As the afternoon rolled by, Chione ambled back on Voivode and lodged him into his stable. Boreas was home and there waiting for her in her bedroom, although didn’t notice her coming in. Instead he was carefully adjusting a beautiful white dress on a mannequin in front of her bed. The dress was a soft silk, ankle length and folded in on itself in repeating patterns, and was joined by a pair of long gloves ––as high up on the arm as the bust cut was low. It almost looked like a wedding garment were it not for the thin silhouette and lack of veil.
“Ah, father?” Chione said in a light voice.
He quickly stood to his full height, flashing an awkward grin as he realised his own poor awareness.
“Boreavna! Darling, I didn’t hear you arrive. Well no need to be furtive, this is for you tonight.”
“It’s gorgeous, father. But,” she slightly bowed her head, “it looks expensive.”
“Ah no more cost than my usual visit to the tailors. You see—!”
He stepped around her, guiding her in by the small of her back and smiling down at her with that smile of his warm as the sun. Her heart jumped as she beheld the dress, brushing its soothing fabric through her hands.
“This was your mother’s,” Boreas explained. “I met her at her own debut. Twenty five years ago, it might as well have been yesterday; it’s so clear in my mind. She shone like the moon, and I know you will too!”
Chione clutched the folds of the skirt in her hands, while a smile graced her lips. It was a comfortable silence and yet so many thoughts rushed in her head: her mother, in this very same dress, possibly finding Boreas among the crowd of gentlemen and catching his eye ––the kind of debut every girl dreamed of. Her fingers were starting to tremble so she loosened her grip, and she turned to her father.
“Alright, out! Come on, dad, give a girl some privacy.”
“Aha, of course, of course.”
The afternoon yielded to evening and then night ––but really this day was just beginning. Chione, now in her debut gown, with her father joining her in white tie, took the car into town where the debut ball was being held. It was a cool night and the city blocks were humming with light and life, although they were nothing compared to the metropolises of Kratia Prime. The dark blue of dusk was descending with a few white streaks in the sky where shuttles had disembarked from the nearby spaceport.
Inside the palatial government offices (where Boreas happened to work), the central ballroom was completely aglow. Walls were adorned with gold and spaced out with large, softly composed oil paintings, joined by frescos on the ceiling and the brilliant chandelier. Everyone was there. That is, everyone of some importance in this local region ––men in their muted colours and sharp cuts, their wives and daughters in gowns either pink or white.
The vibrant strings of a quartet filled the room, which signalled the beginning of the ball. The girls in white ––Chione Boreavna Eosides among them–– lined up together with a prim and postured aura, during which the inaugural moment of the ball was snapped by the official photographer. With that they let loose into room — and into polite society–– ready to dance with some of the young bachelors who were hoping to make a good impression. Chione stayed by the side of fellow debutante Maria, and Boreas soon came over.
“Ah you look so beautiful, and you too miss Maria. You will be snatched up by husbands in no time!”
“Really?” Chione’s eyes widened, and she said, “should I go introduce myself to someone, or just wait to be… ‘snatched.’”
“Well,” Boreas chuckled, “typically it’s my side who would approach first, but in my own case it was your mother who uttered the first words. She said––”
But at that moment, a couple of gentlemen came up to Boreas wearing urgent looks, which stole his attention. Boreas gave his daughter an apologetic smile and went off with them, the three speaking in furtive tones as they drifted off, while Chione watched after them with a slight frown.
“What could that be about….”
“Ah, are you Boreavna?”
Chione turned around again, seeing that another person had quickly come to fill the space where her father had stood. This was a dark-haired girl, wearing one of the pink dresses of the ‘post-debutantes.’ Pink of course was nothing like the purity of white, but it was not provocative like red –– it was merely a light, even wholesome stain. Despite Olga’s worrying earlier, Chione was a virgin. But by the next year, ––by the next ball–– she wouldn’t be.
The dark haired girl stuck out her hand, as if going for a handshake but unsure if that was the right protocol. She then bowed her head again as if to make up for a mistake.
“I’m Lucy. Lucy Daniel. I just wanted to say you girls look so wonderful!”
“Uh… thanks.” Chione glanced down then reached out to take Lucy’s hand. She gave her a smile, “you look pretty too, Lucy.”
“Aha!” a faint rose, almost the same shade as her dress, crept along Lucy’s cheeks. “Thank you, miss! I was a debutante last year. Well, I wish you could have seen it. Or rather it looked like this, but I was in white. I wish I was again tonight. I’m still unmarried actually, but tradition’s tradition!”
Chione gave a nervous laugh as the anxious person blathered on. It wasn’t as if there was anything she could offer this stranger. Comfort, commiseration? Or maybe she was supposed to suggest they go hunt for a dance partner together. But Chione was consciously aware of Maria to her side, restlessly fiddling with the fingers of her gloves; if Chione was going to explore the ball with anyone it was going to be with her, even if she held no hard feelings towards this Lucy.
“Miss Daniel, I—“
Chione was about to offer some noncommittal pleasantry when a loud slam echoed from the other end of the hall. While a few heads turned, no-one seriously reacted as it sounded like nothing more than a roughly shut door. But Chione, after sharing a brief glance with Maria, headed over to the source of the noise, as some people were now turning, expressing murmurs of surprise. There was even a shatter as someone dropped their glass. A line of men, suited in black tactical gear and brandishing rifles, were jogging through the crowd. The music stopped.
Conspicuously alone, Boreas placed himself in a central spot apart from huddles of people, and faced the oncoming boots with an odd resolve in his expression. He was only a few metres from Chione, who came to a halt. The soldiers diverged out from their line and into a new pattern, surrounding Boreas. Every weapon trained its sight on him. He raised his hands.
“Gentlemen, I––”
“Target acquired, take into custody,” one of the masked men shouted into his radio.
“No!” Chione gasped.
She took a step towards her father, but he shot her a forbidding look. She had never seen him so pale and yet so resolute at once. It forced her dead still. Even as the armoured men piled in on him, shoving him over and over even as he offered no physical resistance so they could lock his hands into magnetic cuffs, Chione remained still. Her breathing grew ragged. She couldn’t think or fathom why this was happening.
“There must be some mistake,” she finally said, voice high but forceful. “My father is a good man. He has served Kratia all his life!”
One of the men rounded on her, with imposing height and although she stood firm, her heart stumbled over its regular beat.
“Boreavna, Chione?”
“I am a proud Eosides, yes!”
“Good, then you will be proud to share his fate. Detain her!”
“Stop that! Chione no!”
Boreas burst out in a fit of pleading, but the reply was another jab to his stomach, causing him to keel over. His glasses were cracked, his waistcoat split open. Blood poured down his face. Everything around Chione became a dream-like blur. A man was lurching for her, yet seemed motionless as well. Time was grinding down. Even when a figure dashed in front of her, placing herself between her and the thugs, all Chione could do was blink. This was all unreal.
It was Lucy Daniel’s cry that brought her back. The girl had jumped in front of her, splaying her hands, and was about to shout her protest when the man just punched her in the face, throwing her to the floor. Chione looked down, mouth wide as she realised what Lucy had done; mind racing as she tried to figure out why; and nostrils curling as she glimpsed all the fresh blood upon the floor. As her senses attuned at last, the world became clear again: people were rushing, there were screams. The soldiers had no reason to stop the other attendees leaving, but neither did they care about an orderly exit. The doorway became clogged and fighting sprang out between all these small, frightened people.
“I… I submit,” Chione said, suddenly in a weak, quiet voice.
It didn’t even matter what she said. Soldiers were already on her, wrenching her arms into position to get the cuffs on. As they took her away, she craned her neck, grasping one last look at her father, hunched over on the floor.
There was complete black over the Eosides manor. It was two or three in the morning, and all the lights were out except for a few torches and scanners. Every room had been ransacked. In the bedrooms, clothes had been ripped out and torn from the wardrobes, while throughout the ground floor furniture and crockery lay in pieces. The stables were silent, as the soldiers quickly secured it with a round of bullets. A rancid smell filled it now, while a massive heap of burnt flesh lay on the sawdust floor. Voivode’s death had been mercy. Making the girl watch hadn’t been.
Having finished their raid, the armoured men were now calm, stationed around the site both indoors and out. All the while a smaller group strapped Chione to a chair and blasted her with a flashlight. All the voices were the same dark register and coarse tone. One was barking in Chione’s face.
“Where is it? Where was he hiding it?”
Her head was still spinning, and her vision was blurry. Everything had happened so quickly that most of the journey back from the ballroom was hazy. But some of the blood pumping to her head was making things clear, so she tried her best to sit up straight despite the bindings, and look past the blinding light.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she spat.
“Don’t hide it now! We know Boreas Iosivitch is a traitor to the Kratian people.”
“You’re insane! My father is a loyal––”
The man struck her across the face. Everything began to ring again, and she glanced back with a sullen, but silent look.
“There must have been something. Evidence of his conspiracy. Even this very night, he was speaking out against the war in public, insulting our troops!”
Her heart sank. “That’s… that’s a lie. He wouldn’t.”
“Tell us where it is!”
“If… if I do,” her eyes fell, so that she only saw darkness even as the heat of the torch beams branded her forehead, “will you let me talk to him. I know he didn’t do it. He’s innocent.”
“He can’t be innocent if the evidence exists,” the man said with a gruff, twisted laugh. “But sure, I’ll let you see him. So where is it, little girl?”
Chione took in a sharp, pained breath, and slowly let it out. Thinking of her father made her heart swell, and she knew that this whole thing must be some sort of misunderstanding or at worst, slander. She just needed to talk to him. When she spoke it again, it was through a dazed whimper.
“There’s a napkin. He wrote something on it. It…”
“Where!?”
“His waistcoat,” she said, looking up at the men, even though the light made her squint. “He put it in his waistcoat before he left the house.”
The interrogator lowered his torch arm, as he looked over to his colleague. Though both were masked, Chione could sense the knowing smiles they were wearing.
“So it’s on his person. Very well. Bring in Iosivitch.” He turned back, laughing at her, “you did say you wanted to see him, right?”
“Yes, bring him to me!”
The man with the torch gestured out and beckoned with his hand to some unseen thugs in the shadows. The door opened, there were the clacks of boot-heels scraping the fine woodwork of the floor. Men went out, and then came back in. Right in the near distance, Chione could make out the soldiers carrying something. A long black bag, with something heavy within. Her insides turned to stone.
As the other men lay the bag down, the interrogator walked over, reaching down to undo its zip. He reached in, fiddling around with some tattered fabric, and pulled out a bloodstained cloth –– the napkin.
“Eh, that’s barely readable,” one of the other men said.
“Don’t be hasty. I see a name or two. Co-conspirators. All Demesnée spies and puppets!”
Chione called, “what’s in that bag? Where is my father?”
Part of her knew she was pretending. Her heart was sinking, while bile was climbing up her throat. But she slowly forced her gaze down onto the obscure bag, partly opened. The blood of the napkin, joined by the smell, and the complete still silence told her everything.
“No,” she let out in the softest of whimpers.
“Well this can be wrapped up then,” said one of the soldiers.
“What about the girl?” asked another.
“Leave her, we got what we wanted. Or shoot her if you need the target practice.”
“No… no, no,” Chione kept muttering as the faceless men discussed her fate. “No, no, no!”
“Nah, there’s protocol for this,” the second man said. “The treason charge of the father can pass down to the whelp.”
“Really? That standard?”
“Under Martial law, yeah. General Order 159.”
“Well if that’s the case, then there’s only one place for her.”
He turned back to her, hitting her again with the bright beam of his light.
“You’re off to Asphodel, girl. And no one ever leaves Asphodel.”
Chione no longer had words to say. All that was left was her scream.