28 - Iona
“O n this day, the twenty-third of November in the year eighteen hundred and two, I call to order the trial of Elise Lysander of Vienna, who stands accused of the use of maleficium to commit the following crimes: The attempt of a wraith spell, the attempt to force consumption of a love potion, blood magic, leeching spells, and multiple counts of attempted murder through the use of sirens, illusion magic, shrinking spells, and other varied methods,” Xiomara says.
“Do you understand the charges brought against you, Ms. Lysander?”
Elise lets out an exasperated sigh. Her head rests against her arms, her greasy reddish-brown hair dragging across the table in front of her where her wrists are bound with iron chains.
Her raggedy white dress is soaked with her sweat as she trembles uncontrollably, like an opium addict suffering from withdrawals.
The council members shift uneasily in the seats on a stone bench that curves in a semi-circle high above where Elise now sits, while the crowd of angry witches and warlocks watch on with disgust from their seats in the limestone amphitheater.
There are about as many in attendance as there would be at one of the solstice rituals, all of them filled with anticipation at watching such an unprecedented proceeding.
From the front row, seated between Ariadne and Crescentia, Iona wrings her hands and tries not to let the sight of Elise’s withered form unnerve her.
“I will have an answer, Ms. Lysander,” Xiomara says cooly.
“I understand,” Elise says as she lifts her head, “that you are a self-righteous band of sycophantic hypocrites and I would have gladly watched you rot if given the chance!”
The onlookers explode with angry cries and calls for Elise’s head, or for her to be burned at the stake for her evil deeds. Xiomara bangs her gavel many a time before the crowd calms enough to continue, their vitriol reverberating across the amphitheater and into the night.
“I invite to the stand Crescentia Léandre of Lyon,” Xiomara announces.
The crowd murmurs as she approaches the witness’ seat and addresses the council, all of whom Iona is now acquainted.
Xiomara sits at the center of the stone bench with Aurelia Serrano of Spain, Lady Monton of England, Eleanor Kimball of the United States, her eyes red from recent tears shed for her son, Aron Magnusson of Iceland, Hina Sato of Japan, Ife Nassry of Egypt, her grief over her youngest daughter’s death nearly imperceptible in her countenance, Lilavati Verma of India, Olesya Ulanova of Russia, Delara Amani of Persia, Cháo Tian of China, Rayowa Salum of Abyssinia, and Samuel, who cannot stand to look his daughter in the eye, though she seems keen to stare him down.
“I had finished washing and dressing for the ritual that night when I heard a knock upon my door, though I had not been expecting company,” Crescentia says. “It was Elise who knocked, but she seemed… out of sorts.”
“Out of sorts?” Delara Amani asks.
“Her hair was all tangled, her clothes rumpled and stained, and she was trembling,” Crescentia says. “She surely hadn’t slept in days, though earlier that afternoon she appeared altogether normal, with a smile on her face. Now I know that to be artifice.”
Crescentia spares a glance at Elise, who watches her, expressionless.
“I asked after her health, and she told me she would be well enough by night’s end. Then she held out her hand and I was strewn across the room and into the far wall,” Crescentia says.
The crowd murmurs in response and she swallows her fear to continue.
“She cut me across the chest, twice, until I stayed prone. Then she cast a leeching spell and took almost all of my magic away.” Crescentia’s voice grows thick with emotion. “It was the worst pain I’ve ever known. Worse than breaking my spine, worse than…”
“Not half of what you deserved, common scum,” Elise mutters under her breath.
“Skáse!” Xiomara waves her hand and Elise’s lips disappear, leaving her mute beyond muffled noises of outrage. Xiomara gives Crescentia an encouraging smile. “Continue, Ms. Léandre.”
“With the last of my magic, I made myself like mist to slip through the floor to the drawing room below me, before Elise could steal all of it away,” Crescentia says.
“Rather fortunately, I landed on a chaise, which broke my fall, but I was stunned for quite a while, and bleeding from cuts I had no magic left to heal. When I did manage to rise from the chaise to seek help, the other witches had all left for the forest. I ran until I found Iona and Ariadne conversing with an imposter. Elise had tried using my face to trick them. We fought her but… she was too strong. She took what remained of my power and… broke my spine. Next, I remember, Professor Lysander found me, I told him what had happened, and I was carried back to campus where Professor Yun inspect my injuries and attempt a healing potion. If not for Iona and Ariadne’s intervention, I may have lost my legs and would have certainly never cast another spell for the remainder of my life. ”
Iona does not have long to comfort Crescentia when she returns to her seat before she herself is called to testify.
She refuses to look at Elise, not once, or risk losing her nerve.
She tells of how she’d first met Elise, how their friendship had flourished after learning of their relation, or so Iona had thought.
They’d practiced their spells together on many occasions, and Elise had never once given her any indication of duplicity or malice.
She’d been a consummate actress, enough to fool her, Ariadne, even her own father.
Iona provides brief accounts of the many times Elise attacked her, at least the ones she can remember.
She tells of Ariadne’s disappearance in the night, and finding her dangling from a cliffside, moments away from letting go.
She tells of the tunnels beneath Lysander Forest, of her power being leeched while she’d been trapped in total darkness.
She has no memory of her duel with Elise in the snow after she had first used Crescentia’s face to trick her, or of the blood magic that had nearly been successful in compelling her to kill Ariadne, but she can tell of their subsequent decision to establish a blood bond, which elicits a muffled chuckle from Elise that Iona pointedly ignores.
Finally, she reaches the night of the blood moon.
“She confessed to every crime when her disguise was shed away,” Iona says. “She was so arrogant… So sure that she would triumph. She nearly did.”
Despite the overwhelming emotions brewing in her gut, she still does not cry. She pauses in her story, willing her eyes to brim with water, to purge the wretched passions trapped inside her, but she cannot muster even a single tear.
“When we happened upon the meadow, Elise cast an illusion spell on Ariadne to incapacitate her, then tackled me to the ground,” Iona says.
“I tried to fight her but… it was futile. I could hardly take in breaths from running, and my spells had hardly any effect. She cast a wraith spell so she might control me and the pendant. That is the last I remember, until Ariadne saved me.”
Iona looks to Ariadne where she sits, her fists clenched in her lap, her red eyes softening when their gazes meet.
“She saved us all,” Iona says.
When Ariadne takes the stand, the whole of the amphitheater goes deathly silent, hanging on her every word as she recounts her own experience fighting Elise, until she reaches the illusory meadow and its horrors.
“Within her illusion, she told me of the love potion she’d brewed, how her living skeletons procured my hair, my tears…
” Ariadne says. “When I escaped, that is when the staff presented itself to me from within the roots of the great oak tree. I deflected Elise’s leeching spell, which then was cast upon her. ”
“Is that when you stole her magic?” Olesya Ulanova asks.
Ariadne’s jaw tightens. “Elise’s own spell accomplished that. It was not my magic that caused it.”
“Have you experienced any effects of the maleficium since that day?” Olesya asks.
The crowd murmurs for the first time since Ariadne began speaking, and Iona tenses with unease at the suspicion in many of the council members’ eyes.
“No,” Ariadne says, her voice strong and clear. “I did not take Elise’s magic willingly. It was an effect of the rebounded spell, one that I did not anticipate or desire.”
Elise scoffs from where she sits, drawing Ariadne’s glare to her.
“Any part of you that may linger in my soul only fills me with disgust,” Ariadne seethes. “I am delighted in knowing you will live the remainder of your pathetic life without an ounce of magic to comfort you in your disgrace.”
“Ariadne.” Xiomara’s tone is a warning. “That will be all.”
She nods, then goes to sit beside Iona again, her eyes cast down to the floor. Iona startles slightly when Ariadne reaches out to take her hand, clenching it tightly. At first, she thinks it’s to comfort her, but when Iona looks to Ariadne’s face, she is only barely maintaining her composure.
She cannot hurt us anymore, Iona thinks.
Ariadne nods nearly imperceptibly, but her fear and shame seeps through the bond. If it weren’t for the hundreds of onlookers behind them, Iona would have coaxed Ariadne closer, let her find comfort in her arms, if only to erase the thinly veiled sorrow from Ariadne’s downtrodden face.
The final two witnesses are Samuel and Violet.
Fortunately, their testimonies are brief, but they may as well have been hours long for the toll it takes on them both.
They explain the influence Elise’s grandmother evidently had, the beliefs the woman harbored about supremacy and power, and the vehemence they both held for those backwards ideals.