Chapter Forty Vina
Chapter Forty
Vina
I will never leave Maleficium. You have my solemn vow.
Source: Letter from Galath Patel to Hari Patel
They found shelter on the shore. The cunning folk worked over him, draining their magic down to the dregs. When they were done, Ella said, tiredly, “I think he’ll live. I pray he will.”
For a long time, Hari kneeled by his side, whispering to him, holding his hand. Then finally, Hari stood and said to Vina, “We’re going to find a physician nearby if we can. Keep an eye on him until I return.”
Vina nodded, and Hari brushed a tender hand against her arm, then departed.
Vina stayed with Galath. She held him by the shoulder, afraid if she stopped holding him, he’d vanish.
He’d come so close to dying. He could still die, if infection took him, if his wound worsened in some way the cunning folk couldn’t have foreseen.
They were not doctors, after all. Their magic could only do so much.
But for now, he was alive, and that was enough.
“I’m mortal now,” Galath said quietly.
“Are you sure?” Vina’s heart was in her throat.
“I can feel it,” he murmured. “And my mark is gone.”
He fell in and out of sleep.
“The witch,” he said finally, eyes opening dully. “Simran.”
“She’s nearby,” Vina said. In truth, Simran had whisked herself out of sight right after saving him, but Vina was sure she hadn’t fled entirely. “I can find her.”
“No,” said Galath. “You and her—the knight and the witch. What will you choose?”
Vina swallowed.
“I don’t know if there’s any future between us,” said Vina. “We’ve never lived long enough to have one. And Simran… She’s been through so much.” She pushes away the people she loves to protect them. She always has. I’m afraid I’ll be one of them.
She didn’t say those words. Instead she tilted her head to look at the ink-scarred horizon, the hazy sea, and said, “But that’s okay.”
“Is it?”
“Simran deserves to have her own life,” said Vina. “A life where she decides her own fate. That would make me happier than I can explain.”
Galath made a low noise.
“And you,” he said. “What do you want?”
What does it matter? Vina thought. Of course she wanted Simran.
She wanted to live with her, to wake up beside her; she wanted to see what it would be like to love her and be loved, without worrying about when the axe would fall, when her own hands would be covered with blood, when they’d have to begin again, waiting for love, waiting for grief, waiting for death.
But if Simran did not want her, or wanted freedom more than she wanted Vina…
well, Vina could find a life of her own.
Her heart would be hollow, and she’d love Simran and miss Simran all her life—but she’d be glad too.
Sometimes pain and joy could be like that, twined like two clasped and loving hands.
“Whatever is decided,” said Galath. “Whatever is done or not done, you may return home when you require solace.”
Vina whipped her head round to stare at him, heart in her throat. “I can?”
He stared back, as calm and sea-eyed as ever. “It is your home,” he said simply.
She swallowed. “I thought that time was over,” she said carefully. “I’m not that child anymore.”
“I have been what Elayne made of me,” he said.
“And later, what I made of myself. But now we are alike in some ways—both of us freed from the burdens of our fates. I chose Hari when I believed he would die long before me. Now I may live a mortal life alongside him, and so that is what I choose to do: in our house, where we raised our daughter.”
He was still looking at her. “I am Elayne’s son, as I am Hari’s husband, as I am your father,” he said. “Some bonds were chosen, and some were fashioned by hands that were not my own. But I choose them now. If you choose to be my family, then you are my family.”
She couldn’t breathe around how she felt. Her heart was tender in her chest.
“Is it really that easy?”
“I raised you by choice, and loved you by choice,” he went on, voice quiet, implacable in both its honesty and its tenderness. “What will you do, of your own volition?”
She wrapped an arm around him, careful not to jostle his wounds.
“No matter what happens,” she said, “I’ll always visit home. Father.”
They were on the edge of the world, where the silver sea touched the Isle’s shores, where a ruin held the dream of a sleeping prince, a king who would rise again. Vina, against all odds, was alive. And she was a tale: a knight, a cursed lover, a survivor of her own fate.
But she was also a woman. Just a person, standing in the cold, her boots sinking in sand. And there, on the cliffs, staring out at the vast expanse of water, was Simran, her black hair a flag in the wind.
Vina started to climb.
Simran looked like she’d been crying. But her face was set. Her arms crossed.
“You all looked happy down there,” she said. “I watched you. I’m glad.”
“You could come join us,” said Vina. “Galath would be glad to see you.”
Simran shook her head.
“When I look at him, I remember what Elayne did to him. And I know it wasn’t me, but in a way it was, and I…” She exhaled shakily. “It’s time I go. I have to—the books in the Tower, I want to help the librarians preserve them, take care of them. It’ll take time.”
“Or you could stay,” said Vina. “I…” She took a step forward. “There’s so much I want to tell you.”
“No,” said Simran. Her mouth was thin. “Don’t say it. Please, Vina. Don’t.”
“Simran,” she said, voice catching. “Love. Don’t push me away. There’s nothing about you I need to be protected from.”
“Vina,” said Simran. “Don’t come here—don’t stay with me—just because you think you should.”
“That isn’t how I feel at all,” Vina said softly.
“Let me tell you how I feel,” said Simran in return, the wind blowing her hair back from her face, baring her to Vina—her fierce eyes, the swoop of her throat, the vulnerability in the shape of her mouth.
“We’ve broken and remade the world. We’ve freed ancient tales, and destroyed some too.
We’ve remade our tale into two people escaping, loving each other enough to free themselves from an old tragedy.
But I don’t know who I am anymore, and I don’t think you know who you are either, Vina.
” She swallowed, eyes shining with unshed tears, her cheeks blotchy. “I need—need time.”
Vina remembered the vow she’d made to herself, to cradle Simran’s vulnerability, to protect her when she was broken—to never be the source of her harm ever again. Never the sword to the belly, never, nevermore.
“Simran,” she said softly. “Anything you need. You have to know—I’ll give you anything. Even time apart. Even forever apart. But is it truly what you want?”
Simran closed her eyes. Vina waited, wondering what Simran would choose. The wind wrapped around them both with cold and forgiving hands.
“I want to make a bargain,” said Simran.
“I’m listening,” Vina replied.
“When the winter solstice falls, come and find me,” she said.
“Seek me out—and tell me what you want. But wait until then. Give us both time.” Simran opened her eyes, and finally she smiled—a smile that was half grief, half a mending heart.
“It does not have to be me, Vina,” said Simran. “But I hope it is.”
“Simran,” Vina said softly.
“The solstice,” Simran reminded her. And then she turned and walked away, into the mist roiling into the distance. And Vina did not stop her. She let her go.