Witch

by Marie Brennan

  “Dawn?” Lehant said, clearly startled.

  Mirei grinned. “Training doesn’t stop just because we’re here. Meet me in this courtyard. Now that you’re not riding every day, I can really start to work with you.”

  Assuming Satomi leaves me alive, she added inwardly, and followed the Cousin.

  THE VOID PRIME’S ANGER had cooled to solid ice during the long days of Mirei’s ride south with the doppelgangers. She regarded Mirei now over the expanse of her desk with hard, unforgiving eyes, and Mirei reflected with only a weak shadow of humor that this was probably not one of the times she could take liberties and sit down.

  “Your behavior,” Satomi said, enunciating each word as if it were a weapon, “is unacceptable.”

  Mirei chose her own words carefully. “With all due respect, Aken, the doppelgangers are very nervous. I didn’t feel I could in good conscience leave them alone on the journey down here.”

  “That’s not the point!” Satomi shot back, and one hand slapped the surface of her desk. Mirei jumped at the sound. “The point is that I did not hear from you for days. A message after you left Silverfire: you had the two, and your friend was missing. Then nothing. Nine days without a single word from you.”

  “Aken, when I sent that first message I told you I would write once I had something new to report. There was nothing to say, on the ride to Angrim, and then once I got there I was so busy—”

  “So busy that in all those days, you couldn’t find a spare moment to notify us of your progress?”

  “It took us a long time to reach Angrim,” Mirei said, feeling defensive. “Longer than I expected. And I didn’t want to use magic in front of the girls—”

  It was a mistake, but she realized that too late. Satomi’s expression grew poisonous. “You what?”

  Now how in the Void do I explain this without making her even more angry? “Amas and Indera knew of me as Mirage,” she said, trying to keep her tone placatory. “The easiest way to get their cooperation was to keep that image up. I wanted to tell all the doppelgangers at once, too; it’s a complicated thing to explain, and I didn’t want to have to do it over and over again. So I let them think I was still Mirage. And when they learned the truth—well, Indera ran off. I had to find her before she got too far away.”

  Satomi stood, but did not move out from behind her desk. She placed both hands on the polished wood and leaned forward to glare at Mirei. The woman was truly furious; Mirei had never seen her in this state.

  “You are not Mirage,” the Void Prime spat. “You are not a Hunter, a free blade wandering where you please, without answering to anyone else. You are a part of something much larger, now, and it is unacceptable for you to assume that you may put off informing others of your actions. While you were riding around Abern, a newborn doppelganger died. While you were concerned for the tender sensibilities of those few girls, a second Prime left Starfall, and took a great many witches with her. We are splintering apart, and you seem to think that you are still an independent agent. You are not. We must act together—all of us who hope to change our traditions—if we are to have any hope of surviving this strife.”

  By the end of it, Mirei couldn’t meet her gaze. She looked down at her own hands, fingers twisted around each other. Mirage’s hands, with their calluses, hard knuckles, tendons standing out against the skin.

  But she was not Mirage. And she had forgotten that. There were moments when she could have written to Satomi, given updates on her progress, and she hadn’t.

  That was a mistake.

  Satomi was halfway right. The Void Prime was too quick to forget her Hunter loyalties, and that was an error—but these past days, it was true, Mirei had been too quick to forget her loyalties to Starfall.

  How in the Goddess’s many names am I supposed to balance the two out?

  She didn’t know. But she could—she must—begin by apologizing to Satomi. “You’re right,” Mirei said, still not looking up. “And I’m sorry. I’m used to assuming that I’m the only one I can rely on in a crisis. The work I was doing—it was Mirage’s kind of work. It made me forget what other resources I have. And what responsibilities.”

  A long silence followed that, during which she could not quite work up the nerve to meet the Void Prime’s eyes. She had seen Jaguar like this a handful of times. She hadn’t realized Satomi was capable of the same withering fury.

  “You are right about the responsibilities,” Satomi said at last. Her voice was quieter, but still unforgiving. “And I’m afraid you will find them heavy indeed. I must have your promise that you will not forget them again.”

  “I promise,” Mirei murmured, not allowing herself to hesitate.

  “Good.” There was a scrape of a chair across the tiled floor as Satomi sat again. “Then sit down, and let me tell you what you have missed.”

  Arinei’s departure Mirei had heard about, but Satomi filled her in on the details. They made Mirei cringe. One dissident Prime had been enough of an issue, but two was far worse, especially with Arinei’s political influence.

  “Now that you’re back,” Satomi said when she was done, “we have work for you. There is a very valid concern among many of the witches that we don’t know enough of how your magic works, and what repercussions it may have. You’ll be working with a group we’ve put together, who will put you through various tests.”

  Not a problem in and of itself, but Mirei had been contemplating other plans. “Aken, we’re still missing Naspeth—”

  “And others as well.” The Void Prime cut her off coolly, before she could even make her argument. “We’ll be following up on that, and questioning the witch you brought to us. But other women will work on that matter. No one else has your magic; therefore you are needed here.”

  “I made a promise to the Grandmaster of Windblade,” Mirei said in a low voice. “I feel personally responsible for getting her back.”

  Satomi’s mouth thinned, perhaps at the allusion to her Hunter loyalties. “She will be retrieved. But at the moment, that is not your concern.”

  Mirei should have left it at that, but there was one more issue she couldn’t brush off. “And what about Eclipse? Am I forbidden to search for him, too?”

  The Void Prime’s reaction startled her. Satomi closed her eyes, looking pained, and did not answer.

  “What is it?” Mirei said, her stomach twisting into a knot.

  Satomi rose again and went to the window. Mirei was beginning to recognize that as a mark of uneasiness, an action the woman took to calm herself when distressed. Seeing her do it now was not reassuring.

  “Your year-mate has been found,” the Void Prime said.

  Mirei gathered her emotions under tight control. “Is he dead?”

  “No.”

  Relief washed over her like cool rain. “Then what’s the problem?” Because clearly there was one.

  Satomi placed her hands on the edges of the window, her slender fingers pale against the stone. “He has not been able to tell anyone the details of his absence, but we can fill them in. Before your rejoining, when we had Miryo in captivity, we made plans to capture Mirage, as well. We could not search for you directly then—not with a spell—but we had gained enough information on Eclipse to find him. Assuming you would be with him, we sent a very large detachment of Cousins to capture you.”

  But Mirage had left Eclipse, sending him to Silverfire with information for Jaguar, while she herself went after Miryo. A stupid plan that had also, apparently, been very well-timed.

  Then anger boiled up inside her as she mapped out the timing in her head. “And you didn’t bother to call them off?”

  “I did,” Satomi snapped, and turned to face her. “I am neither a fool nor a tyrant.” The annoyance drained out of her with visible speed. “But Shimi was the one responsible for coordinating that group.”

  It wasn’t hard to fill in. “She never told them to stop.”

  “Apparently not.” Satomi looked tired. “They captured hi
m, and kept him prisoner, and she did not tell us.”

  Mirei took a deep breath, forcing her anger down. If Shimi had still been there at Starfall . . . but she wasn’t, and so there was no one to vent her fury on. “You said he’s been found,” she said once she was calmer. “Where?”

  “He reappeared at Silverfire,” Satomi replied. “Your Grandmaster sent us a message. And I am told he is not physically harmed.”

  Mirei’s eyes shot to her. “Not physically.”

  Satomi put her hands on the windowsill behind her, as if she were too weary to stand without support. “Your Grandmaster has been forced to piece this together from what Eclipse has not said, as it seems he’s been placed under some magical compulsion not to speak. But it appears he did not escape; he was released. And there was a condition of that release.”

  Her mouth was dry with fear. “Which is?”

  “We believe he has sworn a blood-oath to kill you.”

  The chair skidded on the tiles and fell over backward as Mirei shot to her feet. “That’s not possible.”

  “Mirei—”

  “He’s my year-mate. He’s a friend.” The words would hardly come out; her jaw was stiff with shock and disbelief. “He isn’t— He would never—”

  “He wasn’t given a choice,” Satomi said, over her continued stuttering protests. “He can’t tell the details, but we are sure of that much.”

  “So what, he was forced to swear the oath?” Mirei realized she was shouting, and realized she didn’t care. “How can the Warrior accept it, if the person doesn’t mean the Void-damned words they’re saying—”

  Satomi came forward with quick strides and tried to take her by the shoulders; Mirei slapped her hands away. The Void Prime’s face hardened. “Control yourself,” she snapped. “You will not help him by attacking me.”

  Mirei wrenched herself back a few steps, out of the range where she would be tempted to use her fists on the other woman.

  “The blood-oath is a spell,” Satomi said grimly. “As we have been painfully reminded of late, though spells are created by acts of faith, they continue to function even if that faith is misguided. Even if it is gone. How many of the women here truly feel personal devotion to the Goddess, the way Misetsu did? We began that way, but we have not continued in that path. If you know the words, know the pitches, have the power to fuel them, then the spell works. Eclipse, as far as I’m aware, has not cared to test whether the oath truly binds him, and that is wise of him. I’m sure it’s effective. The spell holds you to the words you have spoken—not what is in your heart.”

  “That’s a shitty system,” Mirei muttered, and knew the protest was childish even as she said it.

  Satomi, kindly, did not point that out. “He’s safe for now. Be grateful for that. But you must not go anywhere near him.”

  Mirei wanted to rebel against the order, but it wasn’t for her own good; it was for Eclipse’s. The farther he stayed away from her, the less risk that the spell would consider his oath broken. She wouldn’t risk his life by pushing that. “I understand,” she said, and meant it, even though the words came out through clenched teeth. “I’ll just have to work at a distance.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She bent and righted the chair she’d knocked over, but did not sit again. “Is there any way to undo a blood-oath?”

  A painful pause, and then Satomi’s quiet answer. “No.”

  Mirei smiled, with no humor in it. “Just like there’s no way to cancel a spell outright. Or to translocate a living creature. Unless, of course, you’re me. Void magic has proved its ability to do things we thought were impossible. It’ll just have to do so again.”

  She didn’t voice the doubts already growing in her mind. The things she had done so far, she had learned through divine inspiration, because the Goddess was with her. They didn’t happen on demand. To consciously reach for a specific effect—

  She would just have to do it. Because otherwise, Eclipse was dead.

  “May the Goddess aid you in your search,” Satomi said, and there was a quiet faith in her voice that steadied Mirei’s nerves. To save the life of a friend: It wasn’t a selfish goal. Surely the Goddess would look with favor on it.

  Even if he swore an oath falsely?

  She couldn’t let herself think about that.

  “Sit down,” Satomi said, and Mirei did.

  Her mind was already shunting the fear aside, focusing on the problem of how to undo the oath—could she cancel it? But each kind of spell canceled differently, and she was having a hard time learning how to do new ones. The blood-oath was especially complicated. But if she studied how it was constructed—she knew the general theory, of course, but it wasn’t something they taught witch-students about in exhaustive detail, as it was so rarely used—she might be able to work it out logically. . . .

  “There’s one other thing I must tell you about,” Satomi said, breaking her reverie.

  Mirei looked up. “Oh?”

  Satomi’s expression was startlingly somber. “Has anyone spoken to you about Eikyo?”

  “No,” Mirei said slowly, wondering what the woman meant by it. Their caravan had only just reached Starfall; she’d had no chance to speak to anyone else since arriving, let alone find Eikyo.

  Then she remembered how much time had passed—and what was supposed to have happened.

  Mirei opened her mouth to say something more, but the words died as she looked into Satomi’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” the Void Prime said softly.

  Mirei sat, numb.

  “The Keys passed her in the initial questioning,” Satomi went on, her voice too gentle for the terrible words. “If that is any small comfort. But when it came to the test itself—I’m sorry. Eikyo has become a Cousin.”

  Hands shaking, breath almost stopped, Mirei sat frozen in her chair. Not dead. A Cousin.

  Eikyo had feared that as much as death. Maybe more.

  She might as well be dead.

  “Where—where is she?” Mirei heard herself ask, as if from a great distance.

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” Satomi said; under the compassion, there was an uneasy edge. “She must begin a new life, away from those who knew her. That is kindest.”

  Mirei opened her mouth again, found she had nothing to say. The shaking had grown worse. Fear welled up from where she’d shoved it out of the way. Eikyo gone, Eclipse gone—the dearest friends of her two halves, each of them taken away, maybe forever. A Cousin, her memory wiped clean. And a blood-oath, that would drive him to kill her—but he would never do that. Which meant he would die.

  Hot wetness splashed her hands: she was crying. Realizing that broke through the last of her self-control, and she buried her face in her trembling hands, too hurt to care that she was breaking down in front of the Void Prime. Satomi was on her side, but she was not a friend. They were friends. Had been. Both of them, gone at the same time. Blows she hadn’t seen coming, and the pain was too much to take.

  Distantly she felt a touch on her shoulder, heard a voice speaking words that came and went without meaning. She wanted to leave, but couldn’t get up.

  A change in Satomi’s voice. The woman was singing. Mirei sensed the power move, but couldn’t be bothered to figure out what it was. She didn’t really care.

  “Mirei,” Satomi said again, and this time the insistence of her tone broke through. “Listen to me. Listen. What I said to you was a lie.”

  It startled her enough that her breath snagged in her throat; she let it out again to speak. “What?”

  “Eikyo is fine,” the Void Prime said, and Mirei, lifting her chin, saw that the woman was pale but sincere. “She isn’t a Cousin.”

  Wonderful words, but they made no sense at all. “I don’t understand.”

  Satomi sighed and crouched in front of Mirei, dignity and rank momentarily laid aside. “The Keys questioned her, and then we took her into Star Hall, and as far as anyone remembers—other than she and I�
�she failed, and became a Cousin. But it isn’t true.”

  The meaning of that sank in slowly. “Why?” Mirei rasped.

  “Because I needed someone to spy on the Cousins for me. And she had offered to help.” Satomi ran one hand over her face. If she had looked tired before, now she seemed weary beyond death. “They’re a part of this world of ours, here in Starfall, and out in the domains; I wanted to know more about them. Since they won’t answer questions, this seemed the only way. But Arinei knows. She doesn’t remember, but she knows; she left a note for herself, because she was afraid I was going to do . . . well, exactly what I did. I think it’s part of why she left.”

  Mirei didn’t give half a damn about Arinei at the moment; she was drowning in relief. “Where is she?”

  “Insebrar,” Satomi said. “Or rather, she’s on her way there. I want her to try and find out how Mirage survived. Whatever she learns out there, she’ll send back to me, in code.”

  Had Satomi asked her, Mirei would have said that Eikyo was not at all suited for the life of a spy. The Void Prime should have waited for a more suitable candidate; nobody at Starfall was formally trained in espionage, but at least there were some better liars. Mirei was too drained to try and argue the point, though, and it wouldn’t help anyway. Eikyo had been sent. If she gave herself away, they’d deal with it.

  Satomi glanced at the walls of her office. “I don’t dare keep the spell up much longer, so let me say this quickly.”

  Spell? Mirei recalled Satomi singing a moment before. Something to block eavesdropping.

  “Let no one know about Eikyo,” the Prime said. “Everyone thinks she failed the test—even the other Primes. I even intended for you to believe it, but you . . . I had to tell you the truth. Still, though, you must keep the fiction up. If for no other reason than that I’m not at all certain how the Cousins would react, if they knew.”

  Mirei would no more endanger Eikyo’s safety than she would Eclipse’s. “I understand.”