Witch Born

by Amber Argyle

  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.

  Senna closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure she could bear to read anymore.

  Hadn’t her mother warned her? Once learned, knowledge cannot be unlearned. Senna was beginning to grasp the burden truth could become.

  Gathering her courage, she turned the page. Songs now came from two different voices, confusing the elements. The conflicting rhythms grated against each other. Storms whipped up that flattened entire villages, destroyed fleets of ships. Crops froze. Leaves failed to drop before the hard frost killed the trees.

  Merlay never actually wrote the words, but Senna felt her fear. Lilette and her Witches’ songs were stronger. Strong enough to destroy Haven at any time.

  Certain an attack was imminent, Merlay had struck first. She glossed over the details, simply referring to what happened next as “the tragedy,” but Senna gleaned enough to understand Haven had struck so hard and fast they had annihilated Calden and every Witch who had fled to it. She believed the entire nation had sunk into the sea.

  It might have ended there and been tragedy enough. But it hadn’t. The world now feared Witches—feared them or coveted their power. More Witches were kidnapped. More wars broke out. Over a period of fifty years, hundreds of thousands of people must have died.

  Now an old woman, Merlay gathered as many Witches into Haven as she could. No more did they travel about healing the lands afflicted by plagues or failing crops. They moved onto the island and went into hiding.

  Senna only learned one thing more. Merlay had sent a Witch to discover what had become of Calden. All she’d found were a few helpless pollywog Mettlemots, which were only native to Calden. She’d brought them home to Haven. But the creatures were not meant to live in the colder climate. She worried for their health.

  Over the centuries, they must have slowly died out. Until only one remained. Pogg.

  Senna knew what came next. Decades of slow decline, until people began to doubt the Witches’ power altogether.

  And then Espen had come. Espen, who didn’t believe Witches should quietly control nature. Espen, who wanted to force the world’s respect. Espen, who’d held the seasons for ransom, only letting the rains fall for those with the coin to pay.

  Again, the Witches had fought—the second Witch War. Espen lost, but that hadn’t stopped her from waging her own personal war against every remaining Witch. The fallout had lasted ten years.

  And then Espen had created Lathel—a seed with the ability to turn human flesh into trees that bore the captive Witch’s song in the form of a single fruit, the consumption of which had granted Espen the ability to steal another Witch’s power.

  At first, Haven had sent their most powerful Witches to fight Espen. None returned. So the Witches dug in, went deeper into hiding.

  Senna’s mother had been the Head of Plants. Sacra had lost her husband and firstborn daughter to the Witch Hunte
rs. When she found herself pregnant, she’d fled deep into Nefalie—to the region known for its hatred of Witches. And there she had remained until the Witch Hunters found them.

  Senna closed her eyes, remembering her horror at learning she was the last-remaining free Witch. That if she didn’t liberate the others, the Four Sisters would fall into chaos, taking the world with them.

  She sat back and stared at the table laden with books detailing the Witches fall from the most powerful and revered entity on earth to the most hunted and feared.

  So many must have died. Whole species—including the Mettlemots—must have been lost.

  And Senna understood every doomed step the Witches before her had taken, understood why they had fallen into the pit they had. And it was clear they weren’t done falling.

  “We can’t fight the world, and we can’t hide from it. They must love us again,” she whispered to herself.

  The oil in the lantern was running low and the wick needed trimming. Senna rubbed her aching eyes. She was so tired she couldn’t think straight anymore. Everything she’d learned was swirling around and colliding in her head like a glass house full of flies.

  Ever so slowly, she began to see recognizable patterns in the chaos. If a few pollywog Mettlemots had survived, why not some of the Witches? What if they had escaped and hidden themselves from the world behind some sort of barrier? Surely over the centuries their numbers could pose a threat to Haven. And what if Espen knew where they were?

  Senna had to leave Haven, not just to lift the curse, but to discover the extent of the danger facing her Witches. She sat for long moments, staring into the lantern flame and making plans until her eyes burned with the need to blink.

  Standing stiffly, she shut the metal clasps and slid the books back onto their places on the shelves. Then she extinguished the lantern and peered out the window. It was fully dark.

  Joshen would be asleep by now. Even if he wasn’t, she couldn’t tell him what she’d learned.

  The fallout from the two Witch Wars had not yet ended.

  It still might destroy the world.

  11. Song Pendant

  Senna’s mother was waiting for her when she arrived home in the early hours of the morning. Without a word, Sacra followed her up to her room and lay down beside her. Too tired to object, Senna went to sleep.

  The next morning, despite her protests, her mother escorted Senna to and from her classes and the island’s repair work. Though it had been over a week since she was attacked, her hand still burned whenever she used it much, so the Keepers relegated her to lighter cleanup work.

  The day after was much the same. The worst part was, Senna didn’t see Joshen either day. She was still angry with him, but his absence hinted something was wrong. Something bigger than their spat. What if he’d been hurt? What if he needed her? On the evening of the third day, she slipped a few drops of sleeping potion in her mother’s tea.

  Soon, Senna stole out to the sound of Sacra’s soft snores.

  But Joshen wasn’t in his tree house. Or the shooting range. Or the outdoor pavilion where their food was cooked—Senna checked, twice.

  “Brusenna?” She started and turned to see Collum moving silently toward her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Have you seen Joshen?” she blurted.

  Collum’s brows drew together. “No. I’ve been guarding you all day.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I thought it was just Joshen, Reden, and Timpnee. Does every Guardian take turns following me?” she asked a bit desperately.

  Collum shook his head, his beads clinking. “No. Only the five of us.”

  There were five of them now? She had to stop herself from wincing. “I need to find Joshen.”

  Collum looked down at her. He was so tall. “Come with me. We’ll see if Leader Reden knows where he’s been assigned.”

  But they couldn’t find Reden, either.

  Finally, Senna gave up. “If I’m late for class,” she said, “Arianis will have me teaching the rest of her lectures for her.” That evening, the chesli harvest would begin. Senna wouldn’t have another chance to look for Joshen until tomorrow.

  Collum dropped behind her as she left the Guardian quarter and hurried to the onion-shaped tree. Despite all their work, the island still looked like the aftermath of a battle. Though the men were nearly done boarding up the last of the windows, glass and broken bits of trees still littered the pathway.

  Chavis looked up from gathering broken frames. “This class is still canceled. The earth tremor damaged too many of the maps.”

  The old maps were well concealed again. Senna knew why Chavis had been sent to clean them up, instead of a lowly Witchling or Apprentice. “Where’s Arianis?”

  Chavis shrugged. “How should I know?”

  Senna tried to remember the last time she’d seen her fellow Apprentice. But Arianis never made an appearance in any of Senna’s many work details.

  Neither had Joshen. She hustled back outside.

  “The chesli harvest begins after sunset. You’d best get some rest!” Chavis called after her.

  Senna barely heard her. She fingered her crescent-moon pendant and faced Arianis’ tree house, but her feet refused to budge. There was a way to find out without going there, but it made her uneasy. The last time it had been activated was when Wardof had used it to track her. She barely escaped alive that night.

  She’d worn it every day since, until it felt familiar against her chest…using it, however—that was something else altogether. Senna’s aching hand finally managed to unlatch the clasp. She tapped it against the metal of her belt. The amber vibrated with a sweet tone. The pendant twisted and twirled before slowly lifting. It pointed toward the inhabited quarter on the other side of the Ring of Power. Senna followed it as best she could around trees the size of ships.

  She moved deeper and deeper into the Witches’ habitation. With every step she took, her heart sank farther into her chest. When she heard the low murmur of voices—one male, one female—she stopped, her heart aching. Her hand dropped, dragging the necklace down with it.

  She tapped it against the metal again. It went limp. She clasped it behind her neck with shaking fingers. Not sure if she could deal with anymore unwanted revelations, she considered turning back and pretending she’d never seen this.

  Arianis’ laughter wiped the impulse clean, propelling her forward. Without bothering to knock, she shoved the door open and stood on the threshold. Joshen and Arianis sat together at the table. Senna smelled honey cakes and something else that was maddeningly familiar, though she couldn’t place it.

  Joshen rose from the table, his expression tight. “Senna?”

  He’d promised to stay away from Arianis. “Is this where you’ve been the past two days?” Senna asked.

  “Yes,” he answered immediately.

  A flock of angry words filled Senna’s mouth before dying and tumbling back to her stomach, where they grew heavy as a mountain. There had to be a reason for Joshen being here. He wouldn’t betray her like this. He couldn’t.

  She inhaled and her breath suddenly hitched. She knew that smell from her potions class. Storming to the table, she tipped back the cup. The color was hard to judge because of the wooden cup, but the golden flakes were obvious.

  Dipping in her finger, she tasted it, just to be sure. “Truth serum.” She glared at Arianis, song curling around the edges of her throat—a song full of pounding anger. A song that could rend Arianis’ tree in half. Senna’s body shook with the effort of leashing it. “There are rules for administering this class of potion. Rules you would have learned as a Witchling.”

  Joshen peeked at the contents in disgust. “Truth serum.” His face blanched. “So that’s why I couldn’t stop myself from answering your questions, why I couldn’t leave.”

  Senna shot him a glare just as baleful as the one she was using on Arianis. She’d warned him the other Apprentice would use him. Why hadn’t he listened?
“How long ago did you start drinking it?”

  He set the cup down on the table as if it might grow teeth and bite him. “Long enough.”

  “You had better have a good reason for giving Joshen a potion without his consent.” Senna’s words came out with a chant-like, dangerous edge—nearly a song. With her sensitivity to the Four Sisters, she felt them perk up, listening.

  Arianis tossed her wavy hair over her shoulder and thrust a folded piece of paper towards Senna. “So tell me, Creator-touched, when can the Truth Serum be administered?”

  Senna stared unseeing at the paper before her gaze slowly shifted to Arianis. Without having to read it, she suddenly knew. “When did they advance you to a full Keeper?”

  Arianis’ smile transformed her from beautiful to radiant, but Senna knew she was truly monstrous. “Three days ago. I think Coyel was feeling a bit guilty about discarding me for you. Besides, we need a glassmaker to replace our windows. But our inability to stop the earth tremor and wave will probably anger the Nefaliens. They needed a face no one in Corrieth would recognize as a Witch.”

  Senna’s mouth went dry. She turned to Joshen. “A Keeper may use the Truth Serum when she’s considering Guardians.”

  Anger colored his cheeks. “Without informing me first?”

  Arianis smiled gently at him, as if he were a child throwing a tantrum instead of a grown man who’d been tricked into drinking a potion. “You would have resisted had you known. For that reason, the Heads gave me the discretion not to tell you.”

  Her gaze went back to Senna. “So you believe you’ve Traveled? And there are hundreds of Witches outside Haven that threaten us? And I never would have guessed you’d seek out Espen. I wonder what the Heads would think of that.”

  Joshen looked drained. “I had to answer her. And I couldn’t leave. I’m sorry.”

  The potion would make him weak-willed. Malleable. If Arianis had told Joshen to stay, he would have. She addressed Arianis. “Have you forgotten what happened to the last Witch who hurt someone I loved?” Senna felt powerful and dangerous.