Riwenne & the Bionic Witches
Divine Warriors #2
Kristen S. Walker
Also by Kristen S. Walker
Divine Warriors
Riwenne & the Mechanical Beasts
Riwenne & the Bionic Witches
Riwenne & the Airship Gambit (Fall 2019)
Riwenne & the Electrical Prophecy (2020)
Amena’s Rise to Stardom!
“The Girl Who Talked to Birds”
Fae of Calaveras Trilogy
Small Town Witch
Witch Hunt
Witch Gate
“Witch Test”
Wyld Magic
A Flight of Marewings
A Pride of Gryphons
“The Duke’s Daughter”
The Voyage of the Miscreation
Season 1: Episodes 1-6
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Copyright © 2019 by Kristen S. Walker
Cover Illustration: MiblArt https://miblart.com/
ISBN: 9781074577841
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
© Kristen S. Walker and kristenwalker.net
Created with Vellum
In memory of Richard Wright
Contents
1. On the Run
2. New Allies?
3. Bionic Witch
4. The Weight of Leadership
5. Into the Jungle
6. A Tough Mission
7. Caught!
8. A Dangerous Bargain
9. Reunion
10. A New Plan
11. The Haunted Temple
12. Sawycha
13. More Witches
14. Upgrades
15. Swimming Lessons
16. The Deep Blue Sea
17. The Truth
18. Teamwork
19. Songwriting
20. Downtown
21. The Trade Festival
22. Comeback Concert
23. Warning
24. More Bionic Witches
25. Quilla's Revenge
26. A Fleet of Airships
27. Attack the Capital
28. The Synthetic Ethereal Apparatus
29. Sacrifice
Pronunciation Guide
Thank You
Free Book
About the Author
1
On the Run
All I wanted was to see my sister, Nexita.
I opened the front door of the temple sanctuary of Damon. The vaulted hall was full of sunlight, blindingly bright. The stained glass windows lining the walls filtered in light in every color of the rainbow, but the clear glass at the peak of the roof let in shining, pure light, washing out the decorated temple with white. I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes, and looked up. The sun was overhead. This must be why we didn’t come into the sanctuary at high noon—it was already light during the ceremonies at dawn and sunset.
I started to walk forward, but then I saw that the temple wasn’t empty. A group of people stood before the altar in red robes.
Don’t let them see you, a voice whispered in my mind. Keep to the shadows.
I darted to the side and slipped behind a pillar. The shadows relieved my eyes. I looked back to the altar. The red robes stood out against the white marble. Junior priestesses wore red, but the color looked wrong somehow, a darker shade almost tinging on maroon. And why would a bunch of junior priestesses be gathering alone? I craned my head, trying to get a closer look at their faces. They were wearing hoods. Priestesses always went with their heads uncovered and their hair hanging loose, something that I’d struggled with as a novice, trying to keep my long, curly pink locks untangled.
Then another figure stepped from behind the altar in a distinctive robe. White at the shoulders, flowing down into red, and ending in black at her feet, only the head priestess, Mother Lyda, could wear something so elaborate. And her head was uncovered, revealing her youthful face and her dark red hair that hung well past her waist.
A mix of emotion flooded through me, anger and longing twisting my stomach into a knot. I’d sworn loyalty to her as the leader of not only the temple but the entire Central Province of Arkia. But she was a corrupt leader, allowing the dangerous Ministry of Technological Research & Development to experiment on her own people. I’d spent months fighting mechanical beasts only to find out that the government itself used those monsters to steal energy from innocent civilians. It wasn’t clear how much she knew herself, but she’d at least turned a blind eye on the attacks. And if what I’d been told was true, she was also my birth mother.
I wanted to demand answers about the machines and my birth. Why had she manipulated my assignment so I ended up training as a priestess under her in the temple? How could she let R&D hurt people? Did all government officials know who their biological children were, despite the laws shielding our identities, or was it just her? And if she’d done all of this, what other laws was she willing to break?
But then one of the red-robed figures pushed back their hood to reveal icy blue hair, and I shrank farther back into the shadows. That wasn’t a priestess at all, but Minister Rennu, the head of R&D himself. The twisted man who had created the mechanical beasts and used them to prey on the city—and my father.
Rennu gestured, and two robed figures brought out a white cloth, draping it over the altar. Another stood nearby with a bundle of ropes in their arms. They all chanted, low and rhythmically, and I heard a mixture of male and female voices. Men weren’t allowed in the temple except during the public dawn ceremony. They spoke in Old Ursan, the ancient language that only the highest-ranked clergy of the temple used.
Two more robed people came in, dragging a bound man between them. I saw with a shock that he was almost naked, wearing only a white loincloth. He struggled a little, but he seemed drugged, because he was groggy and weak. The robed figures lifted him onto the altar and tied him down with the ropes.
Rennu turned to the shortest person in the circle of chanters and beckoned them forward.
Even before she pushed back her hood, I knew her by her height and the way she moved. My heart sank. She was slight and the same height as me, barely five feet tall, with a shock of bright blue hair. But there was something different, too. Her robe hung empty where her left arm should be. Nexita smiled up at Rennu with disgusting devotion in her face. I had to brace myself not to get sick on the floor.
She was my best friend, there for me all those years we were in school together. I called her my sister long before I knew we shared a father. We fought against those mechanical beasts side by side, saving people from harm, but when she learned the truth about Rennu’s plans to siphon more energy for his machines, and that Rennu was our father—somehow she had chosen his evil plot over our divine mission. I still didn’t understand why he had such a hold over her. Could he have brainwashed her into following him? Or did his dark magic give him control?
Nexita took a golden knife from Rennu and climbed up onto the altar. She lifted it with her right hand over her head, poised over the bound man.
She would kill him! I glanced at the strange ritual again and realized what must be happening. No one had practice human sacrifice in centuries, yet the setup was unmistakable. I had to stop it!
I tried to rush forward to the altar, to summon my magic, but an invisible force stopped me like running into a wall.
Keep silent, the strange voice whispered in my mind again. Observe
them but do not interfere.
I couldn’t move, frozen in terror, but I bit my tongue and tried to be silent. Something had brought me here to see this, and I was powerless to stop it. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t stop staring in horror at the shining blade in Nexita’s hand.
Rennu took Lyda’s hand and smiled. “It’s time for magic and technology to join forces.”
Lyda smiled back at him, then raised her other hand over the bound man’s head. A clear crystal glinted in her hand, a gem the temple charged with the sun goddess’s blessing to create sunstones.
Nexita plunged the blade deep into the man’s chest, and blood spurted out, bright red against her dark red robe. He convulsed once and went still.
I still couldn’t move from my spot. I took a deep breath and cried out, “No!”
Everyone turned around to stare in my direction, but the scene began to grow dark and fade away, and within a moment, it was all gone.
My eyes flew open, and I saw nothing but more darkness. I sat up and bashed my head against something hard. “Ow!”
A sunstone lamp flickered on. I shrank away from the light, shielding my eyes.
My mattress creaked underneath me with extra weight and someone gently pulled my hand away from my forehead. I looked up and saw Kyra sitting next to me, her face bent close. Her dark purple hair swept forward and brushed against my cheek, and I held my breath, staring at her.
“You’ll have a nasty bruise, but otherwise, it doesn’t look too bad,” she said, sitting back away from me. Her beautiful face still showed concern as her eyes held mine. “Is everything else okay?”
I looked away from her, taking in the room: the tiny berth in the back of the airship, the low ceiling of my bunk bed, my other friends crowded around—Amena, Janera, even the quetzal bird, Uqra, and Tika, the sandpiper. The faint rumble of the engine through the floor reminded me we were still in the air.
Everyone had been treating me like a porcelain doll ever since we escaped Lyndamon City. The pain of Nexita’s betrayal, the shock of learning about Rennu’s nefarious plot and Lyda’s complicity, the strain of leaving the only home I’d ever known, had all taken its toll on me. All I wanted to do was lie in the dark, even in a tiny, uncomfortable bunk bed.
“I’m not okay,” I said, starting to shake my head, but stopped in a wave of dizziness. Maybe I hit it harder than I realized on the upper bunk. “I had a terrible dream. Nexita was there, and she—”
“You’ve got to stop dwelling on that,” Kyra said. She reached behind me and yanked open the curtains covering the porthole window beside my bed. “I think moping around here in the dark is making you worse. You should get out, get some sunshine.”
I squinted my eyes and turned away from the window. “Sunshine is the last thing I want to see. Besides, where would I go? The galley?” I waved around at the close surroundings. “These walls all look the same. Unless we can land somewhere, I just have these tiny rooms to choose from, so it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.”
Amena, sitting on the bunk across from mine, shook her head so her golden hair swayed back and forth. “It’s not safe to land anywhere near here. We have to keep on the move to make sure the imperial forces can’t find us. Until we contact the rebels and find out where we can go, we’re all stuck in the Graceful Joy.”
Kyra made a face. “We’ve got to come up with a better name than that.”
Amena shrugged. “Considering it belonged to the head priestess, what can you expect? But yeah, we should paint over the name. We don’t want anyone to recognize where we stole it from.”
Janera, leaning against the door, lifted her long arms and stretched high enough to touch the ceiling. “We’re all getting restless in this little tin can. Why don’t we stop running and fight these creeps?” She twisted her chestnut red curls up into a bun. “I could use the exercise.”
Tika’s brown head swiveled to look at her. “And get all of us killed?” For such a tiny bird, she could be incredibly sarcastic. “This airship is built for pleasure trips, not fighting. We couldn’t take out even one of their gunships, let alone an entire imperial fleet.”
“Why is it taking so long to get ahold of your rebel friends?” Kyra said, looking at Amena. “It’s been days. Every day, we use up more of our supplies and risk being caught. We can’t keep going like this much longer.”
Amena held up her hands. “I don’t know. They weren’t prepared for this. They could have their own problems, or they’re processing the information about this new attack, or waiting to make sure I’m not leading the enemy right to them.”
Janera narrowed her eyes. “We’ve taken every precaution to make sure we’re not followed. Don’t they trust you?”
Amena looked down at the floor. “I haven’t been part of the rebellion for months. Since I won Star Search, I get orders from them in encoded messages, and I send back whatever information I can. It’s not like I just have an open line of communication.”
I sighed. “So we’re just supposed to wait around until you get a message? I don’t like that at all.”
Kyra rested her hand on my knee. She gave me a gentle squeeze that calmed me down despite all the confusion. “We can figure out our next step, whether that’s with the rebels or on our own.”
Janera folded her arms. “First thing is, we need more supplies. If we can’t get them from the rebels, we didn’t bring money to buy anything.” She looked around the room. “We might get a few coins if we sell off the decorations inside the ship, but that’ll only get us so far.”
Amena shifted on her bed. “If it comes down to it, I can get us what we need. But what’s critical is a plan. What’s our goal now? Have the gods said what to do next?”
“We have to save Nexita.”
Everyone turned and stared at me. I’d said it quietly, without thinking, but under their stares I straightened up and gripped my blanket with both hands.
“We have to save her,” I said more firmly. “She’s one of us, and Rennu is forcing her—” I stopped myself with a cough. I wasn’t sure if they’d believe what I’d seen in my dream. “I mean, who knows what the empire is doing to her right now. We have to go back and get her out of there.”
They all exchanged worried looks. Kyra put her hand on my leg and began gently, “Look, I’m not sure if you remember everything that happened the night we left…”
Tika flew onto my lap and pecked my hand. “She remembers. Riwenne, Nexita betrayed you. She betrayed all of us. She’s an enemy, and we have to just accept that she’s gone.”
I shook my head. “No, she’s my sister, and I’m not leaving her with that horrible man! He’s tricked her somehow, or brainwashed her, or used some kind of dark magic to control her—I don’t know what, but I’ll break it.”
Janera knelt on the floor beside my bunk, which brought her down to my eye level, and looked at me sadly. “I hate to say it, but we don’t know if she’s even alive. The last we saw, she took a bullet in the back, and there was a lot of blood.”
“She has to be alive!” The mention of the gunshot made me see that horrible scene again, and tears streamed down my cheeks. “I would feel it if Nex was dead. She’s alive, and we have to save her. We just have to.”
Kyra sighed and stood up. “There’s no talking to her when she gets like this. We can discuss this later.”
I cringed and curled up into a ball, trying to stop the tears, but they only came faster. I was ashamed for crying so much, especially in front of Kyra, but I had no control over it. The moment I let myself think or feel anything, as soon as the numbness wore off, this crushing despair descended on me all over again and I was helpless to do anything else.
The others got to their feet and opened the door, shuffling out of the room.
Deryt’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. “Amena, can I see you up here in the cockpit? Actually, we’d better get everyone. I’ve received a message from the rebels.”
Everyone froze.<
br />
Through sheer force of will, I wiped my face and lifted my head, although a few tears were still leaking out of the corners of my eyes. “Did he just say we heard from them?”
Janera looked back at me with a fake smile. “Yeah, do you want help getting up?”
I shook my head. “No.” I rubbed my eyes on my sleeve and looked down at my rumpled, dirty clothes, the same ones I’d worn in bed for days. “I’ll get dressed real quick. You guys go ahead and I’ll catch up in the few minutes.”
“Okay.” Janera herded the others out of the room and closed the door behind her.
2
New Allies?
I made myself look somewhat presentable and left the sleeping cabin. I slipped around the engine in the boiler room, walked through the empty galley, and reached the cockpit at the front of the airship where the others were already waiting. They told me the rebels had said little, just given us the coordinates for a place to meet. Deryt’s face was as blank as the gas mask he’d worn in the city. His shaggy blue-black hair hung in his eyes, hiding his expression.
Amena said it was a good sign the rebels had agreed to speak with us. The others waited to see what would happen.
The coordinates for the meeting place weren’t too far away, almost as if the rebels had waited for us to show up in their neighborhood before they contacted us. Deryt had already adjusted the airship’s course. He said we’d arrive in less than an hour.
Riwenne & the Bionic Witches Page 1