Chapter Thirty Vina
Chapter Thirty
Vina
If you’ve got more advice on how to fight a fae than “stab it in the gut with some cold iron,” then I’ll gladly print you more pamphlets. Until then, I’ll stick to printing works longer than a sentence. Ta.
Source: Letter from Jen Cranmer to Solomon Roy
Vina had known this would happen. Sarah had warned her. But it was still unpleasant to be dragged along by two fae, as Lady Wren walked ahead of them, as grand and ponderous as a ship, her hair coiling strangely with the shifting wind.
She clenched her own hands together, the left over the right.
She could feel her rings against her palm: each a perfect circle of cold iron.
The one on her index finger was thicker than the rest, and carried a needle of iron that could be released with the correct pressure from her thumb.
It was the closest thing she’d have to a blade, wherever they took her.
The fae hands on Vina’s shoulders were as ice cold and firm as any shackle.
They didn’t drag her back into the ballroom—she could see the lights through the vast oval windows, the dancing figures.
Instead, they led her away from the Queen’s Palace to the Palace of Westminster, through the darkness of familiar streets.
Folk who saw them lowered their heads and scuttled away.
People had the good sense to avoid the few fae allowed by the Queen in London.
She felt nauseated as she was led into Westminster, where she crossed the checkerboard floors, beneath the smoke of candlelight.
Was her father—she supposed he was still her father, in a sense—was he here?
Her gaze naturally turned toward the corridor where his office had once been.
She hadn’t even thought to ask Hari or Galath about him. Even now, the thought of finding out what had become of him made words stopper up in her throat, like wine beneath a cork.
Twenty years had passed since then. Perhaps he’d finally retired. Perhaps he was dead. When she’d had no memories, and she’d been living a happy life in a small town, she hadn’t concerned herself much with the minutiae of politics. She regretted that now.
There was a giant door ahead of them—taller and wider than any group of humans would require.
The surface was filigree, winding shapes of trees and waves and mountains swirling into one another like a grand tapestry on the Isle’s shape and history.
When the ministers and clerks who kept the well-oiled cogs of government whirring traversed the corridors of the Palace of Westminster, they all had the good sense to officiously avoid the House of Lords.
Inside its doors lay terrors and glories that rose from the deepest, darkest tales.
Lady Wren waved a hand. The doors of the House of Fae Lords opened with a hissing withdrawal of roots, and the fae dragged her in.
It was a square hall, high-roofed with windows of stained glass set above wood-paneled walls.
The wooden walls were cut through with mushrooms—virulent, bright things of red and yellow and green that grew in circles and spirals that drew Vina’s eyes like a hook to a fish.
She wrenched her gaze away. She knew the magic of enchantment when she saw it.
The hall was full of inhuman figures, seated on long benches of bloodred, more clusters of mushrooms carpeting benches of wizened wood.
Those creatures were nymphs and dryads, wrinkled goblins, and sharp-toothed redcaps, all gathered together at the feet of tall, graceful, and luminously frightening fae lords and ladies and lieges.
A ceremonial throne headed the hall, placed high on a golden plinth.
It was empty, and always empty. The Queen never graced fae chambers.
Alder, the fae liege, was waiting for them, their eyes burning, mouth thin.
She was reminded, suddenly, that time moved differently for the fae. Humans died. Fae lived as long as the Isle. Tristesse’s death must have been a raw and recent wound to them, even though decades had passed.
“Knight,” said Alder. “You broke your promise to me. You placed yourself in my debt, and then when your debt was called due, you refused to pay it.” Their jaw tightened, their chin raised.
Fire lay behind their eyes. “My niece demanded your service,” they said.
“Your love, and your fealty. She asked you to serve, and instead you broke the last vestiges of her tale in your fist.” Their voice was ice.
“Lady Tristesse is gone. And you are to blame. The time has come for you to face judgment.”
The fae rustled, eyes fixing on her as one. She could feel their power—an intense, immovable weight. She couldn’t have moved if she tried.
“Lady Tristesse did not die by my hand,” said Vina. “She died because her tale was dead, and there was no hope of saving it. I am not to blame.”
“Lies,” said Alder. “See how the knight tells falsehoods before the court? She must be eaten by redcaps. Her blood must run forth on these hallowed grounds.”
Vina looked down at the ground. It was carpeted with moss such a dark green that it was near black.
“As much as I hate to claim I lie in her power, the Queen would say I belong to her, as all incarnates do,” said Vina. “Can you pass judgment without her input?”
A fae woman in the benches laughed, silvery as bells.
“It is not the Queen’s throne,” she said. “It is the monarch’s throne, child. Monarchy is an old tale, bloodied and deep in the Isle’s ancient bones—but the one who wears the crown can be easily replaced, and, it seems, soon will.”
“It makes no difference to us if the Eternal Prince takes the throne, or the Eternal Queen retains it,” said Alder.
“It does not change what we are—great beings of the Isle, worshipped and bargained with, feared and loved. And it does not change that you trespassed against our court, and it is our court’s judgment you must face. ”
“You don’t care, then, if the Isle lives or dies,” said Vina. “You know the importance of the tale of The Knight and the Witch. Would you imperil everything?”
“You allowed the Merciless Maiden to perish, and all the land that required her to survive,” said Alder, their eyes glittering. “Your tale cannot be more valuable than one that bound a fae.”
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the room.
“Fine,” Vina said into the silence. “Then I refute your claim to my debt. I promised a debt to your blood, it’s true. But I promised it in return for knowledge, and you did not give it to me. You lied, Liege. The geas you laid was created through falsehood.”
Alder’s eyes flashed. “You would call me false?” The air around them crackled with violet light—spiderwebs of lightning, the threat of a storm.
“Hush,” a croaking voice said.
This fae was not as preternaturally youthful as the others—instead she was ancient, ancient as the stones of the Isle or the primordial forest that stretched across the Isle’s breadth.
“The knight must speak,” said the ancient creature, her claws of wood and pearly nails clinging to the bench, holding her steady.
“She must defend herself. She accuses you of a great heresy, Liege. Truth and half-truth are the business of the fae. Lies are a mortal curse.” Her eyes, the color of acid beneath a halo of wrinkles, fixed on Vina. “Speak, knight.”
“You claimed the pale assassin was the cause of the Isle’s withering,” said Vina.
“I did not,” replied Alder, triumphant. “I told you he had killed incarnates. That is true. You assumed, as mortals do, that he was responsible for the Isle’s slow death.”
As the fae laughed and rippled with comment, Vina twined her clasped fists behind her back—and slowly began to seek out the hinge in the ring on her index finger.
“You told me the witch could bring about the pale assassin’s death,” she said. “And yet he still lives.”
“I told you she could end his immortality,” said Alder. “Could. What the witch chose to do is no concern of mine. I gave you truth. I gave you knowledge. You did not pay your debt to my blood.”
“She will be judged,” the ancient fae said. “What price would you beg for, Liege Alder?”
Alder’s lip was curled into a sneer. Grief and rage radiated from them.
“I demand her death,” they said.
“A vote will be called,” said the fae. “Those who yield to Liege Alder’s call for the knight’s death: cry content. Those who do not: not content.”
Voices yelled across the House. Fists were waved. Some of the redcaps clambered up onto the benches, standing at their full height.
Before the vote was called, Alder was already smiling.
“Content has it,” said the ancient fae. She turned to Alder.
“Her life is yours, to take or spare at your will,” said the ancient fae.
“But we will not sully the court. Take her beyond. Kill her among your namesake trees, and let her corpse feed their roots.” Her hand of wood became a gavel, which she slammed upon the mossy ground.
It shook like a rung bell. The door to the House of Fae Lords peeled open in a slither of vines and a groan of wood.
“It will be done,” said Alder. Their dryads rose from the benches, gathering around them with silvery malevolence in their eyes.
Vina was starting to think she had made a mistake. But this was the best opportunity she’d have.
She punched the first dryad who approached her with her iron-ringed fingers. Her needle drew silver blood.
The dryad reacted like any human would, flailing with its fist. Its hand met Vina’s jaw before she could duck away, but the pain was manageable. What she needed to do was get away right now.
And that was what she did. She rolled with the punch and wrangled herself free from the fae holding her. The doors of the House were parted. She leapt through them and bolted.
“I will find you!” Alder roared behind her, their voice the howl of the wind, the moan of deep caverns. It was a promise written in blood.
Twenty years away from London, and somehow her body still knew it. She took some grim amusement in that. She ran deep into the city, from wide streets into snaking alleys, only stopping when her legs nearly gave out beneath her.
A broad figure emerged from the smog, dressed in dark clothing—a serviceable greatcoat, patched at the elbows.
“Father,” she said, before she could stop herself. She felt a reflexive embarrassment—and a fear, strangely, that Galath would refute it.
If his eyes softened a little it was, perhaps, her imagination. His voice was certainly cold enough when he said, “You’re injured.”
“I’m fine,” Vina said. She brought her hand up and knuckled away the blood dripping from her lip. “I dealt with them.”
“Hm,” said Galath.
“How did you find me?” Vina asked. “I removed my warded clothing.”
“Witches can follow anything if they have flesh, blood, bone,” said Galath. “Hari and I have all your milk teeth.”
“Ah,” Vina said faintly. That was… horrifying.
But parents often did embarrassing things, didn’t they?
“I made a bit of a fool’s error there, I know,” Vina said, swaying precariously on her feet.
“I should have been honest with you. Or—simply not gone. But I don’t regret going.
I saw her. Simran.” Another stumbling step forward.
Godsblood, she was tired. She grabbed Galath.
There were silvery cries behind them.
“I think they may be coming,” she said faintly. “Damn shame the Queen’s unlikely to enforce the laws that say they aren’t allowed to chase mortals through the city. Well, they voted that they could kill me—perhaps that negates her edict?”
“Stay here,” said Galath.
“If you get hurt. Papa, I mean—Hari, he—he wouldn’t…”
She trailed off. That jumble of words came to nothing. Galath placed his hand, briefly, over her own. Just long enough to pry himself free.
“It’s the archivists I cannot face,” he said. “Their magic is mine. But the fae are not the same. Stay here.”
For once, she listened. She stayed. He was gone an hour, all told. And when he returned, he’d removed his coat and slung it over his shoulder. His white shirt was… significantly less white.
Silver blood that was very much not his own dripped from his hands. She watched, oddly fascinated.
“All things can die, given the right opportunity,” said Galath. “Even fae. Now come. Hari is waiting.”