From the Ashes of Victory: The Complete Series, page 62
part #0 of From the Ashes of Victory Series
"Oh, thank God."
"But that was how she viewed it. My brother and I were born minutes apart, we weren't going to be raised any differently from one another. And we weren't. I was allowed every opportunity he had, until the war. That's where our paths diverged."
Victoria rolled up her left sleeve, baring her forearm to Katya's attentive eyes, revealing the stark black tattoo that simply said 'NOVEMBER.' "1915. The month I lost my family. My parents blown up by a German bomb, my brother shot and killed at Ctesiphon two weeks later." Unrolling the right one, she revealed the number '11.' "The number of men to whom I gave white feathers that died in the war."
"White feathers?" Katya asked.
"There was a movement, before conscription started, of young women all over Britain handing young men who hadn't signed up white feathers as a way of publicly shaming them into joining the military. We would wait until they were alone, or worse, in front of other young women, and then hand them the feather and demand to know why they were at home while other brave men were out there fighting and dying, like my brother. Like I would be, if they let girls sign up." Victoria's eyes went somewhere far away before looking down at the ground. "It was cruel and humiliating, and I will regret being a part of it for the rest of my life."
Russia had had conscription from the very beginning, and though Katya believed Victoria's admission of regret, at least those boys had had a choice. "What made you do it?"
"My brother signed up and went. I couldn't; they wouldn't let me."
"You tried?"
"Three times. November isn't the only other person I've been. Three different names in three different cities; I got caught every time. I was so upset they wouldn't take me like they took William. I had been raised believing I was every bit his equal, being rejected was a slap in the face. I took it out on those young men, who had done nothing to deserve what I did to them." Victoria stroked the number on her arm. "Eleven of them died. They might have been conscripted and taken later, I try to tell myself, but they wouldn't have been in front of that bullet or under that shell. They might have come home to their families if it weren't for me shaming them into leaving when they did.
"So, I had to make up for it. I had to put right that wrong, and making artillery shells wasn't enough. So when ADAM came recruiting, I didn't hesitate. They wanted motivated young women, and there were few more motivated than me. My supervisor at the factory noted my work ethic and my single-mindedness, so he recommended me for the program, even though we really didn't know what it was at the time. There was no hint of magic or witches until we'd already arrived and been checked by Selene for the Talent."
"You had no idea you were a witch?" Katya asked in disbelief. It had taken a long time for her grandmother to actually say the word, but there had been years of groundwork laid beforehand, little hints and stories that had made the revelation almost a relief. To just be thrown into it beggared belief.
"I didn't even believe in magic until I saw it done in front of me," Victoria said. "But at that point, I didn't question it, it became just another means for me to slay my demons. After that, I threw myself into ADAM with everything I had. Avenge my parents and my brother, burn away the guilt of those feathers. I was driven like a madwoman—I thought of nothing else for months. I imagined I was going to single-handedly win the war. One witch against all of Germany. I was going to march straight to Berlin myself and smash them with arcane fire and lightning. I would have scoffed at the very idea of magic before ADAM, but once I had seen it firsthand, I was in love. It was the key to everything I wanted. I could kill Germans and use it to expose the inner workings of the universe, I thought. But progress was slow. No matter how hard I worked, how many scrolls or tomes I pored over, dissecting every syllable, I barely rose above kitchen witchery, like everyone else. I started to lose focus, and so, after one too many drinks with Millie, I got it into my head to fix that with a permanent reminder of why I was working so hard.
"I had to go into one of the sketchier bits of London to find someone who would do it. The first few places told me I must be joking and that I should come back with my husband to prove I was serious," Victoria said, her eyes rolling back in her head. "But, money talks. And so, in a facility I would rather not describe in any great detail, I had these done. This permanent reminder of what I had lost and what I had done."
"Did they hurt?"
"Very much. I'd been told black is the most painful colour, so I, being the masochist I am, chose it. But I couldn't watch it being done. Every swipe of his towel when the needle stopped, I knew he was wiping away my blood. They were hideous at first. There was quite a bit of bruising, and the scabs itched terribly." Victoria ran her fingers over her left arm. "When they healed, however, they were black, just like I had asked."
Yekaterina leaned forward. "May I touch it?"
"Of course. It just feels like skin." Victoria held out her arm.
"So it does. I'd have thought there would be something there."
Victoria couldn't help but laugh. "I thought exactly the same thing when I was November. I was just as surprised as you."
"What did the others say? Millie and Elise."
"That I was a daft idiot, and that I would regret it. Millie was there when I had the idea, but she hadn't thought me serious. Uptight professor's daughter, why would she have? When I came back with bandages on my arms, she thought I'd been in an accident."
"Were they right? Do you regret it?"
"I really don't know. Millie says I can never let go if I have these, that I'll never be able to move on. But in the asylum, they were the only things I had to remind me who I was. Now, they're a reminder of that time, as well. Of what I did to myself."
Yekaterina suddenly stood, and Victoria found herself wrapped tightly in her arms.
"You're very brave," Yekaterina said in a cracked whisper.
Victoria went limp. "I was a coward."
"Hopelessness is not cowardice," Yekaterina said, pulling away. She overturned her left arm and rolled up her sleeve. There, on an already pale wrist was an even paler scar—a single, ragged slash from one side to the other. "And we must learn to live with it."
Victoria couldn't help but stare. "You did this?"
"Yes. When I was being held by the Cheka. I sold myself to stay alive only to learn I couldn't live that way. I thought I was better off with my parents in heaven than to endure that living hell any longer. But they found me and bandaged me. I was punished for it, for trying to deprive them of their entertainment. Do not, Victoria, punish yourself."
"But aren't you ashamed?" The question of shame had been burning within Victoria, and scalded her throat on the way out.
There was someone else like her! Someone who knew how she felt, yet… didn't. Yekaterina seemed perfectly functional, while it ate away at Victoria's insides every day, the churning, acid-soaked shame that walked hand-in-hand with her guilt to torment her both when she was awake and asleep, never giving her a moment's peace, beating her down until she was a small, wretched thing who needed magic to sleep through the night without terrorising herself.
Yekaterina nodded, however. "Yes. Not as much as before, but yes. It's a lesson, one that I am continuing to learn. It gets better. You learn to appreciate what you've been given."
"And what is that?"
"A second life. It will always hurt. You will never feel complete, and that you have betrayed everyone, especially yourself. But think of everything you've done since then. You're the most powerful witch in the world, Victoria. Be her. Embrace her. Having a Manifest means you have pain, it's something we all bear, I realise now. It's part of the price. I believe Manifests only happen in those worthy of it. If you weren't, you'd be dead. Direct, I know, but you're the direct type."
"A second life… what if I don't deserve it? Colette, those eleven men… they're all dead. It was my fault! Why should I have that chance? Look what I did with the first one! I should be dead. I deserve it."
"No, Victoria. I don't accept that, and neither should you. Imagine if I was Colette and she heard you say such a thing. Would she agree that you deserve to die for what happened? Or would she be horrified to hear you say that? I never knew her, but I cannot imagine it is the former."
"I saw it happen… they stripped her of her magic and I watched! The sound she made when it happened—" Victoria choked on a sob that strangled her windpipe. "The sound, the light in her eyes just—" Victoria snapped her fingers, "gone. That was when she died; she left the body behind later. She died right in front of me and I didn't move a single muscle to help her. I watched and I ran. I had these abilities!" One of the lengths of steel tubing suddenly launched into the air and failed to come back down. "The man who did it had a metal spike in her skull. I could have put it right through his, but I didn't! I ran…"
"You didn't know your own name, let alone that you were a witch. Did you think the word 'magic' once during your time in that hospital?"
"No."
"You didn't know what was happening. You were feeling things you couldn't explain."
"I should have been stronger," Victoria protested, the echoes of her nightmares ringing in her head.
"What about your brother?"
Victoria stiffened. "What?"
"Should he have been stronger? Stronger than the bullet that killed him? No? He just let himself die, leaving you all alone."
"How dare you!"
"Answer the question, Victoria," Yekaterina said calmly.
"Of course not!"
"Then why is it true of you? Why is your wound somehow dismissible while his isn't? You were both shot, yet you're the one who feels she had to somehow overcome the consequences by sheer will? Is that it?"
"I'm a witch!"
"You didn't know that. You told me you were terrified of your powers, that you thought you were going insane. How can you think you should have all of a sudden used them that way?"
Yekaterina took both of Victoria's hands in her own. "You were injured and terrified. Sound familiar? You said yourself there was no Victoria. You were November. If you had to assign yourself a new identity, how could you possibly think that you could have done anything to save Colette?"
"Because I was there."
"What about Elise?"
"What about her?"
"Do you think she regrets saving your life? She Manifested saving your life. Do you think she'd give it back?"
"Elise is the kindest soul I've ever known," Victoria answered by way of non-answer.
"And yet you would shatter it with grief to punish yourself. Millie, too. You are loved, Victoria. You, Victoria Ravenwood, are loved. You have worth, and merit. You have value, and are valued. You have been tried as few have been, and yet here you are. You're alive, and your friends still care about you. They would be devastated if anything were to happen to you. Think of them. Us."
"But that's just it. My best friend. Elise. Colette, Selene, Ivy… none of them were in my thoughts when I tried to kill myself. I had all of those extraordinary women in my life, and they weren't even a consideration when I chose to end it—to take myself away from them forever without ever telling them why. How could I have done such a thing? How hard is my heart that I could betray the only people in all the world who care about me? I'm a monster."
"Shh, you're not a monster. Monsters don't regret."
"Not a monster, then. But how much do I hate myself that Millie and the others weigh less in my heart than my pain? There are times still where I wonder if it might have been better had I succeeded. I wouldn't have them, but nor would I have the guilt, or the shame. Whatever lies beyond this life, I wish to all the gods in all the pantheons that that does not go with me. I will not subscribe to the idea that I live in a world where this suffering is without end." Victoria shook her head in abject confusion. Her thoughts were so jumbled, and so dark, yet she couldn't stop saying them aloud. "Am I so lost? How can I think these things? After all that I've been through, how can that temptation still be within me?"
"Temptation?"
"Death. I can't sleep, and I can't wake. I am physically healthy, but I feel betrayed by my mind at every turn. Will I ever know peace? Part of me, a part larger than I have ever admitted to anyone, believes that there is only one place where I will find out." Victoria wiped a tear from her eye with a shaking finger. "And we're witches. We're going to live a long, long time. I don't know if I can do it. To feel as I do for centuries on end sounds like the worst form of torture. I haven't the fortitude to endure it, I fear."
Yekaterina placed a hand on Victoria's shoulder and squeezed, but thought better of it and pulled her close once more, hugging her tightly. "The feeling will pass. You don't believe it now, but it will. It will never be gone completely, but you will, one day, become a master over it."
"One day…" Victoria said into Yekaterina's shoulder.
"Yes. One day. But that day will come, Victoria. You must trust me when I say that it will."
"I trust you… It's me I have doubts about."
"Stop this," Yekaterina said, pulling away to look Victoria in the eye. "You are stronger than you give yourself credit for. No, let me finish— up here, as well." She pressed her fingers gently on the side of Victoria's head. "You came back. After all that happened, you came back. As November, you fought to remember, and you did. Your Manifest saved your life for a reason."
A dry, sardonic laugh rolled out of Victoria. "I don't believe in fate."
"I'm not talking about fate. More than any witch I've ever known or heard of, your magic is a part of you. It's not a tool, or a means to an end, it is you. I don't mean your magic saved you for some greater purpose, I mean that it saved you because you didn't want to die."
"How can you tell a someone who shot herself in the head she didn't want to die?"
"Because I'm a survivor, too. We both wanted a way out, and I survived to find mine by other means. You will, too. Your magic acted on behalf of your subconscious, I think. It's not that you wanted to die…"
Victoria thought on this, Yekaterina watching her in silence. "I just didn't want to live."
Yekaterina nodded. "That's how I see it. You wanted the pain to go away. To end the hurt. To stop feeling. To escape."
"I still want that," Victoria admitted.
"I know. I know because I've felt that way, too. But after everyone we've lost, we owe it to them to keep living. If we go to this next life, as you say, and our loved ones are there, what will they say knowing we threw away what was taken from them? Do we not owe them a life well-lived? The sooner we go, the sooner they will be forgotten, and then they will truly be gone. As long as we live, they do too— in here." Katya pressed her fingertips to Victoria's heart. "Our immortality is theirs, too. The strength will come. You will find it, as I have. As many others in our position have."
Yekaterina turned her arm over, exposing the scar that tore across it. "Touch it."
Victoria hesitated. It felt invasive; all she could do was stare at the thick ridge of tissue that ran across Yekaterina's slender wrist like a jagged shard of quartz.
"Please," Yekaterina said.
Raising her trembling fingers, Victoria barely grazed it before yanking them back again. "I can't. It's too traumatic, too personal, I shouldn't—"
"What did I say about the word 'should?' Here—" Before Victoria could react, Yekaterina snatched her hand up and pressed it against her wrist.
Under her shocked fingers, Victoria could feel the scar. Hard and inflexible, it was nothing like the surrounding skin. It was a stiff, unyielding thing, almost artificial, in contrast to the warmth that pumped just beneath it. It was where Yekaterina's lifeblood had run from her body, her heart straining to keep up with the dramatic fall in pressure as it flowed from her, crimson oozing over alabaster. Victoria could see it in her mind's eye as clear as day, and it made her want to weep tears as thick as blood.
"You're not alone," Yekaterina said, her ice-blue eyes holding Victoria's as she continued to press her hand against her wrist. "In more ways than one."
When Yekaterina finally released her, Victoria took up her hand and brought it to her right temple.
"Here?" Yekaterina asked. "There's no sign of it."
Victoria nodded. "My ear still rings."
"Then that is your scar." Yekaterina let her hand fall away. "If we're both going to be alive for as long as it seems we will, we will need each other's support to heal them completely. There's no shame in that. Our pasts should be our teachers, not our masters. Do you agree?"
"I don't know…"
"We both have re-building to do, and I would be very happy to have someone to do it with. I need someone to help me adjust to life in this country, and I would very much like that someone to be you. You're intelligent, insightful, and a gifted witch. I can't think of anyone better. If you feel you need a purpose, I am humbly submitting myself for consideration."
Victoria looked down, one hand still in Yekaterina's.
To think that only a short while ago she'd been convinced that Yekaterina hated her. Now, she was asking that they trust one another with their mental well-being—and given the current state of Victoria's, their lives.
Quite the magic trick.
"Then I accept," Victoria said, rubbing away a sniffle with the back of her sleeve. She met Yekaterina's eyes once more. "I'm glad you're here."
"So am I."
Pasta boiled away while the tomatoes bubbled beside them in gleaming, still-new copper pots. The countertop was strewn with the remnants of the seasonings that had been cut up, sprigs and stems scattered about. Millie ground away at the seeds between her scale-shrouded fingers, filling the kitchen with the scent of half-a-dozen herbs and spices, most of which had been pulled from Ivy's greenhouse. They were more potent and even more nutritious than normal, and once added to a sauce, would infuse it not only with flavour, but minor healing properties, helping to rejuvenate the body after a long day.
"Do not lick your fingers," Elise reminded her. "They are too strong."
"You think I forgot already?"
