“Oh, no one’s ever done anything because I asked nicely.”She lunged, shooting her arms through the bars on either side of the guard’s head.Her free hand caught the other end of the stocking and she pulled back through the ache of her frostnipped hands, the fabric tightening around his throat and forcing his head against the bars.
He emitted a furious gargle, his arms flailing – Ione ducked, and River ducked with her, in time to avoid a blast of flame through the bars.The acrid reek of singed wool tainted the air, but in no time the fire abated.
“Give me the key,” Ione shouted, all but hanging onto the stocking.Bright, needling pain shot through her fingers, the blisters bursting.“You don’t have long.”
There was a wheezing noise, a strangled curse.His hands batted at the bars, reaching futilely for them.
“With what Ione’s worth, they’ll let us out regardless after Caelos pays up,” River chimed in, grabbing hold of the stocking before it slid out of Ione’s grip.“Either way, we’re gone.”
“But if you throw us the key – ” Ione gritted her teeth, her gorge rising at the sounds he was making.“ – you get to live.”
Give in, she demanded silently.Please.
A thud, a metallic tinkling noise – and then River gasped and let go, letting Ione crash to her knees as he bolted down the stairs.Metal skated over the stone floor, and the guard slumped to the ground on the other side of the door.
“Bitch,” he wheezed between desperate breaths.“Get out, then, he’ll kill you – ”
River leapt back up the steps, unlocking and thrusting open the door.The guard fell backwards, still gasping for air, and tumbled three steps before River kicked him the rest of the way down.Ione watched, stunned, before River grabbed her wrist and hauled her with him through the doorway.
The door slammed.The lock clicked.River braced his hands against the door and breathed, shoulders hunched.“Fuck, Ione,” he rasped.
Fire sparked through the bars, fizzling harmlessly as the silencing ward took hold.The guard pounded his fist against the wall, cursing them, but by then Ione had recovered enough to locate her satchel and River’s cloak and rapier on the floor beside the dungeon.
“Let’s go,” she said, tossing his things to him and hurrying past him down the hall.She healed her bleeding hands and summoned an experimental slash of ice, already energised with the silencing ward no longer hanging over her – and infuriated, with Lina in danger just a floor above them.
River flew after her up a cramped spiral staircase.“We’re not leaving, are we?”he asked miserably.
“You can.They’re casting something, a ward, and they’re using Lina to do it.”She kept close to the wall as she hurried on, her pulse thrumming in her ears with every step.“An interrupted ward can be devastating.”She grinned up at him, equal parts exhilarated and terrified.“I’m going to devastate them.”
The chorus grew louder and louder.Not one guard or priest lingered in the labyrinthine halls, the confined passages, the pretty altar rooms painted in vibrant summer hues – they were among what sounded like hundreds of people, Ione surmised with a cold dread, who sang in greeting to their summon.
The prayer led them to the opulent foyer, dripping with gold accents and lanterns sparkling in the light of dawn trickling in through the windows; at one end laid the exit, doubtless tempting River beyond belief.
At the other end stood the enormous door carved with sunrays, reverberating with the song.
Ione leaned against it, cringing when it creaked; behind her, River sighed and joined.The door yielded, swinging open with a long, mournful groan.And Ione and River balked, paralysed by what awaited them beyond.
A circular altar room, wider and grander than any on Oseidos.A sea of priests and priestesses in robes of sunset colours clustered on all sides, their prayers beautiful and deafening, their attention focused on a winged statue at the head of the room painted in brilliant gold.
Not on the statue, Ione registered, nauseous: on the altar lying before it, bathed in sunlight shining in from a high window.A man stood behind it, arms raised to the heavens – Ione squinted, only able to make out black hair and gold robes.
Rigel.
And before him –
“Ione.”River’s voice caught.He touched her arm.“Ione, on the altar, she…”
Ione shook her head, her jaw clenched, her nails digging into her palms.She tore her hand back and shouldered through the sun priests, ignoring the questioning whispers rippling through the congregation.
None of them stopped her, and as she neared the head of the room, Rigel lowered his arms.On the altar, Lina laid on her back, her hands folded on her stomach, her body swathed in gauzy, pearlescent gold.Like this was a funeral, a vigil.
Ione would kill him.The chorus rose and swirled into a thundering crescendo and Ione broke into a sprint, an icy torrent rising on either side of her, needing to reach him before he finished his summon.
“Rigel,” Ione roared, and at that moment, a blast of heat knocked her to the tiled floor.
The song ended, and a cacophony of cheers and applause rang out through the vast room.
“Welcome back, quondam goddess,” came Rigel’s voice, deep and syrupy and unsettlingly gentle, as Ione pushed herself to stand.“I had intended to send you back to Caelos alive, but if you’re still so intent to see our new successor one last time, then you may be the first to test her.”
