Sightwitch (The Witchlands 0.5)

“You,” I breathed.

“You,” was his reply. Then his gaze dropped to his toes, and he scrubbed a hand over his dark hair.

Nervous. He was … nervous.

“You told me you were a soldier.” Accusation laced my tone.

He offered a tight laugh. “An advanced soldier.” Then he shrugged, his eyes finally lifting to meet mine across the room. “Does … it matter?”

“No!” I rushed forward two clumsy steps. Then stopped, feeling a fool.

Now I was the one staring uncomfortably at the ground. “I simply … That is to say, I assumed you were somewhere near the Convent. In one of the Rook King’s southern forts.”

“A fair guess.” He cleared his throat. “I never specified.”

“You must truly love the girls.” I twirled away and marched to his desk. It was so much easier to speak when I didn’t face him.

So much easier to breathe.

“Not that I doubted you loved them, of course,” I rambled on. “But it must take you an entire day to travel both ways.”

“Each way,” he corrected. “The journey takes two days.”

I watched him from the corner of my eye as he approached me at the desk.

He frowned. Then he was at the table and standing beside me. Close enough that I could smell iron and horse. Close enough that, if I wanted to, I could have reached out and touched him.

“So you are that Sightwitch. The inventor without the Sight.”

Shame gusted over me.

“Your eyes are silver,” he continued, oblivious of the fire raging on my cheeks. “So I assumed you were like the others.”

“Well, I’m not,” I said flatly.

Now he was the one to blurt. “I meant no offense. I’m sorry, my lady. Truly.”

I believed him and forced a smile. “I suppose we’re both more than we let on.”

“Ah.” The worried lines of his face smoothed away and he offered me one of his own smiles. The kind that made his bright eyes crinkle and my stomach knot tight. “When did you get here?”

“Only moments ago. The first doorway is complete.” I gestured vaguely up the mountain. “I just tested it.”

He stiffened. “You tested it?”

“Of course. Who else would?”

“I don’t know. Someone who isn’t you.” He shook his head, an impatient movement. “What if the magic had gone wrong? What if you had not arrived here at all? Did you even try it before you stepped through?”

“How would I possibly try it?” I drew back my shoulders.

“Throw a stone in it.”

“The spell only works on the living.”

“Then send a Paladin!”

“Oh, right,” I retorted, “because the most important people in all the land would risk their lives testing my doorway.”

“Yes! And they should! This is their rebellion—”

“This is our rebellion!”

“—and if they die, then they’ll be reborn!”

“Why are you shouting at me?”

“Because it was foolish! What if you had died?”

“The Six would have gone on just fine without me,” I snipped, and because I didn’t know what else to do—because I don’t like confrontation—I gathered myself up to my fullest height and said, “I will tell Lisbet and Cora you send your love. Good day, General.”

Then I stalked past him and aimed for the door. As I grabbed at my cloak, ready to yank it off its hook, his voice skated over me. The words were too low to discern.

“What?” I angled back.

He cleared his throat. Then louder, he offered, “They aren’t the only reason.”

“Who?”

“The girls.”

I released the cloak. Then turned to stare at him straight on.

There was no more anger to cloud his eyes. Nor pain nor anything else I could easily recognize.

Then he repeated, “The girls aren’t the only reason I come each full moon,” and I knew exactly what expression he wore.

Need.

And I needed it too. I had all along, hadn’t I? Since that day at the Sorrow when the world had tilted sideways. When he’d flashed a single smile.

I would not let this moment slip past.

In four long steps I was back to him. Rolling onto my toes and looping my fingers behind his head.

His hair was as soft as I had dreamed it would be.

Then our lips touched, and it was over. I had kissed before. A hundred girls around me, and I was bound to try. But I’d never met someone who made me want to keep kissing like he did.

Twice, I had to pull back to catch my breath. The room spun. His face spun.

But I could not stay away for long. A heartbeat, perhaps two, and then our lips were crushed together once more.

This was it. This was what it was all about—this was true Sight, true understanding of what life really meant.

The general and his daughters had been the change to shake me loose, and I knew that from this moment on, I would never be the same.





I knew what I had to do. It was what Tanzi wanted me to do, what she’d wanted me to do all along.

To go beyond.

To be free.

All these hours and days and weeks, I had had only one purpose: to reunite with my Sisters and my Lazy Bug.

All these years, I’d thought this was my future. I would become a powerful Sightwitch Sister and join the ranks of those who protected Sirmaya—and who one day joined with her forever in sleep.

But my Goddess was dying. If I finally took hold of what I’d always wanted, it would mean turning my back on a world that needed me.

I couldn’t do that, and Captain had been right all along. Back on the Way Below, he’d been right: there was not one set path for me. I could choose another. I could make my own Sight with clarity and purpose and thinking beyond.

Tanzi had said there was another way to heal Sirmaya, so I would find it.

I splayed my fingers on the ice, right over Tanzi’s heart. It was so silent now. So still. “I’ll come back for you,” I whispered. “I’ll heal the Sleeper, and you’ll wake up again.”

Then I gathered up Eridysi’s diary and the gold leather pouch, and with my chin held high, I left behind all the people I’d ever loved.

The ice, however, had a different plan in mind. I reached the exit, ready to march back into the main spiral, when a loud crack! rattled through the room. Everything shook, hard enough to topple me.

I found my gaze level with Trina’s. She looked so young within the ice.

Ice, I realized, that was moving. Too surprised to react, I watched as three crystals lanced out from beside Trina’s head.

More cracking sounded around me, echoing and solid. I looked down to find ice rising up from the floor.

It wasn’t until the ice slid its claws around me that I finally moved.

I bolted for the door. Ice erupted from all angles. Bigger, fiercer. Stalactites to pin me down.

This tomb did not want me to leave.

I dodged. I leaped. I hit the spiral pathway, where the Rook hovered in place, panic clear in his frantic wingbeats.

He saw me. He cawed. Then he folded his wings and dropped like a stone.

“Curse you!” I screeched, slinging left. “I can’t fly!”

I couldn’t blame him for leaving me, though, for as I launched my legs high, ice began to fall. A tremor from a dying—a cleaving—Goddess.