Chapter Eleven Simran
Chapter Eleven
Simran
The water keeps rising, but the knights will not let us leave.
They say it’s a tale—our town drowns, and a lake called Semerwater rises in its place.
They say a woman called ‘Mother’ or some such foretold it.
They say some of us escape, but they don’t yet know who.
But I cannot leave or the tale may shatter, and no good Isle folk would allow for that.
They say this is the fifth time our town will drown.
That a new town will appear when one day Semerwater dries up, and new folk will move in, and everything will happen again.
I want to be good. I am staying. I am staying.
I do not want to drown.
Source: Diary of Jane Sheavers (deceased)
Archivist’s Ruling: Destroy. No further action required.
They made it to Limehouse the unmagical way—on foot—which meant Simran arrived outside her home sweaty and exhausted, too hot in her ludicrous starch-stiff gown.
Usually she would have stripped the damn thing off, propriety or watchers be damned.
But this time, the knight was with her. She needed the armor of clothes around the knight.
The glow had faded from the knight’s skin, and she looked human again; mild, disturbingly handsome, quick to smile when Simran met her eyes.
But Simran couldn’t forget the way the knight had moved when she’d attacked her friends—the look in her eyes, cold as flint, the angles of her face turned austere and ferocious.
The knight wore her easy smiles like a mask, like camouflage. What lay under the surface should have frightened Simran, but she found herself… intrigued. A dark, squirming curiosity was awake in her chest, a black flame she couldn’t extinguish.
It was better to think of that, than think of the wyvern. Its neck under her hands. Its dead body, falling from the night-dark sky. When she’d somehow ripped the collar of ink, she’d caused its flight—and contributed to its death. Guilt ate at her.
Don’t think of it. Think of Hari. Think of saving him.
Think of breaking the stranger’s throat with your own hands.
The knight was silent when Simran stepped forward to the staircase that led to her flat and whistled. The lantern bird unfolded from the light hanging above the steps; it flapped frantically.
“Tell your mistress I need her urgently,” said Simran.
The bird flew away, and Simran climbed the stairs. She heard the knight follow her.
“That was a beautiful creature,” the knight said. “One of yours?”
“I didn’t make it, no.”
Her scriptorium was exactly as she’d left it—messy. The burn marks were as livid as scars on the floor. Simran walked straight into the room, leaving the knight hovering in the doorway.
“Is this your home?” Vina asked.
“You’re welcome to come in and take a seat if you want,” Simran muttered. “Have you seen a cat anywhere?”
“This is the first place anyone will search for you,” the knight observed.
“I know that,” said Simran. “But I have to speak to someone. This is the only place I can do it.”
There was a knot of anxiety in her chest.
Come soon, Lydia.
The knight could move quietly when she wanted to. Simran went to her work desk, rifling through her supplies—her other needles, her scrawled notes on spellwork—and nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the knight’s voice to her left, by the narrow window.
“No cats here.”
“Shit. Do you have to creep around like that?”
“Ah,” the knight said, a smile twitching at her mouth. “Sorry about that.”
The knight stepped away.
Simran took a deep breath. Her box of inks was still pristine. She hadn’t knocked over anything in surprise, at least. She delicately lifted out her single vial of limni ink and held it in the palm of her hand. She’d take this with her.
She had a thin leather case for carrying her needles and her ink. She packed it now and tucked it into a satchel that she threw over her shoulder.
There was a thud, and another, outside the flat. Simran whirled, facing the door. Vina tensed, one hand moving perilously close to her sword hilt.
Simran raised her own hand. Wait.
It was Lydia who came up the stairs, and Simran’s relief was like a deluge of rain on parched soil. But her relief quickly died at the look on Lydia’s face.
Lydia crossed the room and grasped Simran by the arm.
“You were foolish to come back here,” said Lydia. “But I’m glad you have. Is this your knight?”
Vina and Simran exchanged looks.
“How do you know about her?” Simran asked.
“You were in the papers, Simran,” Lydia explained. “They did a nice likeness of you.”
Damn. Of course the newspapers had written about her. A new incarnate, brought home, was a coup. Proof the government were doing what was needful. She ground her teeth.
“Something’s wrong,” Simran said. “Tell me what it is, please.”
“Where’s Hari?” Lydia asked.
Simran swallowed.
“We found trouble in Gore,” she said thinly. “But he’s going to be fine. I’m going to find him. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”
Lydia gave her a searching look, but didn’t press her with further questions. That, more than anything, confirmed to Simran that something was seriously amiss. Lydia cared about Hari too much to let Simran’s platitudes go unquestioned.
“We’ve been facing some trouble,” Lydia said carefully. Her gaze flicked to the knight, then back to Simran. She wasn’t sure if she could trust a stranger.
Simran couldn’t reassure her. She didn’t know if she could trust the knight either.
“Sounds like something we should talk about properly,” said Simran. “Wait for me outside?”
“Gladly,” said Lydia. “Be quick, Simran.” She gave the knight a nod and left, closing the door softly behind her.
Simran inhaled slowly; exhaled.
Cracked her knuckles.
Her magic was a whip-crack of power, lashing out of the wall behind the knight. The knight was fast, there was no denying that. She leapt forward and ducked, avoiding the net of magic that was intended to snare her. One of her boots hit the edge of the scorch-marked floor.
There was enough magic left in those burns for Simran to tug the dregs out and snare the knight by the foot.
The knight fell forward, almost smashing her face against the floor.
She threw an arm out in front of her, taking her own weight on her right arm instead of her nose.
That gave Simran enough time to trap her properly, lines of magic binding the knight in a bundle to the floor.
“Simran!”
“Knight,” Simran said flatly. “I’m glad you helped me leave the Palace, but I can do the rest on my own.”
“You can’t fight the pale assassin alone,” the knight snapped. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“Pale assassin, is it? I suppose the name suits him. You clearly know things about him that I don’t. Care to share?”
“We have a lot to talk about,” said the knight. “If you’ll just let me go…”
“Why should I? Because you helped me when Bess died? Because you taught me a silly dance to please the Queen? That was very nice of you. You’re certainly an expert at playing nice.
” She could feel the sneer in her voice, curling her lip, as she looked at the knight on the floor: her bared throat, her narrowed eyes.
Simran’s skin itched, electric, looking at the knight, and that just made her angrier.
To want what was going to kill you—that was a shame she couldn’t stand.
“But I don’t trust you. I’ve got no reason to trust you.
If it hadn’t been for our shared tale, we never would have given each other a second glance. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Simran, please,” the knight begged. Her eyes were dark, fierce. “You don’t understand what’s at stake.”
Simran didn’t respond. She went into her bedroom—grabbed one of Hari’s shirts, and her own trousers.
She stripped off the awful gown, leaving it in a pile on the floor as she pulled on the shirt, the trousers, her satchel of needles and ink.
Then she went back out to the knight, who wasn’t struggling anymore.
The knight was lying still on her side, gold squirming under her skin, the bonds of Simran’s magic holding her body still.
Simran stopped beside her. The knight looked up.
“Don’t worry,” said Simran. “We’ll meet again. When you put a sword through my ribs, obviously. I’ll look forward to it.”
“You’re going to ensorcel me first,” said the knight. “You seem to have conveniently forgotten that. Our story doesn’t begin with me just flailing a sword at you.”
“I have no interest in ensorcelling you.”
“And I have no interest in killing you,” Vina retorted. “But that is the point, isn’t it? What we want doesn’t matter. I’ve known it all my life.” Her hands shook, straining against her bonds. Not so placid after all. “We aren’t our tale. We just have to serve it.”
“Is that what you tell yourself? That’s sweet,” Simran said, mockery curling her lips, her voice.
“But I saw you with your friends. I saw your face when they made you angry. The knight of our tale was charismatic and beautiful… and a brute. Under that golden hair, he was a man who killed the woman he loved for honor and because he wasn’t good for anything but killing. Isn’t that all you are too?”
The knight flinched as if struck.
“I don’t know what you think you saw,” the knight said, “but I am a knight, not just the knight. A soldier of the Queen. I have to fight and I have to kill, but by my own choice—if there’s an alternative, I’ll take it.”
The deer in the forest. The knight’s gentle voice, her hand outstretched. Simran banished the thought.
“You could have gutted the both of them, and you wanted to,” Simran snapped back. “I saw it in your face. You would have done it if I hadn’t stopped you.”
“You’re no different from me, lady witch,” said the knight. “And you know it. You’re built for dark arts and cruel tricks. Do you even fight your nature?”