Chapter Twenty-Three Simran #3
The Isle did not stand alone. It could not stand alone. She should have realized it. How else had she been born on one land, an incarnate of another? The tales moved. That was their nature. And in moving, they changed.
Here, beyond the Isle’s borders, on an islet where a great incarnate tale slept, she could draw on a great power that even the Queen couldn’t touch. Stories stretched everywhere, were dreamt everywhere, and drifted on the same waters.
The water was full of so many other blood-soaked tales. All the ones she’d resisted, when she’d drunk from the chalice of knowledge. Many were not her own. But some were.
Here, she could remember the tales of her childhood.
Her father had loved his ghazals; had recited great poems of great lovers, as she’d listened, half slumbering in the midday heat.
She’d adored those tales, before coming to the Isle had taken them from her.
She remembered now how they had made her feel, the queer twisting in her chest, that she now understood was recognition.
There was a riot of tale-magic around her, ink swarming at her needles and her fingertips, waiting to take shape. It hurt and burned, but that did not frighten her anymore.
She grasped at the ink with all that remained of her strength. Her head rose, and her eyes met Elayne’s for one last time.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “When I change our story, you’ll be gone.”
“But we’ll live,” said Elayne, face firming with hope and determination. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Do it.”
She dredged all those stories that made up Simran and wound them through their tale. Weaving words. Writing them into the sand, working them into the Isle as if the sand were its very skin.
Once there was a witch—
Once there was a girl, on a ship—
Not enough. She reminded herself:
Tales of lovers; of grief.
Two lovers, a knight and a witch, were cursed, once upon a time, by a cruel Queen and crueler tale-keepers.
But there are many lives promised to the incarnates of the Isle, and these two lovers vowed to save one another. One day, they escaped. The tale shattered around them. They lived. They were free—
The tale fought, twisting. Chained and cultivated by the archivists, it did not want to obey. The ink struggled like a trapped rat.
Elayne had told her that tales had their own rituals. Happiness couldn’t be so easy.
Simran’s heart broke. She had no choice. One way through.
Her hand shook, but she wrote. She wrote.
One more cruel death awaited them, she wrote. One more death at one another’s hands.
But the one called the witch cast a spell with all the love in her heart. We will return whole, she wished. We will return ourselves, with our full hearts, our memories. We won’t be simply echoes. We’ll be as real as the Eternal Prince, the Queen, the fae who rise from ink wholehearted.
We will defeat the Queen once and for all, when the ink returns us to the pages of the Isle. Knight and witch. Vina and Simran. We will save one another.
You and I, my love.
After all, for all the tales of glory and country, none are stronger than a tale of love.
The tale blurred. The needle dropped from her hand into the watery sand. She had no more power to alter it or mend the end of the tale now. It would write itself as it liked.
Somewhere in a distant archive a book titled The Knight and the Witch was fraying, tearing; ripped apart by the new words worming into place.
She felt that knowledge shudder through her.
She wondered if an archivist was there to witness the book turning on itself; if they screamed when the vellum and leather tore, ink pooling around it.
The Knight and the Witch was drawing her back. The water rippled around her with the force of it. She rose to her feet.
“Come here, Mal,” she called out. “Let’s get you somewhere warm.”
Mal scrambled from the ruins and leapt, rather clumsily, onto her shoulders. The sharp prick of claws, and then Mal settled.
“I want you to find Hari when we leave here,” she said to the cat. “Promise me, little imp.”
The claws dug in deeper, then retracted. Simran took that as a yes.
Simran took a step forward. There was something in the water. She looked closer. A laugh came to her lips. Her needle had changed.
A sword. She drew it from the water. It glimmered, black as night, bloody as a heart. It was a promise of their tale—a tale she’d changed. A tale that could save them.
It was time to go to Vina.
Here came the inevitable. The strings of her story moved her. She stood in her mountains, and moved her mirrors, and snared souls like a spider snaring flies in her web. The villagers below moved like puppets to her will, and she waited, endlessly waited, for her death to come for her.
Isadora was gone. Elayne was gone. In her head and heart, Simran was alone. She stood among her bronze mirrors, and she was herself and not herself at all. She did not want the tale to subsume her, although it offered, its pull sly and seductive. Forget yourself. Be nothing but the witch.
She forced herself to remember times long gone: baking bread with her mother.
Her father tucking her into bed at night.
Bess, teaching her the secrets of witching, of a simple knife and blood.
Her hands wove curses and enchantments, snaring those mining towns below to her will, even as her heart turned over her memories as if they were stones in her palm and said goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
The knight rode to the Copper Mountains.
The knight entered the tor, rising up the steps with a rose-red cloth bound over her eyes.
She wore armor, Simran’s knight. Her face was thinner, whittled to sharpness by grief.
Simran desperately wanted to meet her eyes, so it was easy to allow the tale to take her—to sweep the necessary words from her puppeted mouth.
Look at me, urged the witch.
I shall not, said the knight.
But of course the knight removed her blindfold, at the witch’s threats and urging. Of course she met Simran’s eyes, and kneeled on the cold floor, a clank of armor, a baring of that beautiful throat.
“Witch,” said Vina, her low voice sweet, so sweet. “I am yours.”
Her eyes were hazy already. She’d been touched by magic even before coming here. The magic of the mirrors snared her too, and her eyes grew hazier still, filmed with bronze light.
Simran walked toward her. Each step echoed. Simran could hear her own breath, the roar of her heartbeat.
She touched a cold hand to Vina’s face, which tilted up to meet her, and burned her palm like fire.
Oh, Vina, she thought, as her heart broke. I’m sorry.
“Obey me,” she said. “And love me.”
And Vina said, “Yes.”
The tale swallowed Simran whole. This time, Simran allowed it.
Sometimes, Simran emerged. Her mind cleared, the waves releasing her just long enough for her to gasp for air and acknowledge the inevitability of being dragged back under.
Sometimes, Vina was herself too. A village burned, and she found herself washing ash from Vina’s hands.
They stood among the mirrors, under moonlight, and Simran saw Vina bare-armed without her armor—and saw livid marks of ink in her skin, deep as scars.
“Who did this?” Simran demanded, furious.
And Vina looked at her, smiling. Brushed a hand against her cheek.
“There you are,” she said. “Don’t you worry about me, Simran. Don’t worry—”
They drifted again, serving their purpose. The tale made them dance its dirge, its solemn pavane.
It snowed at dawn. The sky was pale and the snow was falling, and the Copper Mountains shone, glowing with fresh life. Simran knew today she would die.
She wept, despite herself. She was kneeling by a window with ivy trailing through the stone around her. She felt Vina kneel beside her. Heard her breath catch.
“Witch,” said Vina’s mouth, Vina’s voice. “Why do you weep?”
“Because I love you,” said Simran’s voice, even as her heart clamored, I’m sorry, sorry. “I can ensorcel you no longer, knight. Ah, your eyes are mirrors to me now! In faith, I love you. I am bound to you, as surely as you are to me.”
They embraced, Simran cradled in Vina’s arms.
They parted. Vina pressed a hand to Simran’s cheek.
“I am sorry, fair witch,” said Vina. “I love you. I always shall. But I am loyal to my Queen and to my Isle, and I must fulfill my duty.”
Steel sang as the knight drew her sword.
Simran was ready.
There were probably more elegant approaches she could have taken. Artfully placed spellwork, or silver-tongued cajoling. But sometimes the simplest answers were the best.
She punched Vina hard in the jaw. Unsuspecting, eyes wide with surprise, Vina fell back with a thud, and Simran leapt on top of her, wrestling the sword from her grip and flinging it across the room.
“Simran!”
The bronze film was gone from Vina’s eyes. Her eyes, brown and familiar, stared up at Simran full of fear and sorrow. They looked at one another for a long, long moment—the snow falling, the tale digging into them with all its teeth. They did not have long.
“Simran,” Vina said again. Her voice broke. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said Simran. “If we had more time…”
She touched tender fingertips to Vina’s bruised cheek. Had it felt like this every time? Teetering on the cusp of love, breath held, awaiting a fall that wouldn’t have the chance to come? She was on the edge of a cliff, staring down at deep waters. Diving in would change her forever.
Was falling in love really special, really as miraculous as it felt, if thousands of versions of herself, across the Isle’s blood-soaked past, had done and felt the same things she did now?
“I really wish we could live this life a little longer,” Simran whispered. “And that I could keep on falling in love with you.”
“You’re falling in—”
“Oh, don’t act so surprised.”
“I know I’m handsome,” Vina said, trying for humor. But her eyes were sad, her emotions naked on her face.
“You matter to me,” insisted Simran. “You always have. Whoever I’ve been, I’ve found my way to loving you.
” She gripped Vina tighter. “Listen to me, before the tale catches you again. We’re going to be free,” whispered Simran.
“Not now. Not yet. When we come back, we’ll stand a chance.
I’ve done what I’ve meant to do for thousands of lifetimes, and set an old, trapped tale free.
The Eternal Prince.” Her hands shook. “And I… I rewrote our tale. So we can fight in our next life. Fight to live. When we come back we have to do one last thing. Break the archives. Without them, the Queen will have no control. Tales will be able to grow and change—and die, when they need to.” Her eyes searched Vina’s face.
“We’ll be free, Vina. Promise me you’ll look for me, and I promise I’ll look for you. ”
“I promise, Simran,” said Vina.
Simran took a deep breath and called the sword of ink to her hand. It bloomed from nothing—drawn by her magic, the call of her flesh. She held its hilt.
Vina clasped the hilt of the sword alongside Simran. Her hand was warm over Simran’s own, and it soothed her.
They both kneeled. It would have to be Simran first. It was always Simran first. They angled the blade, clumsily, together.
There was a tale on the sword Simran had carried all the way here. The words on it shifted, changing. Simran had to trust that the tale would bring her back, whole and herself. She had no other choice now.
She was still crying. She couldn’t stop.
Under her hands, Vina’s own were trembling.
“I can’t do it,” said Vina. Her voice was wretched. “I can’t kill you. I don’t fear my own death, but yours—”
“I don’t want to die,” said Simran. “And I don’t want you to d-die.
” Her voice splintered. Her face was streaming with tears.
She wanted to be strong for Vina, but she couldn’t stop crying.
“We’ll do it together,” she said. “My hand over yours. We’ll both be gone soon, and neither of us will grieve or fear any longer. ”
“I wish…”
“I know,” Simran said thickly. “I know.”
Vina took a deep breath. She kissed Simran—a fleeting kiss, a warm brush of lips. A goodbye.
“Now,” said Vina. “I’m ready. I’ll see you soon, Simran. I promise.”
Simran looked into Vina’s eyes, and pressed her hands tight over Vina’s own. And pushed.