Chapter Eighteen Vina
Chapter Eighteen
Vina
Be wary of tales that offer you the truth. Truth is a cruel mistress. A lie, woven carefully into the fabric of a tale, is a kinder lover. Allow yourself to believe in happy endings, and gentle lives.
Let truth rot in the dark.
Source: Pamphlet on “Tales and Falsehoods” by Dr. Angharad Walsh
Archivist’s Ruling: Destroy. Publication barred. Unable to locate Dr. Walsh for further interrogation.
She was falling through her own lifetimes, Simran’s hand in her grip.
The memories came to her blurred. Water-stained splashes of the first knight and witch, the second, the third. She found herself hurtling, suddenly alone, no hand in her own.
Fourth life. She was on her feet in woodland, birdsong overhead. The air was muggy, thick. Her body was broad, flat-chested, her center of gravity changed.
A woman standing before her in the woods.
Vina stood with a bow in her hands—but Vina was Perrin, the fourth knight.
So often she was Tristram, her last life looming large, but she knew this version of herself too: his blond hair, his braided beard.
The scar that curled his lip. The woman was the witch, Elayne, in a guise of beauty—her hair a golden braid, her mouth a lush curve, sweet as a heart.
The bow, the almost-shooting—this was their first incarnate meeting.
Words left her mouth. Familiar, honeyed words in a deep burr of a voice.
Vina’s mind raced, even as her mouth moved.
Why had the chalice brought her here? She and Simran were not looking for their own story.
They were seeking information about the assassin.
Perrin had eyes for nothing but the witch, glowing as she was with magic and the beauty that came with it.
The witch was close, her hand on Perrin’s chin, her mouth curled into a smile.
But it was Vina, under his skin, who looked over the witch’s shoulder and saw a figure hiding behind a tree. Wide, frightened eyes. A short stature.
The witch was hiding a child. Tricking and flirting with the knight to stop him from seeing the figure behind the tree. The boy was pale-skinned and pale-eyed. Vina knew immediately, with a twist of shock, who he was.
Was Simran behind the witch’s eyes, seeing this too? Did she know?
The memory blurred again, streaming into rivulets of ink.
She saw lifetimes of the witch, dozens of them: Elayne with a child, his hand in her own; the witch Ismene drawing a blood circle in the dirt, a man watching over them.
The male witch Rowan, bleeding, dying, as the pale assassin lifted him, sorrow in the assassin’s mercurial eyes. Rowan’s shaky voice.
Who are you, angel?
The pale assassin’s lips parted.
Finally, she heard it. A name.
The images were gone. She began to rise up, up through the memories, a ladder of lives falling into the abyss beneath her.
Why could he not die? Why?
Simran was the one who knew the pale assassin. He’d always been dismissive of Vina, never quite taking note of her in the same way. Vina was a means to an end to him. Simran was the end.
In another life, the witch had cared for him when he was a child. She’d loved him. And then he’d lived—through hundreds of Simran’s lifetimes, he’d followed her.
He really was some kind of immortal.
And it was the witch who’d made him what he was. Vina felt that in her bones.
But why?
Her eyes snapped open, and her gaze met Simran’s. They were still standing upright, the chalice in their shared grip. Vina felt terribly, unnaturally cold. They’d traveled very far. They’d not moved at all.
She watched Simran swallow, face gray. Simran said, “Put the chalice down. Now. I think I’m going to be sick.”
Vina hurriedly put it down on the altar. Simran turned away and crumpled to the ground. She wasn’t sick, but she was breathing unsteadily, deep and heaving breaths.
“What do you need, Simran?” Vina asked. She didn’t touch her; just watched her shoulders rise and fall, rise and fall.
“Nothing. I’m fine. Fine. I just.” Simran squeezed her eyes shut, as if she were in pain. “I’ve spoken to Isadora before, but I’ve never dived into my older lives like this. It’s… it’s shaken me.”
Vina looked at her sharply.
“You’ve spoken to Isadora? You’ve had—conversations?”
“Yes.” Simran hesitated, expression vulnerable, lips blue with cold. “Is that strange?”
“It’s unusual,” said Vina, carefully. “I know that what incarnates experience isn’t talked about widely beyond our own circles”—and those circles were under the thumb of the Queen, a fate Simran had avoided—“but we… we see our past selves, but they’re echoes.
All I see is Tristram weeping. He cannot speak to me. He’s—not a whole person, any longer.”
Simran didn’t appear as if she were listening. She’d turned her head away.
Vina took a risk and leaned down. She said, “Simran.” Gentle, ever so gentle. She placed a hand against Simran’s back. “Simran,” she said again.
“Stop saying my name,” Simran said, but her breathing was easing.
“You’re not Elayne,” said Vina. “Not Rowan. Not Isadora.”
A choked laugh. “You know more of my names than I do.”
Vina said nothing. She could feel Simran’s back, warm under her hand.
“It’s something I did,” Simran whispered. “Some past version of me, lifetimes ago. Hundreds, I think. Maybe thousands. I did this to him. I just don’t know how or why.”
“Maybe it’s enough to know that.”
“I can’t risk Hari’s life on maybe.” She stood up abruptly.
“The assassin’s angry with me,” said Simran.
“Or with the witch. And the witch is me, whether I like it or not. I need to face him and—I don’t know.
Apologize. Beg. Grovel. At least he may show mercy to Hari, even if he won’t show it to me. ”
Vina recalled the assassin holding the witch Rowan. His grief-stricken eyes. “I’m not convinced he hates you,” she said.
She snorted.
“He wants me dead,” she said. “Of course he hates me.”
Simran walked forward through the mist. Then she stopped, and said, “I need your help, Vina.”
“What do you need of me?”
“Hold some of my hair. Like this.”
“Anything you need,” Vina said, obediently gathering the glossy weight steady in her hand, keeping it taut. Simran flicked her fingers, calling a flame. She severed a hank away with a hot stench of burning. It left her hair uneven, jagged in a way that oddly suited Simran’s own lovely sharpness.
Simran took the shorn hair, then turned back to the rolling mist.
“Beast,” Simran called. “Thank you for letting us pass.” She bowed forward. “A gift.”
There was silence. Then, a rustle of movement; a guttural noise.
Vina thought of the assassin, his buried lock of hair and the magic in it.
She understood, in her magicless way, how much that tangle of black hair in Simran’s palm mattered.
And so, somehow, did the Beast. Its reptilian snout appeared through the dark and the mist; its eyes narrowed to slits, not with anger, but a kind of heavy-lidded gentleness.
It sniffed at Simran’s palm again. Its maw opened, taking the offering from her.
Then it vanished back into the misty darkness.
Simran balled her hand into a fist.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Ophelia was waiting for them in the outer hall.
“You’re alive!” Ophelia said, with disturbing cheer. Then her voice smoothed back into no-nonsense practicality again. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Not all of it,” said Simran tightly. “What happens if I attempt to drink again?”
Vina wanted to caution her not to do it. Simran was already gray-faced, already trembling. The vision had not hit Vina as hard and she still felt terribly cold, uneasy in her skin. But Ophelia was already shaking her head.
“Once, and only once,” she said. “All tales have rules, and that’s one for the chalice. Was it a chalice this time?”
“It was,” Vina confirmed. “Pity, really. I was hoping for something more novel.”
Ophelia smiled weakly, more for pity than because she’d found Vina actually amusing—or so Vina guessed. There was a faint crackle of magic about her—a strangeness like the mist that surrounded the Beast.
“The library has one last gift of knowledge for you, witch,” said Ophelia. “It’s an old fragment of a tale—I don’t know what it means, but perhaps you will.”
She gestured at the bookshelves behind her.
The books had fallen to the floor, as if swept down in a rage or a storm.
One torn page lay apart from them, glowing with its own whiteness.
There was an illustration on the center of the page.
Vina caught a brief glimpse of water before Simran took the page from Ophelia’s hand, looked at it, then tucked it into her skirt.
“The magic will stay in you for a while,” Ophelia said. “Chin up. You may have some more revelations yet. Now—your way out is down the corridor you entered by.”
They walked down the long empty corridor. At the entrance, there was no sign of the other librarians, but Vaughan was waiting for them alone. Relief rushed over his face.
“You’re alive,” he said. “I’m so glad.”
“Where is Cora?” Vina asked, when Simran made no sound.
“She didn’t think you’d come back,” said Vaughan. “The Beast isn’t always—forgiving. But you did, so it’s all fine.” His voice was bright. “Where will you go now?”
“On our quest,” said Simran, voice returning. She sounded rough, hoarse. “Thank you for your help, Vaughan. Give our thanks to Cora too.”
She swept out. Vina gave her own goodbyes, then followed her.
“Will I see you again?” Vaughan called.
Vina turned back at the door, and smiled, and said, “I hope so.”
Simran didn’t stop until the chasm was behind them, the library beyond their reach. Vina wasn’t sure she’d be able to find it again.
“Simran,” she said gently. She wanted to tell Simran she had the assassin’s name—that she had a little more knowledge Simran could use. But Simran was already speaking, quick and sharp.