28 - Iona #2
“Such hatred can often be generational,” Samuel says softly.
“It is not inherent. Not natural. Something to be left behind far in our pasts so that we might look to a more tolerant and benevolent future. I wished to end that cycle and… I see now that I was unsuccessful, where my daughter is concerned. I apologize for my failure.”
Iona’s heart breaks for a man she so greatly admires and grows to hate Elise all the more for the pain he suffers. Then the council adjourns for nearly an hour to deliberate. The time passes at a painful creep.
And to think… we once thought her terrifying, Ariadne muses.
Elise is slumped against the table again, seemingly oblivious to the scornful glares targeting her from all angles.
She was, Iona thinks.
Ariadne’s fists clench until her muscles cramp and Iona winces at the residual pain creeping into her own joints. She goes to reach for Ariadne’s hand again to soothe her, when another visceral image accosts her, overtaking her vision.
All Iona can make out are shimmering shards of glass amid furious waves, a mixture of salt water and blood.
She gasps, flinching away at the pure rage emanating from Ariadne, until she seems to remember herself, and she expression shifts to regret.
What was that? Iona asks.
I… Ariadne’s eyes are wide with astonishment, grasping for some sort of response.
But then the council returns to their seats and calls the court to order. Ariadne faces forward and refuses to look Iona in the eye. Crestfallen, Iona follows suit, for she doesn’t know if she truly wishes to understand what she unwittingly saw in Ariadne’s mind.
“With all the evidence and testimony thus provided, in a nearly unanimous decision with one noted abstention, we find you, Elise Lysander, to be guilty of all charges and have hereby agreed upon the following sentence,” Xiomara says.
“Your soul shall be expelled from this world and banished to purgatory for all time, where you shall never find rest, even in death. Your body shall be destroyed to leave you no method of escape or end to your punishment. This is our decision. May any god you follow have mercy on you, for we have none to give.”
Iona shivers at the prospect of an eternal punishment, while Elise seems entirely unsurprised to hear of her fate. From then, the crowd disperses, and Iona finds herself in a daze. Ariadne goes off to speak with Xiomara in hushed tones.
Though Iona knows it to be wrong, she finds herself browsing the auras of the other witches and warlocks as they leave, hoping for any indication that one may be the Crone she seeks, but of course it could never be so simple as that.
“Who do you spy on?”
Iona grimaces, her fists clenching. “You’d best leave before Ariadne returns.”
“Ariadne is my friend. Why would I flee from her?” Rebekka asks. She wears a red orchid pinned to her lapel of her black suit jacket, her short flaxen hair slicked back against her scalp.
“You are brave to confront her so casually,” Iona observes. “Or you are fool.”
“Are those the only options I’m afforded?” Rebekka asks.
“What could possibly compel you to risk the ruin of your friendship?” Iona asks, aghast.
“Your beauty drives all those around you mad with avarice,” Rebekka whispers back. “Or is that not how you brought a Zerynthos witch to her knees?”
Iona flushes, though she tries not to. “Your flattery is wasted on me and is most unwelcome on this horrid occasion.”
It’s then she notices Ariadne watching them from across the way, her expression guarded, her jaw set tight.
“Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely,” Rebekka recites from Hamlet.
Iona raises an eyebrow. “Is that meant to impress me?”
“Not at all,” Rebekka grins. “I tend to impress women with far more… tactile pursuits.”
“What utter nonsense.” Iona rolls her eyes. “Leave me be, or I shall set Ariadne on you.”
Rebekka’s chuckles follow her as she walks away aimlessly until, fortuitous or not, she happens upon a staircase that takes her beneath the amphitheater, where she finds Elise in her holding cell.
Numbly, she approaches the metal bars and observes Elise sitting at a dingey wooden table with a deck in her hands.
She takes a card and places it faced down upon the wood.
“I knew you would come,” Elise says.
Iona’s brow furrows at the declaration. Even she had not known she would.
“Come and sit with me,” Elise says. “That is what you want, isn’t it, Iona? Sweet, boring Iona.”
Her cousin’s humorless grin reveals her blackened teeth, now left in their grim state without magic to heal them.
“And why would I do that?” Iona asks.
“Because you are attempting to defeat the malefician running amok out there,” Elise says.
Standing up straighter, Iona asks, “How do you know of that?”
“Whispers reach me even here,” Elise says. “I also happen to be the only one who knows the mind of your adversary, and you are far too curious a creature to resist interrogating me, or otherwise you would not have wandered your way down here.”
“You do not know me so well as you might think,” Iona grumbles, resenting how accurate her assessment truly is.
“I know you,” Elise jeers, “I’ve spent days, weeks in that mind of yours, sifting through your thoughts, your emotions, to determine the very best ways to strip you apart piece by piece.
I know your fears, your hopes, your desires, and every single flaw, as well as Ariadne’s.
If fate hadn’t been so against me, I would have made quick work of you both…
A pity the cosmos is so obscenely biased. ”
Elise sets another card faced down on the table, seemingly ignorant to Iona’s look of horror at her admission, at the thought of being violated so completely.
Ariadne would detest learning of her innermost thoughts left so exposed to another’s scrutiny.
She wonders if she should mention it at all, or spare Ariadne the added torment.
“Just keep that pet of yours outside the cell.” Elise’s lip pulls back in a snarl. “I don’t want it anywhere near me.”
Glancing down at Wisp, Iona grins haughtily. “I’m glad she made an impression.”
“Nearly took my arm off…” Elise mumbles, setting a third card down on the table, flinching only slightly when Wisp snarls with her teeth bared, taunting her.
Biting her lip, Iona looks over her shoulder, but they are entirely alone, apart from the faint clamor of voices heard through the stairwell.
“What was the spell Crescentia used to escape you the night of the blood moon?” Iona asks.
“Incorporelle,” Elise says.
Iona incants the spell and becomes like mist, just as Crescentia described. She doesn’t recall finding this spell listed in any of the grimoires she’s poured over these past months, but Ariadne once mentioned some unique incantations are passed down within families as a sort of heirloom.
Once she’s stepped through the bars and made herself tangible again, she conjures a chair and sits across from Elise.
“Is there a way to defeat a malefician that does not result in death?” Iona asks.
“I am still here, aren’t I?” Elise asks glumly.
“We cannot expect every malefician to be as idiotic as you,” Iona retorts. “Any who now know of Ariadne’s shielding will not risk inflicting the same demise upon themself.”
“Fair enough.” Elise’s words are clipped.
“Then what exactly do you suggest?” Iona asks.
“Outsmart them,” she says. “Abandon your morals. Cut them to pieces. Turn their blood to air and liquify their bones.”
“I cannot…” Iona cringes at the thought.
“How predictable.
“I am not so immune to the horrors of violence as you.”
“And that shall be your downfall.”
Iona frowns, slumping back in her chair. “This was a fool’s errand… I never should have come here.”
“You are free to leave whenever you wish,” Elise mumbles.
Iona knows the futility of her question before even asking it. “Is there no way to defeat a malefician without the use of violence? Is that truly the only way?”
Elise pauses in her shuffling of cards to truly consider her question.
Her brow furrows slightly, then she says, “All that occupied my mind in that time were my insatiable cravings, feeding on maleficium and growing ever stronger. The hunger was… unbearable. It consumed my every waking thought. Maleficium drove me to take increasingly desperate measures in my quest for dominance and victory, so I might…” She trails off, shaking her head.
“My mind is clearer now. I see how the maleficium affected me, and though I regret nothing, I cannot reconcile the impending ramifications if I would have continued down that path. It would have ruined me regardless…”
In that moment, Iona sees but a glimpse of the Elise she once knew, the young woman who was once so unsure of herself.
“Do not think of any malefician as rational or motivated by anything but avarice. She will not stop. She will not waver. Neither should you,” Elise says.
A rush of dread sends a shiver down Iona’s spine. “But… I fear that she is too strong-”
“Would you like a tarot reading?” Elise asks.
Iona reels at the sudden shift in topic. “Why would I-”
“If you don’t, you may leave,” Elise says. “I tire of your whinging.”
Iona glares at her, but Elise keeps her eyes on her deck of cards, shuffling them one more time, before setting three upside down on the table between them.
“Past, present, and future.” She points to each card. “Or perhaps you’d prefer the comfort of ignorance.”
“No,” Iona says, deciding to play along. “Will it work without magic?”
“Tarot is not magic,” Elise says. “Fate determines your reading, as well as the events the cards foretell.”
She turns over the first card, revealing this deck to be quite simplistic in its art style compared with the one she’d used at college, with tattered edges and faded colors. The first card depicts a sun shedding light onto a prosperous valley.