Chapter Twenty-One Simran #2
“You saw the edges of him, our poor boy, and you turned away. It was your knight who found his name, not you! But we’ve always been a little cowardly when it comes to him.
A soft heart, and cruel hands—that’s what we have.
” She sighed. “But now here you are, in the ashes of sacred tales, with the chalice’s waters still swimming in your veins.
You can have all the answers you seek. A second chance, if you’re willing.
” She trailed her ghostly fingers through the dust of the library.
“If you’re not, we’ll die again. And I’ll live in the heart of a new young incarnate witch and wear your face in her dreams instead of Isadora’s.
But I promise you, Simran: It will be me under your ghostly face.
You will be dead as any mortal girl born and raised beyond the Isle, where stories don’t seep into the heart and puppet you. ”
The ash was swirling around her—tales burned and tales destroyed, their haunting cries filling the air. She had no choice. Elayne was raising her hands, calling the ash down, and it swallowed them both.
Her third life—
“We don’t need to do this,” said Morgaine, to her knight. “Twice, we’ve done this.” His blade was to her neck.
But she knew how pointless her plea was. She had ensorcelled him through no desire of her own—simply because the tale tugged her limbs, her magic. Made use of her.
“The Queen demands it,” he whispered. His hands were trembling.
He was not strong and clear-eyed as he’d been the first time, or even the second, when they hadn’t understood this would go on endlessly, a cycle they could not escape.
He was wide-eyed, softhearted; a farmer’s son stripped from a life he’d better loved.
He’d told her once, when he’d been deep under her enchantment, when his hands had been awash in blood, that all he desired was a cottage in the woods.
A handful of animals. Not to hunt or feast upon—to shelter and love.
She felt it, as their tale snared them tight. As his hand, without his say-so, pushed the sword through her flesh, and killed her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, tears streaming from his eyes. And then there was darkness.
By the time she was Elayne—by the time she felt the first tug of her tale, and saw her past self bloodied and weeping upon the ground, and felt the ink of it rewrite her—she knew she could not allow this to continue.
She was going to end her tale, and set herself free.
Death frightened her. It was not an old friend but an old enemy, familiar with its sharp blade, its agony. She would not allow it to have her.
I will live to be an old woman, she vowed, thinking with horror and disgust of the women who came before her, who died violently and young. I will be happy, and I will be free.
She left her childhood home and searched for other incarnates.
Surely there was at least one upon the Isle who had escaped their tale.
She traveled far, through the ancient primordial forest, in the watchful company of dryads, and journeyed to the quiet backwaters of the coast where a selkie observed her from the rocky shore, eyes lambent in the gray light.
She formed a strange friendship with an imp—a familiar with sharp teeth, bright eyes, a penchant for turning into small animals.
She strangled a Jenny Greenteeth in her own waters.
She met green children in the forest—eyes red as apples, their languages unfamiliar.
They showed her where to hide safely from witch hunters.
In a fern-laced chasm, she slept on cool soil, in darkness as gentle as a cradle.
On the outskirts of a paltry little village, on a breathless autumn morning, she found an overturned cart.
Blood. The bodies of three adults. And a child—alive, breathing, frightened.
He was only a few years younger than her but after her years of independence and her many lifetimes, he seemed like an infant in her eyes.
She was still young herself—near enough to be his sister, not his mother. But she took him in for the sake of pity. She taught him to survive. At first, she thought she would leave him at the next village she passed. But it was a poor place, unfit for his curiosity, his cleverness. The next, then.
Days and weeks vanished, and the boy grew stronger, cannier.
His presence eased the sharp edge of her loneliness.
He learned to scribe to make them coin. She, as an incarnate, could not touch limni ink without agony, but he could give mortals ink in the shape of luminous gifts, in exchange for coin. His name was Galath.
And then one day, as he slept curled on her bedding, by the fireside in deep woods, she realized she loved him. He was her family, now.
That only made what she did to him later more heinous.
Her tale was closing in on her. She’d met her knight—Perrin, with his scarred face, his lust, none of his last life’s lamblike softness. Her tale was drawing her to the Copper Mountains. The end was coming for her.
She took herself to the forest to be alone, despite Galath’s protests. But it was her right to grieve on her own. “Your right to sulk, you mean,” he muttered, but he let her go, once she made a solemn promise to return.
It was the winter solstice, and the spirits were thick between the trees. Their whispers warned her that a hunting party was on the move: a woman in white armor on a white horse, her hair blazing red, and a rose pennant upon her cloak.
The Eternal Queen was hunting. It would be sensible to leave.
Elayne was turning to go when a sound crashed through the trees, echoing on the fallen snow.
A great beast emerged from the shadows. It was monstrous, quilled and scaled simultaneously, its breath chuffing from its body.
It was bleeding from multiple arrows. Elayne could hear the braying of hounds and ghosts, and knew it would not be able to run for long.
“Follow me,” she said. “I’ll show you where you can hide from her.”
The beast seemed to understand. It followed her, eyes wary, ears flattened. She led it to the dark chasm. Its great body brushed the ferns, which seemed to grasp at it, seeking it out in return.
All night they waited in the dark, as spirits screamed and horses trampled across the forest. Finally, the brief night ended, and pale sunlight began to seep even into the dark of the chasm.
In the morning when she opened her eyes, the beast was gone. In its place lay nothing but a bowl. It was white, shallow, and filled with strange water that sparkled in the faint light.
Oddly entranced, she gazed down at it.
Drink, the water seemed to urge. Her mouth watered. Drink, and learn the truth.
She lifted the bowl in her two palms. And though it was foolish, surely foolish, she drank.
She fell.
In her mind she saw a man asleep in a broken abbey.
There was a wound through his chest. On his head he wore a crown.
Chains of ink held him fast. He looked like nothing but a boy, pure as fallen snow; he was as ancient as the sea, with a beard as gray as stone; he was a brute with blood on his knuckles, a glory of corpses at his booted feet.
He was a horror, and he was death, and he was hope. He was a tale of kings.
When Elayne woke, she knew the name the Eternal Prince. And she knew, though she could not say why, that if she freed him, she would also free herself.
“Simran? Sim? Answer me!”
What did she pay to find where the Prince slept?
There was an incarnate who wanted to be free as much as she did.
“I turned a knife to my own throat,” the woman whispered, trembling. “I tried to jump from a great height. I did many things, lady witch, and none of them would free me. But my tale’s gift is to speak truth, so if you promise to free me from my life, then I shall help you.”
“I promise,” said Elayne.
Elayne broke the woman’s neck herself. It was the least she could do. It was Galath who buried her. He planted bluebells over her grave. “It was a mercy,” Galath told her gently, eyes haunted. “You were kind.”
“Simran, please. Just say something—”
Chains of ink held the Prince in place.
The prison that held him was a broken abbey on an islet accessible only on foot at low tide, when the sea receded.
A rain of ink was lashing wildly down upon its surface.
It was surrounded by a thin patina of water—the silver sea, slick and steady as glass, so shallow now that the witch could walk laboriously across shining sand to the islet’s rocky shores, and the abbey awaiting her.
Apple trees grew strangely around the abbey, wizened and twined with one another, the apples green and blushing red.
She approached him with Galath at her side.
She gazed upon the Eternal Prince, solemn in sleep, a sword clutched to his chest. He was veiled in ink like smoke.
Chains rose from his skin. The air around him thrummed with the weight of his caged tale.
On her tongue, Elayne tasted blood and steel, the might and monstrosity of a king’s crown.
She could not concern herself with what the Eternal Prince was: what he would do, once she unchained him.
She had a task. Instead, she kneeled by his chains.
They were made of limni ink, the pure magic that all tales rose from.
Those chains were long and strong. Someone had very much wanted to trap him, and keep him trapped for eternity.
She looked upon him, this incarnate of carnage and mythic might, and did not allow herself to care for what he would do to the Isle. The beast had shown her a true vision. Setting him free would begin setting her free. It was all she wanted.
She touched his chains.
It hurt her. The tale in her screamed as the ink met her skin. Limni ink was the stuff she was made of, as an incarnate. She could not hold it. She snatched her hands back.