\hypertarget{chapter-17-cloaks}{%
\section{Chapter 17: Cloaks}\label{chapter-17-cloaks}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Trust in yourself and no other is violence upon all the world.
Trust in others and not yourself is violence upon the soul.''}

-- Eudokia the Oft-Abducted, Basilea of Nicae
\end{quote}

It'd been a while since someone had decked me in the face and I'd
actually \emph{felt} it. Indrani wasn't an amateur, so instead of
landing a glancing blow her knuckles buried themselves into my jaw and I
was jarred off my feet. The throb of pain began before I would have hit
the ground, if I had -- instead my arm snapped out and my staff smacked
into my open palm. Years of training in the yard made that enough I was
able to turn the tumble into a step back. An agonizing one, as my bad
leg was less than pleased by the sudden movement and I'd not numbed it
with Night before moving. Straightening my back, I turned back to my
friend and casually raised an eyebrow.

``That stung a bit,'' I admitted. ``Are we actually going to talk now,
or do I need to tie you up first?''

Indrani's eyes hardened. Not at the threat, though -- we used those on
each other at least once a day with utter nonchalance. Something about
my tone had raised her hackles even further up. Silvery mail glittering
in the fire's light, she clenched her fingers into fists before forcing
herself to breathe out.

``You don't even realize it, do you?'' Archer said. ``A year ago, you
would have caught that. Snapped my arm twice on the way there if you
felt like it.''

``We're not a year ago,'' I said.

I did not bother to inject regret I did not feel into those words. The
Night was not panacea to all my ills, but to rid myself of Winter's
costs I would have settled for much, much less at my fingertips.

``I know that,'' Indrani said. ``So why the fuck are you acting like you
are?''

Fear. Under the anger, the indignation, it was fear lay at the heart of
that reaction. I didn't tell her to calm down, I knew better than that.
We had too much in common, and nothing had ever excited my anger quite
like being told I had no right to it. This was a wound to lance, not
hole to patch over. So I'd give her what she needed to get the venom
out.

``I took necessary risks,'' I calmly said. ``Not without reason, or out
of pride. If I'd waited longer the Third Army might have been lost.''

``\emph{Then you should have lost it},'' Archer hissed. ``How many of
these gambles do you really think you can win, Catherine? Nine out of
ten, ninety-nine out of a hundred? At the rate you're taking them we'll
find out soon enough.''

``I won't leave any of mine to die if I can do something about it,'' I
said. ``You've known that since the day we met, `Drani. Marchford wasn't
a battle I was forced to fight. It was one that needed to be fought.''

Archer's hand lashed out and the jug of wine flew, shattering against
the wall with a wet sound. The last mouthfuls of wine there'd been left
spilled down in red rivulets.

``Was walking up to a Named whose aspect scared even Sve Noc
\emph{needed} as well?'' Indrani harshly asked. ``Or putting yourself at
the Tyrant's mercy, not even an hour after? You're still going around
like if you lose a limb it'll grow back, but it won't. You can't jump
down every pit you find and tell yourself you're strong enough to crawl
out after, Catherine. \emph{You're not strong enough anymore}.''

We were having, I thought, a very different conversation from the one
she thought we were. If Vivienne was a creature of the unspoken, the
unsaid, then Indrani was one of shrouding aggression. You could get a
much better read on her fears through what she reproached others than
what few crumbs she willingly offered up about herself. I no longer had
Winter, and so these days I was a great deal more fragile. That was half
of the circle, here, and only that. The other half was Indrani's
shivering near-death in a mausoleum of ice that she could have done
absolutely nothing to get out of, if she hadn't been helped. Help, that
thing her savage beast of a mother had taught her was always weakness.
Thread that with the knowledge that there was nothing she could have
done to avoid that position except not being there, not fighting, and
you got a rope tight enough for Archer to hang herself with. She could
rage and accuse all she wanted: all I saw and hear was my friend choking
slowly, now that she'd been stripped of the flawed foundations she'd
once stood on.

``It was never a game, love,'' I gently said. ``I'm sorry you had to
learn it that way.''

She laughed, brittle and sharp.

``No, don't you think that'll work,'' Indrani said, stepping up to the
table. ``You don't get to play the sage's role when you just marched a
pile of wet kindling through a burning district. You don't get to tell
me it's not a game when you still act like it is. Who the fuck do you
think you \emph{are}, Catherine?''

``Tell me,'' I said.

There was barely a flicker of her Name's power before she put her bare
fist through the table. Wood splintered and flew, the entire thing
collapsed under the sheer weight of the blow.

``That's your skull, if you run into the Saint on your next lark,'' she
conversationally said. ``So don't pretend this is a favour you're doing
me, that you're letting me rage on your shoulder until my blood's
cooled. Because this is real, Catherine, so you'll give me a godsdamned
answer.''

She brushed a few splinters off her hand before pointing an accusing
finger down at the wreck. None of the prickly pieces, I idly noticed,
had broken her skin.

``Who do you think you are?'' Indrani repeated, in that same deceptively
calm tone. ``Some favoured child of Below, somehow exempted from dying
when you get in over your head? Because Triumphant thought she was that,
had an actual Name still and terrible armies besides, and she still
fucking died.''

She shrugged.

``Is it the Black Knight's legacy you think make you invincible?'' she
asked. ``Where is he now, Catherine? And let's not pretend you didn't
pick and choose what you learned at his knee. If the authentic article
got had, what makes you think the bastard get will make it through
unscathed?''

I matched her gaze without flinching as she advanced, carelessly kicking
aside the broken table between us.

``Or is it just that you alone of all the world were born under a
victorious star,'' Indrani said, distance closing between us. ``Fate's
got plans for you, eh? Catherine Foundling can bleed, can scar and lose
limbs, but she can never fucking die.''

She leaned in, ochre-brown face mere inches from mine. I could almost
feel her breath against my lips.

``Where was that victorious star down in the Everdark, then?'' she
asked. ``When Sve Noc had your neck in their grip and a little
\emph{twist} was all it would have taken to bring an end to the road?
All but for the mercy of goddesses, and you had no right to expect mercy
of those two.''

Indrani bared her teeth.

``Answer me,'' she demanded in a snarl.

I caught her wrist when she raised her arm to push me back. The staff I
left there, and it stood still as if perfectly balanced.

``I don't have any of those things,'' I told her quietly. ``You know
that too. One day I'll be a little too slow, or not clever enough, or
it'll just be a\ldots{} bad day. And I'll die. Just like that. It's
always been the end of this story. And there's no guarantee I'll
complete my work before that day catches up to me.''

Archer ripped her wrist free from my fingers, cradling it with her other
hand like my touch had been enough to burn her skin. She took a step
back, though I doubted she even realized it.

``You can't expect us to care when you treat your life like Creation's
kitchen rag,'' Indrani said. ``I might as well get attached to a
mayfly.''

``If I was always careful,'' I said. ``If I was all prudence and
planning, hiding behind my people and leaving every battle to be fought
pass me by -- if I did all those things, Indrani, would we even be
having this conversation?''

I saw the moment where the part I'd not been cruel enough to speak sunk
in. \emph{If I was all that, would you even care about me in the first
place?} She flinched, and it brought me no joy, but to bind a wound it
must first be cleaned. And this particular one had been left to fester
for much too long already. That, more than all the rest, shamed me.
Because I'd known it would hurt more for the waiting, and I'd chosen
other needs over it anyway. A queen would not have felt guilt, I
thought, for choosing queenship's duties over family. But it wasn't the
queen that reached out to Indrani just to have the hand batted away.

``That's not fair,'' Archer said.

``That doesn't make it any less true,'' I gently said. ``You don't get
to define the people you care about.''

I thought of green eyes, and of the starving realm around me. No, it was
never quite so easy as that, was it? That lesson had been long and harsh
in the learning, but I had learned it nonetheless. This time when I
reached out she allowed me to take her elbow, and it was like that
simple touch had cut the strings out of her. Her legs folded and with a
grimace of pain I slowed our fall until we were both slouching on the
ground, sitting like children surrounded by the remains of their
tantrum. And we were, I thought. Children still, in some many ways. We'd
been taught at the knee of Calamities, and those teachings had made us
sharper than our years should allow -- but for all that, no older than
our years. Perhaps even younger than those, truth be told, for the stuff
of the women we'd become had been thinned in places so it could be used
to strengthen others. With my arms wrapped tight around her, I could not
shy away from the truth that for all we had done we were still so very
small.

``We can't keep doing this, Cat,'' Indrani tiredly said, resting her
chin against my shoulder. ``If we're all born with a single yarn of luck
to spin, we used up ours too young. On too many stupid fucking fights
that we learned too late we shouldn't have fought. We're bare, now. And
the worst monsters still lie ahead.''

``It's all right to be afraid,'' I whispered into her ear.

She tried to pull away, but I kept my grip tight and she understood the
unspoken -- if she used the strength of her Name, I would use that of
the Night. Neither of us, I thought, were quite ready to allow those
powers foothold in this moment.

``I used to think my first fight with William was when I really got
it,'' I said. ``I know better now. I woke up bleeding out, gutted like a
fish, but I became the Squire. It was all still in the game, even that.
He had his angel's feather, and providence. But I had instincts, and
something better than golden luck.''

Indrani breathed out shallowly.

``So when was it?'' she whispered.

``The day I woke up, Black hung about fifty people,'' I whispered back.
``Made sure I saw. A lot of what happened that afternoon took me years
to really deal with. But I still think of them sometimes, even after all
the darker days there's been since. Because I looked them in the eyes,
and what looked back was the truth that it was \emph{larger} than me.
That I was just a small part of it, even with all that was already meant
for me.''

I smiled bleakly, remembering the utter silence in the Court of Swords
and twice the sound of necks snapping. Two rows and two drops, dead
briskly to the gallows.

``It was never a game to them,'' I said. ``They just died,
because\ldots{} they were caught, I suppose, because they were in the
wrong place at the wrong time. But the reasons behind that were years
older, and those reasons caused by some even more ancient -- links in a
chain no one can see more than a few pieces of. So they died not
knowing, because of something larger than them.''

Indrani chuckled darkly.

``That's your lesson?'' she said. ``That one day we'll die too, blind
and lost and not really understanding why?''

``Everybody else does,'' I murmured. ``Why should we be different? We
have powers and clever tricks, but how different does that really make
us?''

I let out a breathy laugh.

``That's the thing. The first time a story happens, it's not a story at
all. If it comes again we tell ourselves it's become something else, but
it hasn't. Not really. People bleed just as red the twelfth time as the
first. The tears and the deaths don't become any less \emph{real},
`Drani. The courage doesn't matter less because some corpse in a grave
made the same stand a hundred years before and won.''

She leaned back, still in my embrace, and looked at my face
questioningly.

``We're Named,'' Archer said. ``That makes it different.''

\emph{But it doesn't}, I thought. \emph{We've seen it, you and I. That
when all there is holding up the choice is a story and the prediction of
victory, the story fails}. \emph{Because if all you do is pretend, go
through the motions, then you've already lost what could have made it a
victory in the first place.}

``A choice is a choice,'' I replied, shaking my head. ``Black cloak,
white cloak -- that's the game, thinking the cloak says it all. That the
choices are already made for you.''

``It's a pretty thought,'' Indrani said. ``But it won't keep any of us
alive.''

``Nothing will,'' I smiled. ``But that's the point, isn't it? What do we
\emph{do} with that?''

I met her eyes, once more.

``Be afraid,'' I said. ``I am, Indrani. All the time. Be afraid, then
make your choices.''

Her fingers balled up against my side, clutching at the cloth.

``And that's who you are, the choices you make,'' I murmured. ``Not your
Name. Not your mother. Not where you were born or what they made you
do.''

``It might not be enough,'' she softly said. ``Just making the choice.''

I nodded, because I wouldn't lie to her.

``It might not be,'' I agreed, just as softly. ``And for all that,
there's only one thing that matters.''

I threaded my fingers into hers, warmth against warmth. Oh, there were
few prices I would not have been willing to pay to get that back -- and
Winter's fade was not one of them.

``Who do you want to be?'' I asked.

She did not answer, for a very long time, and when she unthreaded our
fingers it felt like failure. There were some things that couldn't be
fixed with words, I thought, no matter how earnest. But then she leaned
forward and rested her chin against my shoulder again.

``I don't know,'' Indrani said.

Her hands returned to my sides, fingers digging in too tight. It would
have been petty to wince. What I'd done to her tonight had been brutal
enough in some ways that even noticing this felt miserly of me.

``I don't know,'' she repeated after yet more silence. ``But not
\emph{this}.''

``Then we'll find out,'' I said. ``Together, all of us.''

She nodded against me. A pause, as I felt her consider whether to keep
speaking or not.

``I think I might hate you a little,'' Indrani finally said.

My throat tightened but I would not argue or beg. It was fair, and her
right. I nodded back against the crook of her neck, staying there and
breathing in the scent of leather and steel and warm skin.

``I never learned how to do this gently,'' I admitted, the apology
hanging between us. ``Some nights I'm not sure I learned to do it at
all.''

``That I could forgive,'' she said, then hesitated.

She sighed.

``Will,'' she corrected, firmly. ``Will forgive.''

``Then?''

``You took a part of me,'' she softly said. ``By being who you are, you
took it in hand. Claimed it. And I won't get it back even if I try.''

I felt her tighten against me, like a bowstring gone taut.

``It's a little like being a prisoner, isn't it?'' she said. ``Loving
someone.''

Indrani laughed, and at my silence the tension in her shoulders
loosened.

``Every time we speak raw, I understand the Lady a little better,'' she
said. ``Why she \emph{left}. I wonder if that was what she figured out:
that if she lingered, she'd end up never leaving at all.''

She wasn't speaking of being in love with me. That would have
been\ldots{} it wasn't who we were, to each other. Skin didn't change
that, I knew it for certain since the months we'd taken to that kind of
intimacy. Wasn't sure she could be like that, even with how she looked
at Masego -- though much of what lay there was still veiled to me, it
was true. Sometimes I wasn't sure I had it in me either, to be like
that. I thought of Kilian and what had been shared there. What hadn't,
too. Even now the compromises that would have kept us tied were nothing
less than abhorrent to me. Not a brew I would ever be willing to drink.
How strange it was that you could care so much for someone and yet find
them to be such a stranger in the end. No, it wasn't that kind of love.
But for the two of us, I wondered if what she was speaking of wasn't
more precious. She'd called the Woe wild animals, once, that I'd let
into my home. She'd done it while castigating me for being unable to see
past my part of our story -- but she'd done the same, in her own way.
Assuming that there'd been anything to me but plans before I met them.
Like I'd not been just as much of a stray, starved for everything they
had to give. Being in love, it was a fickle thing. Fragile. And skin
only ever meant what you let it. I'd never felt either of those things
in a way I wasn't willing to lose. I closed my eyes, letting Indrani's
warmth seep into me.

This, I was not willing to lose. Not with her, not with any of the
others.

``Sometimes I think you're trying to die,'' she said, the words shaking
me out of my thoughts. ``Second Liesse\ldots{} well, you're not running
from it anymore. But I figure you might be running towards it instead,
and that's not much better.''

``I wouldn't,'' I said.

``You won't,'' Indrani said, and it wasn't a question. ``You don't have
that right, if you do this to us.''

```Drani, I'm not trying to get myself killed,'' I said. ``I --''

``Your leg,'' she said. ``The limp. You telling me Sve Noc couldn't have
fixed that?''

I bit back on my first answer. Flippancy was less than this, than either
of us, deserved. There were ways, not so different from the ones Black
had once offered me. But none of them led to places I wanted to go.

``That's different,'' I said.

``It's a weakness,'' Indrani said. ``And I don't mean because it slows
you down. You think you need the pangs to keep you grounded, I'm
guessing.''

My fingers clenched.

``Yeah,'' she sighed. ``That sounds about right. There's nothing noble
about that, Cat. It's just pain, it has no \emph{value}.''

``I can still fight,'' I said. ``And it forces me to \emph{think},
Indrani. Before I act, how I'll act. To no longer jump in every pit,
trusting I'm strong enough I'll be able to crawl out afterwards.''

The echo of her own words had her smiling, I could feel it from the way
she shifted against my shoulder.

``If you trusted yourself, you wouldn't need it,'' she said.

``Maybe I don't,'' I murmured.

``Is that really,'' Indrani said, ``who you want to be?''

I didn't have an answer to that. She didn't ask for one, either. We
stayed there in silence, and for once let the world go on spinning
without us.

It wouldn't last, but what did?
