Chapter One #3
“I need to see it,” Ione murmured back. “All of this is my doing. My failure.”
Mikau pursed their lips and nodded, leaving her in favour of seeing to an elderly woman.
River squeezed her hand, not reacting when Ione withdrew.
She felt eyes on her, ponderous, and looked down at herself.
At her clean, unmarred dress, the soft grey silk a cruel parody of the dirty clothes the people of Caelos wore.
What were they thinking of her? Was she, to them, some wealthy priestess’s daughter come to gawk?
“Ione.” River, fingertips on her arm. “This is enough. Let’s return to the altarhouse.”
She whipped her arm back. “None of this is enough,” she hissed. “None of it – not until Menon – until I – ”
Cynthia leaned into her line of sight. “You don’t look well. Maybe – ”
Ione strode through them, head high, eyes straining for more haunted faces, more evidence of her failure. The suffering of her people.
How is this, Menon?, she thought, her nails digging into her palms. She heard a man sobbing over his home, his family; heard an agonised cry, the deep cracking of a reset bone. Your sleep is their pain. Your idleness is their death. Do you not care?
The crowds had thinned out on this side of the atrium, most of them pressed near the entrance where the bulk of the healers gathered. The tears came here, making Ione angrier; she wiped them roughly away and threw her arms back down.
If you don’t care, then why were you reborn?
Why did you choose me?
A pained gasp hauled her back to the present.
Ione froze: most of the people on this side of the atrium had been seen to already.
She heard it again, and murmuring, low and soothing; Ione fished in her pocket for the monocular she always brought with her outside.
She lifted it to one eye and adjusted the dials, scanning.
There – two figures, crouched in the shade of a peach tree. One propped up against the trunk, her leg wrapped and face bone-white. The second, a woman with dark blonde curls, dabbed her friend’s forehead and whispered to her.
“There you are.” River clamped a hand over her shoulder, his unimpressed expression saying, You’re coming with me. “I hope you – ”
“River, if you’re about to ask if I got that out of my system, I will scream.” Ione pocketed the monocular. “That woman is hurt,” she said, stalking towards them. “Fetch Mikau.”
He sighed, following. “Mikau’s a little preoccupied.”
Cynthia hurried alongside them. “They’ll get to her. Soon.”
Ione pivoted, issuing them both an icy look – and whatever little power she had was enough to silence them. “Cynthia,” she said, knowing she’d be the first to give in.
She was right. “I’ll tell them,” Cynthia said hastily, shooting back towards the atrium’s entrance.
Ione dared River to complain – and when he didn’t, she lifted her chin and continued on towards the pair of Caelosi.
“Keep breathing, Ami,” the blonde woman said as Ione neared.
She smoothed Ami’s copper hair back, shushed her when she weakly protested.
“I know. Just – stop moving it, for gods’ sakes.
” She stilled when she saw Ione and River.
“Hello,” she murmured, cautious, seeming to take in Ione’s tailored clothes, her personal guard.
“We’re sorry to have disturbed your walk, Lady. ”
Ione bristled. “Not at all,” she said, tempering her tone. Even strangers presumed she was only here to waste time. “A healer is coming. Is she all right?”
“Stable,” the other woman, Ami, said. She jerked her chin, indicating her injured leg, stretched out and wrapped in bloodstained gauze. “A healer looked at it before we left Caelos. The pain stuff’s just worn off.”
The blonde woman nudged her, reproachful. “Not that we’re refusing another, less-rushed healer.”
“Oh, gods, no. Bring ’em in.”
Ione knelt – a rarity for her – and summoned a wisp of cool water for Ami to drink. Not without a moment’s hesitation, Ami nodded her thanks and drank.
Ione felt their eyes on her again, River’s, disapproving; the blonde woman, curious but guarded. She focused on keeping the water steady, knowing how foolish this was, how misplaced.
“Lady Ione?” Mikau screeched to a stop beside her and cocked an eyebrow at Ami. “Ah,” they said to Ione, somewhat chagrined, “Cynthia made it sound like you were suddenly and direly ill.”
“Yes, I’m like a houseplant in that way.”
They waved Ione and the other woman away from Ami and knelt, inspecting Ami’s leg. Ione heard a sharp intake of breath, a muttered, Shoddy work.
“Your bedside manner’s great,” Ami deadpanned.
There. One person she’d helped, among a sea of others who had died while Ione cursed the indolent god within her.
She hadn’t realised at first that she had trailed after the other woman, ostensibly to give Ami more space. “We’d been waiting for hours,” the woman said, tugging at her long sleeves. “I’m sorry if I sounded standoffish. We’re… well, ‘exhausted’ doesn’t cover it.”
Out of the shade of the peach tree, Ione could read her features better. Beneath the smudge of ash, her skin was sun-kissed; her curls, once clean, would perhaps be the colour of honey. She tilted her face to the sunlight, looking momentarily content. Peaceful.
Her eyes, catching in the light when she regarded Ione, were warm and intelligent, a deep caramel brown. “What can I call you, Lady…?”
Ione swallowed, terribly aware of River and Cynthia hovering nearby. “Ione,” she said without thinking. “Just Ione.”
She tilted her head, questioning, hands clasped before her. There was a birdlike quality to her, curious and alert. “Then Ione,” she said, kneeling. “Thank you for helping us.”
Ione rushed to take her forearms and help her back up – and frowned, a pang shooting through her to feel the rough, puckered skin of burn scars marring the woman’s wrists.
Noticing her attention, the woman lurched back and lowered her head. “Sorry, they’re…” She crossed her arms, hiding her wrists. “new enough.”
Ione’s own skin prickled with fresh shame. Another person, another failure. “What is your name?”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Lina. Lina, er, Morrow.”
Ione smiled. She so rarely met new people. “Acolyte?”
“Not even.” Lina laughed, and although her voice was husky from smoke inhalation, there was something bell-like about it that made Ione’s pulse jump. “I’d only been at Caelos for six months. They had me cleaning and looking after children – a handmaid.”
“Living the dream.”
Lina lowered her face again, smiling shyly. “You’ve no idea.”
Ione fought the urge to crane her neck, to tilt until she could see Lina properly.
As though Lina read her thoughts, she glanced back up, caramel eyes catching Ione’s, and something like adrenaline speared Ione’s lungs.
She touched her fingertips to her pulse: was this Menon, stirred finally by something?
Ione squinted, studying her. A Caelosi handmaid, a surname Ione had never heard of. A nobody.
What is it, Menon?, she wondered, stepping closer. What is it about this person?
Lina’s brows knitted. “You all right? You’re flushed.”
She felt River and Cynthia watching them. Felt her own heart swelling, blood rushing. Lina, a stranger, a puzzle, stared right back. Lifted one hand, touched the backs of her fingers against Ione’s forehead.
“You’ve a fever,” she said, mesmerised. “Is it the heat? Will – ” She cast around as though she had a healer in her pocket. “Will I get – someone – ?”
“I’m fine,” Ione said quickly, batting her hand away and, at the same time, wanting to grab it, press it again to her forehead. “I’m great. I’m amazing.”
“You don’t seem amazing.” Lina emitted a harried laugh. “I can’t have you collapsing after speaking with me. It won’t look good.”
Why now, Menon? Why this? Her hands shook. Ione wrung them together, at once exhilarated and terrified. She envisioned tidal waves, ice spears taller than mountains, violence beyond measure somehow, somehow resulting in peace.
Soon, Menon will manifest. Soon, Menon will awaken. Ione glimpsed her own trembling hands. After nineteen years of failure, she had never come close enough to wonder what that all might mean.
Would Menon possess her forever?
Would Ione ever regain control of herself?
She wasn’t ready for this. Gods, she wasn’t ready – she hadn’t even said goodbye to her seleneschals. Hadn’t thanked them. Hadn’t –
“Whoa.” Lina lurched back as the grass beneath them froze, ice crystals jutting out from beneath Ione’s feet in swirling, feathered spirals. They curled and branched, spreading further and further until something grabbed both of Ione’s hands. Squeezed, steady and warm.
“Hey – hey!” Lina, just before her. “Breathe.”
The ice stopped, shimmering and crackling as it melted in the summer heat.
Ione gazed at the gleaming facets. Heard Lina telling her not to worry, this happened sometimes, she knew a girl in Caelos whose magic always ran amok when her emotions got the better of her – but all Ione could think, an endless, hypnotising chant, was Finally.
As expected, her seleneschals materialised, breathless. “What the hell was that?” River demanded.
Cynthia was far more supportive. “That was amazing!”
“And no harm done.” Lina, still holding her hands, a reassuring heat. “Right?”
Again Lina smiled, sunlight like gold in her eyes. And once more Menon coiled white-hot in the depths of Ione’s ribcage, a quickening, as fast and sure as her own heartbeat.
Ione rounded on her. What was it about this woman that was setting Menon off?
She yearned to take it apart, study it under glass.
She edged closer, inspected her, not quite hearing River’s warning tone.
Smooth oval face dotted with freckles like stars; round cheeks, full lips.
A pale scar on her neck, slightly curved, a crescent moon.
A sign. Ione’s fingers itched to trace it, like touching it would tell her everything there was to know.
Menon, she thought hard, searching. Are you there?
River hauled her back and Ione bowed her head, her cheeks burning. “My apologies,” she stammered. “My eyesight is – I mean, personal space isn’t always a consideration – ”
“It’s time to go, Ione. It’s…” River hesitated, visibly thinking.
“Lunchtime,” Cynthia supplied.
Nice try. “Come to lunch with me,” she told Lina. “River has all the cooking skills I haven’t.”
River pulled her close, his expression weary as he whispered, “Ione. She is tired. She is grieving. She has been here for hours and, I’m certain, wants nothing more than to bathe and sleep.”
Lina, behind him, made a noise that implied River was right.
“Tomorrow, then,” Ione said.
River suppressed a groan.
That somehow earned another chiming laugh from Lina that sent Ione’s stomach to her feet. She released a breath, felt Menon rising and falling within her. How could River not see it?
“I think Ami’s finished with the healer,” Lina said, pointing behind Ione at them.
“I should check on her, but…” She tucked her chin and folded her hands behind her back.
“It’s a small island. And I’m sure they’ll have me doing the same as I was in Caelos, so…
” She smiled, sweet and bright. “If you have any beds that need making, you’ll know where to find me. ”
Ione jittered as she allowed River and Cynthia to walk her out of the atrium. Finally – after all this time! She ran through the details, memorised them. The burns on her wrists, the crescent moon on her throat.
A sign, a sign, a sign.
“River,” she said, hoarse, as her seleneschals ushered her up the hill towards the altarhouse. “Tomorrow, can you make that crab salad?”
“Ione,” Cynthia chided, “it sounded like she was letting you down easy.”
“It’s too bad she doesn’t have a choice,” Ione snapped, wounded. “Menon likes her, and I’m going to find out why.”
River rubbed his face. “Ione. Genuinely. Leave her alone, if only so I don’t have to explain to your mother why you’ve started bringing home strays.”
“Did you see what I did? I’ve no idea what could’ve – ”
“Oh, I’ve got an inkling,” River said, like it pained him. “Look,” he went on before Ione argued: “I want you to make friends, Ione, but not with someone Saros hasn’t properly vetted – ”
“Saros would set me up with a scorpion if he didn’t have to dispose of my corpse after.”
“ – and who might not even stay here for long.”
Ione quieted, considering. Eventually, Caelos Shrine would be repaired, and all of its denizens would return there. Lina included.
She laid her fingertips over her pulse. Still trilling away, even with Lina gone.
She wouldn’t let this go, not for anything.
Cynthia took pity on River: “Until Oseidos can be fully protected, no one is safe.”
River nodded. “At least wait until the new warden arrives.”
Ione winced. Even River, now, hung his hopes on Saros’s new dog. “You promised you’d hate him with me.”
“I can at least acknowledge his abilities,” he said, although his tone implied that he wasn’t happy to acknowledge anything about Kai Mahina.
“Wait until Saros calls him son and you’ll feel far less tolerant.” She squared her shoulders and looked beyond the sea to the mainland, to the dark, watercolour blur of the mountains rising over Lodestone. To the shell of Caelos Shrine, the bodies reduced to ash inside its broken walls.
“For the first time in my life, Menon stirred,” she whispered. “Menon sent her here. And mark my words, River, Lina is going to help me.”