Sightwitch (The Witchlands 0.5)

Captain’s face sank. Then he turned to the Rook, who’d been riding on his massive shoulder this whole time. “I wasn’t that loud, was I, Rook? Ow.” He swatted the bird off his shoulder. “He bit me!”

“Of course he did.” I fought to keep my face set firmly in a frown. “His name is the Rook, not just Rook.”

“The ‘the’ is that important, is it?” He rubbed at his ear and pouted like a sullen child the size of a tree trunk. Even his wrists and ears were enormous.

When the air around us warmed with a charged heat, a delight sifted through me. Captain was finding his magic again. It was only a matter of time before he remembered how to use it.

“The ‘the,’” I said, resuming the hike, “is as important as the lack of a ‘ta’ in my name. Ryber, not Ryberta. The Rook, not Rook.”

“But you’re a person,” Captain argued, his footsteps resuming behind me. “It’s a bird.”

“He’s a bird,” I corrected.

“Noden save me—you really don’t ever break the rules, do you?”

“What does that mean?” Heat fanned up my cheeks. How did he know I liked rules so much? He’d only known me a few hours.

I almost wish I hadn’t asked the question, for he proceeded to describe in explicit detail (what an ability for recall considering he had no memory!) every single rule I’d told him to follow since leaving the workshop—as well as every single time I’d scolded him for not following said rules.

“Forty-three times,” he told me. “Hye, I counted, and I’d say there’s no denying that you really love your rules.”

“I don’t love them,” I muttered. “But why have them if you aren’t going to follow them?”

“Or,” he countered, picking up his pace and falling into step beside me, “maybe rules exist simply for the breaking.”

My chest tightened at those words. He sounded exactly like Tanzi, and the only way I could hide the sudden tears burning behind my eyes was to offer him the same answer I’d always given her.

Though first, I offered a hard scoff. “I like rules.” I stomped a bit faster. “They give me structure. They give me a clear path to follow—which is Rule 15, by the way: Always follow the marked path.”

“But maybe the marked path isn’t the right one. Maybe,” he dragged out that word as if still thinking, “there isn’t one set path at all.”

“Of course there is. There are no coincidences, and there is no changing what is meant to be.”

“But how do you know that? How do you know all of this”—he twirled his hand—“is what you’re meant to be and not something else?”

I skidded to a halt so fast I almost tripped—and for some reason I really can’t explain, a fury rose inside me. A boiling, vicious heat that I could convey only in a single word, “What?”

Captain took the question exactly as spoken. “I asked how you knew that—”

“I heard you, but why would you say that?”

“Well, you said you are the only Sister without the Sight, which has me thinking: maybe that’s simply not what you’re meant to be.”

“Of course it’s what I’m meant to be,” I gnashed out. “There are no coincidences! I found the Convent on my own when I was only four years old. I’m the only Sister ever to do that! Which means Sirmaya brought me here because this what I’m meant to be. A Sightwitch Sister. A powerful Sightwitch Sister. End of story.”

As I kicked into a raging stomp, hands shaking at my sides, a tremor struck. Stronger than before, it stole my feet from under me.

I crumpled to the steps, curled in a ball with my hands over my head, and waited for the quake to pass.

It lasted for at least a minute, the mountain grinding and furious. Dust puffed and plumed. Stones roared against stones.

Sirmaya is angry. It was the only thought I could produce. Sirmaya is angry. Sirmaya is angry.

I just prayed she wasn’t angry with me. I had forced my way into the mountain, and I had broken more rules than I could count.

When at last the shaking subsided, I didn’t move right away. I simply lay there, wound up and with my pulse thumping in my ears.

Had I made a mistake? Was the Goddess angry because I had chosen the wrong path?

No, I decided at last. Captain was wrong. There were no coincidences, and this was my path.

I would finish what I had come to do. I would find Tanzi and the other Sisters, and no matter what might happen, I had to stay firmly gripped upon that.





Y2787 D176


MEMORIES



Something Lisbet said this morning has altered everything. One comment, and my entire perspective has changed.

I was showing her my latest design for the viewing glass and blade.

“The glass must be bigger.” She pointed at the frame.

“Glass is expensive,” I said, more than a little annoyed. This was, after all, my fourth design that an eight-year-old had turned down. “Not to mention, it’s very hard to buy in the middle of a mountain range, Lisbet.”

“Bigger,” she insisted.

“The power from Sirmaya is strong,” I insisted back. “I do not see why we must lose more time and money on a larger piece of glass.”

Her little jaw jutted sideways, and I swear her eyes flashed with silver light. “It does not matter if Sirmaya is strong,” she said with all the authority of the Goddess. “If Her Threads do not have enough surface to bind to, then the spell will never be powerful enough.”

My mouth fell open. I gawked like a fool for at least an entire minute while the implications of her words unraveled in my mind.

Of course. Of course a spell to reveal a Paladin’s past lives would need heaps of power, and of course the Threads of that power would need space to adhere to.

All this time, it was not that the Vergedi Knot hadn’t been strong enough to create a passageway; I had been using materials too small.

Blessed Sirmaya, why had I not seen? It was so obvious! The answer had been lurking beneath my toe all along, but I had never once thought to lift my foot.

“Right,” I mumbled at her, already turning away. Already shooting for the stairs. “I’ll have Nadya send for more glass.” My feet hit the steps, and I barreled downstairs to my piles of rock. Limestone from the coast, granite from these mountains, clay from the plains in the North …

Six types of stone for the six doorways I needed to build. But small rocks would not do. I needed boulders. I needed monoliths.

Saria, I decided before I even reached the closest pile. Lady Saria would be able to help, and I had a meeting in a week with the Six.

It was all going to work.

And Sister Nadya had been right this whole time: all I had needed to find my answer was a change to shake things loose.





2(?) hours left to find Tanzi

Captain tried to apologize. It was the only time we spoke for the rest of our trek on the Way Below—and also the only words we shared in a tunnel carved entirely through ice labeled The Future.

Seventeen times Captain declared he was sorry, and seventeen times I ignored him.

It was childish of me. I see that now, but responding meant I would have to consider why his words upset me.

And that was something I was not ready to do.