Chapter Twenty Vina
Chapter Twenty
Vina
In the opera of Hecate’s Daughters, the witch’s aria is a uniquely fiendish piece to perform. The witch, after all, must be both powerful and vulnerable, as guttural as any hag and as pure-toned as any tragic heroine.
Her dying lament, performed by an able performer, should bring its audience to tears.
By the end, the witch is no loathly creature.
She is a pure soul, transformed and dragged from the midden by the alchemization of pain.
The lesson of the opera is straightforward: There is no greater joy than sacrifice for Queen and country. It can save even the worst of us.
Source: Theater review by James Belafonte, The Times of London
Archivist’s Ruling: Preserve. Publication permitted. No further action required.
Simran was speaking in the other room with Hari. Through the gap in the door, through shadow, she saw them both—the embrace, the joy, the light of the moon on them. She knew what it meant.
The pale assassin was here. And this was Vina’s chance.
Hope was a funny thing. It didn’t die easily once it was ignited, but it could take a new shape. Vina had found hers.
Vina had never felt more sure of anything in her life. Her heart was beating steadily, an even and strong rhythm in her chest, as she walked toward the hall of mirrors. She felt calm.
Someone had scrounged up beeswax candles and set them around the room. The mirrors were reflecting the candlelight, making it shine brighter, mirror-strange.
There he was, haloed by that reflected light—a corona around his skull, making his pale skin blaze.
“Knight,” he said.
“Galath,” she replied.
He looked at her, unmoved. But she knew it was his name.
“You’ve let your prisoner wander freely,” said Vina. “That seems rather silly of you, I must admit. You’ve lost your leverage over Simran now.”
“He only appears free,” the pale assassin—Galath—said expressionlessly. “I made a bargain with the witch. She will fulfill it, or Hari will die.”
“You should have made a bargain with me instead,” said Vina. “I make notoriously awful deals.” She smiled, walking toward Galath fearlessly. “I’d like to make one more with you. But first, I have questions.”
“Ask them,” Galath said.
“How did Bess of Gore die?” Vina asked.
“At my hand. By my blade.”
Vina nodded slowly.
“Galath,” she said. “Did Bess ask you to kill her?”
Candlelight flickered in the assassin’s pale eyes, which swam strangely like the silver sea. “Yes,” he replied.
Simple questions, simple answers.
“Why?”
“She did not want to be an incarnate any longer. The only escape was death. But she could not give herself that gift.” He also approached her, his tread light—made for hunting.
“You have not attempted it this lifetime, perhaps. But many an incarnate has tried to escape their tale by ending their life—and all to no avail. The tale does not allow it.” His gaze flickered.
“Try and place a blade in your chest now, and you will see.”
“I’d rather not, but thank you,” said Vina. “Why did you scar her forehead with your mark?”
“So the witch would know it was me,” he said. “And, perhaps, to wish a life for Bess beyond this one.”
An endless circle. Immortality. Vina could see a strange, ritual sorrow in that act.
“You could have told Simran all this. She would have listened to you. Maybe she would have understood.”
“I have told her many times,” said Galath.
“So many that I can no longer recall all the lifetimes I begged her in, entreated her in. But the witch never trusts my words. The witch trusts no one but herself. She will do a great deal to save a loved one. Things she will not do for her own sake.” His gaze darkened.
“And even when she understood—after grief and tribulations—she refused her own death. She always hoped for an alternate path to freedom. And I could not…” A spasm of feeling crossed his face, until it smoothed to coldness again.
“In the past, I could not steal her choice from her.”
He’d loved her, once. Maybe he still did.
“This is my offer, Galath. Let Hari go, and Simran depart freely. And you can take my life. You would have been happy with my death at the hands of Lady Tristesse. You can have it now—here, by my own free will. You want the end of our tale. You’ll have it.”
A cold, searching look.
“You’d truly risk the Isle for her sake?” Galath asked.
Vina thought, in a flash, of Simran in the bed beside her.
I’d rather break the world to fit you, she’d told Simran. Not just sweet nothings. She’d been telling the truth.
“I would,” she said simply.
“This is unlike you,” said Galath, voice oddly rough. Feeling hiding under the surface.
“Is it really that much of a surprise?” She held her arms wide, an expansive gesture. “Our witch has never been much for dying. But me—I’ve always had a taste for death.”
“For murder,” Galath corrected. Finally, for the first time in this awful, hopeful tangle of a lifetime, his expression of knowing cracked, and Vina saw the grief and rage that had lain underneath it all along.
“This won’t absolve you of all the times you’ve killed her,” said the witch’s son, and mentor, and angel—all of them Galath, the man cursed with immortality. “But it will be a beginning.”
Galath had worn no visible weapon—but he raised a hand and the rust-lacquered axe appeared in his grip, as if it had swelled out of the mirror-light itself.
Vina stared at him, calm and ready. Of course she did not want to die—of course she wanted to live in the moment, forever, where Simran had smiled at her in that bed, tangled in sheets and beautiful and happy.
But she’d known since she was a child that she’d die a villain, and now she wouldn’t have to.
She couldn’t kill Simran. This was better.
“Stop!”
The mirrors sharpened, their light blazing to bright points. Simran was striding into the room. She moved in front of Vina and held her arms wide, a barrier against the axe. Hari raced in after her, skidding to a stop.
“Stranger,” Hari gasped, eyes fixed on Galath. “Don’t do this. Any of this.”
“I’m sparing your friend, Hari,” Galath said. “I thought you would be happy.”
“When I said she deserves to live I didn’t mean for you to cut someone else’s throat instead!”
“I offered my life to him, Simran,” Vina said, not looking at the assassin or Hari. Just looking at her. “You need to let this happen.”
“I bloody don’t,” Simran snapped. “No one is dying here.”
“You’d rather die tomorrow, witch?” Galath said. “Die by this knight’s hands, as you have so many times before?”
“My quest is nearly done,” Simran announced—eyes blazing, hands balled to fists.
“I have your name now. I’ve come to meet you, here at the Copper Mountains.
And I know you were raised by me—by Elayne, in my fourth lifetime.
That you came to find me again and again.
” She swallowed, visibly. “And I know,” she said, “that Elayne killed you. On a small island on the silver sea, she put a knife through your throat. But somehow you didn’t die. ”
“All true, but not enough,” Galath said, voice cold, face empty. “Why can I not die? Answer me that.”
“Some kind of magic,” said Simran. “Some magic, written in the limni ink at your brow. It was something my past self did to you—that I did to you.”
“Why can I not die?”
“Because of me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She was still standing in front of Vina, arms outstretched. Vina could see that Simran’s arms were trembling.
“I’m begging you,” Simran said, chin upraised, jaw firm with determination. “To let Hari go. Stop this.”
“I’ll release your friend,” said Galath. He drew closer, scraping the axe against the ground—an agonizing noise, sharp and high-pitched. “But I will have the knight.”
“No.”
“I won’t claim a life that I’m not asked to take,” he said. “But she has offered, and I have accepted.”
“You really want me to believe Bess asked you?” Simran was viperously angry. Vina could hear it in her voice, see it in every line of her body. “That Mary in Limehouse wanted to die?”
“Bess chose her death, yes,” said Galath. “But I know no Mary. I’ve killed incarnates in London, but none with that name.”
“She had the body of a bird. Golden feathers.” Simran sounded furious. “And you murdered her.”
“I did not take her life,” said Galath. “I told you the death I offer is a gift. I meant it. You should be thankful to your knight.” Galath’s eyes briefly met Vina’s, winter-cold. “She seeks to spare you from your tale. To free you and allow you to live.”
“Well, she can’t.” Without turning, Simran said, “You can’t, Vina.”
“Simran,” Vina said softly, gently. “There’s no other way.”
“You keep doing this,” Simran said, louder, voice rising with anger. “You keep throwing yourself away, erasing yourself, being what people need you to be even if it kills you, and I won’t allow it. You’re not dying for me. I don’t want you to.”
“Maybe I’m dying for myself, then.”
“Oh, don’t pretend.”
“I’m not pretending. Maybe I don’t want my whole life to be defined by murdering you.
” Vina’s voice was steady. “I know what the knight was and is, Simran. It’s an old evil, the business of killing the person you love.
Our tale may try and make something beautiful out of it, but I know what it is.
Power, control, destruction for the sake of honor.
But that isn’t what I want. I want this. ”
Vina stepped forward, moving around Simran. Galath stepped forward to meet her.
She heard Simran curse and felt her magic—explode.
Vina felt momentarily dazzled, lights sparking in her eyes. But the enchantment wasn’t aimed at her. Galath was doubled in half, clutching the axe. Gold light was webbed across his body.
“You can’t enchant me with your mirrors,” Galath said, voice tense with pain. “I’m beyond such trickery.”
“Then it’s good I’m not trying to enchant you, isn’t it? I’m binding you.”
A ragged laugh left Galath.