Chapter Twenty-Six
Ione
Ione stormed through the halls of Caelos, fury piercing through the gut-wrenching terror.
A light ward. Sowelan. Although it was Lina’s voice He used, the spark in her eyes, the heat, was undoubtedly Him.
She shivered, grateful beyond measure that Lina’s affection for her kept her alive: it would have been much faster, a flick of the wrist, for Sowelan just to immolate her and disappear.
If Lina had that much power over Sowelan, then Ione could still reach her.
In the wake of this afternoon’s news, the shrine was eerily silent, benches and tables empty, market stalls unattended, common rooms deserted.
Her eyes flitted to a window as she passed, trying to gauge the time from the dingy light.
She’d passed at least an hour in a dead sleep.
The bed was ice cold when she awoke, confused and frightened, the duvet folded over her and tucked beneath her shoulders.
A door creaked open, perhaps out of curiosity at the echoing of her boots against the tiled floor. Just as quickly, it snapped back shut. Everyone else, it seemed, had had the same idea she did: hide away, wait for this to pass, leave their fates to the gods. To Kai.
They were all like birds huddled together in a tree, hoping it was strong enough to survive the coming storm.
She flew down the spiral stairwell behind the banquet hall, the sounds of her footsteps reverberating against the stone walls and making her ears ring.
The entrance hall opened before her, new pillars stark against the ancient flagstone tiles; at its end stood a full moon door leading outside, minded by two sentries.
Ione strode to them, her head high, ice crystals brimming around her hands in case she needed to fight her way through.
“Ione.”
The ice melted. Ione spun, her heart jolting at the sound of her mother’s voice.
Penina clicked her tongue from the doorway leading to the great hall, the impatient noise setting Ione’s teeth on edge. “How did I know – ” She stalked across the cavernous hall, her husband trailing after her. “ – that you would try to leave again?”
Her mother lunged for her, but Ione jerked back, turning, only to be met with a wall of ice.
“Don’t you dare,” Penina rasped, her posture bowed under the weight of the rare feat of magic. “Not again.”
Ione peered through the ice to the guards, who just watched back, unmoved. Sighing, Ione pivoted. “I’m insulted you think a little ice will stop me.”
Penina smiled grimly. “I nearly wish things were the way they used to be, when you could hardly boil a kettle.” She lifted her chin, and on her, it looked scornful. Frigid. “You were far easier to contain then.”
“I’m leaving whether you like it or not, and as you can see – ” Ione lifted one hand and turned her wrist; in an instant, the ice melted to a puddle of slush at their feet. “ – I can handle myself.”
Her father Ronan edged forward. “Against an army?” he asked, wringing his hands together. “It’s not just one or two Moths out there, Bunny – ”
Penina held up a hand; unsurprisingly, Ronan fell silent. “Ione, please,” she said, her tone suddenly cloying. “We’re just about to meet Reka and Dian. Let the rest of them fight this out at the bottom of the mountain.”
Ione bristled, shame heating her face.
“We’ll have some tea and wait this out.” Penina managed an encouraging smile, inching closer, one hand out like she was trying to charm a wailing infant. “This isn’t our battle. Not anymore. And isn’t that better?”
Her hand closed over Ione’s wrist and her smile widened, triumphant, before Ione wrenched her arm back. Anger flashed – there was a blur of movement, a stinging pain as she slapped Ione hard across the cheek.
“Penny,” Ronan hissed, pulling his wife back, but Penina shouldered away from him.
“I almost lost you once to the Moths!” her mother shouted, throwing her fists down. “And I am not about to let you out of my sight again, especially not for some fleeting obsession with the Moth you dragged into our safe house.”
Ione didn’t deign to respond, her arms still at her sides, her face smarting.
Penina emitted a mean laugh. “She disappears just before they lay siege on Oseidos; you run off to Soliz, only to return with her.” She crossed her arms. “I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to believe all the nice little stories Cynthia told us about your attendant. I wanted, gods help me, to believe my own daughter wouldn’t be so stupid. ”
“Penny, honestly – ”
“I watched your Moth walk right out of this shrine, and I let her go happily. If she wants to die by Menon’s hand, then let her.” Her mother stooped, face level. Close enough for Ione to see the fear in her eyes. “You are not leaving. You are staying here, where you are safe.”
It was what she’d said to Lina. Even in the name of protection, it was a grave insult.
She was Lina’s heliade. And if she wanted to protect her, she needed to be standing beside her, not chasing her down and fighting to hold her still.
“I didn’t just bring a Moth into Caelos Shrine,” Ione said, finding strength in the softness of her voice, quiet where her mother had shouted. She smiled, and she could see it rattled her parents. “I brought Sowelan. And as Sowelan’s heliade, my place is with her.”
There was satisfaction in the way her parents’ shoulders dropped, the way their mouths fell open.
Even the guards behind Ione stirred; they muttered between themselves, questioning, like they weren’t sure whether to throw her out.
Traitor, she heard them say. Ione laughed, a rippling peal that she sensed frightened them all.
A high priestess’s daughter could still be a traitor.
“No need to apprehend me,” she called behind her. “Just open the door and I’ll go.”
“No – no, don’t move,” Penina commanded them. Finally she, too, laughed, disbelieving. “You have been so blinded,” she uttered. “So bloody na?ve – ”
“Penny.” Ronan laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder, his expression grave. He sucked in a breath, taking the stage for the first time Ione could remember. “Let her go.”
Penina’s eyes went huge. “Ronan, what – No.” She waved up at the guards. “Nobody heard any of this. We will all return to our room, we will wait – ”
Ronan caught her hand, lowered it. “We’ve distrusted and belittled her for her whole life.”
“And letting her get herself killed will fix that?”
“We have to let her go,” Ronan repeated solemnly. “Or she will never forgive us.”
Penina whirled to face him, aghast. “I would rather her hate me forever,” she seethed, “and live.”
“Of course I’ll live,” Ione shot back, her heart fluttering with the startling delirium of her father defending her for once. “Menon and Sowelan will be there, and both happen to like me.”
Another mirthless laugh, although weaker now, incredulous. “This is no time to be making jokes, Ione – ”
“I’m not joking.” Even without Menon, it was easy to remember the way she used to carry herself, the regal lines of her body.
“Let me be free as your daughter, or let me be expelled as a traitor. Either way, I’m going to stand beside Lina.
” She issued them both a queenly smile, her pulse roaring in her ears.
“Not because she’s Sowelan,” she whispered, “but because I love her.”
Ione could feel them the moment she stepped outside, the roil of energy, the sea-salt burn of magic in the grey sky hanging overhead. Further off, beyond Kai’s distant signature, the sulphuric heat of pyromancy forged ever closer.
With everyone cowering within the shrine, the stables were left devoid of the boys who tended to the horses – but the horses, too, had gone. Cursing, Ione kicked the wooden gate shut and spun on her heels. Of course Saros had taken all the godsdamned horses with them.
It would be on foot, then. Fine. Spurred by her own anger, Ione raced down the beaten path, scanning the watercolour blur around her, smudges of grey upon grey. No Lina, Kai, anyone.
She had to breathe, stay calm. That she couldn’t sense Lina’s lingering magic didn’t mean anything. She couldn’t sense her in Soliz, either.
She was fine. She was safe. Kai hadn’t found her, lost control, killed her.
Ione took in the sounds of the stream gurgling beside the path, forced her muscles to relax.
Assured herself, felt certain, that she would find Lina.
Stand beside her. Face Kai, Saros, the Moths, the wrath of the gods together.
The only way out was through.
The path wound to the right, around a high outcrop, and Ione stopped cold.
A sea of orange, wide and sprawling enough that she could see it even from here.
Ione fumbled for her monocular, lifting it with shaky hands to her eye.
Not fire, not yet. An encroaching tide of pyromancers in saffron uniforms, gleaming like the sun itself as they advanced, headed by a single horsedrawn carriage in blinding gold.
Still on their way to them, before a great swathe of grassland separating the two sides – and so close to her, reachable – were five horsedrawn carriages, black like hearses in contrast to Rigel’s royal procession.
Five carriages, against an army. Saros was confident.
Ione squinted at the craggy path between her and Saros’s carriages, all grit and rocks and sharp outcrops punctuated by shrubs, eventually evening out to the slope of dark green grassland beyond.
No Lina, but of course, she would’ve worn the grey-brown cloak they’d stolen from Soliz, rendering her practically invisible against the barren mountainside.
She was biding her time, Ione decided, filing the monocular away: she was hiding somewhere near, playing it safe.
All Ione could do was keep moving.