Sightwitch (The Witchlands 0.5)

“Yet you can abandon me? And the girls?”

His eyes averted. “No. I …” Then he wilted into me, his forehead resting against mine. “We cannot walk away from this, Dysi. Someone betrayed us.”

“Or we were not careful enough.”

“Da!” came Cora’s call, muffled by the ice. A heartbeat later: “Dysi! Come! We have to hurry!”

“I don’t want to do this,” he murmured.

“I know. But you have to trust me and trust the girls.” I rested my hands on either side of his face—that beautiful, lined face that I had grown to love. “This is what the Goddess wills, and so we must obey.” Then, when he made no move to turn, I murmured the only No’Amatsi words I knew: “Mhe verujta.”

Trust me as if my soul were yours.

He gave a long, slow blink. Then whispered, “Mhe verujta,” and together we ascended the spiral.

A tomb waited for us with four gaps in the ice. If I’d had any doubt that Lisbet’s vision was true, it was gone now.

Though that did not mean I was ready. Cora went first, then her father. And I cried—it was selfish of me, but I could not stop the tears.

Everything I had worked for had crumbled away. The doors, the rebellion, and a life with my Heart-Thread, these two little girls, and the boy growing in my womb.

I was the last into the ice, for Lisbet told me I must write a final entry. “Leave the diary and your taro cards behind,” she ordered me. “The last Sister will need them.”

Yet as the ice scuttled over Lisbet, I had to ask her. I had to know. “How can you be so calm? How have you lived all these weeks and months despite knowing all that was coming?”

“Not despite, Dysi.” She gave me a sympathetic half smile, and it was not a child’s face that stared at me. “Because. We value things more when we know they won’t last forever.”

Then ice covered her completely, and she joined her family in the Sleeper’s embrace.

So I did as she commanded, and now it is only I to sit alone in this room of eternal cold and blue, blue, blue.

Whoever you are, last Sightwitch Sister, please make use of the time you have. Do not do as I did. Do not trap yourself away inside a mountain with your head stuffed in the past.

You have a life to live, and Sirmaya thinks it is an important one.

So go outside. Meet the world and embrace its trials head-on.

A lone sister is lost, you know, so never let yourself be alone.





Kullen Ikray

Y18 D218

Ryber tells me that I must write everything now that I remember it. “Nothing is real until you record it,” she insists, and though she laughs at my poor handwriting, I do as she commands.

She is not the sort of woman to be disobeyed.

Not that I would ever want to. Her frown is

My name is Kullen Ikray, though Ryber still calls me Captain. I was a Captain, temporarily, and at the urging of my Threadbrother Merik, I led a crew of sailors and civilians to the northern border of Nubrevna. We were building watchtowers, and all was progressing with perfection.

Until it wasn’t. I received word about a possible Dalmotti tradesman willing to negotiate with Nubrevnans. Well, specifically with me. I decided not to tell Merik. After all, he is a prince and he has more than enough to worry about. I could fly down to this rendezvous point and be back in a day.

I should have known, Ry. I should have known it was a trap. How did this Dalmotti know where to find me? How did he know who I was to begin with? But the prospect of food and trade clouded all judgment. I left immediately, and though my lungs protested at the demands of a flight without breaks, I crossed all the way to the coast in a single day.

I met the tradesman on the shore. He had two ships, one on which he had sailed and another packed with food and livestock. Mine for the taking if I would just give him the one thing he wanted.

Me.

He wanted me, and though I plied him with the wares of Nubrevna (we have excellent sheep), he grew more and more insistent.

Then he turned on me completely and attacked. He and thirteen of his men. I am an excellent fighter, Ry, but even I cannot take on that many trained sailors. I had to use my magic, and for the first time in my life, I had to use it to cause harm. Without aim, without focus, I had to blast my winds crudely and try to flee.

But when an arrow hit me … That was when everything shifted. In a haze, I flew ashore and found my way through the jungle. Somehow, I discovered that door and entered the mountain.

I don’t remember what came next. Not clearly. All I recall with any clarity is you. I woke up, frozen to my core, and there you were.

I thought you were either a ghost or goddess. Luckily, you were neither. I would call you a goddess, but I know you’ll just scowl and tell me to shove off.

I don’t know if the arrow wound or the magic of the mountain rattled my brains, but I forgot who I was or how I’d gotten there. It wasn’t until I returned to the jungle that my memories came back.

The sailors and tradesman came back too. I would have thought they’d have left me to die, but there they were, combing the beach in search of me. When they found me, the arrows hit me in quick succession.

After that … I really don’t remember. I lost all control. Heat took over. It throbbed inside me, and I was hungry—so blighted hungry.

But then you saved me. Clanging a bell and singing a shanty, you brought me back from the edge.

I owe you everything, Ryber Fortsa. My life, my mind, my—





Ryber Fortiza

Y18 D223 — 49 days since I became the last Sightwitch Sister


MEMORIES

Captain Kullen left me today. With his wounds fully healed, his memory returned, and even his uniform scrubbed clean, there was nothing left to keep him here.

We sat on that boulder by the grassy knoll that overlooks the falls. Even the Rook had joined us, though he seemed more interested in bathing himself than watching the river below.

Nubrevnans crawled across the forest, the shore. At least a hundred women and men, and with one angry Windwitch at the fore.

“Merik,” Kullen informed me, “acting like he always does. He will budget and ration, even to the detriment of his own health … until I’m involved. Then he will waste a hundred sailors and witches and boats and food.”

“It’s what Thread-family does,” I said quietly.

Something in my tone must have betrayed my thoughts, for Kullen’s brows pinched, and he offered a gentle smile. “I’m sorry about the Sisters.”

I pretended not to hear, and in my most Hilga-like, matter-of-fact manner, I got to my feet, dusted off my tunic, and declared, “There’s something I need to tell you.”

He winced. “That sounds ominous.”

“When you leave the glamour”—I gestured south—“you’ll forget everything that happened here. The memories will get buried in a place you cannot find them.”

His eyebrows shot high. Then, in a flurry of limbs and speed, he hauled to his feet. “I’ll forget everything? Even you?”

I nodded.

“I didn’t forget when I left Paladins’ Hall. On the beach, I remembered you!”