*Daphne*
The minutes passed like hours, and the hours passed like days. Rion had stopped coming to see , except to slide a al under the door at intervals. Every ti the slot opened, I stuck my face down to the floor to beg Rion to let go, to talk to , at least.
But Rion was unmoved. When I caught glimpses of his face, I could see the conflict in his eyes, but then resolve overtook him and he simply glared at , slamming the slot shut and stomping away.
Eva, however, had been more than happy to co and explain my “role” in all of this... repeatedly, for her own twisted pleasure.
“I’ll bet you thought you had my brother,” she cackled through the sliding peephole at the top of the door a few hours–or had it only been minutes–after Rion brought a al. “But he’s mine, not yours, as I’m sure you’ve co to find by now.”
“Fuck off, Eva,” I snapped, putting more force behind the expletive than I felt. In truth, I was terrified.
“But if I do that, you won’t find out how you’re going to die,” Eva simpered.
“You’ve told . I’m supposed to be sacrificed on the Blood Moon to bring back your crazy mother,” I responded, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. There were no windows in the lamplit darkness of my cell, so I didn’t even have the rcy of being able to see when the Blood Moon arrived.
“My mother’s not crazy!” Eva scread. “She’s a visionary! And she’s going to destroy you Crimsons!”
I made a “talk, talk, talk” sign with my hand, and Eva slamd the peephole shut, storming away in the sa direction her brother had gone.
Eva did not co back this ti. The anticipation started to get to .
I heard the guards talking outside my cell, saying with glee that I was to be sacrificed the following night.
When Rion ca with my food, I reached my arm through the door slit and grabbed his wrist. “Rion,” I begged. “Please. Please, let go. Stop this. Don’t let die. I’ll give you anything you want. My family will pay any price.”
Rion snatched his hand back from . His eyes were cold now. He’d looked away from before, all those tis when he was conflicted, but now... now he was resigned.
“The Crimsons are the ones who will pay the price for what they’ve done,” Rion said icily. “My mother will return when we sacrifice you. And you will beco the first of your whole wretched family to die. You deserve it. You all do.”
Hope shriveled inside . I skittered back from the door, kicking over my tray in the process.
Rion swore and moved back. “Fine. Starve.”
Then he was gone.
I put my hands over my face and wept bitterly. There was no escape. There was no rcy to be had.
Whatever compassion Rion had harbored inside him had disappeared, along with any chance of my living.
I didn’t bother praying to the Goddess anymore. I didn’t think she was listening. I curled up on the floor and hugged my knees, bitterly wishing the ti would pass faster. This waiting had to be worse than dying at Eva’s hands.
It took forever, and at the sa ti was the blink of a mont, for the door to swing open and for witches to co into my cell.
I’d thought I was resigned to my fate–I really did–but I found myself struggling, kicking out and scratching Eva’s followers.
They finally bound my hands and feet and dragged outside the caves to a waiting altar. Behind it stood Eva, holding so sort of ceremonial knife.
I scread in terror, the flickering torchlight just making it all look more macabre under the reddish light of the Blood Moon.
Eva’s followers bound to the altar, my cries for help falling on deaf ears. Cold stone matched the coldness in Rion’s eyes as I looked over at him, my one lifeline severed.
Eva began booming out the words of a spell, the witches swaying and chanting around her and the altar.
Tears leaked into my hair. “Rion, please,” I begged. “Please.”
He was unmoved and didn’t so much as twitch a muscle.
I scowled up at Eva. “I hope your mother eats your soul.”
Eva ignored , her eyes lit with excitent and madness.
More swaying... more chanting–by this point, I was just wishing she’d get it over with and stab with that knife.
Eva looked down at at last between phrases of the spell and grinned maniacally. “I suppose you think this is going to be quick,” she whispered.
I swallowed. I’d been rather hoping so.
“No, Crimson witch. I am going to bleed you dry. You will die by drips and drops, and no one here will save you, especially not my Rion,” Eva cackled.
Fear rose with bile in my throat. “No,” I whispered. “No... even you couldn’t be so cruel.”
“Couldn’t I?” Eva hissed. “After you Crimsons separated from my brother and threw into a life of hardship and prostitution?!”
“That wasn’t what was supposed to happen–” I tried to explain.
Eva slapped across the face. “Supposed to? Supposed to?! Who cares about ‘supposed to’?! It’s what did happen that matters!”
“Please,” I begged. “Eva, please. Just kill quickly. You must have enough rcy left in your soul for that.”
Eva snorted. “Not a chance. I’m not losing one drop of your thrice-cursed blood. There will be no mistakes, no rcy... and no way out for you.”
I struggled again against my restraints as Eva began chanting again, weaving the knife back and forth over . She skimd it against my flesh from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, back and forth, murmuring words I didn’t understand.
Or perhaps my panic had so far gone that I simply couldn’t understand.
Eva anointed different parts of with cool water and warm oils. She sprinkled seeds and petals, and Goddess only knew what else, over my body, waving the knife over like a wand.
When she touched , my vision clouded, and suddenly I saw Eva’s past, the way I had been able to see Rion’s. She was shifting for the first ti, howling at the moon. Her powers washed into her, and she knew she was finally strong enough to go back and get her sons.
The Eva of that ti loped through the woods, over both rocky and muddy terrain, all to be reunited with her boys.
However, when she arrived at the pack’s location, the area was desolate. Not a soul wandered the streets. All that was missing were a few tumbleweeds to make the perfect ghost town.
Confused, Eva went looking for her sons. She poked her head in house after house, seeing nothing.
Then she walked into the woods just past the town and slled it–the burning.
Eva shifted again, her claws digging into the earth as she ran in the direction of the sll.
A small group of shifters Eva didn’t recognize were standing over a great pyre, upon which bodies were being flung.
Eva could sll the sickness from where she stood, and skittered to a stop beside those standing around the burning pile.
“Such a sha,” one of the strangers said, not looking at her and not seeing that she was not one of theirs. “They took in a weary traveler, only to be subjected to this.”
Eva shifted back to her human form, not caring that she was naked. “What do you an?” she asked desperately.
“That wanderer was carrying a sickness. We’d been tracking him for so ti. There’s no cure for it, and we wanted to keep him from infecting others. But he killed a whole pack,” the man said bitterly. He turned and looked at Eva. “Oh, you’re new. Who are you?”
“My sons... my sons were part of this pack,” Eva said, her voice strangled by terrible, terrible suspicion. “Where are my sons?”
The man looked sad. “Oh my poor dear child. They’re either in the fire or are about to be. There were no survivors. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?!” Eva shrieked, her soul tearing at the knowledge that her sons were not only dead, but that she wouldn’t get to bury them properly. “Sorry?!”
“We tried–” the man started to say.
“You should have tried harder!” Eva scread.
She raised her hands in the air and brought down a crackle of magic so powerful that everything around her for ten ters disintegrated, turning to nothing. Ash filled the air like an awful fall of snow.
Even the living were nothing but falling ash now.
Eva felt cold, though the ground burned. Her boys were dead. There was nothing left for her.
Nothing.
I blinked my eyes back open and looked at Eva. Her mad eyes held just a hint of the despair I’d felt in her mories.
“Eva, I’m so sorry, but this is the wrong way... this doesn’t honor their passing–” I tried to tell her.
Eva gripped by the throat and choked . “Shut up. Shut up, Crimson witch! That was none of your business!”
I coughed, and Eva’s lips curled up in a maniacal smile. “Trying to die quickly, I see. It won’t work. I will deliver your blood unto my mother, no matter what you do.”
Then she went back to her spellcasting, and I was left to imagine my dark fate.
Her followers swayed and murmured, the ones closest to Eva assisting her by handing the items Eva needed to her. They waved their hands over the ingredients in what looked like so sort of blessing.
My skin began to tingle, and I didn’t know if it was the cold sweat of fear or the first inklings of magic from the spell.
“Oh mighty Hestia!” Eva cried. “I give thee the blood of your enemies. Oh, mighty Hestia! I give thee the seeds of your vengeance. Oh, mighty Hestia! I give you this unworthy vessel that you might return and bring your justice down upon the Crimsons–from Alpha King to White Queen, to every one of their spawn. May their blood run thick and useless into the earth you walk upon and may their bones be crushed beneath your feet!”
The chanting grew louder and the swaying more aggressive.
I knew this ritual was reaching so sort of climax.
“Eva–” I tried again.
“Silence!” Eva slapped across the face. “Your ti is done, daughter of the White Queen!”
Eva raised the knife to the sky in the light of the Blood Moon. “Oh, mighty Hestia, bless us with your presence. Find this sacrifice worthy and co forth!”
I panicked and turned my face to Rion one last ti. “Rion, please. Please!”
Then Eva brought the blade down, aiming right for my throat.
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