Sightwitch (The Witchlands 0.5)

“If that were true, then don’t you think I would have summoned it against the shadow wryms?”

“You’re using it right now!” I pointed, and the map—still clutched tight—crinkled in my hand. “That snow is from you!”

He glanced left, right, and his widening eyes told me that until that moment, he hadn’t even noticed the snow. All this time, he’d been changing the temperature, and he hadn’t even realized.

“I … don’t think …” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’m doing this.”

“You are.”

“Then I don’t know how!” Captain backed away, almost tripping over the Rook who hopped and squawked.

The snow chased after, and this time, the faintest wind gusted up from Captain’s toes.

What little color he possessed leached entirely from his face.

“Magic is what makes a person cleave.” He clasped his arms to his chest, as if he could keep the wind and the snow at bay. “If I try to use this power, I might cleave again. Then what?”

My lips parted. I sucked in air, ready to answer …

But then my mouth clamped shut. For there was nothing I could say. If he cleaved, then one of us would die. That was that.

“I thought so.” His arms relaxed, and the snow broke off. Not the wind, though. It funneled around him and whipped against me.

Hot, dry, powerful wind.

“I won’t let you risk it, Ryber. I won’t let you endanger your life just so you can go deeper into this nightmare place.” He drew himself up to his fullest height, a towering beast of a man, and there was a clear challenge in his jaw.

I was having none of it.

I matched his posture. I matched his expression. Then I marched right up to him and poked him in the shoulder. “Don’t,” I hissed, “say ‘just.’ I do not want your magic just so I can go deeper into the mountain. I go after my family, Captain. After my Threadsister.

“You may not remember anything, but surely you know what love and loyalty feel like. So do not tell me that if your family, that if your best friend in the entire universe needed you, you would give up on them.

“All I’m asking is that you fly me to this ledge.” I shook the map in his face. “Then you can leave. You can go right through this door and figure out who you are.”

So certain was I that he would argue more—so sure was I that he would shout or make a run for the archway—that I planted my feet and braced for impact.

Instead, his chin dropped, and he said, “Fine.” Then he spun away and marched to the outcropping’s edge.

My jaw sank low, and when I glanced at the Rook, he looked as shocked as I, his beak half open and head dipped to one side.

“Well?” Captain called. “Are you coming or not?”

“Right.” I scurried over, and before he could change his mind, I flung my arms around him.

“Uh.” He cleared his throat, and the air around us ratcheted up to boiling. “Why are you holding me?”

“For flying.”

“The thing is, you, uh … You don’t need to.”

I flung off my arms and tumbled back. Heat that was not from his magic flagged through me.

“Not that I mind, of course,” he added hastily, amusement crinkling his eyes, “but surely I can create multiple air currents. Seems logical, right? And the two separate currents will get us where we’re going—and where is that, by the way?”

Embarrassment blazed onto my neck and cheeks as I pointed vaguely up. “Somewhere that way. And stop smiling.”

His grin stretched wider. “I’m not smiling. This is simply my summoning-magic face.”

“Liar,” I muttered. Then, for good measure, I added, “Blighter.” But the word was lost in a roar of wind that tore around me. It curled beneath my feet, a physical thing that grabbed my arms, my legs, my waist.

I rocketed up, the stone fell away, and the next thing I knew, I was flying.

I might have been screaming too, but my voice was lost in the charged, spinning air that grasped me. My stomach was lost as well, left on the stone below where it could vomit up bile without me.

And my heart—blessed Sirmaya, it was going to explode in my eardrums if we didn’t slow or return to the ground or … something.

At least the wind was too strong for me to look down, though, and see how far we had to fall.

As I tried to swivel my head to see Captain, something fizzy surged up from my belly and curled into my skull. It sang along the back of my neck and behind my ribs.

I was flying. I was flying.

Captain had done it, and any moment now, we would land and I could finally, finally reach my Sisters.





Y2787 D336


MEMORIES

The first doorway is complete.

I did it.

I cannot believe it, but the magic path stands directly before me as I write this, sitting on the cold floor in Saria’s carved hall.

The Rook King was the first of the Six to get me a boulder. Less than a day since our meeting, and the monolith arrived on a wagon hauled by twelve horses. We set it up in the meadow west of the river, where the earth dips low and Sirmaya’s power rises up from the soil.

It was simply too awkward to get the stone into the mountain itself, and just as I had speculated, I didn’t need to. The spell worked fine aboveground, and all the Threads bound exactly as they should.

From Goddess to boulder to doorway.

Now the question is: Do I dare walk through?





1/2 hour(?) left to find Tanzi

Our landing was not as graceful as our takeoff.

The ledge and door that the map led us to were easy to find—exactly where I’d pointed, and, like before, sconces whuffed to life at our approach.

An approach that was not slowing down. The light from the lanterns flared into six orange lines.

“Too fast!” I bellowed over the winds, but either Captain didn’t hear or didn’t care. “Too fast!” I tried again, shrieking now. We were going to hit that rock at full speed. “Too fast, too fast, TOO FAST—”

We slammed to the ground. My ankles crunched, my knees buckled. I crashed forward, hands catching me for the second time that day in a wrist-popping finish.

But there was no time to notice the pain. No spare thought to waste on it. I staggered to my feet and aimed for the door that had been marked on the map.

Identical to the entry into the Crypts and the workshop, a knife-sized slot waited just ahead. Vaguely, I was aware of the Rook joining us—with a far more graceful landing—and of Captain behind me, laughing, clapping, and declaring, “I did it! Did you see, Ryber? I just flew us over that chasm!”

Captain and the Rook were unimportant, though. Dim and distant. Nothing mattered but opening this door.

And praying that time had not yet run out.

Breath held and hand shaking, I slid the knife in. A rasp of metal on granite. Then a click, a shudder to ripple outward, as the doorway split. A pale glow sliced down the center and two panels swung back.

Ice met my eyes.

More cursed ice.

I don’t know precisely what I’d expected. The map had said SUMMONING, so I’d envisioned something vaguely glorious. Something to make all this horror and heartache worth it.