37 - Iona
T hey call for Ariadne’s head. They want her to burn, to die. They do not know that she already has. I beseech them to listen, but my pleas remain unheeded by those I can manage to locate. The rest have gone into hiding.
Three days have passed since the eruption that blackened the sky and sent the world into a volcanic winter that may never end.
There is no sun, no warmth, and our magic wanes.
Whatever maleficium stagnates within the ever-present umbra has suppressed our spells, leaving us vulnerable to attacks that have already begun.
The Zerynthos Coven has unleashed themselves upon the world, burning and terrorizing those with magic and those without. I’ve grown numb to the news of their exploits, though Crescentia insists upon keeping me informed as I regain my strength.
I do not know what she expects when I recover. I’ve failed. Ariadne told me plainly. I’m no match for them. They’d been toying with us all along. Olesya is right. I am no leader. I am no savior. I am nothing without Ariadne.
I’ve found sanctuary in the Nepalese mountains with Samaira, who is kind enough to care for me in my despondent state.
Crescentia visits daily with Frankie, who have both decided to stay with Nonna to safeguard her should any of the Zerynthos witches come knocking on her door, since she has apparently refused to vacate her home despite the present danger, stubborn as ever even in the midst of her mourning.
My own grief extends to those almost certainly killed by the volcanic eruption, including my dear Uncle Samuel, and at least two and ninety other souls.
No bodies have been recovered, but the blast was far too violent to have much hope that they survived, or Aster, who was not far off when he’d escaped Moira’s clutches.
Wisp often whines and trills in a forlorn manner, lamenting her companion.
I was once accustomed to a solitary existence in Cornwall.
It was not until I’d reached adulthood that I grew restless and forlorn, but as a child, I was quite content, finding peace in silence.
Now my isolation brings me loneliness, a constant reminder of what I have lost. It is a distinctly different feeling, an emptiness, a bereavement that I hoped never to endure, for I saw it in my mother’s face every day.
I’ve taken to cradling Samaira’s orange cat in my arms, the one Ariadne had conjured on our first day at college, whose name is Sanu. He is a piece of Ariadne, a piece of her magic still living and breathing, and his gentle purrs give me comfort.
“You must eat,” Samaira says, setting a bowl of steaming rice in front of me.
The concern reflected in her eyes is all that motivates me to set Sanu down and take the bowl. She motions for me to raise the spoon to my lips, so I force my limbs to move, taking a mouthful of rice, chewing, and swallowing, each action a great effort.
“Thank you,” Samaira says, sitting beside me.
I grunt softly in response, forcing subsequent spoonfuls into my mouth one by one. A silence grows, but I am not inclined to speak.
“I never did finish my story,” Samaira says.
I look to her in question, but she is staring out into the darkness, despite it being midday.
“I didn’t wish to make her uncomfortable. However, I cannot seem to think of anything else since…” Samaira cannot speak the words, but I understand her meaning. “I feel compelled to tell you now.”
I take a final bite of rice, setting the empty bowl down by my feet, pulling my wool blanket tighter around myself as I shift to face her.
“When Ariadne and I were bundled up together by the fire, after she’d saved me from drowning, Moira and Sebastian converged upon her like…
rabid dogs,” Samaira grimaces. “Threatening to tell Cintia what she’d done, nearly throwing away her life for mine.
Apparently, they’d attempted to restrain her, to keep her from running to my aid, but she eluded them. ”
“Did they tell her mother?” I ask, and Samaira nods solemnly.
“I woke the next morning to Ariadne’s cries coming from my window.
Cintia had dragged her out into the rain and beat her with a leather strap, beat her with such vigor.
I was appalled.” Samaira’s head lowers where her hands are firmly clasped in her lap.
“I threw myself between them. Cintia was so blinded by her rage, it took her a moment to realize I was taking the blows instead of Ariadne. She demanded that I step aside, but I refused.”
“That was very brave,” I murmur, recalling that Samaira was only seven years old at the time.
“Ariadne was the brave one. She saved me despite knowing the abuse she would face,” Samaira says, still retaining her incredulity despite the time that’s passed. “I never saw her the same afterward.”
I nod my understanding. It is what made me fall in love with Ariadne after all, her chivalry, her amity, her strong sense of justice.
“Cintia hated me from that day forward, but I cared not. I welcome hatred when it comes from one so blackhearted as her, who hates with such ease and ardor,” Samaira says.
“It made my friendship with Ariadne exceedingly difficult to cultivate, but I was quite persistent. In the time before Vivien’s attack, they did not keep her so rigidly sequestered.
Whenever our paths did cross, we were inseparable.
” She smiles briefly, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“In the time after Vivien’s attack, I visited Thessaly every day for a week until they permitted me to enter.
She was positively wretched… and her parents did hardly anything to console her. ”
“Not even her father?” I ask.
“He does as he’s bid by his wife. Nothing more,” Samaira says. “I took on the task of restoring her. Otherwise, I now fear they would have let her rot away in her room for years and done nothing to aid her so long as she eventually resumed her lessons. Their only concern was the pendant and…”
“Killing her,” I say with great bitterness.
Samaira nods, tears brimming in her brown eyes.
“All I ever wished was to help a girl I knew was more than her pain. I did not wish to see her goodness snuffed out. My grandmother once told me of familial curses, generations of anguish passed down endlessly, until someone transcends it. I hoped she might break away from her family and free herself from inherited misery.”
“She did,” I say. “For a brief time… she did free herself, but Arachne did not see fit to protect her. I cannot decipher why she would allow this…”
“Neither can I,” Samaira says. “I suppose I may never know if those visions… if they came from Arachne or Sebastian.”
“It does not matter anymore,” I say. “She is gone.”
Another silence stretches on, broken only by wind chimes jingling in the wind.
“The future has changed…” Samaira murmurs.
“You see it still?” I ask.
She instinctively reaches for her ring, but it is no longer in its proper place on her finger. “Before you took the ring from my finger, I saw something. A cave filled with darkness.”
“Arachne’s cave,” I murmur, wondering what it could mean.
“I’m not sure it’s hers…” Samaira muses. “At least, it certainly isn’t hers any longer.”
I wonder at her meaning, squinting in the darkness to scrutinize her face.
“That woman, Cintia.” Samaira’s voice is tinged with uncharacteristic menace. “She is abhorrent… She and her ilk are irredeemable scourges upon this earth.”
“Indeed,” I agree.
She meets my gaze, her eyes imploring. “I have always been a pacifist by nature, but there comes a time when such sensibilities become a vice. One that our enemies will not share.” She takes my hand, grasping it tightly. “We must avenge her.”
“They will just kill me, too.” I pull my hand away. “Ariadne told me to run. To hide as my mother did.”
Samaira lowers her head, then asks, “Is that what you want?”
I stare at her, my brow furrowing as I try to form an answer, but Samaira only takes the empty bowl, and pats Wisps’ head before disappearing inside the house.
All these months, despite our wanderings, we never did find a place to call home.
The timing always seemed wrong, nor did we ever find a place that suited us both.
Consequently, I still possess Ariadne’s eternal gardenia flowers that have yet to be planted.
She’d warned me not to let them take root for that is where they will stay forever, unaffected by weather or drought.
I hold the clipping of pristine white flowers gingerly in my hands as I step through a portal to Nisyros, far from the active volcano where the crater once was. Plumes of toxic smoke and ash billow in a cloud that stretches up and outwards in all directions, overtaking the sky.
I find a place that overlooks the Aegean Sea, where flowers may have bloomed if it weren’t for the bitter cold of December. Digging with my hands, I make a hole in the ground and I’m moments away from placing the clipping in the dirt. A floral gravestone.
“Iona.”
I tense, reaching for my staff where it rests at my feet, until Ksenia approaches with a lantern, looking more like her normal self.
The circles under her eyes are far less pronounced and the hem of her black linen dress is covered in sand.
Gingerly, I put the gardenia clipping back in its box, covering it with the lid, then stand to address her.
“You look well,” I observe, hugging the small box to my chest.
“I slept for two days straight,” Ksenia says dryly. “I could have slept longer but-”
“What are you doing here?” I interrupt.
“I wasn’t finished speaking when I…” Her cheeks splotch with red at her memory of fainting. “It’s good that you are here.”
A howl interrupts us and makes Wisp’s ears pin back against her skull.
“Aster?” I run in the direction of the sound, making my way down to the beach where the grey wolf is chained to a massive boulder. He jerks his head against his leash, trying to break free and bolt.