Riwenne & the Bionic Witches

by Kristen S. Walker

  Lying in the middle of the crater, there was a body mutilated beyond recognition. But I knew the figure bending over it.

  He stood up on his mechanical legs, turning over a cracked bloodstone in his hand. “This one had a flaw,” Pomavar said in a bored tone, as if he saw only the results of a failed experiment. He looked up at me and shrugged. “Don’t worry, I’ll figure out what wrong and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  “You’re not making any more of those cursed things!” I shouted, pointing at the bloodstone. “I’m going to put a stop to you, once and for all.”

  He grinned at me and braced his legs. “Now you’ve finally confronted me? But I’ve already made so many soldiers.” Dark energy crackled around him as he drew on his own bloodstone. “Witches! Come show this pathetic little warrior of the moon what real power looks like.”

  More blood magic flew, drawing the other bionic witches to the fight. Something about his power was allowing him to control anyone who had one of his prosthetics.

  “Don’t do that!” I sprang forward, reaching for Pomavar’s bloodstone, but he knocked my hand aside. I fell to the ground and glared up at him. “You should use your powers to help people, not force them to fight! We need to put out this fire and get everyone to a hospital.”

  Pomavar looked at the destruction and shrugged again. “Not my problem.”

  He kicked me in the side, and the force of his magitek leg sent me flying. I hit a pile of twisted metal, but magic shielded me from the worst of the blow.

  I pushed myself back to my feet. “You won’t get rid of me that easily.”

  “I’m not the only one you have to worry about,” Pomavar taunted.

  Metal hands grabbed me from behind. I struggled against them, but the grip was as strong as the mechanical beasts I’d fought in Lyndamon.

  An arrow lit by red magic flew over my head and struck the attacker behind me. The grip loosened, and I wiggled free. I turned and saw the woman who’d grabbed me fall to the ground with the arrow in her shoulder, but otherwise, she was unharmed.

  “Trap or not, we won’t let you get caught,” Kyra called out.

  I looked up and saw my friends, all dressed for battle and standing on a corner of the train station roof that hadn’t fallen down. “You guys!”

  “Watch out!” Janera pointed at more witches climbing through the wreckage to join the fight.

  I jumped back before a man could grab me. “Be careful,” I warned. “I don’t think they’re doing this by choice, so we should try not to hurt them!”

  Pomavar cackled somewhere nearby, and I whirled around, trying to find him in the chaos. “Such a tender heart. But you won’t win if you’re not willing to do whatever it takes.”

  Deryt landed beside me and knocked the witch back with the pommel of his sword. “We’ll subdue them.”

  The others followed his lead, joining the fray with nonlethal attacks. When I was free of the immediate fight, I looked around and saw Pomavar standing back to watch the whole thing.

  I formed a dagger with my magic and launched at him. “Time to fight your own battle, you coward!”

  He sidestepped my attack, but I increased my speed with magic and followed him, striking out with the blade. He blocked me at the wrist and knocked me aside, then tried to kick me again. I leaped away and caught his left arm with a slice of the knife.

  Horrified, I stopped short. I’d never cut a person before.

  Blood flowed crimson from the wound, but Pomavar’s smile widened. “I can replace this.” He touched the blood with his right hand and smeared it on the bloodstone, which glowed brighter in response. “So much power. I am unstoppable!”

  I looked back over my shoulder, but I could see my friends were too busy fighting off wave after wave of bionic witches. He was right, he’d created a small army of soldiers. My mind raced for a solution. No one was invincible, but what would it take to stop him? A dagger to the heart, maybe—but could I end the life of another human being?

  I focused on the bloodstone again. Breaking it would risk causing another explosion. Then I saw the core of its power didn’t come from human sacrifice, but Chysa. Quilla’s power could nullify her sister’s. I just had to get close enough to burn it out.

  I fiddled with the moonstone in my locket to make it glow. “I have a new power and it’s a thousand times stronger than yours. You won’t beat me with magic.” I threw a bolt of energy at the rock he stood on, causing it to split apart.

  Pomavar jumped off the rock and lunged. “Give it to me!”

  I dodged his first strike, but my feet slipped on the broken ground and I fell to my knees. I thrust up with my dagger but he caught me by the wrist and twisted my arm behind me. Unable to keep my grip, the blade slipped through my fingers. I was pinned.

  Kyra screamed, “Riwenne, no!”

  Pomavar reached for my locket. But as his fingers closed around it, I closed my eyes and prayed for Quilla’s energy to flow through him. It burned away the blood magic woven through his body, seeking the golden thread of Chysa’s power at the core. Just like before, the two magics canceled each other out and melted to nothing.

  I heard a crystal shatter and opened my eyes. Pomavar’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed. Then the world went white.

  25

  Quilla's Revenge

  I floated in the air and moonlight flooded out of me, casting an eerie glow across the wreckage. Quilla had taken over my body again. She turned my gaze up to the sky, checking the sun’s position. Dark clouds were rolling in and covering the scene from Chysa’s gaze. She looked and found Vilqa kneeling on the ground, their lips moving in prayer, and nodded her approval. Rain started to fall, putting out the fires and washing the smoke from the air.

  Then my head moved down and I saw Pomavar’s body lying limp on the ground like a rag doll. I knew without checking that he was dead. The blood magic had spread throughout his body, and when I took it out of him, I’d felt his life go with it. My heart broke at the realization: I’d killed him.

  But my lips curved up in a smile and my voice spoke without my control. “Behold my judgment,” Quilla said through me. “This man has committed many atrocities and would have continued to hurt people if he wasn’t stopped. His punishment was just.”

  I could feel the stares of my friends and the bionic witches. All the fighting had stopped around us. I didn’t know if they were more shocked by Pomavar’s death or me lighting up like lantern.

  “As for the rest of you,” Quilla continued, raising my hand and pointing at the witches.

  No, no, no. I couldn’t cause more deaths. I fought to get control of my hand, to put it back down, but it wouldn’t budge. I was no match for the strength of the goddess.

  Please, I begged her inside my head. I couldn’t speak for myself, either. Don’t kill them. They weren’t in control of their own actions. I had a pang of sympathy, because I was trapped in the same way.

  “No one forced them to commit human sacrifice,” Quilla said, answering me with my own mouth. It was a strange way to have a conversation. “They allowed themselves to be lured by false promises and power. They deserve to be punished for their mistakes.”

  But not death, I pleaded. There’s been enough death. If you spare their lives, they could learn not to do it again. If they’re dead, they can’t change at all.

  Quilla tilted my head to one side. “Not all humans are capable of change. But I can grant them a second chance.” She waved her hand, and all the magical prosthetics shattered into pieces. “Consider this an opportunity to correct the error of your ways.”

  The light of the bloodstones went out as their power drained away. The witches cried out in pain, clutching at their bodies where the broken devices were still attached. I could see on their faces how cruel this was, losing their limbs all over again. I wanted to cry but my body was not my own.

  Quilla turned to my friends next. “You have done well today. Continue to root out all traces of
this dreadful magic.” She nodded my head at Amena. “And I like the music. Keep it up.”

  The moonlight began to fade and I descended, but her power hadn’t left me. Don’t call on me unless you want me to deal with things my way, her voice echoed in my mind.

  I’m sorry, I replied. I couldn’t think of what else to say. I’d sensed her feelings that taking a few dozen human lives was nothing to her, and I feared what that meant.

  Some deaths are necessary.

  Then my feet touched the ground and I was in control of myself again. I sank down and collapsed over Pomavar’s body, sobbing with horror and relief.

  Kyra rushed over and grabbed my shoulders, dragging me back from the corpse. “It’s okay, he can’t hurt you anymore,” she murmured.

  I turned in her arms and buried my face in her chest. “I didn’t mean to do it,” I gasped out.

  Kyra rubbed my back. “Shh, just try to breathe. You did nothing wrong.”

  My head snapped up. “But I did! I killed him.” Tears flooded my vision so I couldn’t see her face. I tried to wipe them away, but they just kept coming. She must see me differently now that I was a killer.

  She cupped my face in her hands and moved closer to me. I could see her clear eyes even through the watery haze. “You did what you had to do. I’m sorry it came to this, but you also saved many people. You can’t feel guilty for that.”

  I blinked and looked around. The other people, the former witches, they were all hurt. I could try to heal them.

  My friends were helping the victims out of the wreckage, and emergency services had arrived to tend them. I struggled to stand, but my legs were wobbly from the fight.

  Kyra kept me down beside her. “And I’m sorry about last night, Ri,” she whispered.

  Oh, gods, we were having this conversation now? “I’m sorry, too,” I blurted out. “I didn’t mean to scare you away. I wanted to tell you how I felt, but I could never get the words right, and then I pushed you—”

  “You didn’t push,” she interrupted me, putting her finger on my lips. “I was so ready for you to reject me. I wasn’t prepared for what happened.” She smiled at me shyly. “I was hoping maybe I could try again.”

  I was such a wreck, physically and emotionally, and this wasn’t how I wanted it to happen. I didn’t feel like I deserved any kind of happiness after what I’d just done. “If you could ever care for someone with so much blood on their hands,” I said, hanging my head.

  Kyra tipped my head up to face hers again. “You are the most compassionate, tender, loving person I’ve ever met. Your heart is still pure, and that’s what I love about you.” She pressed her lips against mine.

  Like before, her kiss energized me, making my entire body tingle from head to toe. I couldn’t help but kiss her back. I was filled with a force as strong as the goddess’s power, but it was warm and alive, and I wanted to surrender to it.

  Eventually, we both released the kiss and pulled back to look at each other. Her eyes shone with affection and I knew she meant every word she’d said.

  “I love you, too,” I said. Although my heart was heavy with the weight of what I’d done, there was enough room for my feelings for Kyra.

  She had to help me stand up. My body was shaking with the wild swings of emotion. I leaned on her and examined the scene. The gentle rain washed the tears from my face, but everything else was getting muddy and gross. Cleaning up this mess could take a long time.

  The injured victims were being carried away to the local hospital, but there was one thing I could do. “Hold on,” I told Kyra.

  “Don’t overexert yourself,” she warned, but her nagging tone had concern for me behind it.

  “I won’t,” I promised. I touched my locket with my free hand and made sure it had enough power. I didn’t want Quilla to make another personal appearance for this.

  Then I closed my eyes and pictured Owaqao Station as it had been before the accident. A strong building to shelter passengers from the elements, four tracks branching off in every direction around Ruraqie, engines pulling trains to deliver people and cargo.

  When I opened my eyes, the walls were rising around us. The roof closed over our heads and the rain stopped falling. The tracks straightened themselves out on the ground between the platforms and the lights flickered back on so we could see.

  Other than being empty of the usual crowd of people, it looked just like it had the day before.

  Kyra hugged me tighter. “See, I told you. You always think of everyone else.”

  I looked down at Pomavar’s body, still lying in front of us. “There’s some things I can’t fix, though.”

  “Don’t waste any more time thinking about that trash.” She pulled me toward the exit.

  Our friends rushed to meet us at the door. “So much for keeping a low profile,” Amena said, touching the station building. “We need to get out of here.”

  Deryt gestured for us to step back inside. “Get out of sight and change your clothes. Eberet wants to talk to you.” He looked straight at me.

  “Me?” My voice squeaked. I was drained and I didn’t want to go argue with the rebels again. “Can’t it wait?”

  “No,” Deryt said with a stern look. “This is the best opportunity we’ve had and I don’t want to waste it.”

  When I saw where Deryt had been meeting Eberet all this time, I almost hit him for not telling me sooner.

  “A library?” I threw my hands out, gaping at the enormous building. “The town has a public library this big, and you didn’t tell me about it? I could have read a dozen books by now!”

  The public library was another old stone building, out of place among the metal and glass of Ruraqie’s modern architecture. It lacked the ornate carvings of the temple but it was still an imposing presence in the neighborhood. We were standing in front of the main entrance, where broad steps led up to huge wooden doors. The top was capped with simple block letters carved into the front: Lakeview Library. Two words promising so much.

  Deryt answered my outburst with a warning look. “Calm down. We need to keep a low profile. When we’re inside, be quiet and follow my lead.”

  I pressed my lips together, but I grabbed Kyra’s hand and held it tight. This was even better than going to the bookstore with Amena. If Deryt’s contact liked to meet in a library, he must be a decent person.

  When we got closer to the oversized doors, I saw there was a regular door set in one of them. Janera held it open while the rest of us followed Deryt.

  Inside was the librarians’ desk with its rows of card catalogs, followed by a long hall with bookshelves lining the walls and more in ranks across the floor. In between, there were tables for studying or armchairs for more relaxed reading, many full of people bent over their books. There was a reverent hush over the room broken only by the ruffle of turning pages or the occasional cough.

  Natural light streamed in through many windows. The air was filled with both the musty perfume of old paper and the crisp scent of freshly printed ink. Signs hanging from the ceiling labeled the sections and directed visitors to the upper levels. I tried to guess at the number of books in the first room alone and failed.

  “They must have every book that’s ever been printed,” I whispered.

  Deryt shook his head. “It’s not quite that big. But they have a collection which predates print, and that’s where we’re going.” He pointed to a staircase in the back.

  Books from before print? That was over two hundred years ago, before the founding of the empire. Hand-copied books were rare and fragile. Would we be allowed to see them?

  The staircase was narrow and led down into a basement. The room at the bottom had no windows. The air was cool and dry. The bookshelves were locked behind a wrought-iron grate. In front of the gate, there was a small desk with one middle-aged librarian.

  The librarian brushed his hair out of his eyes. His hair was bright green and only seemed to be long in the front where it blocked his face, shaved clos
er on the back and sides. When he stood up he was short, only a few inches taller than me. He extended a slender hand. Something about him reminded me of Vilqa, although he was dressed very masculine in a suit and vest. Maybe I shouldn’t assume he was a man.

  Deryt pressed his copper star into the librarian’s hand. “We came as soon as we could, without being followed.” He gestured at the rest of us. “These are the ones I told you about. Everyone, this is Eberet.”

  “Nice to finally meet you, Eberet,” I said with a smile. “My name is Ri—”

  “Not yet,” he said, cutting me off with a wave of his hand. “Let’s go into a secure room.”

  I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone else in the basement.

  Eberet pulled a set of keys from his belt. He didn’t unlock the grate like I expected, but a door that led to a smaller side room. There was a gas lamp, a plain table with a few books on it, and just enough chairs, like he knew how many of us were coming.

  He gestured for us to sit. “You can speak freely in here. I don’t trust all the staff, but I’m the only one with keys to the reading rooms during the morning shift.”

  Deryt pointed to us as he said our names. “This is Amena, Janera, Tika, Vilqa, Kyra, and Riwenne. You already know Uqra.”

  Eberet nodded at the introductions, but he raised his eyebrows at Tika. “Another bird? I have to admit, that’s the main reason I was curious about your reports. Lots of people have claimed to hear the gods, but few say they can talk to animals.” He pulled out a pair of spectacles from his pocket, put them on, and tapped the cover of a book. “That was my first clue. I had to go pretty far back in the archives to find this.”

  Kyra straightened up in her chair. “It’s not the same thing to say you can understand real animals. These messengers just look like birds. Tika and Uqra use human speech, so anyone knows what they’re saying.”

  Tika hopped onto the table and tilted her head to look at the book. “Hm, this is Qarche Naqut’s On the Nature of Saints. The old windbag was jealous that only women could be priestesses, so he wrote all that gobble-de-gook trying to disprove some of the saints’ powers. I wouldn’t listen to a word he says.”