Chapter Thirteen
Ione
“I frightened her.” Ione pushed the cup of rose tea to the centre of the table in her bedroom, unable to stomach it. “I shouldn’t have told her.”
Cynthia inched her chair closer, letting their shoulders touch. It was as far as Cynthia would go by ways of comfort, and Ione was thankful for it. “You would’ve had to tell her eventually.”
Ione ran through the conversation again. The kiss. The way Lina had held her, looked at her, like she was precious. And then, after Ione had revealed her divinity, how the devotion in Lina’s eyes gradually shifted to fear.
She’d concealed it well enough, fast enough that Ione had supposed she’d imagined it.
Menon was right about you, she had thought, hugging Lina goodbye before she returned to the acolytes’ building for the evening.
Ione watched her go until she couldn’t anymore, and then clasped her hands over her racing heart.
There you are, Menon. Wake, now. Wake!
Lina did not come to her this morning. Was not seen at breakfast. Had not slept in her bed.
And then a couple of guards stepped forward to reveal to Cynthia what they’d seen the night before on their walk: a young woman clutching a cloak around her shoulders, darting off into the low-tide surf.
It was up to her if she wanted to go, they had said; they weren’t about to risk leaving the ward themselves to chase after her.
“I still should have waited. Or explained it better. I could hear it, how scared she was, and…” Ione’s mouth quivered; she wiped it roughly with the back of her hand. “And gods, it is stupid to waste tears on this when so much else is happening.”
Cynthia sipped at her own tea, eyes downcast. “It’s… odd though, that she would leave Oseidos altogether.” Her teacup clattered into its saucer. “Isn’t it?”
“She was afraid,” Ione answered, certain and ashamed.
“My being Menon scared her. My being gentry made her feel trapped.” She blinked back tears, angry with herself, and wished for once that Cynthia would say something gentle and not whatever she was really thinking.
“I didn’t see us as different. I truly didn’t. Did she? Did it weigh on her?”
Cynthia pursed her lips. Half-shrugged, I don’t know, silent yet telling.
Of course. Ione swiped at her eyes, smoothed her hair from her face, summoned her familiar coldness, a safety blanket.
She had forgotten once again, had needed the reminder: it did not matter how she saw them, Lina, Cynthia, River, everyone.
They were not friends. Family. Anything. Menon was unreachable.
And so, so lonely.
She heard River’s footsteps out in the hall, bade him to enter before he had the chance to knock. Kept her eyes down, her expression smooth and serene as a deep pool, and choked down a scalding gulp of tea.
Thought of roses and honey, that quiet moment in her bedroom, the softness of Lina’s hands in hers. Tasted bile.
“You all right?” River reached across the table for the teapot and refilled her half-empty cup. “Still upset with Saros?”
Cynthia drew her knees to her chest. “Lina’s gone.”
River cursed, nearly dropping the teapot. “Gone? What – ” He looked to Cynthia, Help me. “What d’you mean gone?”
“Gone,” Ione said stiffly. She folded her hands on her lap, fingernails digging into her palms. “I told her who I was – ”
“You what?”
“ – and it frightened her, so she left Oseidos to get away from me. And it’s fine and I’m fine.”
Silence fell over them like a wet rag. Eventually River released a strangled little noise and cleared his throat. “To confirm – Lina is gone?”
Cynthia answered for her. “Yes.”
“And she knows who Ione is?”
“Yes.”
“And – then she left.”
Ione rubbed her temples, exhausted. “I’m so glad you were paying attention, River.”
Cynthia hung her head back. “Yeah, whatever breakdown you’re working towards, go ahead and hurry it up. It’s Ione’s day today.”
Ione raised her teacup, joyless.
River hesitated a beat longer before murmuring, his voice small, “Lina is a Moth.”
The air droned as River launched into the story of it, of witnessing Lina using pyromancy, of her and River fending Nalu off of Kai, of Kai agreeing to keep her secret in exchange for knowledge.
Cynthia had questions, wanted quotes and timestamps, but Ione merely stared into her teacup, listening but not, her skull full of cotton.
Light glanced off the rim of her cup, catching her attention and holding. Her eyes burned.
Lina, a pyromancer.
Lina, who knew her schedule, her associations, her home, her life.
Lina, who was gone.
The thud of a hand against the table and the rattle of teaware woke her up. “And when were you planning on sharing this with the rest of the class?” Cynthia demanded.
River steepled his fingers. “It was a ‘the fewer people know, the better’ situation.”
“That is asinine.” Cynthia shot to her feet, pointing at him. “Your duty was to your goddess, River. For gods’ sakes, keeping this a secret has put her life in danger now.”
Panic rattled up her spine. “No,” Ione said hastily. “She wouldn’t – that can’t be the reason she left.” She rolled up the sleeves of her dress, tapped her wrists. “Her burns. Someone had burned her. She – she was hiding from them, afraid of them.”
River and Cynthia exchanged cynical looks. “She said she was burned escaping Soliz,” he mused. “But given her sudden disappearance from the safest place in the country, we can’t be sure her story is true.”
“But – ” She felt like a child, insistent. “She – she told you about Soliz. And the priests there. It was useful?”
Cynthia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “If the alternative was being given to Saros, she would’ve said anything.”
“And we don’t know what all she could’ve held back,” River agreed.
Ione’s eyes fell to her wrists as a deep cold dread filled her.
Lina had been afraid of a man – maybe a lover, a fellow pyromancer.
Perhaps a man who died in Saros’s raid on Hearthstone.
Lina had been eager to hear about the attack, had stood before Saros himself to ask. With him gone, she felt safe to return.
But only after Ione had so stupidly given so much of herself to her.
The dread stretched through her, ice frosting over each vein, settling in each organ. She tallied her emotions, boxed them neatly away. There, the dizziness with each breath: fear. There, the chill gripping her heart: hurt. There, the scorching tears welling in her eyes: anger.
In the midst of it all, she could not find Menon. The woman remaining was nothing, a shell.
Powerless.
She summoned breath, drew what little strength she could from it. “Where is the warden?”
River dithered before replying, “In Llyr’s quarters.”
“Why?” Cynthia asked, and River grumbled and waved her off.
“I don’t know, it’s not like we’re talking.”
Ione stood, her chair skidding against the floor and shutting them both up. “I need air,” she said, spinning on her heels before they could argue. “Neither of you follow.”
Ione halted in the doorway to Llyr’s apartment, the emptiness of the room stunning her.
Aside from the occasional maid coming in to dust, only she and Saros would use the space, she, to read; Saros, to do whatever he did in his spare time.
The grand rooms were picked clean now, Llyr’s old journals and spellbooks gone from the shelves, most of the furniture removed.
She’d heard that Saros had ordered a suite to be built and furnished for himself in Caelos, but to see the Great Sage’s rooms reduced to such a barren state jarred her.
“Ah,” Kai called from where his wardstone sat on the mantle, his back to her. “Ready to chat, are you?”
He turned, wardstrings shimmering in the air, clinging to his arms, his neck. Amendments, Ione gathered: he was checking for any gaps, any weaknesses that needed tuning. He leaned against the mantle, smug, and crossed his arms.
Ione threw the door shut and strode to him, not stopping until she was close enough to see him properly. Kai only smirked wider, one eyebrow raised with mild surprise.
“When were you planning on telling me,” she began, her tone clipped, “that my attendant was a pyromancer?”
A flicker of alarm ghosted over his face. “Oh – that?” he asked smoothly. “What, did she burn your lunch?”
Ione grabbed a fistful of his collar and yanked him to her level. “Since you know everything, you must already be aware that Lina fled Oseidos late last night.”
The casual arrogance dropped. “What do you mean,” he asked flatly.
“I’m not having this conversation again.” She shoved him into the mantle, grimly satisfied when the wardstone rattled within its bowl and Kai, gasping, slammed both hands around it to hold it still. “She is gone,” Ione said, storming away from him. “She is in Lodestone. In Soliz.”
“Why?” Kai followed her to one of the few pieces of furniture left in the room, a chaise lounge sitting before a table.
He saw something she evidently didn’t on the table and brushed it to the floor.
“Did she – do anything?” he asked, wiping his hands.
“I mean, she can’t have or she would’ve – ” He cut himself off and rubbed his neck, frowning.
“No, she… I…” Fresh remorse pooling in her stomach, Ione leaned against the sofa, not wanting to sit but not trusting her legs to carry her. She lifted her head, looking to Kai with a vulnerability she loathed for him to see. “I told her who I am.”