Chapter Twenty-Two Vina
Chapter Twenty-Two
Vina
As the father of an incarnate, I understand your fears intimately.
When incarnates falter, we all suffer. But I’ve seen the mettle of today’s incarnates through my daughter, and I assure you we have nothing to fear.
My Lavinia is willing to lay down her life for Queen and country.
She, like every incarnate, places the Isle before her own well-being.
I only strive to humbly follow her example.
Source: Transcription of speech by Minister Morgan
Archivist’s Ruling: Preserve. Publication permitted. No further action required.
They held her in the Tower. Before it was an archive, it was a prison, of course. There was no place better fit to hold Vina.
There were guards on her room every day and night.
She had windows at least—nothing large enough to squeeze through, or she would have tried to.
She was haunted by the usual horrors of the Tower—the wails and cries of ghosts; the itch of being so close to so many incarnate tomes.
She dreamt of that illustration of a wounded king, and the broken table beneath the Palace, oozing chains.
She dreamt that those chains were roots, worming their way deep under the Palace itself.
She was kept alone for days.
She kept thinking of Simran, alone and stricken, on that mountain. The idea of returning to her wasn’t even a comfort. Their reunion was going to be death for both of them.
There were carvings on the walls, old graffiti from prisoners long gone. Vina added her own marks with the edge of a spoon: a tower, rising above a mountain. A sky of stars. One good memory, crudely preserved in stone.
One evening the door clanged open. An archivist entered.
“Come,” said the man at the door. It was the young archivist she’d met the first time she came to the Tower. He’d fixed his glasses. He wasn’t looking at her, shame in the shape of his mouth. “Minister Morgan has come to speak with you.”
She was led along the battlements from her tower to another.
This tower was far more lavishly appointed, with a great burning fireplace, light pouring in the windows, and a vase of flowers on the table beside the chairs where her father and his wife sat.
A much more pleasant environment than her cell, to be sure.
Her father looked tired and anxious, his hair somehow grayer. Laura was next to him, her hand on his arm in silent comfort. They both stood when Vina walked in.
“Father? Laura?”
“Lavinia,” said her father. He didn’t reach for her. His fists spasmed, then closed. His gaze fixing briefly on the archivist who followed Vina in, and the guard who remained by the door. “Are they treating you properly? Tell me if there’s anything you need, and I’ll arrange it.”
“I have what I need,” said Vina. “Don’t worry.” Everything she’d eaten had tasted like ashes, but nothing was going to taste good to her now. “Sit, Father. Laura. See, I’ll join you.”
They all sat. The archivist placed himself in a chair at a distance, by the wall.
“They didn’t want me to see you,” said her father. “Thank God, I have some clout yet. The Queen couldn’t refuse me an audience with my own daughter. Vinny, God help you. Why did you run? What did you think you’d achieve?”
“You can’t outrun your tale, sweet girl,” Laura murmured. Nor, her gentle yet judgmental mien seemed to say, should you want to.
Vina couldn’t feel foolish after what she’d seen and done. She’d met an ancient Beast, drunk from a chalice of knowledge, kissed Simran on a mist-limned mountain tor.
“I had to,” she said simply. “Why have you come?”
Her father blinked at her.
“Why? Vinny, you’re imprisoned.”
“Have you come to get me released?”
“That won’t be possible,” Laura said gently. “Darling girl, we must trust the archivists. But we do want to do anything we can to make sure you’re comfortable.”
Vina shook her head. This was where she was meant to comfort them—put their fears at ease.
This was where she was meant to smile or laugh, slouch back in her chair, say how much she’d enjoy a tea right now, or better yet, a really good glass of wine.
Tell me, Father, do you still have that excellent port in the cellar?
Do you think you could sneak me a bottle in?
Yes, yes, Father, I know I’m foolish, I never take anything seriously, but I’ll be fine, fine—
Simran’s voice flashed through her mind, sharp as a good knife.
You keep doing this. 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.
I won’t allow it.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Vina said dully.
Her father stared back at her. His throat worked.
“Why not?” he asked. He sounded baffled.
She didn’t know what to say. Her mind was filled with the quiet grief she’d felt, the burning loneliness, all those childhood years in the Palace. He in Westminster, she under the Queen’s aegis, never in the same orbit.
Her father leaned forward and covered her hand with his own.
“Lavinia,” her father said. “You’re my daughter.”
She looked down at his hand over her own. His skin was paper-thin—under his signet ring, his heavy gold watch, his skin was old. Her father was growing old.
“Stay,” she heard herself say. Her voice cracked.
“What?”
“Stay with me,” she said. “I’ve never asked you for anything, Father. But stay with me before the end.”
Her father cleared his throat.
“The archivists won’t allow it, dear girl.”
“You told me you have clout,” said Vina. “I know you do. Use it for me, Father. Please. I…” It wrenched her to say it. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Vinny—”
“Please.”
“Vinny.” His hand lifted, leaving her own cold. “You must see it isn’t possible, dear girl.”
Laura and her father were looking at her with pity. It was as if they were a thousand miles away from her. She could not reach them.
Would you have loved me if I were not an incarnate? She wanted to say it. Her mouth almost shaped the words. But it was as if there was no air in her.
She thought she remembered times before—with her father, when he’d walked with her on the golden autumn leaves outside his countryside estate, when he’d pointed out leverets and songbirds alike, when he’d loved her.
But sometimes it felt like she hadn’t really existed before the moment in the orangery when Tristram had wept at her feet.
Sometimes she was not sure if those golden memories were anything more than a child’s wistful hope.
Her heart wasn’t breaking. This was an old wound, an old pain.
“All will be well, darling,” said Laura. “You’ll see.”
It was time to smile. It was time to smooth the sadness from her father’s brow. Vina could not make her face move.
“I’m tired,” she said thinly. She was not tired.
There was a creak of wood; the archivist standing, and the guard stepping forward from their watch at the door.
“Escort the minister beyond the Tower’s walls,” said the archivist.
The guard ushered her father and Laura out. The door was locked behind them. Vina, alone with the archivist, slumped back in her chair.
“I never asked your name when we first met,” Vina said.
“Percy Archer,” he said. She heard the rustle of his robes. He’d walked over to her. “I’m sorry you’re suffering, sir knight,” said Archer, his voice subdued. “But if it’s any assurance, this will be over soon.”
Now she found her habitual smile—a tug at her lips, something to set him at ease even if her own heart was a dull thud in her chest.
“Tell me, Archivist Archer,” she said. “I’m curious about your work. You keep all the tales of the Isle, don’t you?”
His shoulders relaxed. An easy question.
“Of course we do,” he said.
“I’m curious about a tale I heard once, half told,” she said. “I know only a little of it, but I would dearly love to know the whole. Can you help me?”
He nodded, eyes alight.
“Of course I can,” he said. “Sharing tales, instructing—these are an archivist’s greatest joy.”
“Here is what I know of the story. There is a man,” she said, “on a barge, being carried over silver water. He wears the crown of a king. He’s mortally wounded, but he slumbers and he rises again.
When people tell his tale they say, I live and live again.
Eternal.” She cocked her head. “Who is he, Archer?”
The archivist stared at her silently, the color draining from his face.
“A guard will collect you in a moment,” he said stiffly, and walked out of the room. The door clanged shut behind him, lock and all.
They came for her in the darkest hours of the night.
Her sleep had been uneasy, uneven, but they still caught her unawares, dragging her out of bed, one guard grasping each arm roughly.
Two guards, three young archivists—no sign of Archer.
The candles they carried flickered in the blackness, turning their faces ghoulish.
They dragged her to a new room. Inside was a reclining operating chair, and one precious bottle of limni ink, still stoppered.
Apollonius Roland was seated on an armchair, watching as Archivist Sharma—Meera—arranged scribe needles of various sizes on a table.
Dozens of candles were lit, bathing the room in a warm glow.
“I would have preferred daylight for this,” said Apollonius. “But the minister’s interference delayed our work.”
“Are you chiding me, sir, or apologizing?” Vina asked.
She was slammed down onto the reclining chair—her sleeves were forcibly rolled up.
Her arms were strapped down with bands of leather, buckles of brass.
As soon as the guards strapped her into place, Apollonius waved them off. They left the room.
Only she, Apollonius, and Meera were left.
“How,” Apollonius said into the silence, “did you learn of the Eternal Prince?”
Vina said nothing.
Apollonius rose from his seat. He rolled up his own sleeves.
“If it was from the library,” he said mildly, “then you’ll be glad to know we burned it to the ground.”