Sightwitch (The Witchlands 0.5)

Captain felt it too. Through the lashing sand and lightning, I saw him tense. Then roll his head back.

He wheeled around, the ship spinning with him and crashing lower, lower. Low enough for me to see barnacles and caulking, to hear cows’ plaintive moaning from within.

Then a groan of wood, a smash of lightning, and Captain threw the boat. As easily as Tanzi skipped stones off the Sorrow, Captain launched the trade ship into the jungle.

I never saw it land. My attention was on the sailors, finally able to run. Soon, they were nothing more than shadowy specks beyond a wall of wind.

Captain stalked close. His skin roiled and shifted. Tarry lines pulsed beneath his pallid cheeks. His eyes were black from rim to rim.

But there was no violence in his posture. No death. He was puzzled more than anything else.

So I slung the bell again. Harder. No rhythm or beat, just a vicious clanging to holler above the storm.

Then, as Captain came toward me, I screamed the only words I could think of—words he’d sung to me before.

“The maidens north of Lovats!

None ever looked so fair!

When they catch your eye, you’ll fall in love,

So everyone beware.”



He stopped his approach. I did not stop mine. On and on, the bell rattled in my grasp, and on and on I hollered.

“The maidens north of Lovats!

Are as strong as ten large men,

With minds as sharp as hammered steel,

When they fight they always win.”



He crumpled to his knees, and the winds answered in kind. Softer, softer they spun.

“The maidens north of Lovats!

If ever one you meet,

Turn hide and run the other way,

Or a blighter you will be!”



I sang the final line, and the pustules smoothed on Captain’s face. The lines of tar shriveled and shrank.

I stopped ringing the bell, and as the last wind whispered away, the final shreds of darkness swirled into nothing. Familiar blue eyes met mine.

Then Captain bowed over, breath heaving, and rasped, “Thank you, Ryber. Thank you.”





Y2788 D41


MEMORIES

The Exalted Ones found us. They found the doors, and I fear the world is ending.

There is no time. The ice comes for me, and I must write. Lisbet told me I must write.

Five hundred and two people. That was all we got through the door from the Scorched Lands and into the underground city.

Then the Exalted Ones came. They used the door from the Windswept Plains—a door that none of us were guarding. The Six, the general, and I were too busy coordinating the movement of a hundred families through the cavern.

The only warning we had was a rumble through the earth. Saria felt it first. I saw her frown, then stride away from our spot at the rear of the group. “What is it?” I called after her.

Then the earthquake hit.

After that, my memory is a mess of broken moments. Of falling to my knees, then heat barreling over me—so hot, my hair caught fire and my eyebrows singed off.

Of screams, frightened and shrill, as people fled. A dropped satchel. A forgotten book.

Of the Exalted Ones loosing magic and war cries that hummed with fury, betrayal, revenge. Each emotion spilled over me. Solid. Real.

What had we unleashed?

Then I watched the Six abandon our group and meet the Exalted Ones head on.

In those seconds that seemed never to end, only two words filled my mind: the girls. Fool that I am, I had let them join us in the cavern. I’d sent them up to the highest ledge, beside the spiral tomb’s entrance, where I’d thought they could watch everything proceed while safely out of reach.

Fool, fool, fool.

I had to get to them.

Then he was beside me, my Heart-Thread, clutching my arm to lift me from the stone. Together, we ran across the glamoured bridge that shook beneath our feet.

Wind roiled against us, water and ice sliced past—and fire, fire, everywhere there was fire.

But we did not stop. We did not slow. Hands grasped tight, we ran for the girls, who meant everything.

We reached the ledge. The girls were not there, but the tomb entrance was open, and Lisbet’s knife poked from the key slot. Its amber hilt glinted in the flames.

Clever, clever Lisbet. We could hide in the tombs until the war below had ended.

I yanked the knife free and flung a final glance behind.

I wish I had never looked. The Six were losing. Rhian and Midne lay crumpled on the stones, while fire engulfed Bastien. Baile was pinned by swords to the wall, and Saria was trapped inside a growing cage of stone. The Rook King—the one to whom I had given the Paladin-blade for safekeeping—was nowhere in sight.

There was nothing to be done, not with the girls’ safety at risk. So I hauled the door shut and led the way into the ice.

Our breaths hashed out, overloud. Our feet hammered and scraped. Until at last we reached the spiral’s heart.

And there, my darling, wonderful girls awaited. Lisbet stood tall, her sister clutched tight. Her eyes glowed.

Once to them, their father fell to his knees to inspect them all over. Lisbet rooted her brilliant gaze on me, though. “We must sleep now, Dysi.”

It took me a moment to understand what she meant. Sleeping was what dying sisters did when they saw their time come.

“No, Lisbet.” I cupped her face. “We can hide in the tomb, but once this battle is over, we will leave.”

“But it won’t end. He’s betrayed them all, don’t you see?” She pulled from my grasp and turned to her father. “Tell her, Da. Tell her that it’s time to sleep now.”

“Sleep?” He glanced to me, confused. “Lis, love, we need to hide. Like Dysi said.”

“No.” Cora pulled free from her father’s grip, and slipping her little fingers into Lisbet’s, she drew her sister away three paces. Then both girls thrust out their jaws.

“Lisbet saw what is to come,” Cora said, “and we have to sleep now. All of us—even you, Da, so you can be there when she wakes up.” Cora pointed at me. Then up the spiral. “There’s a tomb waiting for us.”

Their father rose. “I don’t understand.”

“I do.” The words slippered from my throat, for I did understand. This was what Lisbet had seen.

And this was what Sirmaya had chosen for us all.

“It won’t hurt,” Lisbet said to me. To her father: “The ice will protect us for a time, and then we’ll sleep until it’s time to wake up again.”

My fingers moved to my belly. “What about … him, Lis?” I almost choked on the words. Tears slid down my face—when had those started?

“He’ll be fine,” Cora answered. “Lizzie told me all about him, and he’s going to be a very good older brother one day.”

“Older brother?” I tried to ask, but the girls were already marching for the spiral.

Their father did not follow.

“Come.” I reached for him and took his hands in mine. He looked ancient in this light, and so tired. “You must trust the magic of the Goddess, my love.”

Still he did not move. “There are people out there. I must help them.”

“You can do nothing.” I squeezed his fingers tightly. “The Exalted Ones will kill you.”

“I have to try,” he countered. “I cannot abandon my king.”