22 - Iona #5
Iona slides down into the pit and nearly falls on her face as she traverses the jagged rocks and uneven ground, finally making it to the bottom with a splash. The rain pools up to their calves, making it difficult to move swiftly.
The malefician slowly pulls the dagger from her side and buries it in Aster’s chest, making him cower and convulse in terrible pain. Iona runs to his aid, casting a healing spell before he can lose too much blood.
Enraged, Ariadne jumps up and plunges a conjured steel sword directly into the Crone’s stomach, twisting the blade and shifting it up towards the heart, but still the malefician won’t succumb. Instead, she touches the sword and turns it to molten metal.
Ariadne cries out and pulls her hand away, just as the Crone strikes the back of her hand across Ariadne’s cheek, throwing her backwards into the murky water, pervaded with disembodied pieces of rotting flesh.
Iona runs to her, reaching out to grasp her arm and heal her burns, but Ariadne throws out her unmarred hand, sending a gust of wind that tosses Iona back. Sebastian intervenes, throwing fire to keep the Crone at bay while he helps Ariadne to her feet again.
Iona hesitates, still wishing to help, but-
Stay back! Ariadne’s thought is a resounding command that makes Iona flinch, both from the force of it, and the fear disseminating from Ariadne to her. Fear for her safety, her lack of training, her vulnerability.
It’s enough to deter Iona entirely. She skirts around the fight, running instead to Phoebe’s father where he lies prone.
She kneels beside him to remove his chains and take him to safety while the malefician is preoccupied.
He looks up at her with hope, struggling in earnest but unable to break free.
He is completely covered in awful cuts and bruises, one of his eyes so very swollen he cannot possibly see with it.
She casts a spell to take his pain away, the same spell that Jacira had cast on herself in Brazil, and Iona confirms its effectiveness by the pure relief on the man’s face.
Then she attempts to cut through the metal, or make the chains disappear, but magic has no effect. Hesitantly, she grasps the fetters to see if she can carry him away, but the metal burns like acid and creates painful blisters on the skin of her palms.
Crying out, she wrenches her hands away and while the pain travels up her arms and into her chest, the malefician comes up behind her, grabs her by the hair, and pulls her flush against her chest.
Iona twists and turns, bucks and kicks, tries to conjure wings to fly away, but they’re pinned down against her back.
The Crone wrenches Iona’s head back and screams a spell directly in her ear, and though she cannot hear it, she can feel every decibel shredding through her brain, the vibrations radiating in her very bones, pulsing through her skull, until she goes limp.
Her only thought is a reckless one as she uses the remnants of her strength to cast a mirror spell on the Crone, so she might feel her pain with her.
The malefician cringes away, letting her fall as she endures her agony. Iona can barely lift her head, but a small, gloating smile reaches her lips. When she can no longer hold herself up, she sinks beneath the shallow water just barely high enough to submerge her.
Her mind loses its lucidity, her vision going black, her consciousness fading like a gentle wave slipping back into the sea.
She just barely perceives being flung through the air and into someone’s arms. The soft caress of fingers are unmistakably Ariadne’s, pressing against her forehead, cupping her cheek, rocking them back and forth.
Ever so slowly, the light of a fire spell fills her vision again, and a moment later she’s able to comprehend what she sees.
Sebastian and Zephyra continue the fight, with Aster swiping his claws and snapping his teeth, but it’s no use. The Crone is hunched over Phoebe’s father, who is already dead and disemboweled.
She rips out his lungs, holding the dripping organs covetously against her chest, then dumps his body into the mud, as if it were comparatively worthless.
Iona sheds a tear as a portal emerges, there and gone in seconds as the Crone disappears without a trace, before Sebastian or Zephyra can pursue her.
Feeling comes back to Iona’s limbs, which gives way to pain.
She cries out and Ariadne holds her closer, stroking her cheek and keeping her still as she continues healing her.
Then Ariadne must have renewed their sense of hearing because Iona is suddenly accosted by Ariadne’s sobs and Sebastian’s bellowing voice.
“We had her!” he yells. “We had her, and you let her go! You imbecile!”
“Sebastian, darling,” Zephyra says in a placating tone.
“I will not fight alongside these amateurs again! I care not what Aunt Xiomara says. I won’t do it!” Sebastian screams.
“Forgive me,” Iona rasps.
“Why did you go for the father, when the malefician was right there! Did you not think… We could have ended this and now others will die!” Sebastian yells, pacing erratically through the sludge. “I cannot-”
“No!”
Phoebe’s cry is a death knell that silences any venom Sebastian may have spewed.
“How…” Ariadne glances at her staff.
If it had not been her that freed Phoebe from sleep, it must have been the Crone. A final cruelty.
“Father,” Phoebe whimpers as she jumps down into the pit.
“Don’t touch the chains!” Iona warns.
Phoebe had been about to, but she holds back, hovering over her father’s broken body as she’s racked with the most awful sobs, pressing her hands to her broken heart.
“I did not…” Phoebe gasps. “I did not even get to say goodbye.”
Zephyra’s head hangs low as she approaches, placing a hand on Phoebe’s shoulder, before pointing her wand and incanting “Lethe.”
Ariadne weeps. “Must you-”
“She cannot know we were here,” Zephyra reminds her. “All she will remember is the attack, wandering the tunnels, and waking to find her father’s body.”
Phoebe collapses and Zephyra props her head up above the floodwater, shedding tears of her own, which she wipes away as she fights to regain her composure.
“We nearly succeeded,” Zephyra says, with a small sigh. “But we cannot afford to give into despair.”
Sebastian’s frown persists, but he does not continue his tirade. He only glares at Iona, hostility laid bare in his red eyes.