave anything back.”


    My fists balled, the knuckles aching from the pressure.


    “I don’t have a story,” I snapped. “I gave that up a long time ago.”


    She stepped closer.


    “No, Kaelith. You didn’t give it up. You buried it. And now, the river’s digging it up.”


    I staggered back, the weight of her words pressing on me. The ledger burned through my coat, heavy, suffocating.


    “Aric’s story wasn’t just his,” she said, her voice soft, almost mournful. “It was yours too. That’s why it’s not in the ledger. That’s why the river feels different. Balance is broken, Kaelith. And the only way to fix it is for you to remember.”


    I shook my head, backing away from her.


    “No. You’re wrong. I’m the ferryman. That’s all I am. That’s all I ever was.”


    Her gaze softened, not with pity, but with something more raw, more familiar.


    “Dead men tell the best tales, Kaelith. But the living? They tell the ones that change everything.”


    She turned, the mist swallowing her like she was part of it, leaving me alone on the shore. Her words hung in the air, heavy and suffocating, as I turned back to the river.


    For the first time in all these years, I felt like the river was the one running the show.