Witch Born (3 page)

Coyel sang away the briars and thistle that hid the elaborate entrance. It was a place that could only be created by Witch song. The intricately engraved arch was just the beginning. Carved into the rock wall all along the island were perfect trees, mountains, curls of wind, the sun, moon, and stars, even the faces of the Creators. Every image important to the Witches was present. But the once beautiful carvings were worn by time and weather until they were mere shadows of their former majesty.

Much like the Witches themselves.

Chavis took the lantern and eased down the steps. The light threw harsh, crawling shadows on the walls and gave the carvings the appearance of movement, as if they were writhing away from the light. At the bottom, Senna stood on the mosaic stone floor, staring at the black surface of the pool.

Coyel breathed in sharply. “One of the boats is missing.”

“They’re gone then.” Chavis cursed. “How badly was he injured?”

Senna started to clench her fists. Pain shot from her palm up her arm. She made a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a whimper. “About a hand’s span of glass in his stomach.”

Chavis chewed her lip. “The other one either carried him out or abandoned him. Come on, back to the place they were last seen.” She grabbed the lantern out of Drenelle’s hands and shoved it at Sacra. “You stay here just in case. Make sure no one gets past you.”

Sacra shot a concerned glance at Senna before hurrying after Chavis. “I’m not leaving my daughter.”

Chavis handed her one of the pistols. “We need Brusenna to show us where she was attacked. We need four of us to control the Four Sisters. You are extraneous, therefore you stay.”

Sacra stumbled to a halt, her mouth open as if to argue. She swallowed. “You brought me here for this—to guard the door.”

“Obviously.” Chavis started moving out. “Keep your back against the wall so they can’t sneak up on you. If you see one of them, shoot. Aim for the stomach—that way they’ll live long enough to be interrogated.”

Senna paused beside her mother. She couldn’t bring herself to leave her alone. “We shouldn’t—”

Coyel gripped her arm and propelled her forward. “Your mother is a very capable Witch. She’ll be fine.”

Senna turned to watch her mother in the small orb of lantern light. Sacra cocked back the hammer of the pistol and glared into the darkness. Hoping Coyel was right, Senna hurried to catch up with Chavis.

When they moved into the uninhabited quarter of Haven, Drenelle glanced at Senna askance. “What were you doing
here?
”

Senna’s mouth went dry, and she had to swallow several times before the words would come. “I couldn’t sleep.”

After a few minutes of blundering around, she stepped on something hard and oddly shaped. Her veins aching with dread, she stopped to pick it up. She turned it over in her good hand a few times before she realized what it was. A slingshot. Her head seemed to throb in response. “Here.”

Chavis pulled out her pistol. “Prenny and Coyel.”

Prenny handed her musket to Drenelle, who held it away from her body like it might sully her white chemise. Then the older Witch pulled out four glass vials. “Ready?”

Coyel crooned to the wind.

Wind, spread these Nips and blow them straight

To any who may lie in wait.

Wind gushed down on the tops of their heads, swelling away from them when it hit the ground. As Coyel continued the song, Prenny circled them and tossed the contents of each vial into the air. The wind caught the powder, billowing it outward.

Even with the currents blowing it away from their packed group, the Nips made the back of Senna’s throat itch and her eyes smart. She held her cloak over her face and squinted through watering eyes.

Coyel stopped singing and rested a hand on Senna’s shoulder. “Anyone the powder touched would erupt into a helpless fit of coughing.”

The Witches strained, listening. But there was no sound.

Chavis stared into the shadows. “We’re not going to find anything on a night like this. Best lock ourselves in and wait till morning. We can do a thorough search then.”

“Whoever it was, they’re either gone or dead,” Prenny said in obvious relief.

Coyel stared into the dark depths of the forest. “Don’t be too relieved, Head. Someone brought them inside, which means we still have a traitor on the island.”

After setting her healing kit on the table, Sacra poured a measure of medicine into a cup. “Drink this. It will help with the pain.”

Senna’s hand shook so badly she could barely keep from slopping the medicine over the brim. She threw back the bitter stuff, gagging at its strength.

Every time she closed her eyes, she heard the bass’s gasp as she’d slipped the knife into his guts. She could still taste the metallic fear on her tongue. Her body seemed to store the impression of his arms wrapped around her, the licorice smell of his mouth. A tremor coursed through her body, and the mug slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor.

Her mother glanced up. “You’re starting into an apoplectic fit.” She grabbed another potion from the shelf. She held it to Senna’s mouth and helped her drink it before wrapping her up in a blanket. But the shudders just kept getting worse.

“Senna, listen to me. You have to calm down.”

Senna half shook her head. Without the frenetic rush of fear to hold her emotions at bay, they came crashing down on her. “I just—I wish Joshen were here.” She needed him to hold her and reassure her that all would be well.

A hurt look crossed her mother’s face. “Slow your breathing. Come, breathe with me.” She inhaled slowly and held in the air.

Senna mirrored her until the dizziness passed.

Soon, Senna noticed the edges of her vision softening. Her eyes went unfocused and she tingled everywhere.

“Good. The potion’s beginning to work. Just concentrate on breathing.” Her mother relaxed a bit. “You’re going to be all right.”

Senna hissed through her teeth as her mother gently poured salt water onto her wounded hand. Blood welled into the lines of her palm. They formed dark, curling patterns that swirled in the water like incense smoke shifting with the breeze. It was almost pretty.

“What happened out there tonight, Brusenna?”

She only wanted to forget, but her mother needed to know. Senna had repeated her account so many times her head spun with it. Each time, it seemed more dreamlike, less real. With a sigh, she recounted it again.

Her mother held her curved needle over a candle flame. She waited for it to cool before threading it with thin strips of sheep intestines. “The cuts aren’t wide, but they are deep. It should only take five or so.”

Senna glared at the needle.

“Hold out your hand.”

Shutting her eyes, Senna turned away. The needle dug in. She gasped, but it would be worse without her mother’s herbs. She squirmed and fought the urge to clench her hand and pull away.

“Hold still. It’ll hurt less.”

Senna tried to think of something to distract her, but her thoughts danced out of her head before she could catch them.

She was silent until her mother tied the last stitch. “Finished.”

Senna studied the ugly cuts in her hand, black string sticking out of her flesh. She wondered what a palm reader would make of the new lines crisscrossing her palm. “Do you think he’s dead—the man I stabbed?”

“With a gut wound, probably.”

How much must he have hated her to use his dying breath to threaten her, threaten all the Witches? “Then where is his body?”

“Probably hidden somewhere we’ll never find it. Or maybe they really did escape.”

Senna shivered inside. “Am I a murderer?”

“There’s a difference between defending yourself and killing someone who’s helpless against you.” Her mother smeared some salve onto a bandage and wrapped Senna’s hand. “Keep it still for about a week or you’ll reopen them.”

Staring at the shockingly white bandages, Senna nodded.

As her mother began carefully packing her kit away, she put to words the question that must be on every Witch’s tongue. “How did men get onto the island?”

Senna cradled her hand to her chest. “Someone sang them in.” She’d thought the Witches were past such dangers when she’d imprisoned the Dark Witch in a tree.

The sounds of her mother repacking her kit stilled. “You know what we must do.”

Senna shook her head in an effort to clear the drugs dulling her wits along with the pain. “What do you mean?”

Her mother rested her hand on Senna’s arm. “We must leave.”

Suddenly more awake, Senna sat up. “I’ve finally begun to learn. We can’t leave now!”

Her mother leaned forward. “I can teach you as well as anyone here. And you said it yourself. The man claimed all the Witches would soon be dead. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk you.”

Senna didn’t exactly have friends here, but Joshen was tied to Haven. The Discipline Heads had made it clear time and again that he was their Guardian, not Senna’s. And she would not leave him. “So we run again? Is that your answer for everything?”

Her mother’s expression tightened. “Senna, sharks and falcons and wolves chase. Deer and mice and sheep run. That’s the way of our world.”

Senna shook her head. “It wasn’t always this way. We haven’t always chosen to act like prey.”

“Those days are far gone.”

“And you’d have us going back to Gonstower, would you? See how long it takes for them to hang one of us?”

Her mother withdrew her hand. “It wouldn’t have to be Gonstower. Just…away.”

Senna remembered the taunts she’d grown up with. The hatred. “No. I won’t live like that. Never again.”

Her mother sagged in her chair. “Dying is easy, Senna. Living is hard.”

Senna started out of the room, her good hand out to steady her from the vertigo caused by the herbs. “No. Choosing to do the right thing, no matter the consequences, is hard.” She swayed into one of the walls, her eyes closed against the spinning.

Her mother carefully draped Senna’s arm across her shoulders. “You’re not going to make it by yourself.”

Senna screwed up her face. “No. I’ve always had to have help from someone.”

“I imagine most of us are like that.” They started up the curling stairs. It was a tight fit, especially because Senna kept stumbling and swaying.

“Well, at least I know what kind of drunk you are—philosophical. Could be worse I suppose.” Her mother grunted with effort.

Senna stiffened. “I’m not drunk!”

Her mother chuckled. “The herbs I gave you were stronger than your grandfather’s whiskey. And they used to mix that with lacquer.”

Senna bumped into the railing. “Grandfather? You never talk about him.”

Her mother braced her feet to steady her daughter. “He made very strong whiskey.”

They’d finally crested the stairs. Senna felt like they should celebrate somehow. “What about Father? Was he your Guardian?”

Sacra shook her head. “He gave it up when we had your sister. Someone had to raise her, and I was too busy.”

It was more than Senna had heard about her father in years. “That makes sense.”

Her mother helped her into the bed. “Good night.”

Senna hitched herself up on her elbow. “But why didn’t he—”

Her mother closed the door to her words.

Senna flopped back onto her bed and quickly forgot her frustration. The patterns the tree’s leaves made against the backdrop of the stars fascinated her—black on black with a scattering of pinpoint light. She was grateful that for once, sleep came on hard and dreamless.

***

Two days later, Senna sat inside a tree house shaped like a bulging onion. Her stitches itched like mad. To distract herself, she stared westward out a window with peaked tops and bottoms and a swelling center, like a bubble trying to escape from a seed pod.

She was haunted by her attack of a few nights ago, by the land and people dying in Tarten, and by the sweet licorice smell of a dying man.

Her whole body ached with the need to do something—find her attacker, release the curse on Tarten.
Something
. But after only a day, the Heads had insisted all the Apprentices and Witchlings go back to their regular classes, while they continued the search alone.

So Senna studied the trees of Haven. They never ceased to amaze her, especially their variety. For instance, some doors opened right onto the white gravel path. Others sat above curving steps made of woven roots or expanses of living wood. All the windows and doors were peaked and bubbled outward, though they varied in size.

Arianis took down a map from the wall and placed it on an easel. “We begin studying a new nation today. Can anyone tell me what country this is?”

Silence echoed through the room.

“Senna, care to enlighten us?”

She suppressed a groan. The Heads had insisted she take some Witchling classes to fill in her somewhat-spotty education. Unfortunately, some of those classes were taught by Apprentices. This one was taught by Arianis, who had been trained from infancy to defeat the Dark Witch, and whose exceptionally powerful song had ensured a clear path to the highest level of Haven’s hierarchy.

And then Senna had come along. She’d defeated the Dark Witch. And there were whispers among the Keepers of her strength—whispers that Senna’s song was even stronger than the Dark Witch’s.

No one spoke of the astonishing strength of Arianis’ song anymore.

Senna tore her gaze from the window and glanced at the map before turning back to her vigil. “It’s Harshen.”

Arianis crossed her arms. “And what can you tell us of Harshen?”

Senna sighed. Sometimes Arianis gave up at this point. Apparently, today wasn’t one of those days. “It’s far to the south—a land of deserts and scrubby mountains. The people live in large pavilions and have dark skin. Rivers run high and furious once a year, before dwindling to barren puddles by midsummer. Harshen is isolated by deserts in the interior and horrible storms along the coast.”

Arianis grunted. “Almost word for word from
Desert Countries
, by Jennalee Odd. Do you have any original ideas in your head?” Senna didn’t respond. It was clear Arianis hadn’t really expected her to. “And what do the Harshens think of Witches?”