Reckless

Chapter 14 Part 8

Present Day

Character POV: Roxanne

This time, it's my niece who speaks, her voice so much like her mother's, so full of a commanding authority, that it almost makes me weep all over again as she says, "Ariadne confessed to me that she thought that this prophecy was about Drusilla. But then she saw what you could do during the witch trials and it all made sense: this prophecy was about you, Aunt. You are the woman who is the true queen of the witches."

"That's why Drusilla is threatened by you," Ariadne informs me, drawing my attention back to her as I feel my heart thud in my chest as my jaw drop. Her face is hard like it has been chiseled from marble as she says to me, "Drusilla is intent on using you as much as she possibly can. She's not stupid. Right now, she's wielding you like a weapon because it suits her. But because she has this prophecy hanging over her head, she always puts you on the front lines hoping that you will die and she won't have to lift a finger because she knows you outmatch her."

I nod along to her words, seeing the evil genius behind Analize's plans. I think of all of the times that I was ordered into dangerous situation, how I was strapped to a pyre, how I let my desire for revenge get the better of me and almost get me killed again by men who hated liberated women. Each time, though, I survived. "Her plan would have worked if it wasn't for you," I add, stepping closer to Ariadne. She gives me this carefully guarded look as I tell her, "That's why she hates you so much. When I am with you, I am my true self. My real powers come out, I am stronger. You have saved my life and helped me to realize my potential a thousand times over. You sacrificed everything over and over for me, for millenniums." My heart swells with the revelation, and Ariadne just searches my face as she tries to figure out where I'm going with this.

I don't overthink my next move. I've thought too much about everything, or I've thought too little, my entire life. I'm done agonizing over my own thoughts and letting the biases and hatred that Analize carries rub off onto me. I'm done living my life to please other people. I am going to start living my life to please myself instead of society or everyone around me. I lean in and press a kiss to Ariadne's lips, the world stilling around us as she grabs me and pulls me closer.

It seems to last for hours, but when it's over it's too soon. Her violet eyes are dancing as she smiles brightly at me. I know all of the things that Ariadne has done wrong. I lean my forehead against her, closing my eyes and breathing in her scent of lilac and blood as I whisper to her, "I know the violence and darkness that lurks in you, but I also know that I am the same. You didn't hunt down the witch trial ministers by yourself. It wasn't even your idea. We did it together. We saved countless lives. And if we go up against Analize together? We'll win that too."

She pulls back from me and gives me this long look, the joy fading from her face as she asks me, "Will you actually stand up to Drusilla this time, or are you going to back down again?" What she doesn't ask but it clear from the question is, "Can I trust you?" And it breaks my heart that she's asking me that, that we've both been asking that about each other. Our entire relationship started with that question about whether or not we could trust each other, and it never seems to have left our minds because the world we live in has kept giving us situations where, no matter what we did, we could have to break each other's trust just to keep one another alive.

I stroke her cheeks with my thumbs, her face between my hands as I say to her, "The only reason that I backed out that day, like I said, was because I wanted to save your life. Not, for a single moment, did I care if you killed her." She looks away from me, so I tighten my hold on her and that snaps her gaze back to me as I look deep into her eyes to try and convey the truth to my words as I finish, "Nothing means more to me than keeping you alive. Nothing else could have convinced me to stop the two of you than the risk of you dying." Even after all of these years, I have kept lying to Analize without even knowing what a horrible person she was to protect Ariadne, to keep her alive, even when she tortured and turned David. I have kept shielding her with all of the limited strength I thought I possessed.

Ariadne gives me a long look, and silence descends between us. It's not a silence that's uncomfortable for me, but I feel a crackle of energy in the air, and I wait patiently to hear whatever Ariadne has to say. She reaches up with her hands and gently pulls mine away from her face, holding them in hers gently. She looks down at our joined hands as she says, "I am sorry for not telling all of this to you sooner, for thinking that you couldn't handle it. I'm sorry for underestimating you, and for letting my anger and how you were being used and allowing yourself to be used to take control. I'm sorry for how I got your attention, for terrorizing you, and sorry about how I went about punishing your boy toy." She winces a little as she clicks her tongue before continuing, "I am not sorry that he is dead. Assholes like him-- the only thing they can do to benefit society is to leave it. But I am sorry that it upset you."

I shake my head, a tear slipping free and sliding down my cheek, as I tell her, "No, you were right about him. What he and I had, it wasn't real. He was just filler, just something to pass the time. You never left me, you were there the whole time." She lifts her head, brows drawn together in confusion, and my heart thunders in my chest as I tell her, "When I left you, I started having these hallucinations of you. You would just pop up and say things that sounded like things you would really say, and it continued throughout the centuries. I embraced them, allowing my mind and magic to continue to conjure this fake you, because that meant that I still got to see you even if I couldn't be with the real you. If he had been a real love," I add, admitting something that I have never admitted before, "then the hallucination version of you would have gone away. But you were always there, always in the back of my mind no matter what I did, because I never got over you. I never stopped loving you." The words hang suspended in the air as I find myself holding my breath as I wait to hear what she has to say, half-expecting her to mock me for creating a fake version of her in my head, or for some other extreme and disheartening response.

Instead, Ariadne smiles a wicked grin at me and says, "Well, that makes me feel a little better." She winks at me, her violet eyes bright as ever, as she finishes, "At least you had some beauty still in your life if I was hanging around." I shake my head, but I laugh and she smiles back at me. She then says in a conspiratorial, dark tone, "Let's go meet the troops. Drusilla has lived too long already. That ends today." We smile back at each other as a wave of grief and happiness clash inside of me, linking arms and walking back out the way we came with my niece trailing awkwardly behind us, united now in purpose.