presents...
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Last Rites
The doctor left the room, closing the door softly behind him. He'd been checking in every two hours. That would make this the last check of the night.
Pietra made herself wait a little longer, to let Teodora fall back into a deeper sleep. Then she emerged from her hiding place, quietly turned the door handle, and slipped into the room.
She'd kept out of sight while the old woman was at the memorial service, but she'd still been able to see the Knot between them. She'd been examining it closely these past weeks, turning its convolutions and curves over in her mind's eye. With Teodora there in the room, it was suddenly so much clearer; she could see the power pulsing along the Swords strands, flowing from Teodora to herself.
She saw no reason that it had to flow that way.
It was one of the things they'd taught her on Mondavi Island: how to tell which way a strand went. She'd vaguely noticed it before, but hadn't realized what it signified. Now she understood: so many of those subtle changes in coloration, in spark pattern, in how the strand curled and moved, all indicated something. In large part, how good a strega you were depended on how well you could read all those subtle indicators, which could help you determine, say, the dutiful love of a stepson from the passionate love of an adulterous liason.
Yeah, that had been a good lesson.
She didn't know what she was doing. She'd asked, elliptically, if what she needed to do was possible and had gotten nothing but blank looks. Fate Knots were forever. Everyone knew that. A strega would typically tie but two of them in her lifetime, if she were powerful. Those Knots didn't come undone.
But I don't want to undo it. I just want to change its direction.
She knew her own Arcana: the Imperator Proper, a sign of leadership and command. She could feel it blaze above her head; she would command these strands. She would. Her life depended on it.
The Knot blazed in the air between her and Teodora, asleep in the bed. She knew its contours and loops. Holding that in her mind, she focused all her will on it and pushed, seeking to loosen but not undo its coils. She reached out for the red strands and took hold, working slack into them, feeling them shift. So far, so good. She wasn't stretching or tugging them, not really - just nudging them.
Teodora woke up with a snort and a gasp. It startled the young girl, and one of the strands of the Knot slipped violently away, cutting her. She gritted her teeth against the pain and grabbed the errant strand again. She didn't lose her focus when the old woman called out. "Who's there?"
Pietra didn't say anything, still working the strands. "Someone's there, I know it... What - !" Pietra could hear her shifting around rapidly in bed. "Child, Pietra, what are you doing? You mustn't... you can't! Oh child, no, stop!" She could feel a difference in tension as Teodora laid hands on the strands as well, trying to feel out what it was that she was doing. "Don't you see? This trying will kill you!"
Like hell it will, Pietra thought. Not trying is what would kill her. The Knot was loose enough now. She just had to tease the wound strands apart.
"Just." No one she'd spoken to had ever tried it. She didn't see why she couldn't - she wasn't changing anything, not increasing or decreasing or creating or destroying. Just nudging and shifting and rearranging.
It was hard. Especially within the Knot, the strands didn't want to come apart. They jerked and spasmed in her hands, lashing her again and again. She sank down to her knees, eyes narrowed, determined to ignore the warm wetness that was trying to tell her something was very wrong.
"No!" The old witch was quick, Pietra would give her that. She'd seen what Pietra was trying to do and quickly adjusted the technique to her own needs. A Cups strand, unreciprocated, hung in her vision. She almost felt a pang of regret, realizing that her grandmother really did care for her, in whatever broken way she had. Pietra had only met Anna briefly, but hadn't liked that example of Teodora's doting care.
Almost. But not really. This was about survival, and Pietra Donati was good at that.
She had the strands well apart now, one in each hand. The Swords from Teodora flowed in, bright and hot, while her own strand flowing back was wan and pale. That wasn't her natural Swords to Teodora, of course, but the strand her mother had put there. She could see, on the edge of her concentration, that Teodora was holding the Cups strand uncertainly, not sure what to do next. Then she dropped it and put her hands into the "spinning position," as Pietra had recently learned it was called. Teodora would become an Atropos tonight, spinning a Cups or a Rods or anything she thought would stop Pietra, or die trying.
Let's go with "die trying." "Do you know," she asked, "why my mother tried to kill me?"
Teodora didn't answer; Pietra hadn't expected her to. But the question put a point on ten years of abandonment, of disappointment, of dashed hopes, and recent bitter, bitter disillusionement. She took all that focused anger and hate and blew it down her Knot's Swords strand to Teodora.
The Knot blazed; in the red light, she thought she saw something thin and dark snapping back toward Teodora, but she wasn't sure. Then the Knot's strands pulled loose from her hands, twisting themselves violently back together, whirling in front of her. She threw up her arms to protect her face; it felt as if the flesh must be flayed near to the bone. The pain, the sharp pain of Swords was so great that, mercifully, she passed into blackness.
Back to Game 22b log.
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