Sightwitch (The Witchlands 0.5)

After he had gone, I looked down at Lisbet. She held her sister’s hand and tried to keep Cora, halfheartedly, from chasing after their father.

“First lesson of the Sightwitches,” I said, trying to mimic the authoritative way my mentor had spoken to me almost two decades ago. “There are no coincidences. If you are here, it is because you are meant to be here.”

Lisbet’s eyes narrowed in thought, an expression almost identical to the one her father had made only minutes before.

“What’s a coincidence?” Cora asked, and abruptly she stopped trying to pull away. In fact, she now leaned toward me with curiosity.

“It’s when things happen that seem connected,” Lisbet answered. It was a much better definition than I could have offered. “Like when you want honey cakes and I also want honey cakes at the same time.”

“I always want honey cakes,” Cora said softly.

I smiled at that—a real smile, for already I knew these girls would fit in perfectly here. “Well, Cora, I happen to know we are having honey cakes at break this afternoon. And did I not just say, are there no coincidences?”


The records tell me amalej are No’Amatsi whose tribes disbanded upon reaching the Witchlands. They do not follow the old ways from the East, and they are not bound by No’Amatsi laws nor do they even know the language.

I find it strange, then, that the girls’ father would use the word “amalej.” How did he learn it? Who taught him?

Ah, it matters not. I have work to do, yet for some reason, I cannot shake him from my mind …





Ryber Fortiza

Y18 D212 — 38 days since I became the last Sightwitch Sister

DREAMS

I dreamed of Tanzi last night. For the first time in all my life, I recall a dream.

It was not a good one.

Tanzi was trapped behind a wall of water. Screaming. But when I tried to reach her, she vanished.


MEMORIES

Nubrevnans have arrived in the South. In three of those long, shallow riverboats they use.

I have spent the entire morning watching them from the telescope.

The Rook told me they were coming. Or rather, during morning prayers, he swooped and cackled so much from the upper ledge that I finally snapped, “What, Rook?”

Which of course earned a fresh slew of avian cursing.

“The Rook,” I corrected the entire time I marched up to the telescope. “The Rook, the Rook, the Rook—I’m sorry!”

I was still apologizing when my eye pressed against the looking glass … and immediately, my words died on my tongue.

Boats were scraping ashore. Right on the spot where the river bends, slowing its rush from the falls.

Soldiers marched onto the craggy beach, as well as women and men not in uniform but clearly as well trained.

They intend to build something. I’m sure of it, for half the crew turned to clearing pines with axes and saws, while the other half unloaded tents and tools from their ships.

Two soldiers came too close to the falls. Close enough for the glamour’s magic to roll over them. But the spell did its job, as always, and they both turned away, confused.


LATER

The soldiers have made quick work, and their officer—an enormous man so pale that it’s as if all color has been leached out of him—is an Airwitch of some kind. He summons a wind to lift the fallen trees, and I have never seen anything like it.

The Airwitch captain makes people smile often, though he never does. I can’t help but wonder why.

I wish I could hear them. I wish I could join them.





Ryber Fortiza

Y18 D215 — 41 days since I became the last Sightwitch Sister

DREAMS

I dreamed of Tanzi again. She was shouting for me from behind the water. “Find me!” she cried. “Please, Ryber, before it is too late!”

Again, I tried to grab her, but as soon as my fingers touched water, pain shot through my hands and into my skull. So fierce, it woke me up.

Now I sit here in bed, sweating and breathing fast while the dawn birds chirrup outside as if nothing is wrong.


MEMORIES

I went to the Crypts for answers. The ghosts are lonely with no one to visit, so they cloyed and choked as soon as I passed through the chapel.

When the Sightwitch Sisters claim the memories of the dead for their Records, some memories tug free. Snippets of soul that don’t want to be scrawled down. Wisps of glowing light that twirl and ooze, they flitter for all eternity in the Crypts, waiting to help any Sisters who ask for it. You give them a word and off they careen, searching the endless array of records and volumes and documents for any appearance of that word.

There are so many of them, though, and they get so excited. This is why the Order of Two exists, for even with the Sight, the ghosts can quickly overwhelm the senses.

Leaving a lone sister lost.

But I have to understand my dreams, and the best place for answers—the best place in all the Witchlands—is the Crypts.

Besides, the Order isn’t an official Rule of the Convent. It’s just a guideline.

Look at you, said a voice in the back of my mind as I stood at the threshold from chapel into the Crypts. Breaking the Order of Two. What wild rebellion will you commit next?

“Hush,” I ordered the voice. It sounded a little too much like Tanzi, and I didn’t need this hot wave of guilt building in my belly. Shoving it aside, I strode through the door.

Where the ghosts promptly swarmed. Their cold whispers took root in my mind, growing and pressing down. Slippery, wordless voices. It felt as if I’d dived underwater. My lungs started to cave and my ears to pop.

Thank the Sleeper I like being underwater, though. Diving with cave salamanders has always been fun to me—though Tanzi thinks it miserable. She rarely joined me in the cold pools beneath the Convent.

She rarely went into the Crypts with me either.

Eventually, when the ghosts grew tired of swishing and swiping against me, I was able to suck in a breath. Able to get my bearings.

I stood on the balcony that overlooks the topmost level of the Crypts. Level 1 is like all the levels below it. (Well, at least until Level 5. I’ve never been below that, so I can only assume they look the same.)

Row upon row of packed stone shelves spanned the roughly hewn cavern. Far, far in the shadows at the other end, a staircase spiraled into the stone and led to a new level, a new balcony.

I picked my way down the ancient steps to Level 1, wishing all the while that my eyes would adjust faster to the dim Firewitched light of the Crypts. Though hundreds of sconces line the walls, most of the spells faded years, perhaps even centuries, ago. Now there is more shadow than light.

And of course, more ghosts than people.

At the foot of the stairs, they awaited my command. I’d never done this by myself before, and it took me a moment to gird myself. To make sure I was ready to follow wherever they led. At last, I puffed up my chest and declared, “Show me all Records on Sightwitch dreams!”

I realized almost instantly, as my words passed from ghost to ghost, rustling outward, that I’d made a mistake.

I had broken Rule 9.