Chapter Nineteen
Ione
An ice blade and a well-worded threat from Menon’s Rejected was all it took to procure one of the horses populating the stables outside Caelos.
Withered and pallid after days spent mourning her old life, swathed in a dingy, once-white cloak, Ione supposed she looked like a spectre to the boys minding the horses.
In a way, she was. While few had known of her divinity, everyone, now, knew that Menon had discarded her. Menon’s Rejected was an ill omen and Caelos would be glad to be rid of her.
Wind whipped at her as the grey mare carried her, surefooted and familiar with the wide path, down the barren mountainside.
Ione shivered, both with the cold and the absurdity of what she was doing; she gathered her hair into her hood and rooted through her satchel for the new monocular Cynthia had bought from a mechanist’s shop in the shrine.
She played with the dials, fighting to ignore the anxiety curling in her stomach.
It was only a matter of time before Cynthia alerted River and Kai to Ione’s absence.
She spurred her horse on, finding a comfortable pace – even on horseback, the journey to Lodestone would take a few hours – and hoped to high hell that the two of them would take their time sobering up before chasing after her.
“They love you,” Cynthia had said the second time Kai had woken them up in the middle of the godsdamned night by pounding on her door and demanding to talk.
She curled up tighter on her end of the bed like this was one of their childhood sleepovers; outside, River had found Kai and was attempting to wrestle him away.
“They do,” Cynthia reiterated, grumbling. “Even if they’re obnoxious about it.”
Ione clenched her jaw and pulled her pillow over her head. “Acknowledged.”
“The priests said it was Menon,” Cynthia went on, wide awake now. “Menon’s decision. It wasn’t anything Kai did.” She winced; outside their door, something had shattered.
“That doesn’t matter,” Ione said, although she believed her. “I’ve room in my heart to hate both of them.”
Menon’s absence from her body was like an unfilled hole, a missing organ. Mikau had once said that after the removal of a sick organ, the rest of the person’s innards would shift to fill the gap.
It felt impossible that this would happen to her, that she would ever feel whole again.
From up here, Lodestone glowed with colour, a toy-sized sprawl of buildings partially obscured by low-hanging clouds.
Her heart thumped at its closeness, at what it meant for her: Saros would have his war, and Ione would be nobody, and – as frightening and thrilling as it was – she didn’t care anymore.
She was nobody. Had no expectations, no burdens, no name.
To hell with Menon, with the people who had forsaken her; with her own parents, so disappointed, like they were the ones dealing with the gaping hole in their identity.
Ione would carve her own life for herself, live freely, vibrantly.
Ignore the tiny voice at the back of her head, Kai’s, usually, sometimes River’s: Gods, you’re na?ve. This is just roundabout suicide.
Ione shook them from her mind, tightened her grip on the horse’s reins.
The jagged boulders and cairns had begun to smooth out, uneven dirt paths growing gentler, peppered with prickly shrubs and spurts of autumn wildflowers.
She was halfway down the mountain; ahead of her stretched a sea of grass, waterlogged after the recent rains.
And at its end, Lodestone.
Ione was nobody. And after one last errand, she would be free.
The streetlamps had just flickered on by the time Ione found herself swallowed by rows upon rows of terraced buildings.
She drew her cloak tighter around herself, eyes straining for anything she recognised, a salon, a bookshop, a cafe.
She knew Lodestone well enough, but in daylight, with chaperones.
Her horse whipped her tail, whinnying. There were few citygoers left littering the streets, all evidently frustrated with her slowness, other riders or small carriages brushing too close past her horse and muttering complaints under their breath to move.
Ione urged her mare onwards, her gaze darting, unable to focus on the smudges of storefronts in shadow, the blurs of painted signs.
“Just one godsdamned indication,” she muttered to herself, frazzled. She had passed Soliz countless times, had never paid it much attention. She closed her eyes, summoning its tall spires in her mind, but her distant, daytime memory did not translate to this lamplit mire.
The first drop of rain on her cheek nearly had her groaning. The people around her scurried on amid the click of unfurled umbrellas or the oceanic scent of a water shield to hold back the rain. Ione gritted her teeth, not wanting to summon her own shield, to reveal herself as a hydromancer.
“Excuse me,” she called to a passerby. “Could you point me towards Soliz Shrine?”
They held up a hand, uttered an impatient, Sorry, I’m in a hurry.
Two further attempts at asking for directions fell flat.
Ione bit back a curse, torn between giving up and finding an inn for the night or forging on.
But the thunder of hoofbeats rushing to her made it plain that Menon was still mocking her: a white horse hurtled past, screeching to a halt in her path.
And on it, wrapped in a fine woollen cloak, River.
“Ione,” he shouted, cantering up beside Ione’s mare and grabbing hold of her reins. “For gods’ sakes, we’ve been worried sick.”
He caught her hand and squeezed, his relief so palpable, so comforting in this unfriendly place that Ione wanted to hug him. But the unearthly glow of the streetlamps illuminated his cloak, the insignia emblazoned over one shoulder. A crescent moon speared by a sword.
The Mahina family crest. Chilled, Ione dropped his hand, an undeniable pang of resentment spearing through her.
“I see you’re finally taking a break from the bottle,” she said, at once vindicated and guilty when River lowered his face.
“But you have another pathetic creature to tend to, Holy Seleneschal.”
She had missed River. Had needed him. But she’d barely seen him for days, and when she did, he was either drinking or pouring his attention into Kai.
“With my newfound freedom as a commoner,” she said, scanning past him through the drizzly rain, “I’m visiting Soliz. I hear it has beautiful frescoes. I figure if I squint, I may see them.”
River straightened, on guard in case Ione decided to bolt, which was a fair concern. “Hilo did mention their frescoes. But I’m guessing you heard Kai last night. About Lina.”
Ione heated, suddenly registering eyes on them, the shapes of onlookers gawking from beneath shopfront awnings. “I’m surprised you remember,” she said tartly.
“My memory’s not the issue. I remember far more of this week than I’d like to.” He sighed, softening, the loving seleneschal. “I’m sorry, Ione. I am. But running off and sneaking into Soliz is only going to end badly.”
He cast for her reins again before she could skirt past him, but Ione caught his wrist. “You can fight me, River, but you’ll hold back.” She threw his arm down. “And I won’t.”
He clenched his jaw, calculating. “What’s the plan, then?”
Ione hung her head back. “If you’re trying to goad me into realising I have no plan, you’re wasting your time. I have no plan. Step one is Find Lina; step two is Run Away Together.”
River laughed, incredulous. “Gods, you’re na?ve.”
Ione laughed, too, hiccupping and mad, bringing tears to her eyes. She’d harboured thoughts of pretending to be a pilgrim, sneaking around Soliz’s public halls and altars under the guise of praying and leaving alms. Somehow, miraculously, finding Lina. Whisking her away.
This was why Menon left her, she thought, wiping her eyes. She was a child demanding to have her way, daydreaming solutions where there were none.
River dismounted, sighing indulgently like he did when they were younger, when he let her win a game, when he gave in to some whim of hers. He stood beside her horse, waiting patiently for her to slide down from the saddle, let him fold her into his arms.
She did.
“I have no plan,” she whispered into his shoulder, glad for his warmth in the rain, for the familiar scent of him, not yet erased by borrowed clothes and bitter soap.
The scent of home. “But neither did Lina, when she sought refuge in Caelos, in Oseidos. She knew how dangerous it was, but she did it anyway.”
River groaned. He was weakening. Across the street, the handful of curious citygoers gradually dispersed, gathering that the drama had come to an end.
“If Lina is still alive, then I have to find her.” She laid her hand on his cheek. “Now, before Saros officially declares war.”
Whatever he thought of her, however stupid this was, River bowed his forehead against hers, his face screwing up like he was in pain. “They’re going to kill us.”
“They won’t. Not pilgrims, not nameless commonfolk bearing – ” She patted her satchel, heard the faint tinkling of coins, her rings, a necklace she found on her mother’s dresser. “ – donations.”
River drew her out of the way of an old woman hobbling past beneath a pink umbrella. “That barely constitutes a plan.”
“That’s why I didn’t count it.” She shrugged. “It’ll get me inside.”
He released her, if only to rub his eyes and sigh. “Soliz will be closed at this hour.” He opened his hands, desperate, Help me. “Can we at least get a room for the night? Regroup, try again tomorrow?”
“Soliz?” The old woman halted, turning; she blinked myopically at them from beneath her umbrella, her back stooped. “Is that what I heard?”