Anioa woke feeling cold, shivering violently. She was no longer in a bed, laying on cold dirty stone. She felt weaker than before, she was hardly able to keep her eyes open, but her head felt clearer. Her naked body prickled in the damp chill in the white moonlight.
It took a while for her Ainoa's eyes to adjust to the dark. She was close enough to the wall to see drawings of hunters and strange-looking stick-like figures. They looked African, but then again they could be Egyptian, she couldn't think. Some were above with large diamond-shaped wings bulging from their backs, others below the hunters with an elongated torso that stretched long and eel-like to a small diamond tail.
'No.' She remembered now. This art was also found in Egypt but was African art. Though it was not the same picture, the style was similar. But they were nowhere near Egypt, Alex had said himself "tonight," and that was sometime after noon, the sun had been low. 'So where was this?'
The cave was large, but where she lay the rock was low and the candlelight circled around her. The rock above and surrounding her seemed to have been etched straight and smooth. It was not bordered in any kind of weird moss or fangs, but it was neither clean nor dry, soothing overall within a sleek sweaty mist. There was a tunnel straight up that perfectly encased the moon. Echoing water drove into her aching head as she tried to study the circling symbols, but she couldn't seem to get her eyes to focus.
She lifted her head towards the sound of sharp footsteps, a woman in a short black dress stepped just inches from her face. Her feet were dark and caked with dirt, but otherwise seemed spotless, even perfect. Her long silver hair was bound in a long braid swaying lightly at her knees. She looked down at Ainoa, smiling, but it was not a comforting one.
"Luna venit," she heard the woman cry, making the walls tremble. "Quod eis dicere necesse est luna, ita et Haec est ei," the voice screeched before cracking a staff of the rock before her, making her ears ring and shiver in pain. Other women stepped forward in a half crescent against the wall, standing around her. "Et Nunc non habere lunam alterum, tenetur ad a vivunt nova luna, inclinant ad potentiam suam," she sang, rolling her head back.
Two large men slowly paced through the circle to her, lifting up her limp naked body against the cold stone as the other women began to chant, "secundo luna, tenetur ad nova luna est vivet." The held her firm, each one holding one hand against her shoulder, one against her waist as they knelt on one knee, their heads and eyes cast down.
The cave echoed softly, washing words upon words again and again like a whisper as they chanted on. "Secundo luna, tenetur ad nova luna est vivet. Secundo luna, tenetur ad nova luna est vivet. Secundo luna, tenetur ad nova luna est vivet. Secundo luna, tenetur ad nova luna est vivet."
The woman rose her arms, motioning someone forward with circling arms. and sang in a deep husk, rolling her head round and round, "Vir suus fac quod luna, habere se corpus, ea vocem habent. Lupus et fac ei secundo luna." She watched as Alex stepped through the circle standing in front of her, his dark skin gleaming, his silver ring blinding her with a blue gem. "Vir suus fac quod luna, habere se corpus, ea vocem habent," she whispered, stepping directly behind him. She wrapped hands around his broad shoulders, digging her talons into his flesh.
She slid her slender fingers down his arms until she held both of his wrists. She straightened her index fingers and sliced. He stood still as two women stepped forward and scrapped blood into two bowls, stepping aside for two more women to wrap his wrists, before bowing out of the circle. The woman now came to stand before Anioa. She reached her talons down to her writs and sliced. The two women with the bowls stepped forward and scrapped blood into the bowls and stepped back behind the woman, bowing down to the stone floor, placing the bowls over their heads.
"Secundo luna, tenetur ad nova luna est vivet. Secundo luna, tenetur ad nova luna est vivet." The voices echoed on and on. "Secundo luna, tenetur ad nova luna est vivet. Secundo luna, tenetur ad nova luna est vivet."
The silver-haired woman took the tip of her hair and dipped it into one of the bowls and began to paint Anioa's pale skin, first her face, down her throat, down her breast, the design swirling down and down. She turned and did the same to Alex. At the motion of her hand, she was made to lay forward on her stomach. The woman began carving into her back, the acute pain sending tears to her eyes, before being lifted again to the woman. She took the remaining blood and poured it across her back, dropping the bowl on the ground.
Anioa watched as she began pouring a black substance from a pitcher into one of the bowls. She pulled Anioa's head back, pouring it down her throat. It was thick and suffocating, forcing her to gag and choke for air. She then painted the black blood onto her lips and took Alex's ring and dipped it in the bowl.
The woman scrapped hot wax with her long nail from one on the ground before each chanter. She pressed the burning wax on Anioa's lips, sealing them shut, pressing the man's bloody ring, proceeding to do the same to her still bleeding wrists. She then took rolled papyrus from one of the women and wound it tight around her back and sealed it, a large pool of the wax searing her front, pressing Alex's hand into the still-hot wax, then his ring in the middle.
"Cum Septem sigillis, et luna cadit Fracti sunt: Nam illi non-nisi dominus meus cantabo."