“That doesn’t mean I knew him.For what it’s worth, I don’t like my grandparents all that much, either.”She opened her arms as they entered a wide, circular cavern resplendent with mosaics in mother-of-pearl.Musky water droplets trickled from stalactites into the rockpools dotting the cave floor, each teeth-grindingplopechoing against the walls.“Consider me your tour guide.Would you like to see the coffin?The mosaics are prettier, I confess.”
“Be serious.”
“Oh, fine.I’ve no idea what the mosaics look like, I’ve only been told.”Ione sighed, guilty, and reached for a passing moonglow.The fragment of light felt warm against her fingertips.Soft.But she had visited this altar, and Llyr’s grave, countless times; this sacred place was marred by memories of Saros shouting at her.
She shook her head, shivering, and hurried after Lina to the old altar.
It was not unlike the ones aboveground: a marble statue of Menon, a moon and star balanced on each outstretched hand.Llyr’s coffin lied before it, once intricately-carved with waves and sea serpents, now warped and reeking of muck and brine.
Ione’s stomach churned.Look, Saros had commanded once, having prised it open.He grabbed Ione’s wrist and pressed her hand into the mire of mud and bone.Llyr refused to wield Menon.Said he was above escalation, above murder.And look at him now!Will you let the rest of us be reduced tothis?
Ione turned her back to it.Rubbed her hands together, reminded herself they were clean and that was a long, long time ago.
Lina pressed her palms over her heart in prayer, her expression peaceful in the soft blue glow of magic.“You feel anything?”she whispered, eyes still closed.
Ione swallowed.“Do you?”
Lina tilted her head back, her face taking on the same sweet shade she wore when she walked with Ione into the sunlight on that first day.She hummed, thoughtful.“I think so,” she mused.“Whatever I feel, it’s… gentle.Sleepy.”
“There’s no better place to nap,” Ione muttered, kicking the coffin.
“I’m sorry.”Lina squeezed her shoulder, and Menon reverberated within Ione’s bones like a plucked harp string.“They say that a difficulty connecting with one’s magic can be caused by all sorts of things – fear, self-loathing…”
Ione half-shrugged.She had plenty of that.
“And maybe it was…” Lina averted her gaze shyly.“presumptuous of me to suggest we come here.”
“It wasn’t,” Ione said quickly, even though if the warden had suggested this, she would’ve told him to swallow glass.Still, “I’ll – try.I haven’t tried.”
The air drooped with decay, bittersweet, clinging like syrup on the way down Ione’s throat.Ione resented having any of it inside her lungs, but she held Lina’s gaze and breathed deep.Concentrated, not on Llyr or the altar or even Menon Herself, but on Lina, the way the moonglows illuminated her eyes, the approval warming her smile.
“That’s it,” Lina whispered.“Think about everyone you want to protect.Everyone you love.”
Ione’s heart fluttered, and all she could think was that she wanted to take Lina’s hands and never let go.
Lina, now safe from whatever she was running from.Ami, now studying mundane healing under Mikau.The Caelos priestess who had taken Lina in, now a teacher and child-minder; an old man Lina had worried about, now an assistant at a bakery.Those and more, so manyCaelosiwho were too afraid to return, who had no place in Saros’s Oseidos.
Ione couldn’t bring back those who had died.But she would keep and protect those who remained.
The pools around them rippled.Ione felt every miniscule wave cresting through her, sensed every ounce of moisture hanging in the air like morning dew on a spiderweb.And steeped in it all was not Menon’s power, but her own.
Ione searched for guilt, for any wrongness in it.But as water droplets lifted from the pools, tens, hundreds, thousands rising into the air and catching the light like innumerable stars, all Ione felt was grace, and fulfilment, and love.
“They’re like fireflies.”Lina winked at her, beaming.“See?Lina’s ideas are good for something.”
“Gloat later,” Ione managed, trembling with the effort of keeping each drop suspended.“This is still hard.”
Lina cupped her hands beneath a floating droplet.“Magic is so…” She searched for the word, her expression growing pensive.Longing.“Pretty.When it’s not used with hatred – or to kill.”
A pit formed in Ione’s stomach.With the moonglows casting dancing prisms and soft, waving shadows through her myriad of waterdrops, her true purpose felt even more grotesque.“You’re certain you’re not a spellcaster?”she teased, keeping her voice light, facetious.
Lina emitted an anxious laugh, one fluttering hand pushing a curl behind her ear.“I – What makes you ask that?”
The waterdrops moved with a twist of Ione’s wrist.She squinted, trying to form them into the shape of the dragon constellation.“I’m only joking,” she said.“You’ve just been so much more helpful than any of my other teachers.”
“Oh!Oh.”Another laugh, breathless.“I dunno, you – you’ve just needed someone who listens to you.”
Pleasure swelled in Ione’s chest.See, Menon, Lina hears you.
