Sightwitch (The Witchlands 0.5)

Still, I had to try to break them free.

I reached Tanzi and dropped the diary and the pouch at my feet. “Wake up,” I whispered. “Wake up, Tanz. I’m here—just like you asked. Please, wake up.”

Nothing happened.

So with hands that trembled out of control, I unfastened my knife. It was the only tool I had for breaking the ice; it would have to be enough.

“Wake up,” I said, louder now and, with my arm rearing back.

I stabbed the ice.

A shockwave tore out. It threw me backward, yanking me to the ground with mind-crunching power.

My head banged the ice. The world went black, and for a moment, I simply lay there.

Lost. No sound, no sight. I was stripped down to my barest nothing, and it took all I had to simply cling to consciousness.

I thought perhaps I had died.

But then my breath returned, aching and weak, followed by a flickering haze of glowing blue.

Last came sound. Words from throats I knew.

“She is dying,” croaked Sister Rose.

“The Goddess is dying,” said Ute. And Trina and Margrette and all the rest. “The Goddess is dying, the Goddess is dying.”

Then loudest came Hilga’s stern tone. It cut straight to my heart, and tears scorched in my eyes.

“Join us,” Hilga said. “Join us in sleep, Ryber. Sirmaya needs us. We must give her our power so she can heal.”

“But I have no power.” The words cracked over my lips, and with a grunt to rattle even the Sleeper herself, I thrust myself up.

The Sisters’ eyes were open now, mouths moving. “She is dying, Ryber. The Goddess is dying.”

Only one Sister did not speak. The one I wanted most to hear from.

“Come,” Hilga declared, her silver eyes locked on me. “You do not need the gift of Sight to help our Goddess. You have your own unique strength, and she needs that just as much as she needs our magic. So come, Ryber. Sleep and help heal Sirmaya.”

“Yes,” I said, voice firmer this time. I pushed through the pain that echoed in my skull, and I stood.

One crude step became two. Then six.

I reached Hilga, who smiled down at me. “You came just in time,” she said. “There is space beside me.”

It was true: between Tanzi and Hilga was a gap in the ice exactly my size. My Goddess had been waiting for me all along.

A matching smile split my face. I had made it. I had reached Sirmaya, I had reached the Sisters, and now we would sleep and help our Goddess heal.

That was what all the storms and earthquakes had meant. That was what all the black lines in the ice were.

When the sky splits and the mountain quakes,

Make time for good-byes,

For the Sleeper soon breaks.



Sirmaya was breaking—she was cleaving, and when she did, the world as we knew it would vanish. Of course I would give her what little power I had to keep that from happening.

Yet as I reached the hole meant for me, I glanced one last time at Tanzi.

And I stopped. Her eyes were open, huge and determined. She was not smiling. Her mouth worked and moved against an ice muffle.

Then the frost that silenced her crackled off. “No,” she rasped. Then harder. “No, Ry. Don’t do it.”

“Tanz.” I heaved toward her. My boots scratched over something; I didn’t look down. I just pressed my hands against the ice.

Against my Threadsister. She was so close, yet out of reach.

“Listen to me, Ry.” Each word Tanzi said seemed to take great focus, great strength. “You can still … live. You don’t have … to be here.”

“But I want to.”

“Freedom, Ry. It takes … all … my force of will to reverse this ice long enough to speak to you. I wish I had never stepped inside the mountain, but you … You don’t have to. Walk away, Ry. Save Sirmaya from beyond—” She broke off as a shard of ice scraped downward.

It clamped over her left eyelid, forcing it shut.

“No, no, no.” I grabbed at the ice. Tried to heave it back up.

“Leave it,” Tanzi said, voice strained. “Listen to your Lazy Bug.”

I ignored her. Any exultation I had felt before was lost now. Replaced by the need to free Tanzi.

She didn’t want to be here. I saw it in her eyes—her silver, silver eyes. I had to get her out.

Behind me, Hilga shouted, “No! Leave her, Ryber! You must sleep now!”

Meaningless words. I yanked harder at the ice.

“It won’t work,” Tanzi gritted out, and somehow, though all the Sisters shrieked at me, her voice rang the clearest. “It’s too late for me, Ry, but not for you. The Rules were never rules, don’t you see? Too much time alone, and we lost ourselves—”

“No,” I snarled. “No, no, no, Tanz.” Yank, rip, yank.

The ice wouldn’t budge, and Goddess—Tanzi’s face was so cold. It was as another slice crawled down and snapped her right eye shut, that a sharp heat ignited in my foot.

I finally glanced down. A thousand pieces of shattered steel met my eyes.

My knife.

Just like that, I gave up. All fight drained from me in a single, downward swoop. If steel could not break this ice, then my fingers certainly never would. A choking sob gathered in my chest. I sagged into Tanzi.

Behind me, Hilga still shouted, “Hurry, Ryber! Get into the ice! Hurry!”

“Don’t,” Tanzi insisted. She shouted too, but her words were so tight. Pained, even. “We are not enough to heal her, Ry. Her magic is being used up too fast. But there is another way—”

Ice clawed over Tanzi’s mouth. She choked. Sputtered.

She wasn’t the only one. All of the Sisters broke off. All of them were now fully sealed in the ice.

And all I could do was lean against the ice and cry.

Useless. Helpless. I’d come so far, only to find this.

I was too late.

My family was in the ice for sleeping, and there was nothing I could do except join them. I could finally be like everyone else and sleep. Unless …

Unless I didn’t.

There is another way. That was what Tanzi had said.

All of us, the Sisters and beyond, we existed because Sirmaya slept and dreamed at the very heart of our world.

A world I’d never actually seen, filled with people like Captain and Dirdra and the Threadwitch and all those Nubrevnans on the shore. If there was a way to keep them alive—to keep the world from ending—could I truly step into the ice and hope my power was enough to heal the Goddess?

No.

The answer was no.

Perhaps, all those years ago, I had not found my way to the Sorrow to join the Sisters, but rather, I had found my way there to save them.

“Ah,” came a gentle rasp. My head jerked up.

It was Tanzi. A sliver of her mouth was still exposed, and somehow she had opened her eyes behind the ice.

She smiled then, crooked and restricted, but so Tanzi. So perfect.

“Silver eyes really suit you,” she said, and then the ice finished its swaddling. Her eyelids sank shut.

She slept.





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LATER

I did it. I entered the doorway and I reached the Rook King’s court atop Sirmaya’s mountain.