20 - Ariadne
D raco is a curved line of luminous stars flying across the black abyss of night. Beneath her, sharp blades of cool grass tickle her arms and legs. She lays out flat, staring up at the stars whose secrets always seem to escape her.
Turning her head to the side, she waits for her eyes to adjust to the dim luminescence and recognizes the open field where the blue comet ritual had been held nearly one year ago.
After a moment, she stands and tries to reorient herself, not remembering when or how she’d arrived in Lysander Forest. Then she remembers Iona, a smile curving her lips at the mere thought of her, and she traverses the clearing in search of her beloved.
The bordering branches catch on her hair and skirts as she pushes past them, but instead of her foot meeting dirt or stone, she enters a familiar hallway of Drakenstrom Manor, with tall, opened windows bordered with sky blue curtains that billow in the light summer breeze.
“Euphemia?” Ariadne calls, but there is no answer, only the faint echo of a string quartet in the distance.
She follows the sound, entering the ballroom, and fights to keep her expression neutral when she’s pinned by a hundred stares. When normally the crowd would look away for propriety’s sake, their stares linger, none of them blinking even once. She grows increasingly unsettled.
“Where is Euphemia?” Ariadne asks, “Or Iona, or…”
Silence. They stare unflinchingly at her, and it makes her skin crawl. Hesitantly, she steps through the mass of bodies to search for herself.
Rebekka barrels into her, her deep laugh piercing the quiet, making Ariadne yelp in surprise.
“She’s so fast!” Rebekka leans against her knees to catch her breath. “Come, help me catch her!”
“Who?” Ariadne asks, when another giggle makes her whirl about just in time to spot the ends of Iona’s red hair whipping through the air behind her as she runs past a distant doorway and out of sight.
“Iona!” Ariadne calls.
“You shan’t capture a nymph that way.” Rebekka grins, shrugging off her white blazer and tossing it aside. “You must chase her.”
Her confusion only fuels Rebekka’s mirth, her peals of laughter devolving into hysterical wheezes.
“Suit yourself,” she manages to say through her laughter before she runs after Iona with great speed.
“But… Why must we…” Ariadne grunts with frustration, then runs after Rebekka. “Wait!”
She makes it to the other end of the ballroom, turning the corner, and hesitates. Not a single candle is lit, the impervious darkness thick and uninviting. But Iona’s raspy giggle drifts towards her like bonfire smoke, drawing her in.
She steels herself and runs into the dark, only to turn another corner and enter the hall of portraits in the Villa Mitriora.
She doesn’t falter, running with purpose when she overhears Rebekka’s persisting laughter in the distance, and wrenches open a door, bursting into the Lysander College library.
She heaves in a breath and sneezes from the sheer volume of dust floating about, a layer of it covering the books, tables, and chairs. Mrs. Ainsley would never have allowed the library to fall into such disarray.
“Ari…” Iona’s faint whisper comes from the far end of the room.
“Cease this foolish game!” Ariadne makes her way past the lines of wooden tables to the shelves on the other side. “Rebekka is searching for you.”
Iona only laughs, the sound growing fainter still. Ariadne reaches the shelves, turns another corner and to her annoyance, she finds herself back within the forest. Fireflies dance in the tepid air, their lights flashing on and off.
“Iona!” Ariadne growls. “Why won’t you-“
As she makes her way around another tree, she stops short. There leaning against a hawthorn tree is Iona. She is clad in a threadbare nightgown, its fabric more like gauze in how little it obscures her nakedness beneath.
“Here I am,” Iona says, her coquettish grin widening in response to Ariadne’s surprise.
“Why did you run from me?” she asks, quickly closing the distance between them to take Iona into her arms. Her skin is so warm beneath Ariadne’s fingertips, as if she’d just been sunbathing.
“I wasn’t running from you ,” she giggles.
Rebekka calls out Iona’s name into the night, still searching in vain, and Ariadne tenses with displeasure.
“Oh, how desperately she wants me,” Iona whispers.
“She cannot have you,” Ariadne says fiercely, drawing her ever closer and pressing kisses to her neck until she sighs happily and shrugs off the straps of her nightgown. They slip from her shoulders to rest against the crooks of her elbows.
Ariadne drags her mouth down lower to worship Iona’s breasts, pulling away for only a second to gaze upon the perfect swells. Instead, she stares at Iona’s collarbone, at the freckles scattered there, and she frowns, murmuring, “Your freckles.”
“What of them?” Iona asks, impatiently raising her chest up to Ariadne’s mouth.
“They aren’t right,” Ariadne says.
Iona’s smile fades, reflecting her hurt at the comment.
“They aren’t in the right places,” Ariadne clarifies, running fingers over the tawny dots.
Iona giggles. “What are you on about?”
“I could draw them from memory,” Ariadne murmurs.
“Don’t be silly,” Iona says. “I have far too many for you to know them all by heart. Why are you so distracted?”
Ariadne’s response catches in her throat when, before her very eyes, Iona’s freckles begin to glow like stars speckling her honeyed skin.
“Don’t stop,” Iona whines, taking Ariadne’s hand to try and guide it between her legs.
“You… Can you not see?” Ariadne asks, flinching when the light glares so brightly, it hurts to look at her.
Ariadne jerks awake, a gasp moments from escaping past her lips until she notices Iona’s body draped over hers, her eyes closed in peaceful sleep.
Closing her eyes, Ariadne wills herself to calm. It was only a nightmare. She is only being paranoid, insecure, foolish…
Try as she might, her nerves leave her restless, but she cannot slip out of bed without waking Iona from her slumber. The weight of her soft body, usually a pleasant comfort, only fuels her creeping feeling of claustrophobia. She simply must leave this room and clear her mind.
“Iona,” Ariadne whispers.
She whines, her arms wrapping around Ariadne’s torso and squeezing her tight, unintentionally exacerbating her growing discomfort.
“Don’t go.” Iona’s voice is barely a whisper.
Ariadne grins despite herself and whispers, “If I don’t, you will be responsible for changing the bedding when I-”
“Ugh.” Iona scrunches up her nose and flips over onto her back. “Go then… but come back.”
Ariadne’s discomfort lessens when she’s been released, but it gives way to a bereft longing for Iona’s warmth, which only serves to confuse her.
She hesitates, wondering if she should stay, but in the end, she crawls out of bed.
Aster stretches and yawns, jumping off the bed and cantering to her side.
She scratches behind his ears and takes a deep cleansing breath.
Iona has already fallen back to sleep, her red hair cascading over the white pillow, her chest slowly rising and falling, with Wisp sleeping soundly at her feet. She is so beautiful… it hurts for Ariadne to look at her, as if she is still glowing like a second sun.
It turns her stomach in knots as her thoughts turn repetitive, incessant, maddening. She cannot lose her, could never live without her. She cannot lose her. She can’t. She won’t. She-
Sighing, she takes her staff and escapes into the hall, conjuring a warm red robe over top of her chemise.
She must find solace somewhere, perhaps the library.
Or she could dip her feet in the atrium pool.
A bath sounds quite lovely to her in that moment.
The oils she and Iona had bathed in to cleanse themselves for the ritual are still fragrant on her skin and hair, an inescapable reminder of their voyage to the Underworld.
But she passes by a door left partially ajar. Through it, the faint hum of her father’s voice drifts to Ariadne’s ears. She stops to listen, recognizing the aria, “Alma del core”, from the Italian opera La constanza in amor vince l’inganno, one of her father’s favorites.
Pushing open the door, she enters his study. Piles of books on agriculture, herbalism, and phytology litter the small room that extends out into an equally small alcove of windows where her father tends to his plants. A steaming cup of clove tea rests on the sill.
“Fiore.” He smiles when he notices her in the doorway. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“Good day,” she says, until she notices the sunset through the windows. “Or rather, good evening.”
“Should you not be in bed?” Her father’s brow furrows. “I’d have slept for a week if I’d endured the misfortunes of last night.”
Just the mention of sleep makes her eyelids droop, but she fights against it.
Instead, she admires the flourishing plant life her father has cultivated.
His night-blooming cereus has yet to flower, the buds appearing as if they’re moments away from opening.
Perhaps tonight it will have its fleeting moment of beauty.
“You knew, as well, I suppose,” Ariadne says, unable to withhold the resentment from her tone.
He frowns and turns his back to tend to his chrysanthemums. The delicate white petals glisten with water droplets.
“It was not for me to intervene,” he says.
“Oh, perish the thought,” Ariadne says.
“Why would I contest the decision to spare my only daughter from battling heinous foes?” he asks.
“I wouldn’t have sired a daughter at all if I knew what Hecate would expect of her,” she says.
A twinge of sadness fills her at the truth in that statement. Iona had once expressed her desire to have children someday, but how could they ever justify bringing a child into this mess, to raise them as Hecate’s soldier.
“You are angry at me for your very existence?” he asks, incredulous.
“No,” she says. “I am angry that you blatantly lied to me all this time.”