by Terah Edun
Least of all Vana.
Vana turned a dirty head to look at Ciardis critically. She peered up at Ciardis through her lashes almost coyly, but she said not a word.
Ciardis had the feeling in that moment that Vana was more dangerous than she ever was.
It was both disturbing and fascinating to look at her. To see the subtle changes in her body language, to see her personality fracture, and to wonder if this was all because of the emperor’s torture or due to something else entirely.
Then Vana smiled a broken smile and said, “The memory dump, I mean. Not a small number of individuals who undergo the return process actually go insane in the attempt. All those emotions and feelings and sensations returned at once and all.”
Ciardis stiffened. Vana didn’t look or sound the least bit regretful at putting Ciardis’s life in jeopardy.
If Ciardis was a betting person, she would have said Vana actually seemed unconcerned about it all.
Which was very different from the Vana Cloudbreaker that she knew.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ciardis asked in a voice edging into anger.
Vana ignored her question and played with the frayed ends of her sleeves.
“Don’t mistake my words for disinterest so much as a necessary take on priorities. If it helps, I am glad you survived and regained your memories,” Vana said while looking down. Not out of shyness, but out of complete disinterest in the subject standing over her.
“Why?” Ciardis asked hollowly. “You didn’t care when you took them from me.”
Vana still wouldn’t look up at her but she answered her question all the same. “Because you deserved to get those memories back, and because without them you would have continued on the same disastrous course that I just broke you from.”
Ciardis felt like wrapping her hands around Vana’s throat in anger, but she couldn’t. Both because Vana was physically sick and because Ciardis suspected that drifting alongside this coy and diverting new personality was a mental illness driving Vana’s actions. Perhaps one that even pushed her to force the people who cared for her most away.
If this had been Lillian, Ciardis would have hugged her and took her shopping. Anything to take her mind off whatever darkness festered in her head. Lillian loved frivolities, after all, and it would have lifted her spirits.
But this was Vana she was facing. Even on her best day, the assassin had been as unpredictable as she was deadly.
Now the very idea of adding “mentally unstable” to that checklist gave Ciardis Weathervane the hives.
It was a very unsettling combination of personality quirks that not many would be able to handle and survive, so Ciardis counted herself lucky as the minutes passed and Vana seemed content to stay seated, stay calm, and even explain her actions to a very perplexed young woman.
Taking a deep breath, Ciardis tried to tone down the bitterness in her voice as she asked a simple question: “Why? Why did you do this to me in the first place?”
Vana said, “Because it had to be done. It was in the best interests of the empire at the time that you forget those memories. All of it.”
Ciardis retorted, “That’s not good enough!”
Vana smiled. “What do you want from me, Ciardis Weathervane?”
“Answers,” the irate Companion shouted.
Vana stood up so suddenly that Ciardis didn’t even see her move. She felt her heart jump in her throat, but she didn’t run. She wasn’t that person. Not anymore. She would stand her ground.
Vana searched her face with wide, almost manic eyes.
Ciardis shuddered, wishing the assassin had stayed studying the ground and the surrounding architecture. It was like staring into the eyes of death itself and wondering if your head would still be there in the next second.
But as quickly as Vana had stood up, she changed her expression. Suddenly it was like an indifferent mask dropped into place.
Her eyes became hooded and unreadable.
Her lips thinned into a line instead of the feral grin she’d boasted before.
Her shoulders relaxed and her head cocked to the side as she studied Ciardis instead of staring her down.
In this incarnation, Vana looked more like her old self, and less.
Uncharacteristic lines of stress, crow’s feet, spread from the edges of her eyes. Her cheeks were stark white, blanched of any color. So was what skin Ciardis could see peeking out from the confines of her lumpy clothes. Ciardis thought she saw tiny scar marks as well, but she couldn’t be sure.
She did notice one thing that was quite clear. Vana’s eyes had stayed the same. Pinpricks of darkness in an eyeball composed of white. It was as unsettling on this new day as it had been before.
Whatever the case, it was if Vana had become another person entirely.
“Do you know what I am now?” the assassin asked softly.
Ciardis stiffened. “No.”
Vana nodded. “It pleases me that you at least gave an honest answer. Others would have lied.”
Ciardis swallowed harshly. This Vana was speaking in a manner Ciardis had never heard from her before, and Ciardis hoped, never again after.
Vana sighed and blinked in an exaggeratedly slow manner. “I don’t know what I am either. I just know I went into the emperor’s chambers and I came out this way.”
Ciardis said in a stumbling voice, “I’m…I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t change what I am,” Vana said in a careful and patient tone.
Ciardis searched her eyes. “But just a moment before you looked no different…”
“Than I had physically before the transformation,” Vana said, finishing Ciardis’s thought. “I know that. But then again, I’ve learned a thing or two from your mother…and this new form has some interesting abilities. Ones I haven’t yet explored fully.”
“Why do you call it a ‘form’?” Ciardis asked.
Vana smiled. “Because I feel like a chameleon. I can change my skin, my hair length, even the texture of my complexion if I so choose.”
Ciardis wondered if she was referring to the scars that she was now covered in or something else entirely, but she didn’t know how to ask that. She stared, at a loss for words.
So instead she just said, “Are you happier in this new form?”
“Happy,” Vana said with a cold laugh. “I don’t feel happy anymore. But I am content.”
Ciardis nodded.
Vana continued, “However, I would like something.”
“What?”
Vana replied with a cold smile. “I want to know what I am. There are only two people I’ve met who seem to recognize this form, regardless of whether or not it’s concealed.”
“Who?” Ciardis asked hoarsely as she wondered how this conversation had so quickly spun on its head. She was out of her depth massively, and she wondered where the others were. Even Terris could help her escape this awkward conversation that seemed to veer into deadly depending on Vana’s mood from second to second.
She thought about looking over her shoulder. As she was beginning to take a peek, Vana’s eyes shifted suddenly. It was almost unnoticeable, but the coldness that stared out of her left Ciardis flinching.
Ciardis was beginning to understand just how much Vana had changed.
She might fake contentment, Ciardis knew, but nothing close to contentment resided in the shell of the person she once knew.
And even if Terris was behind her, Ciardis wouldn’t subject her to the ministrations of a snake hibernating in a woman’s clothes.
So Ciardis relaxed and kept an easy focus on Vana, showing her with actions rather than words that she wasn’t going anywhere. As they stared at each other silently, Ciardis knew suddenly that no one was coming. And what was more, Vana knew the same.
It was oddly calming, knowing that everything that happened from now rested on her shoulders, no one else’s.
Meanwhile, Vana kept eyeing her. Almost judging.
If a predator studying its
prey could be called judging.
Ciardis licked her lips and asked again, “Who are these people?
As Ciardis was beginning to feel nervous sweat bead on her spine, Vana deigned to speak. “The dragon and the emperor. One is easier to get to than the other.”
“What do you want from me?” Ciardis asked numbly.
“I have one more memory to give you,” Vana said slowly while gently letting her finger drift just above the baby hairs of Ciardis’s hand.
Ciardis snatched her hand back, she couldn’t help it. Vana’s presence felt ice-cold.
Ciardis would hate to learn what it felt like to actually touch her, at least when she was in this very public form.
“I can’t,” Ciardis said with a shudder. “Going through that the first time was more than one person should bear. You said it yourself.”
“I know,” Vana replied. “But this memory is important, and that is my price. You get my name and I give you your history.”
Ciardis stared at her, horrified.
“I’m even giving you the memory before I receive my reward,” Vana said in a carefully controlled voice. “And believe me, Ciardis Weathervane, this is a memory you will dearly need if you are to face off against the emperor.”
Ciardis shook her head, not at Vana, but in outright denial of what she knew was the truth in her mind.
“How can I know you’re telling the truth?” Ciardis insisted.
Vana smiled. “I’ve yet to lie to you, Ciardis Weathervane, not about this. These memories are precious. I did not retain them lightly, and I do not return them in a frivolous manner.”
Desperate, Ciardis said, “Then why not just give them back?”
Vana laughed. Her answer was clear.
“One memory in exchange for the answer,” she said in a biting tone, her voice brooking no more discussion.
“I—” Ciardis started to say. She felt like she was in shock. She had no idea how she would answer, but it was clear that Vana expected one in her favor.
Then Vana hushed her.
“Don’t prevaricate, Ciardis,” Vana said gently. “It never looks good on you.”
Ciardis frowned, but she dared not respond with what she felt would be a justifiably blistering retort in kind.
Instead, she waited as Vana walked in a slow circle around her, speaking in whispers. “The dragon likes you, Ciardis Weathervane. The dragon knows what I am. Promise me that you will find out what I am, promise your soul on a platter if you can’t get the answer, promise me and I will give you the memory you so desperately need.”
“Why do I need it?” Ciardis asked firmly. She was determined to not be bullied.
Vana stopped to whisper in Ciardis’s right ear and Ciardis heard her smile. “Because it will save the soul of one daemoni prince and the life of a prince heir. And I know you’d do anything to make sure that happens.”
“Even if it means giving up my own soul,” Ciardis said in a wondering tone. “Even I’m not that in love.”
She didn’t even think about it before she said it, but the base fact was true. She did feel love for them.
Fortunately, Vana latched to her denial rather than the substantiation. “Your soul will only be called as a price if you can’t get one tiny little secret from a dragon who already considers you her sarin. She would move mountains for you. A name is not too much to ask.”
Ciardis blinked, and it was like a spell was broken.
Vana stepped back a few feet and watched her carefully. As she moved, Ciardis felt her presence drift away. It was like being covered in a blanket and having it slowly be lifted off her. The blanket wasn’t unpleasant; the concept of the blanket was.
“What did you do?” Ciardis asked while breathing heavily.
Vana narrowed her eyes. “Nothing that seems to come unnaturally to me now.”
Ciardis paused. “What does that mean?”
“It means that my very presence affects people, and I have no idea why,” Vana suddenly hissed. “That my touch beguiles them before it poisons them. That my skin has become as brittle and colorless as white dusty chalk, but I feel no discomfort, no heat, no cold, no sensation at all. I do not know what I am, Ciardis Weathervane, and surely you above all can understand the desire to find out what your identity conceals. You came to Sandrin with nothing but the clothes on your back, with nothing but a name, no family and no idea of your heritage.”
Ciardis swallowed harshly. That was all very true.
“Now, Ciardis,” Vana said in a voice that was disturbingly close to a sob, “I am leaving Sandrin stripped of my identity. If I must forge a new one I will, but I must have something to start with. Some small indication of what I am.”
Ciardis stared at her and said, “I understand.”
Vana looked at her with cold hope in her eyes. “Then we have an agreement.”
“We do,” Ciardis confirmed.
Heaven help her if Thanar or Sebatian ever found out, but Ciardis had to do this. Because she did understand, and if someone had stripped her of her own identity, she would be just as desperate to discover what her new place in the world was comprised of.
That was partly why she had been so angry about the loss of her memories in the first place.
Vana, however, was clearly relieved.
She smiled and said, “Then, Ciardis Weathervane, I will show you this one last memory. I know that you will find it worth the bargain struck.”
Ciardis barely had seconds before Vana’s pinprick eyes fostered a connection with her own and she dropped back into memories that she couldn’t recall and events she had never known.
As she drifted into the darkness Ciardis heard Vana whisper to her from far off, “Don’t forget our bargain, Ciardis Weathervane. I will be coming to collect.”
22
This memory process was different, not like the others. For a moment Ciardis hovered over the scene like a ghost, but she knew that she wouldn’t be for very long. It was too disconnected. She could see what was happening, but she couldn’t hear, she couldn’t feel. And if going through the process before had taught her anything, it was this: a memory was more than just sights. It was sounds, feelings, emotions, and touches.
Something as simple as a promise could be conveyed in a brush of a hand.
And she knew that in experiencing these memories, she had to relive everything.
The one thing that did surprise her, however, was the fact she could experience the memories not just as herself, but as others. Ciardis knew this because her floating body was starting to descend to the ground and instead of heading straight towards her own physical presence, she was diving like a ghost into a well straight for Vana Cloudbreaker herself.
She didn’t object, she couldn’t. She had no voice as a bodiless presence, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel horror as her incorporeal body collided with the assassin’s corporeal self.
Their bodies became one, then their spirits, and finally their minds until Ciardis couldn’t distinguish one from the other and she felt that she had become Vana. The old Vana. It was disconcerting, to say the least, an experience that she wanted to end as soon as it had begun, but she couldn’t because she wasn’t playing a game.
So Ciardis adjusted. She watched herself stride further away from Vana across a deck.
No, it was a platform, she could see that now. It was highly disconcerting not only to watch herself, but to hear herself speak.
The current Ciardis watched as her former self began to explain what Lillian Weathervane had said about Maradian. The younger Ciardis Weathervane’s emotions were plain to read, at least to the Vana within whose body she resided.
“Am I really so easily read?” Ciardis scoffed aloud, forgetting for a moment who she was.
The younger Ciardis turned to her current self, or rather to Vana, and said, “What was that?”
Ciardis could feel censorious amusement roiling through Vana as the assassin responded aloud, “I didn’t say anythin
g.”
Hmm, Ciardis thought. She doesn’t seem aware that I’m here. Or that I briefly provoked her to speak.
The old Ciardis blinked and murmured politely, “I must have been mistaken.”
Vana nodded and that was that.
It was an entirely weird situation to not be in complete control of this body, and doubly so knowing that the host was present. Ciardis wasn’t sure what the limitations of this memory form was, so she decided to try to keep as unnoticeable as possible. For this experience, Ciardis was just along for the ride. So she settled in to observe and try not to hijack the body again. She watched as her old self recalled that her mother had said something interesting when recounting the death of Empress Teresa, the first wife of Sebastian’s father. “He tended to be away from court for long periods when I was a young woman.”
Vana replied, “Yes, we know that he enjoyed exploring new corners of the world. This was his ship to do as he pleased. It also happened to be the only Kasten ship that was in existence at the time, and therefore the only ship befitting a crown prince’s maiden voyage.”
“Maiden?” younger Ciardis said with a shake of her head.
“We don’t have time for more of a history lesson,” Ciardis heard Vana snap.
Even she winced at that.
Fortunately, Vana didn’t notice as she continued on in her tirade. “Ask Sebastian or Christian on your road trip. Just know that the ship sank the moment it left port. That’s why Maradian’s body was never found.”
The younger Ciardis gulped and looked like she wanted to ask more, but even she recognized that Vana probably didn’t look inclined to answer more questions on the subject of the emperor.
Judging by the tension in Vana’s shoulders, I’m not sure she has more answers to give, Ciardis mused from inside Vana’s head. Though she really wished she could see Vana’s face from the outside. That was more likely to tell her if the younger Ciardis Weathervane was walking on a tightrope and was soon to get a knife in the gut. Which wouldn’t be good for either of them.
In either case, the younger Ciardis apparently decided to change conversational directions, at least slightly.
