Chapter Twelve Vina #2
“Doesn’t it leach the joy from your life?” Simran asked, her voice so empty it surely had to be hiding a symphony of emotion. “Knowing your death is written, and that it’s cruel, young, unavoidable—doesn’t it make it harder to do more than survive?”
“I think you’ve been doing well,” Vina said gently. “I saw your flat. You’ve got friends. Work.”
“Illegal work.”
“Work you’re good at,” said Vina. “Work you value. Those tattoos on your arms—they’re beautiful.
” She gestured her fingertips at the black roses winding down Simran’s arms, thorny and lush-petaled, visible where Simran’s sleeves were rolled up to bare her forearms. “You love so many things. You have a good life. Maybe your death is fixed—and I hope it isn’t—but what you’ve built in the time you’ve won is meaningful. ”
“I didn’t ask about me,” Simran said, after a beat. “I asked about you.”
Vina didn’t know what made her be honest then.
“My father is a government minister. High up. Very important—he’s damnably proud of it.
He’s old money, blue blood, so perhaps it all should have come to him easily—and it did, truly—but he thought he’d lost his chance.
When he was younger, you see, he had a ‘misalliance’ with a dancer from Elsewhere.
She got in the family way. But it wouldn’t have been a scandal, I think, if he hadn’t wanted to marry her.
” She looked at the way the flames danced their lights on Simran’s skin, making her tattoos shimmer.
“Anyway, his family convinced him not to go through with it. He stayed with her until she…” Vina shrugged.
“Went missing. Or left. Who knows? I was two years old. I don’t remember, and my father doesn’t speak of it.
But he kept me, loved me, raised me. When he married, he made sure his new wife would be kind to me.
When he realized what I was, how I’d die…
I think it made it hard. To, well. Keep loving me.
“I find he somewhat set the pattern of my life. I’ve spent a great deal of my life training to become the knight I must be. And all the people who’ve known me, met me, have known the shape of my death. I understand that makes it difficult for them.”
“Vina,” said Simran. “I asked about you.”
Vina gave her a blank look. “I’ve told you about me.”
Simran stared back, just as unblinking, then heaved out a sigh and turned her head away.
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “Let’s just try and sleep.”
Vina knew she’d said something that had angered—or upset?—Simran. But she was prickly, and apologizing was likely to only make her angrier. So when Simran lay down, Vina crossed her arms and sat on the ground to keep watch.
It took only a moment for Vina to rise to a crouch.
“Simran,” she said. “Do you see them?”
Simran sat up. “See wh—?” She stopped, head raised. “Oh.”
The will-o’-the-wisps were gathering into a spool of light, one rope of fae light twisting between the trees. They were a shining thread, pulsing in the air above both Simran and Vina. Their light was cold, lovely—as remote and pale as starlight.
Simran was on her feet. Vina quickly followed suit, as Simran hefted up her pack and began to walk.
“You shouldn’t follow them,” said Vina. “Their whole purpose is to lead travelers away from the path.”
“That’s good,” said Simran, “since we’re not trying to find the path. We’re looking for darkness. That means we’re looking to get lost.” She continued to walk, following the light of the wisps.
She didn’t check if Vina was behind her, but of course Vina was. She strode forward, following the lights and the silhouette of her witch.
She felt a—twinge. Looked down.
The light of the fae geas was blinking in and out under her skin. As if it were struggling against something. Simran came to a dead stop in front of her. Vina moved to stand beside her.
The will-o’-the-wisps had settled in a cloud of foaming light above a clearing, studded with bushes of holly. The air smelled overpoweringly of the scents of all seasons—summer’s wheat and spring’s bright narcissi; autumn’s golden decay and winter’s evergreen.
Gold eyes flashed, lamp-like, across Vina’s vision.
The doe, a voice called. It was deep, susurrating. Give us the doe, tale-born.
Vina took a step forward. Simran grasped her arm.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be here,” Simran said.
“I think it’s a little too late,” Vina said faintly in return. She could not resist the tug of her own feet. “If I—if something is wrong—”
“If you’re getting yourself killed, I’m going to run and save my own hide, I swear it,” Simran hissed.
“Good girl,” Vina managed, then found herself jerking forward into the clearing, under a halo of light.
The scent of seasons grew stronger still, and Vina felt ancient fingers rummaging in her skull. It was the deer she saw then in her mind’s eye—the herd in Gore, darting through the trees. The shadows consuming them.
She felt Simran’s hands grasp her sleeve.
Simran was murmuring some terrible magic under her breath, but her witch-gift of blood and bone and earth was nothing to this ancient power.
There was a wrench, and suddenly Vina was in Simran’s arms, the two of them stumbling back.
And before them was a pale will-o’-the-wisp in the sparkling, faded shape of a lambent-eyed deer.
The deer from Gore. She knew it. She’d seen it die.
“Come on, you fool,” Simran muttered, dragging Vina farther back. They were at the edge of the clearing again when a figure emerged.
A man, in a great cloak of oak leaves. A crown of mistletoe haloed his forehead, which was fleshly—ruddy-skinned, with thick eyebrows, set over brown eyes.
“Wild-man,” whispered Vina, awed. Now there was an old tale, and a powerful incarnate. Was he the source of all these great, mist-flecked woods?
The wild-man—the wodwos—bowed his head to her, giving a blink of his brown eyes.
He reached out a hand and placed it on the deer’s muzzle.
It lowered its head. And then, with the ponderous weight of his own magic and the green mantle at his shoulders, he vanished back into the trees, the deer alongside him.
The clearing closed behind him, swallowed by trees.
Abruptly, the will-o’-the-wisps were gone too. They were alone in the moonlight.
Simran looked just as awed as Vina felt. For once, Simran’s face was oddly vulnerable—her eyes wide, her mouth a little parted.
“I felt that,” Simran whispered. “He saved the deer. Or some little speck of their magic that was in you. How did I not feel it? How did I not know—?”
“You were hardly checking me for magic,” said Vina.
“The fae geas must have concealed it,” Simran muttered. She brushed her hair back with one restless hand. “Lydia and her like won’t believe it,” she said. “Some cunning folk have a soft spot for the men of the woods. They’ll be so jealous.”
She spoke lightly, as if she felt nothing but a kind of crowing satisfaction. But Vina could still see her wide eyes—and the hand she’d splayed over her heart, like she could clasp a fragile fluttering feeling, a new-formed joy, and hold it close forever.
It wasn’t the sharp words she should trust. It was Simran’s actions.
They went back to their fire. Simran stoked the flames this time, as Vina looked through Simran’s pack. Simran looked distant, a little elated. It had been an overwhelming experience for Vina, who had no magic. She couldn’t imagine how it had felt to the witch.
Vina paused in her rummaging.
“Have you even looked in this pack, Simran?”
“No. It’s bloody heavy, though.”
Vina pulled out two cloaks first—both thinly woven, but oddly warm under her hands. Bespelled, surely, with the kind magic of cunning folk. Then, like a prince holding aloft a fabled sword, Vina raised up the true spoils she’d unearthed from the pack: two bottles of wine.
Finally, Simran’s lost wonder cracked into laughter.
“Godsblood, we deserve a drink,” she exclaimed. “Pass it here.”
“You’ll never get the cork out.”
“I’ve spent most of my life in molly-houses, Sir Vina. I know how to uncork a bottle of wine.”
In the end, it was Vina who got the cork out, using a little knife while Simran directed her. They wrapped themselves in the cloaks, then passed the bottle back and forth. The wine was cheap and strong enough to knock down an ox.
They drank together. Maybe they drank too fast and too deep, but these were strange and perilous times, and they deserved it.
Vina was leaning back against one tree, Simran another. Under the moonlight Simran looked flushed and hazy-eyed, more relaxed than Vina had ever seen her.
“Tell me,” Vina said.
“What?”
“What you’re thinking.” She meant it. If she could have plucked the thoughts from Simran’s head and laid them out, tender under her fingers, she would have done it.
“I think… I’m glad,” said Simran. “I grew up around those deer. They were sweet. Sometimes I’d cut up apples into half moons with Bess and we’d feed them together. I’m glad a little bit of them can survive now, even if Bess is gone.”
Her smile was soft, a little lopsided. It made Vina’s heart tip like a ship on high seas.
God, the witch was beautiful. But that had never been in doubt, and Vina would be a fool to do more than notice it.
She had to wrap all that noticing, that nascent want blooming in her belly, away.
Godsblood, Lavinia Morgan, don’t be a fool—
“And are you glad I’m here with you?”
“Why would I be glad of that?” Simran asked tartly. Then she shook her head, and said, “I am. I—it’s a damn shame you are what you are, and I’m what I am. You’re not so bad, Vina.” She sighed, tilting her head back. “It’s been a strange night. It feels like we’re outside of time.”
Simran was smiling, a little, her sharpness folded away. It made Vina want.
What does it hurt to offer something? If it wasn’t wanted—there was no harm in that. Vina expected nothing, generally. She expected nothing now. But it was sweet and easy to stand, and cross the ground, and move to kneel on the cool soil in front of Simran’s bent legs.
Simran looked back at her—something expectant in those dark eyes.
Vina reached a hand out. Not quite touching.
“If you want, I could…”
“You could what?” Simran whispered.
“There’s a sorry business waiting for us in the morning,” Vina said, with the softness of a fingertip on skin—the touch she hadn’t given, the touch she yearned to give.
“It wouldn’t mean anything,” Vina said gently.
“You wouldn’t be misleading me, or making promises you didn’t intend to make.
But you are beautiful, and I like you very much.
” She leaned a little closer; an inch, a breath. “Let me kiss you, Simran.”
Simran looked back, lashes half lowered.
“You think I trust you enough for that?”
“I don’t know,” said Vina. “But I’m asking.”
Simran grasped her wrist. She was stronger than she looked. Her narrow fingers were like iron.
“What do you want, Vina?” Her eyes were searching, her mouth firm. “Tell me what you want.”
That was simple. Easy.
“I want to make you happy,” said Vina.
Simran’s expression shuttered.
“Get lost,” she said flatly. She let Vina go.
“Ah, well,” Vina said lightly. “You can’t blame me for trying.” She winked, and with a laugh went to seek out the last dregs in the wine bottle. Simran rose to her feet behind her, fury in her eyes.
“Must you always laugh, and smile, and play the fool?” Simran seethed. “I know that’s not what you are. Do you?” Her hands clenched into fists, then abruptly lowered to her sides. “I’m going for a walk. Don’t follow me. I mean it.”
She stormed away. Vina watched her go, laughter dying in her throat. She lowered the wine. She didn’t want it anymore.
She waited. The night was full of the whisper of trees, the hoot of owls. Simran didn’t come back.
Vina scrubbed a hand roughly over her eyes, then walked off in the opposite direction.
She thought of the fae lord. Fire burned under her skin, half wine, half fae magic.
“You’re lucky,” they had said, “that your mortal overlords have not yet realized your witch was born beyond the Isle. But they will, and then I ask you to consider what is more dangerous: the pale assassin who lies beyond these walls, or the dangers that lie within them?”
“What do you mean?” Vina had asked.
“Our bargain is done, fair knight,” they’d replied.
“And there is no more I want from you. I shall tell my kindred of your interest in the Merciless Maiden. I’m sure she’ll be very glad such a thoughtful knight keeps her in her heart.
” Their fingers had brushed her cheek. “Thank you for your payment,” they’d murmured. “It was very sweet.”
A shudder ran through her. There was water ahead; a true babbling brook, dancing under moonlight with silver fish.
Why did I try and kiss her? Vina thought deliriously, kneeling by the water. Mud on her knees. Why did I offer to please her? There was no world where Simran would have said yes.
In the black water of the river she saw her reflection waver, liquid.
Her own face flickered, for a moment, growing harsher angles—a broader jaw, and blond hair, and eyes a burning summer’s day.
Blood across the bridge of a nose, flecked against a cheek.
Then her face returned, golden brown, unstained and water-fragile, angles unforgiving without a necessary smile to soften them.
Vina let her mouth uptick into a more comforting shape. There she was again: mild, charming, soft-eyed. The bloodied monster under the surface, the knight who’d killed their love and would do it again, and again, and again, was gone. For now.
There was no easy path to love from here. Not for her and Simran.
That was good.
She started to rise unsteadily to her feet when she felt something cold and sharp at her back.
“Well, well,” a woman’s voice said softly. “What are you?”