29 - Ariadne #3
Breaking through the trunk of a nearby tree, Iona wills it to expand, growing in size exponentially, so the Crone is forced to weave away from it, and Euphemia.
While she’s distracted, Iona makes the earth shift, so Euphemia rolls down an incline and lands by Iona’s feet.
Then she channels all her will into conjuring an avalanche of stone that falls from the sky, relentlessly pelting the Crone until she’s buried beneath a mountain of rock.
Ariadne’s chest swells with pride when for a brief moment she wonders if Iona prevailed, until the Crone explodes from beneath the stones and retaliates with a leeching curse.
The splitting pain, like blades puncturing Iona’s skull and dragging across her brain, is more than either of them can bear. Ariadne falls to her knees and screams with her.
While the Crone isn’t likely capable of stealing all of Iona’s power when the pendant regenerates it so quickly, it also means there’s no reprieve from the misery of the spell’s effects.
Help me! Please! Iona begs. I cannot best her!
Hold on! Ariadne staggers to her feet and takes haphazard steps forward, but she cannot manage to run when her head feels like it’s being cloven in two.
“Leave her be! Just take me and let her go!” Euphemia cries.
Ariadne forces her way through the flames into the clearing right as the Crone hurls Euphemia back towards her, away from where Iona lies crumpled on the charred ground.
“Euphemia!” Ariadne calls.
“Ari!” She cries, her sapphire eyes filling with hope.
The Crone laughs as she unsheathes her golden dagger.
“Incorporelle!” Iona screams, a split second before the Crone plunges the dagger into Euphemia’s stomach, but the blade doesn’t puncture her, instead going straight through into the dirt beneath.
The Crone screeches in outrage and tries twice more to cut Euphemia open, but she’s completely intangible, and in the Crone’s distraction her leeching spell finally abates. All that still clings to Euphemia are those terrible chains, though she attempts to break through them.
Hold the spell! Ariadne encourages as she helps Iona back onto her feet.
The Crone turns her attention back on them, her fist clenched around the hilt of her jagged blade, when all at once gravity shifts and eludes them altogether as they float off the ground toward the smoldering canopy above.
The rocks Iona had conjured float with them, one of them striking Ariadne across her back.
Iona’s grip on her arm slips, and they’re pulled apart.
The Crone hovers, unhindered by the shift in gravity, and reaches for Iona, but Ariadne takes one of the floating rocks, imbues it with a spell and hurls it at the infernal witch. When it collides with her, it ignites, the explosion throwing the Crone flailing away and into the burning trees.
I’ve lost concentration, Iona relents, indicating the spell on Euphemia has waned. “I must return to her.”
Reaching out, Ariadne grasps Iona’s arm and pulls her in close. We should anchor ourselves to-
The Crone bursts through the branches, scoops Euphemia up into her arms, and hurtles them up towards the sky.
Iona screams, and her pendant glows, the blinding light swirling and condensing into the shape of wings, glistening scales, and jagged teeth.
Morgan’s dragon roars, the sound compelling the Crone to look back and though they cannot see her face, there is no mistaking her fear.
Climb on! Iona reaches for her, and Ariadne takes her hand, settling behind her and gripping the ridges of the dragon’s back as he unfurls his wings and propels them up past the burning forest, through the suffocating smoke, and into the silver clouds.
Do you see her? Iona asks then coughs violently, the poisonous air taking its toll.
Ariadne goes to say no, but a small bit of movement from the corner of her eye has her pause. Frida strains her delicate white wings to fly much higher than she ought.
“Follow the dove!” Ariadne orders, pointing it out for Iona to see.
The dragon obeys. Freezing wind whips across their faces as he flies after Frida through the darkening clouds limned with moonlight, until even he strains against the blustering weather. Iona conjures warm cloaks for the both of them, but it does little to stave off their shivers.
“Are we sure-” Ariadne clenches her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. “-that she is still in the air?”
Iona shakes her head, then ducks down when a jagged line of lightening stretches through the sky as if reaching out for them, followed by a frightening crack of thunder.
Frida and the dragon pull in their wings and dive out of the way.
They scream as their stomachs drop, and Ariadne clutches Iona’s waist to keep them both from falling off, when finally, the dragon unfurls his wings again and they glide.
Another strike of lightening cracks with a thunderous boom, and the dragon weaves this way and that, evading the flashing white currents, until one strikes his wing and he roars in pain.
“Philisa.” Iona reaches out to heal the wound, but the dragon becomes restless.
He flies higher, higher, permeating a swirling cloud. It’s there they finally find the Crone floating in a sphere of rain, fog, and glittering lightening, with Euphemia still chained and thrown over the Crone’s shoulder.
The dragon holds back his fire, wisely cautious of burning Euphemia by mistake, but Frida does not hesitate. As she flies, her feathers grow, her body transforming until she is more than double her normal size. Her sharpened talons reach for Euphemia.
“Frida, stay back!” she cries.
To Ariadne’s amazement, the Crone does nothing to prevent the transformed dove from latching her talons around one of Euphemia’s chains in an effort to lift her away, then sees why when the dove lets out a cry of pain and releases the chain.
“Frida don’t” Iona cries, but before they can react, the Crone reaches out and takes one of Frida’s wings, snapping it in two as if it were nothing, and tosses the bird away.
“Frida!” Euphemia weeps. “No… No…”
Ariadne crafts a portal to the ground beneath the dove before she falls too far for her to see, hoping someone on the ground can find her and heal her wing.
Cast Crescentia’s spell again, Ariadne instructs. I shall separate the two of them somehow and catch Euphemia when she falls.
But how? The chains-
I’ll withstand the pain until she’s safely on the ground.
But you may drop her-
Iona, please, we haven’t the time! Ariadne sprouts wings and without another word, she propels herself up and though every part of her wants to cower, she dives toward the Crone.
“Nun-eul humchida!” Ariadne incants, taking the Crone’s sight.
She screams in outrage, her grip slipping just enough for Ariadne to glide down and wrench Euphemia away. The moment she’s far enough, the dragon unleashes its fiery breath onto the Crone, but she falls out of the way right before the flames can touch her.
Just as Iona warned, the moment Ariadne’s fingers touch the chains, an excruciating pain radiates through her, the metal like a burning ice against her skin.
She nearly drops Euphemia right then but manages to lift her staff and create a portal to the ground outside Drakenstrom Manor.
She flaps her wings erratically, seconds away from tossing Euphemia through, but the Crone tackles her, pulling her away from the portal, and holding out a hand to close the doorway against Ariadne’s will.
She squirms and kicks, her grip on the chains slipping.
Leaping from the dragon’s back, Iona latches herself onto the Crone’s back instead, wrapping one arm around her neck and putting a hand against her forehead over top of the black wrappings.
Her incantation is a desperate plea. “Sove!”
The Crone wavers, her arms dropping limply at her sides, and for a moment it appears as if she might sleep.
Ariadne wrenches herself free, keeping her hold on Euphemia, and opens her mouth to speak, but the Crone reaches behind herself, lacing her fingers in Iona’s wet hair and pulling Iona around to face her.
“Save Euphemia!” Iona cries, then screams when the Crone’s hands turn to claws and slash across her from her cheek, down her neck, her torso, to her hip, then pulls back to strike another blow.
“Take her!” Ariadne throws Euphemia up, and the dragon bites down on the chain and carries her out of the swirling sphere of clouds.
Ariadne plunges on the wind, curving her wings to dive down where the Crone hovers, and collides into Iona, scooping her up and out of the Crone’s clawed grip, finding brief solace in Iona’s warmth, her face burrowing into her neck.
“She’s too strong,” Iona cries. “She’s too strong… How are we meant…”
Then Iona gasps, and Ariadne searches the skies for what alarms her.
The dragon’s dark wings struggle to keep him and Euphemia aloft, and at first Ariadne wonders if the Crone has attacked, but when she squints, she can see the wretched chains have broken straight through his teeth.
Thick blood spills from his mouth and falls in large red drops.
Ariadne cries out when a curse strikes her back, leeching away her power. Iona screams too, from both the residual pain and the sight of the Crone hurtling towards them. Any power she has left is stripped away, just as her wings catch fire and burn until they are reduced to smoldering feathers.
“I’ll carry us!” Iona tries to reposition herself as they plummet down to Earth. “Keep hold of me!”
Ariadne’s grip slackens on both Iona and her staff, and from the corner of her eye she sees a cloud of lightening enveloping the dragon, striking him again and again, and though he still tries to keep hold of Euphemia, the chains slip from his mouth, and she falls, too.
The dragon shimmers, then disappears back to his plane of existence.
“Ari! Can you hear me?” Iona screams over the wind, trying gather her up so she can make her own wings.
But the Crone grabs Iona by her hair again, making her cry out and lose her hold, reaching up to try and break free, until the Crone puts a hand against her forehead, screaming another spell that pierces the air. Iona convulses, her eyes sliding back into her head.
“No!” Ariadne’s scream rivals the Crone’s and an explosion of yellow and orange spectral light detonates in the space between Iona and the Crone, separating them in a brilliant flash.
Iona is flung out into the dark sky to Ariadne’s right.
Then they fall through a cloud, the algid crystalline water drenching them, and when they make it to the other side, Ariadne hears Euphemia’s screams to her left, still helplessly bound in chains.
She glances to her right, and finds Iona is unconscious.
Whatever spell the Crone had cast was a reckoning.
“Iona!” Ariadne screams, but she does not wake.
“Ariadne!” Euphemia calls.
She tries to conjure wings, a broom, anything that might save them, but her magic wanes. Her vision blurs, distorted by the thin air rushing past her, so loud and so very cold.
The Crone hovers above them, waiting, watching, anticipating their next move. She wants Euphemia, but Ariadne supposes the sacrifice would be satisfied by Iona’s murder just as well. Again, Ariadne looks to Euphemia, who screams something to her, but she cannot hear over the wind.
Exerting well beyond her limits, Ariadne stops time.
She’s shocked when the magic works, and doesn’t know how long it will last, then realizes she still doesn’t know what to do.
Again, she tries to make wings so she might gather both women in her arms and make a portal, if she can, but when she looks over her shoulder, the ground is much closer than she anticipated.
She knows the very moment she goes for one of them, the Crone will go for the other.
Then time starts again, her stomach lurching as she drops, and Ariadne sobs, at a complete loss for what to do. She tries making a portal beneath Euphemia, but to her great despair, it closes with a slight wave of the Crone’s hand.
“No…” Ariadne weeps, struggling to keep her eyes open.
She tries to stop time again, and it works but only for a few seconds before it slips back into its normal tempo. She looks to Euphemia; her blue eyes filled with terror as she shakes her head.
Ariadne lets out a wretched bellow, all her self-hatred and regret unleashed in the sound, then lunges for Iona and tumbles them through a portal that doesn’t close, because the Crone goes for Euphemia, taking her up in her arms and unsheathing her dagger.
Ariadne hasn’t the strength to watch, closing the portal mere moments before the jagged edge meets Euphemia’s skin. Ariadne screams, screams until her voice gives out and her lungs burn. She rocks Iona against her, clinging to her where they lay in the grass just outside the blazing forest.
“Where is she?” Leonid yells as he approaches.
Ariadne turns away, unable to face him, but his scream makes her go rigid, thinking the Crone has followed them. She looks up and watches as Euphemia’s body falls, her stomach drenched with blood. She disappears within the burning trees, taken by the flames.
Leonid’s cries are too much to bear, filled with the sort of grief Ariadne knows she would never survive. She holds Iona close, their clothes partially burned off their bodies, the remaining scraps drenched with freezing cloud water, their skin beneath covered in burns and blisters.
She jerks at the feeling of hands against her back, healing hands that take the pain away, and she looks up into Xiomara’s solemn face, her compassionate eyes enough to break what’s left of Ariadne’s composure.
Embers float through the air like snowflakes, until the flames diminish, and an awful silence grows, broken only by the anguished lamentations of Euphemia’s loved ones mourning her demise.