26 - Ariadne #3
“I see your fear,” a gravelly voice whispers directly into her left ear.
Ariadne flinches and turns to face the Crone, but she is still alone.
Spinning slowly, her staff hits a pane of ice that hadn’t been there before.
When she finds a fourth pane, her heartbeat quickens when she realizes the ice has boxed her in.
She tries to find an opening but the more she moves, the more the ice converges until she is trapped within a cramped square of space.
“No…” Ariadne’s breath comes in short gasps as she spins around in frantic circles.
She goes rigid when she turns to find her mother staring at her from the other side of the ice, her eyes filled with rage.
“No…” Ariadne shakes her head manically. “You’re not here.”
“I smell your fear, rotting you from the inside out,” the gravelly voice says, from far too close.
Ariadne turns away and Tatiana is there where her mother once stood, watching her with the same simmering anger in her gaze. Ariadne blinks, and a massive black snake takes Tatiana’s place, its mouth opening wide, flashing its sharp fangs, as it moves to strike.
Ariadne screams and ducks down, until she hears laughter. She looks up to behold Elise, appearing as she had under the blood moon, with black bile staining her chin and teeth. She’s doubled over in hysterics at Ariadne’s expense, pointing at her where she cowers on the floor.
Ariadne screams, “Pyrkagiá!”
The fire does nothing against the ice and it’s then she notices the nearly imperceptible tinge of red, revealing the glassy ice to be part of the tower, impervious to fire.
Turning away from the illusion of Elise, Ariadne searches for an opening in the ice, trying to think of any spell that could break through. The cruel laughter has tears forming in her eyes, making it harder to see and impossible to think.
“So afraid.”
Ariadne squeezes her eyes shut, pressing her forehead against the cool surface of her frozen cage.
“So… weak,” Iona continues, the replica of her voice so perfect, it’s uncanny.
“Izrezati!” Ariadne cuts the ice, but it barely makes a scratch.
Beyond it, the illusion of Iona regards her with smug satisfaction.
“How disappointing,” the illusion says, “I’d have thought Hecate’s soldiers would prove a more formidable challenge, but it seems her standards have lapsed.”
Even while knowing it is only an apparition, the words spoken in Iona’s soft voice still lacerate Ariadne all the same. She shifts, looking away from the illusion, refusing to react or cower while she works toward escape. She’ll chisel her way out with a hammer if she must.
But her attention is drawn back when Iona’s skin putrefies until it’s tinged blue, barely clinging to the bones beneath.
Her hazel eyes become clouded, her nails long and jagged, her hair tangled and stringy, having lost its vibrant orange hue.
When the illusion smiles, Iona’s teeth are rotten, the muscles in her face straining against the movement. Ariadne cringes and looks away.
“You cannot save her from this fate,” the illusion of Iona says. “I saw how you defended her, fending off my attacks, keeping her from the fight. So noble. So futile.”
“You won’t,” Ariadne’s breath stutters. “You shan’t harm her.”
“But it seems her death is not all you fear,” the illusion muses, squinting as she peers into Ariadne’s aura unbidden. “You dread her betrayal. My… it consumes your every waking thought.”
“Get out of my head!” Ariadne screams.
“She’s better off without you anyhow,” the illusion says. “Isn’t that right, Ariadne?”
She cannot resist looking and regrets it immediately. Salvador stands behind a revitalized Iona, her dark eyes gloating as she presses her lips to Iona’s neck again and again. Ariadne cannot feel it, but if anything, that hurts her more, seeing of version of Iona unbound to her, leaving her behind.
Frantically, Ariadne makes another cut in the ice, but the spell still doesn’t break through. When she blinks, Salvador becomes Euphemia, her sapphire eyes twinkling with mischief.
“You’ll have to do better than that.” Iona grins as she takes Euphemia’s hands and wraps them tighter around her waist.
“Diminuir,” Ariadne casts, trying to shrink the ice down, but it has no effect.
“Not quite.” Iona lifts her chin to give Rebekka better access to her neck.
Ariadne sucks in a gasp as Rebekka’s hands roam over Iona’s body, caressing every curve with eager appreciation and alarming familiarity. Iona moans softly at her caresses, making Ariadne’s skin crawl. Rebekka’s hand drifts lower, down Iona’s stomach…
“Démolir!” Ariadne’s spell explodes, sending her hurtling back into the unyielding wall of ice behind her.
She coughs and recoils, groaning in pain when she tries to move, and when she looks up, Iona stands inches away from the ice, peering down at her, while Rebekka makes a trail of kisses from her hand to her wrist, her elbow, all the way up her arm.
“Don’t fret. I’ll kill her long before she has the chance to leave you,” Iona says with an evil grin, “and I’ll enjoy every second of it.”
“No,” Ariadne rasps. “You will never set eyes on her again, Crone.”
Iona’s hazel eyes sparkle with glee. “We shall see.”
Ariadne trembles as she takes her staff and struggles to stand. With a lazy wave of her hand, the Crone makes Rebekka disappear, having grown tired of the masquerade.
“Or rather, I shall,” the Crone corrects herself, “You will be long dead by that time, and maybe then that sniveling dilettante will prove a true challenge for me, when grief putrefies her soul and makes her a bit more… interesting.”
The Crone steps through the ice as if it were nothing, but Ariadne creates a shield around herself.
Still using Iona’s face, the Crone rolls her eyes. “That won’t work here.”
“Your spells cannot permeate it,” Ariadne says.
“Most cannot,” the Crone agrees, “though I’ve found some still work quite well, indeed, when you’re caught unaware, and left vulnerable to my superior powers.”
“What are you…”
A hand slaps hard across her cheek, the sting bringing new tears to Ariadne’s eyes as she blinks and sees beyond the illusion.
“Wake up!” Moira screams, raising her hand to strike her again.
“I’m awake!” Ariadne puts out her arms to stop her.
Moira slumps with relief, then pulls Ariadne onto her feet. “Where is Iona?”
Ariadne lowers her gaze, but Moira shakes her roughly.
“Is she dead?” Moira asks.
“No!” Ariadne keeps her eyes down. “She’s safe.”
Upon realizing her meaning, Moira’s brow furrows with resentment. “Well, how grand for her.”
“Where is Aunt Xiomara?” Ariadne shrugs her hands away.
The tower quakes with the force of a spell cast directly above them, as if in answer to her question.
“Prepare yourself,” Moira says. “The Crone is stronger still and you are shaking like a leaf.”
“I’m ready,” Ariadne says, willing it to be so.
“You’d better be,” Moira says.
They run across the empty chamber where another set of stairs takes them one flight up to the peak of the tower, where the roof is held aloft by thick columns of red ice.
At the other side of the platform, Kokuro lays on her side within a circle of runes, struggling to free herself from the malefician’s chains.
Her brown eyes widen when she sees Ariadne, and nearly cries out her name, but Ariadne puts a finger to her lips to silence her.
Aunt Xiomara is splayed across the ice, her nose broken and the fingers of her wand hand contorted at unnatural angles. With her other hand she reaches for her wand where it’s rolled away across the floor.
The malefician floats above her, a mocking, gravely laugh muffled by the black wrappings covering her face.
Ariadne imagines the Crone’s face is covered in warts, her sunken eyes jaundiced and black teeth rotting from the bile spewed with each spell.
It’s high time Ariadne beheld it, and she cares not whether it will be before or after the infernal witch is slain.
Holding out a hand, the Crone sends a wave of sharp spikes rising up from the floor, fast approaching where Aunt Xiomara lays.
“Kuelea!” Ariadne lifts her aunt above the spikes just as she manages to grasp her wand.
“Philisa.” Aunt Xiomara heals her dominant hand. “Halat!”
A net of rope encircles the Crone, constricting tightly around her and rendering her immobile.
Clutching a longer string connected to the net, Aunt Xiomara hurls her up, over, and down into the spikes of ice on the floor, puncturing the Crone’s legs, abdomen, and neck, and just barely missing her skull.
Ariadne’s blood chills when the malefician doesn’t utter a single groan of pain, or the guttural scream she would have uttered had their positions been reversed.
Instead, the ice sinks back into the floor and the Crone’s wounds heal before their eyes as she stands again, hunched and haggard, but alive.
“How many maleficians did you say you’ve killed?” Ariadne asks in a low voice.
“Enough,” Moira says. “Why?”
“No one else will die today,” Ariadne decides. “Keep the Crone distracted.”
Moira frowns. “The victim is as much a diversion as she is a sacrifice, a way to use our compassion against us. Iona made the same mistake.”
“I am not Iona,” Ariadne says. “Can you manage it?”
Moira studies her, then nods.
“Stand back.” Her eyes narrow to slits as she incants. “Hraunkvika.”
Magma erupts from beneath the malefician’s feet before she can fly above it and spreads across the platform with alarming swiftness. Ariadne stumbles backwards and quickly conjures wings to fly through the columns and into the sky.