26 - Ariadne #4
She glides in a circle around the tower as the magma overflows, spilling through the spaces between the columns, but even boiling lava isn’t enough to melt the Crone’s ice.
Ariadne dives down to where Kokuro lays.
Fortunately, the magma does not permeate the runes, instead parting around the circle that imprisons her.
Ariadne chooses to believe Moira knew this would happen but isn’t altogether sure.
“Ariadne, please!” Kokuro cries. “Don’t let her kill me! Please… Oh, please help me, I beg you!”
“I am helping, if you could please stop screaming!” Ariadne snaps, her patience hanging by a thread.
Kokuro sniffles, trying to pull her arms free, while Ariadne racks her brain for any spell that could break the chains. Her back begins to ache as she flaps her wings to keep herself hovering above the magma.
Moira and Aunt Xiomara do their best to distract the malefician, but the moment she sees Ariadne hovering over Kokuro, the Crone lunges for her with her hand outstretched. Ariadne concentrates, holding her staff so tightly her hand cramps, and time slows, and slows, and slows, until it stops.
“What do I do,” Ariadne mutters to herself. “What do I do… Damn it all, there must be a way!”
Her wings scream at her to rest, but she has nowhere to land and making herself float would require more magic to sustain. She treads air and wills her time spell to last just a little while longer.
She knows she cannot touch the chains, she cannot conjure them away, there is no lock that she can see, no gap in the fetters that could be used to unravel them, and cutting through them might cut Kokuro’s skin, too. But perhaps…
“Izrezati!” Ariadne unleashes a cutting spell that slices through the metal of the chain but also leaves an ugly gash across Kokuro’s chest. Ariadne winces but persists.
She cuts and cuts, sweat dripping down her neck from the exertion, until she breaks through one link.
Then she heals the wounds away, before Kokuro can even perceive of them.
She does this to as many links as she can before her strength fades and she cannot fly one second longer.
She hasn’t the time to be proud of how long she’d stopped time.
She casts a water spell on the magma to cool it beneath her feet, turning it to rock, and collapses onto her knees.
Time starts again the moment she touches the steaming ground.
The Crone stops in midair, looking around in confusion, just as Kokuro breaks through the chains and gasps in surprise.
Screaming in outrage, the Crone spews her awful spell that has them all writhing in pain.
The magma flows away from the sound, dripping off the edges of the platform and down to the earth below, as if escaping the spell just as Ariadne wishes to.
“Skáse!” Ariadne incants, and to her delight, the Crone’s mouth seems to meld shut, though it’s impossible to see through her wrappings.
But her triumph is short-lived. The Crone unleashes another spear of ice that embeds itself into Ariadne’s shoulder, and within that time, the Crone manages to tear her lips apart and continue her screeching spell.
No sooner does Ariadne deafen her hearing than the malefician reaches for Kokuro’s throat, wrenching her up into the air, unsheathing her golden dagger, and cutting open her abdomen, sending blood and sinew splashing onto the ice below them.
Ariadne screams, trying to unfurl her wings to fly up to them, but her exhausted muscles won’t allow her.
Kokuro sobs, struggling against the malefician’s grip, steadily losing strength as she bleeds out.
The Crone delves her hand inside Kokuro’s chest cavity, searching around through the assortment of exposed organs until she rips out the stomach and clutches it close to her chest, then tosses Kokuro away like a broken doll.
A portal opens and the malefician is moments away from escaping before Aunt Xiomara tackles her, throwing them both through.
Moira tries to follow but isn’t fast enough to make it before the entrance closes.
She spews what is almost certainly a string of curses that Ariadne cannot decipher.
Numbly, she renews her hearing, then goes rigid at the sound of Kokuro sputtering, still clinging to life.
She throws herself onto the ground beside Kokuro, putting a hand over her gaping stomach and using what little strength she has left to heal her. She moans in pain as the last of her magic is siphoned from her and into Kokuro’s moribund body.
“Please, please, please, please.” Ariadne says it over and over again, until the word loses its meaning.
“Ariadne,” Kokuro weeps.
She pushes herself farther than she ever has, refusing to give in. The labradorite flickers like a candle nearly snuffed, but she won’t accept limitations. She won’t relent, not now.
“Hold on,” Ariadne says through gritted teeth.
Moira kneels on Kokuro’s other side and puts her hand over Ariadne’s.
It’s a smaller contribution, not half as strong as when Iona aids her, but it’s enough.
Kokuro’s chest slowly mends, the stomach she’d lost reforming and attaching itself to her bowels, her deathly pale cheeks turning pink with renewed blood.
It’s not enough to fully heal her, a hideous bruise blooming along her fractured ribs, but it’s enough to save her. Ariadne slumps, her wheezing breaths coming slow and labored.
“Thank you,” Kokuro embraces her, her cheeks wet with tears.
Ariadne can barely keep her head up as Moira pulls her to her feet, but the floor is not as solid as it had been. The blood is melting and when Ariadne musters the strength to look up, her hope dwindles.
The roof looks moments away from caving in, icy drops raining down on them and staining their clothes with red dots. There is no possible likelihood that they could climb down the icy stairs in their current state, not before the structure loses its integrity.
“Make a portal!” Moira cries.
Ariadne tries, holding out her staff in front of her, then she goes limp and would have fallen on her face if it weren’t for Moira holding her up.
“Oh… no,” Moira sighs. “Perfect. Just perfect.”
Kokuro takes Ariadne’s other arm. “We must fly down!”
“She cannot walk, let alone fly,” Moira says.
“Heal her-”
“Not my forte, I’m afraid.”
“Nor mine… We shall carry her then,” Kokuro says, frustrated, “I’ve healing potions in my room that will revive her.”
The ice cracks ominously beneath their feet as the tower sways to and fro.
“When your mother called you delicate, this is what she was referring to,” Moira mumbles as she readjusts Ariadne’s arm, so it’s wrapped tightly around her neck.
They drag her to the edge of the platform, and with her eyes cast down, she admires the beauty of the white clouds as the storm recedes. She wonders if it might be the last time she sees the sky.
“On three!” Moira says. “One-”
The floor gives way beneath their feet, and they lose hold of each other.
The columns melt and crumble, the tower’s roof caves in, and a boulder sized piece of ice hits Ariadne square in the back, throwing her onto her stomach.
She screams as her bones crack under the weight, until Moira hurls it away and manages to pull her up just as Kokuro pushes them all over the edge.
They hurtle through the air, and all Ariadne can think of is the certainty that Iona will never forgive her… She’ll never…
“Stay awake,” Moira smacks her cheek, hard.
Ariadne’s eyes pop open and the pain in her ribs returns in full force.
She groans as Kokuro and Moira make an uneven flight back to the ground, very, very slowly.
Ariadne’s stomach drops when they suddenly plummet until Moira catches her in mid-air, the collision bringing stars to her eyes.
Her only solace is knowing the pain means she’s still alive.
Her consciousness fades and when she opens her eyes, she’s lying in the grass only a little way away from the melting tower.
Blood saturates the ground, rushing over her ears, into her hair, and all over her clothes.
She squirms with discomfort, close to losing consciousness from the pain. The pain… Iona will feel… everything…
Ariadne opens her eyes again and Aunt Xiomara cradles her in her arms while screaming unintelligibly at Moira, the blinding rage in her aunt’s eyes frightening even when it isn’t directed at her.
Aunt Xiomara’s face is covered in cuts and bruises, making her nearly unrecognizable when Ariadne gazes up at her, then at Moira, who frowns petulantly.
The Satos emerge from their home in the distance, both of them enveloping their daughter in a fierce embrace, and Kokuro speaks urgently while pointing at Ariadne where she lays.
She tries to speak, but she can barely move her lips.
Then she remembers that Kokuro won’t remember any of this for much longer anyhow, so whatever she might say doesn’t matter. She closes her eyes.
When she opens them again, she’s staring up at the ceiling of the Villa Mitriora’s atrium, floating on her back within the pool of shallow water beneath Hecate’s statue.
“What are you waiting for?” Aunt Xiomara yells.
With great effort, Ariadne turns her neck to look to her right, and there in the water stands Iona, her expression beyond sadness, anger, or pain. She stares back without a tear or a harsh word. Just stares with her arms crossed.
“Uncle Petro can brew a potion,” Moira says.
Before she can fetch him, Iona steps closer and reaches out both her hands to delicately cup Ariadne’s face between them.
Her touch is so gentle, barely there at all.
Magic seeps through her fingertips and fills Ariadne with vitality.
She sighs heavily as her wounds heal, wincing as her bones snap back into place, leaving her fatigued but alive.
“…I tried but she kept jumping through to another portal,” Aunt Xiomara says in hushed tones. “I couldn’t keep her in one place for long. She was uninterested in fighting me, only in escape.”
“She cannot evade us forever,” Moira says with frustration. “At least no one died this time. Or well… only humans.”
Iona climbs out of the pool, wiping Ariadne’s blood onto her skirts, then leans down to pick up Wisp and hold her close to her chest.
“Where were you?” Moira asks bitterly.
Iona doesn’t speak, simply walks out the front door, leaving it open behind her. Ariadne sits up in the pool and watches with sickening dread as Iona descends the front steps, climbs into a carriage, and rides off alone.