Witch Born (12 page)

Joshen chuckled. “Never figured you for the jealous type, Senna.”

She blushed. “Joshen—”

He laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You’re reading more into it than there is. But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll stay away from her.”

Senna wanted to make him understand this wasn’t just jealousy, but she didn’t think it would do any good. Besides they were almost to her tree house, and she still had so much to tell him. “I didn’t come looking for you to talk about Arianis, I came to tell you what I found.” She explained about the maps.

Joshen slowed to a stop. “By the Creators.”

She held her aching hand—she’d overused it today. She’d have to be more careful. “But there were no maps of Lilette and Calden. I’m going to check their personal library.”

He met her gaze and his face hardened. “Why take all these risks for something that happened centuries ago?” He suddenly stiffened. “You’re still trying to find a way to lift the curse on your own, aren’t you? You’re planning to go back to Tarten?”

Her gaze snapped to his. He knew her so well, perhaps too well. “Maybe.”

“Senna, we’ve talked about this!” Joshen pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tarten has a standing order to shoot any witch on sight. It’s too dangerous. I want you to swear you’ll give this insanity up.”

She slowly shook her head. “I can’t.”

“At least promise you’ll tell me before you do anything foolish.”

So he could try to stop her? Not really meaning it, she nodded.

He took a step closer. “Say it, Senna.”

She stood her ground. “What about your promises? The ones you made as my Guardian—to always protect me and support me? What about those promises?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do! You’re my Witch, and—”

Anger flushed through Senna. “I’m not anyone’s Witch but my own!”

He took a deep breath. “Sometimes you need to trust me, trust I’m only looking after you.”

She stood completely still. “And I’m looking after the world.”

His face was hard. “I won’t let you walk into that kind of danger again. You wouldn’t make it out alive.”

Guilt warred with the anger charring her insides. “Something’s coming, Joshen, and we all have a part to play. It’s taken me a long time to accept that, but I have. Now you have to accept your part—accept it or reject it. Because supporting me and protecting me are not always the same thing.”

“Accept it? I don’t accept it! I won’t.” He started pacing back and forth, his hands buried in his hair.

Senna backed away. Joshen had been through so much for her, but that didn’t give him the right to demand she obey him. She turned and pulled open the door to her house, then stepped in and shut it firmly behind her.

Breathing hard, Senna stood with her back to the wall and peeked out at him. He stood considering her closed door, frustration creasing his brow.

Maybe if Joshen hadn’t been so tired, he would have come inside and insisted on personally keeping her out of trouble. But he didn’t.

Senna waited until he was long gone before making sure her pistol was loaded. She slipped back out again.

She crossed the island and marched up to the Guardian standing at the elaborately arched cave entrance. It was the man Joshen had been sparring with the day before—Collum. On closer inspection, she saw he wasn’t much older than her. His skin was the color of rich earth, his hair divided into little, beaded braids. She found she couldn’t look at him. He reminded her too much of Leary—of the fact that she’d gotten Joshen’s best friend killed.

Collum raised an eyebrow at the sight of her. “Apprentice Senna, you know you can’t come inside unless you’ve permission.”

His soft, rolling accent was like Leary’s, too. She tried to swallow around the stone lodged in her throat. “I’m looking for Pogg. Has he finished fishing yet?”

The man’s beads clinked as he nodded. “He went to sun himself on the rocks. You might try there.”

Senna glanced up at the sky. They still had a few hours before dark. “Thank you.”

“Apprentice Senna?”

She stopped but couldn’t bring herself to face him.

“My name is Collum. Has Joshen told you that you sailed with my cousin, Leary?”

The world seemed to expand, pressing in on her and robbing her of her air. Collum reached out to steady her. She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing. “Leary saved my life,” she said, shaking her head. She would not cry. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled away from Collum and stumbled in the direction the Guardian had indicated. Here, part of the cliff had collapsed, taking a good portion of the staircase with it. She scrambled up the rock-fall until she found Pogg. The mottled green creature reminded her of a frog. He had a wide face with even wider cheeks. Instead of a nose, there were only dark slits that closed when he was swimming.

She collapsed beside him. “I need your help.”

Pogg turned slowly toward her. There was no white around his irises, only the cloudy blue-brown that reminded her of the ambiguous color of an infant’s eyes. “Seennnaaa?”

He was always slow when he grew overcold. “Do you still have keys to the island’s tree houses?” Pogg was a bit like a raccoon in collecting discarded and lost things. His fascination with keys was why Senna had been able to move so freely from one tree house to another during her time alone on the island.

Pogg’s clear inner lids slid over his eyes. It took him a long time to answer. “Pogg gets Senna fresh fishes?”

Senna pressed her lips together to keep from shouting. “No. Pogg, do you still have the keys?”

Pogg pushed up so he was sitting like her—he often tried to imitate the actions of humans. He was the last-known Mettlemot, and Senna had seen how much he wanted somewhere to belong. “Fresh fishes betters.”

He made a strange sound halfway between a choke and a gargle. He lifted his face skyward and jerked it up and down, almost as if he were…swallowing. He turned to her, his inner lids sliding back. “Sometimes fishes comes back up.”

Senna swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “Pogg, do you still have the keys?”

He turned stiffly toward his small tree house. “Yes. Pogg has keys.”

She followed him to his tree house and waited at the door. Oily dirt grimed every surface. Useless bits and discarded items were lumped together in groups on the floor or arranged inside broken baskets and wooden boxes. Blankets curled over a nest of leaves were the only indicator someone actually lived in the mess.

Once, Pogg had stayed with her in a tree house, slept in a bed. He’d been untidy, but he’d always smelled like the ocean, not fish grease. But since the Witches had returned, he’d taken to living like this. It was almost like he’d given up now that everyone was safe.

Pogg held up two cups filled with dark- and light-colored stones. “Want to play?”

Senna felt a stab of guilt. She hadn’t come to visit Pogg since her attack nearly two weeks ago. He probably didn’t even know it had happened. “Not today. I don’t have time.”

He set the cups down with a sad clank. Then he pulled back some of the leaves that made up his bed to reveal a mess of keys on a ring. Holding them in his mouth, he crept on all fours toward her. He gave her a strange look—well, even stranger than normal. Senna crouched before him. “Which one goes to the Council Tree?”

He sat on his haunches and clutched the keys to his chest. “Why Senna wants them?”

“Because I think someone wants to hurt the Witches.”

Pogg made a gurgle that was half warning, half disapproval. He pushed the keys around on his hand, the webbed skin between his fingers crumpled like wet parchment. “This key fors Prenny houses. This keys fors library. This keys fors Witchling house.” He went over a dozen keys, while Senna sat in rapt attention. “Ah…” He held up a large, ornate key. “This key fors Council rooms.”

Senna took the entire ring from him.

“Why needs all?” He leapt for them. “Gives back keys.”

Senna stood and held them out of his reach. “I will as soon as I’m done.”

He jumped, nearly bowling her over.

She stiff-armed him. His skin was cold and rubbery. Despite the hours she’d spent with him, the touch repulsed her. Ashamed of her reaction, she forced herself to hold him more firmly. “The Dark Witch, Pogg, she’s up to something. I have to stop her.”

“Dark Witch,” he hissed through pointy teeth.

Guilt twinged her insides for using the creature’s hate of the Dark Witch against him—for lying to him. But she didn’t think he’d understand that the danger was the same, just from a different source.

Pogg let out a low keening sound. It made her ears hurt.

He was silent a time before he started rocking back and forth. “Pogg finds starfishes in ocean. But Pogg not brings them back.”

A wave of loneliness washed over Senna. Pogg had often brought her dog starfish. “Bruke would have liked them.”

His movements slow and stiff, Pogg went past her, back to the sun-drenched rocks. She couldn’t help but notice how…ragged he looked. “Pogg, why don’t you ask for a fire? A bed? There’s plenty of room.”

Pogg looked over his shoulder at her. Even though Senna had spent a great deal of time with him, his expressions were so alien he was hard to read. “Witches comes back. Not needs Pogg anymore.”

Anger touched her. “Go find Leader Reden or one of the Heads. Tell one of them that you want one of the old tree houses by the entrance. They’ll see to it.”

Pogg continued climbing. He looked so alone.

Senna gripped the ring of keys tight before slipping them into her dress pocket. “Tell Reden you need someone—a Wastrel or a Witchling—to come start your fire every night.” Pogg’s fingers only had two joints. He was hopeless with a flint and steel.

He didn’t respond. Senna promised herself when she returned to the island, she’d play stones with him more often.

She crossed the island in the deepening twilight. Witches and Guardians were still about, repairing fallen trees and patching windows. Senna slipped through them with her head bent and her cowl pulled low over her face. The Council Tree was by the library and the Heads’ trees. All of them seemed empty. At the tree’s base, she waited to make sure she was alone before using the key Pogg had indicated to open the door.

After shutting it softly, Senna rounded the desk standing between her and the twisted stairs and climbed up.

At the top, she tried the Council Room door. It was locked. Sweat started on her brow. She couldn’t remember what the rest of the keys went to, let alone if any of them opened this door. She tried one after another. On the second-to-last key, the lock gave with a snick.

Her heart in her throat, Senna eased inside. Before her was a large window overlooking the Ring of Power. All the other walls were lined with books.

Senna locked the door behind her so she’d have a little warning if anyone came inside. She drew the heavy curtains, then lit a lantern and turned the wick down to a faint glow. She held it before her and started scanning the titles. Her mother had said the first Witch War was hundreds of years ago.

She picked the oldest-looking books and pulled some down. They were all accounts copied from older manuscripts written by a Head of Sunlight. None were quite old enough. Putting them back, she tried some even more faded ones. Finally, she found the one she was looking for—a musty-smelling book by a Head named Merlay, who appeared to be in her mid-thirties.

Senna eagerly started reading. She learned Haven had been exclusively for students once. Adult Witches lived wherever they chose, but most preferred to dwell in Tarten—apparently Haven had been beside Tarten then—so they could participate in the songs that shifted the seasons. There had been two big celebrations in spring and fall to usher in winter and summer, during which time songs were said to fly in the air. Thousands had flocked to see the Witches’ singing. Senna couldn’t imagine living in a world where people traveled to see a Witch sing.

She skimmed through accounts with dates of the first frost for each country. There were ledgers specifying the perfect amount of snow and rainfall for each region. Witches were dispatched to deal with blights and even a plague of locusts.

Merlay wrote about their difficulty finding enough room for all the new Witchlings and detailed the money coming in from countries to show their gratitude. She mentioned letters asking for Witches to be stationed in regions struggling with poor soil or with a tendency for unpredictable winds, earth tremors, drought, or flooding. And a whole hundred Witches to deal with a newly formed volcano threatening Harshen in the north. That hundred had never come back. The entire ship had sunk when they’d hit uncharted rocks off the coast of Vorlay.

Senna sat up straight and read more carefully.

Before Merlay could investigate, war had broken out between Harshen and Vorlay. Though the fighting was hundreds of leagues away, smoke from the battles had tinged the twilight and morning skies blood red.

And then stories began trickling in of an entire country decimated. By Witches.

It took Merlay months to piece together the truth. How Harshen had exaggerated a dormant volcano’s threat to acquire a large group of Witches. Most were either young or old—Witches who’d finished raising or had yet to start their families.

Harshen’s king, Nis, had imprisoned and tortured the Witches until they helped him destroy Vorlay. But Nis hadn’t stopped there. He’d moved on to another country. Merlay’s spies gleaned rumors that he plotted to take over the whole world.

The Witches didn’t have an army. Their only weapons were their voices and their Guardians. So they’d made the only choice they could. They’d sealed the heavens, cutting Harshen off from the rains, and threatened to do more if Nis didn’t release their Witches.

In response, he’d slit the Witches’ throats. The Heads had all voted to let Harshen die. But not all the Witches had agreed with the Head’s decision. Some had fought. Led by a girl, barely into her Apprenticeship. Lilette.

Senna gasped. “Lilette.” The name rolled off her tongue like a song in the silence of the room. Lilette wasn’t a country, but a woman.

Horrified by what the Witches had done, Lilette took those few who would follow her and left for her home country. Calden.