26 - Ariadne #2
Ariadne tries to look, and at first all she sees is endless mist, until a black wing cuts through the haze.
“Pyrkagiá!” Aunt Xiomara propels an impressive burst of fire, illuminating shadows within the clouds, but the monsters do not attack. They linger, gliding against the wind, as the fire dims and shrouds them again.
“We cannot-” Aunt Xiomara screams as a demon lurches from the clouds and catapults them out into the open sky.
“Mother!” Moira screams, reaching out for her.
Fire explodes from within the clouds, illuminating a battle between Aunt Xiomara and the lurking demons circling her, biting and clawing, two of them catching fire and writhing as they fall to their deaths. Three more take their place.
Moira hesitates, then beckons them forward. “We mustn’t stop!”
“But should we not help?” Iona hesitates.
A barrage of wings, teeth, and claws descends upon them, arms reaching and groping to try and rip them away from the stairs.
Ariadne shoves Iona against the wall and shields them with her magic.
The demons try to rip their way through, but their claws have no effect.
Their awful chorus of outraged screams are deafening, until suddenly it stops.
Iona sighs with relief, then goes on her toes to look over Ariadne’s shoulder.
“Moira?” Iona calls. “Oh no…”
Ariadne searches frantically, but her cousin is nowhere to be seen, nor can they hear Aunt Xiomara’s battle in the clouds.
Either she fell or was drawn deeper into the storm.
Another strangled cry from the top of the tower has them looking up.
It sounds much closer, maybe only a few flights of stairs above them.
“We must press on,” Ariadne says, stepping away to give Iona room to climb. “Find a higher vantage point and-”
Moira bursts from the clouds and tumbles down the stairs in front of them, covered in jagged cuts and awful bruises. Her trail of blood is absorbed by the ice before the rain can dilute it. She tries to rise, then goes limp, so Iona runs to her side, reaching out to heal her.
Ariadne tries to follow but slips and falls hard. In her haste, Iona does not realize it, and ascends to where Moira has fallen, just outside the protective barrier of the shield.
“Iona!” Ariadne calls.
Another demon lurches from the darkness to drag Moira away, digging its claws into the flesh of her thigh. Iona makes it just in time to grasp one of Moira’s hands to hold her back, nearly being pulled out in the storm along with her.
“Azkura!” Iona incants at the demon, making it writhe from the prickly irritation just long enough for her to cut off one of its dark wings.
The creature screams in agony as it plummets to its death, while Iona pulls Moira back to safety. Ariadne hastens her steps up the stairs to help, but their reprieve is short-lived as another two demons appear and tackle them, wrenching them apart.
Three searing lines of pain slice down Ariadne’s back as a demon comes up behind her, pulling her hair loose from its bun and using it to drag her away, but she points the labradorite stone directly in its eyes, making it glow so brightly, it lights up the sky.
The demon cringes away, screaming as it tries to cover its eyes, now clouded white from blindness. It flies aimlessly until a demon bathed in fire falls onto him, dragging them both down to their deaths. It was Iona’s fire, the pendant still glowing from her spell, but Moira is nowhere in sight.
“Ari!” Iona cries, pointing to Moira being carried off beyond their reach.
Ariadne’s feet slip and slide over the ice, only making it up two steps. Iona holds out her hand to her, their fingertips almost touching.
The very moment she takes Iona’s hand, a lance of clear ice whips through the air, piercing through the iron of Iona’s breastplate as if it were made of gauze, plunging itself deep into her stomach and out the other side.
The force of it has her falling backwards and tumbling down the steps, screaming in agony.
She looks down in horror at the ice protruding from her abdomen, while Ariadne doubles over from the force of Iona’s maddening pain, making it impossible to think.
Her grip on her staff loosens as her consciousness wavers.
“Pyrkagiá,” Iona whimpers the spell, using fire to melt the ice away.
“No,” Ariadne tries to reach for her. If she removes the ice, she may bleed out in seconds.
“Ph…” Iona swallows, then coughs up blood. Her gaping wound gushes red all down her white shirt. “Philisa.”
Placing her hand over Iona’s, both of them will the spell to work. It takes what feels like forever for the organs to regenerate, the spine to reattach, and skin to wrap itself over the carnage, but finally, it heals, leaving them both winded.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Iona wipes the blood from her chin with a trembling hand.
“No…” Ariadne whispers, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
It had almost been too much for her in Ashland, bringing Iona back from the brink of death. Together they are able to heal wounds that devastating, but the staff alone barely managed it. She might not be able to save Iona again if her mind and body were destroyed.
As her mother so cruelly told her, the staff is not the pendant. Not as strong… not possessing the same threshold of magic. It is another painful reminder of just how fallible, how vulnerable they are. Still flesh and bone, still capable of destruction. She isn’t invincible, and neither is Iona.
Her thoughts become cyclical. She cannot lose her. Would not survive without her. She cannot lose her… She won’t.
Ariadne creates a portal back to the front steps of the Villa Mitriora, the bright light of the midday sun like something from a distant memory.
“What are…” Iona’s eyes go wide. “Wait… Ariadne, wait!”
She shoves Iona through the portal where she falls onto her back against the cobblestones.
Scrambling to her feet, Iona calls out for her to stop, the betrayal in her eyes more than Ariadne can bear.
After a final moment’s hesitation, she closes the portal just before Iona can jump back through and sighs with short-lived relief.
Ariadne Zerynthos! You bring me back right now! Iona screams through the bond.
Ariadne ignores her, using the staff to push herself back onto her feet and continue the trek to the top of the tower.
You cannot fight the malefician alone! What are you thinking? Iona cries. You’ll be killed and Kokuro along with you!
Perhaps, but better her than Iona. She is the fighter, the soldier, the fated guardian.
This is her lot in life, what she was bred to do.
Hecate may have tasked Iona with this quest, but she is not made for it.
She has far too gentle a soul to cause any substantial harm to another witch.
Ariadne won’t let her own unforgivable lapse in judgement, her weakness and cowardice in giving away the pendant, destroy the one person she loves most in this world.
I’ll make a portal, Iona threatens. I’ll come right back and bring you to your senses!
But Iona doesn’t know that spell. She never needed to learn it. It’s far too advanced to be taught at Lysander College, too advanced for some witches to master over an entire lifetime. With the pendant it may be possible to learn quicker than most, but it would still take time.
I’ll never forgive you if you die this way, Iona warns. Eternity will be a punishment when I join you in the afterlife, of that I swear.
Ariadne doesn’t respond and she senses Iona’s frustration at being ignored.
All that talk of my supposed strength… It was all lies. You think I’m weak just like all the others do.
Ariadne’s steps pause a moment, her eyes closing as she fights to maintain her composure, then she surges ahead. She expects Iona to continue, but the bond goes silent. She doesn’t know if she feels relieved or bereft without Iona’s anger, but she hasn’t the time to dwell.
Round and round she goes, the freezing wind numbing her fingers, her toes, her legs, making every step a challenge.
The wind dies down only slightly when she makes it above the clouds to an arched doorway cut into the ice.
Carefully she glances over the edge of the stairs to see if there is any sign of Moira or Aunt Xiomara flying within the storm clouds, but there is only the whistle of thin air and the boom of distant thunder.
She shivers, rain dripping from her clothes and hair.
She tries to make a flame, a hot coal, anything that could provide even the smallest bit of heat, but whenever she tries, there is no warmth to be found.
Fire gets smothered by some unseen force, coals go cold within seconds, and even the sun hides beneath the horizon, abandoning her in gelid darkness.
She’s glad Aster was left behind, so he won’t have to suffer along with her.
She steps through the archway and into a rounded empty chamber, the walls so slick that she can see herself in the reflection. On the opposite side is another arch leading to a new set of stairs, and above her is a flat ceiling of red ice.
A scream comes from above, the closest it’s ever sounded, and confirming what Ariadne suspects. This is not quite the peak, but she’s nearly there. She resolves herself to fighting the malefician alone.
Her footsteps echo through the cavernous chamber as she runs to the other end. Then she cries out when she collides straight into a wall of pristine ice, the surface so clear that she hadn’t seen it. She rubs her nose and looks around, suddenly wary of other panes of ice.
Stepping with more care, and her arms outstretched, she only walks a few paces to her left before her fingers touch the wet surface of another piece of ice. She follows it to a corner, then walks along another panel.
In her periphery, a motionless, dark figure appears. Ariadne aims her staff in the direction of the stranger, but when she turns, there’s no one there.
“Show yourself!” Ariadne yells.