Witch

by Marie Brennan

  The Key jerked to a halt by them and dropped into the very briefest of bows. “Aken. Chashi. Rigai is dead.”

  “What?” Satomi demanded. Rigai—one of Hyoka’s theorists—Misetsu and Menukyo, if the traitor has killed another one—

  “She took poison in her room,” Hyoka said. The edges of her lips were white, as if she were hanging on to her composure by her fingernails. “There are burned papers in her fireplace. A few of them weren’t entirely destroyed. She’s been receiving messages from Kalistyi.”

  Koika grabbed her by the shoulders, fingers digging in. “Are you certain?”

  Hyoka looked sick. “There’s no doubt about them. Chashi, I’m sorry. I would never have suspected her. She—” The Key stopped and took a wavering breath, trying to steady herself. “She was helping Mirei. Researching the blood-oath for her. I can’t believe—”

  “Let me see this for myself,” Satomi said, but she knew before she went that Hyoka would not have made that kind of error. The papers, when she saw them, were undoubtedly from the dissidents in Kalistyi.

  Rigai’s body had been covered with a blanket, but the smell was still sickening. Satomi clenched her jaw and looked at the shrouded shape on the bed.

  I wanted to believe it wasn’t one of mine, she realized. I wanted Koika to do the search because I knew I couldn’t be impartial. I wanted to believe it was someone from outside my Ray.

  But the divisions among the witches had not gone by Ray boundaries. More Air and Fire witches had left than Void, it was true, but there were some from every Ray on both sides. And by staying, and appearing to be loyal, Rigai had put herself in a position to betray them all.

  “Get rid of the body,” Satomi said in a low voice. Cousins moved forward to take the corpse from the bed. She left before they did, and went away to vent her rage in private.

  ASHIN’S FUNERAL took place that night.

  Satomi presided over it. Ashin’s own Prime should have done so, but her Prime had been responsible for her death—a fact that no one would soon forget.

  Witches gathered in Star Hall, arranging themselves in the branches for their Rays, with the witches of the Void circling the dais. Looking out over them, Satomi could see the splintering of her people, laid out before her. Some branches of the hall were emptier than others. Many faces were missing, that should have been there.

  Rigai was one of the missing. She had not yet decided what to announce on that matter.

  But now was not the time to think about that. This ritual was to honor Ashin’s courage, and the sacrifice Rigai had forced her to make.

  Satomi’s eyes lingered briefly on two small figures. Most of the students were at the far back of each branch, choosing whichever of the four they preferred, but these two were up front, because Ashin had been their mother. Sharyo and Indera, with identical closed expressions, neither of them willing to show a reaction in front of everyone else.

  Mirei was present, standing just behind the remaining Air Keys. Kekkai was not. No one would want to see her here tonight.

  Satomi took a deep breath, then spoke into the crystalline silence of the hall.

  “Before us lies the body of Ashin, daughter of Yukin. She was a woman of Starfall; she was a witch of the Ray of Air, and the Key of the Path of the Hand. In following the Element of Air, she served the people of the land, wherever she might lend aid. In leading the Path of the Hand, she carried out the tasks of her Ray.

  “We honor her tonight.”

  “Honor to the name of Ashin,” the assembled women murmured, their voices whispering off the surrounding stone.

  Facing the western arm of the hall, where the light cast its fiery glow on the figures below, Satomi bowed, then spread her hands wide in supplication. “Maiden, Youngest of Five, the beginnings of life: We beseech thee grant thy blessing to Ashin, whose journey through life began with thee.”

  “We ask this, Maiden, of thee.”

  Next the south, all silver-white. Another bow, another prayer. “Bride, Second of Five, the joining of one life with another: We beseech thee grant thy blessing to Ashin, who loved others in her journey through life.”

  “We ask this, Bride, of thee.”

  The east, with the soothing blues of Water. “Mother, Third of Five, the granting of new life: We beseech thee grant thy blessing to Ashin, who birthed a daughter on her journey through life.” One daughter, or two? She had wrestled with the question for hours. The two shared a single soul, and in the end, that had decided her.

  “We ask this, Mother, of thee.”

  The north, the final arm of the hall, green and amber with the colors of Earth. “Crone, Eldest of Five, the dwindling of life: We beseech thee grant thy blessing to Ashin, who sought your wisdom on her journey through life.”

  “We ask this, Crone, of thee.”

  Finally the part of the ceremony that had always seemed an afterthought, necessary for the sake of completeness, necessary because of the theology they could not simply ignore. Tonight it carried weight that it never had before.

  Satomi tilted her head back and addressed her words to the space where the hall’s crossing had once soared, the clear air that stood between her and the stars. “Warrior, Alone of Five, the ending of life: We beseech thee grant thy blessing to Ashin. Let her spirit not be lost to the emptiness forever. Guide her soul through the blackness of the Void, so that it may be born again on the other side, to begin her journey anew.”

  “We ask this, Warrior, of thee.”

  Turning to face the silk-draped platform that stood on the bier, Satomi stretched her hands out. “The spirit is gone. The flesh remains. With the Maiden’s Fire, we shall burn away the Mother’s water. When the Crone’s Earth is all that persists, then let it be scattered to the Air of the Bride, in whose service Ashin dedicated her life. Her soul is with the Warrior now.”

  The spell was not a complex one. She sang it slowly, turning the practicality of pitches and vowels into a work of art, sustained by her voice with all the care she could give. The power swirled to her, gentle and obedient, and with the final note she released it into its home. The fabric ignited, and then the body beneath; fueled by magic, the fire did not take long. Satomi remained on the dais the entire time, refusing to retreat from the scorching heat.

  When it died down, only a pile of ash remained.

  Satomi sang again, with as much care as the first time. The wind arose from the southern arm of the hall, sweeping up toward the dais, swirling about in a loop to carry the ash upward, past the shattered ribs of the crossing and into the night sky. To where the eyes of the Goddess looked down on them all, and welcomed Ashin home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  MIREI LOOKED from Hyoka to Nenikune, then back again, trying and failing to read their expressions. “So this is killing me.”

  “Not killing you,” Hyoka said hastily. Nenikune cast a look at her that suggested the healer disagreed.

  “Hurting me, then.”

  Nenikune turned away from Hyoka and sighed. “Say that it’s . . . putting a strain on you. On your body. One that is growing quite serious, and could, over time . . . cause you great harm.”

  “In other words, kill me.”

  “When you cast that spell,” Hyoka said, retreating into her intellectual voice, “you’re sending your body and spirit into the Void. The Void threatens dissolution; that is its nature. Every time you cross over into it, you’re—that was a good word for it, Nenikune. You’re putting a strain on your body, and its ability to hold together. Which is manifesting as headaches, nausea, faintness, and so on. I think the effect is worse when you bring others with you. They can’t protect themselves against it, so you have to do it for them.”

  They were alone in the infirmary room, with the door closed; of course the two witches did not want anyone overhearing this conversation. Mirei’s fingers drummed a rapid rhythm on her knees. It made her think of Ashin, singing in the Bear’s Claw, and she stopped. “Do I recover from that damage?” />
  “We can’t tell,” Nenikune said tartly. “You haven’t stopped for long enough.”

  “But we think you might.” Again, Hyoka was quick to reassure her. “It does mean, however, that you should avoid casting the spells in anything like quick succession.”

  Mirei gave her an ironic look. “Which puts any further research sessions right out of the question.” Not to mention that those sessions had helped put her in this state in the first place, sending her back and forth in the translocation room simply so the theorists could stare at her. If this damage was something she could heal, then she didn’t mind—too much. If it was permanent, then she’d frittered away most of her potential in pointless experimentation.

  She took a deep breath to quash that fear. “Is it just the translocation? Or is it all Void magic?”

  An exchange of glances between the two witches. “We can’t be sure,” Hyoka said, reluctantly. “Since we’re incapable of perceiving that energy ourselves, it’s hard to guess what it might be doing to you. Or even what it is—to be honest, Mirei, I can’t even wrap my mind around the notion of a power associated with something whose very essence is nonexistence. I can say with confidence, though, that if there’s any negative effect from casting spells that use such power, it’s a drop in the rainstorm compared to what moving through the Void does to you.”

  “Wonderful.” Mirei leaned forward in her chair and propped her elbows on her knees. The floor beneath her shoes was warm, heated by spells that helped take away what sting the southern winter had. Her mind focused on that, irrelevantly. Magic built of Fire and Air, magic that did no harm to the women who cast it.

  Did you expect your miracle to have no price?

  Mirei straightened up, grateful for once that she had a schedule. If she couldn’t translocate, then both research and diplomatic missions were ruled out, but she still had the doppelgangers to deal with. And Eclipse to worry about. It gave her something to concentrate on other than the possibility of her own degeneration. “Thank you for telling me. Does Satomi know yet?”

  “We wanted to tell you first,” Hyoka said. “But we’ll be meeting with her later today.”

  “Don’t bother,” Mirei said. “I’ll go talk to her myself.”

  SATOMI CURSED with a fluency Mirei didn’t think she had.

  “They say I may recover, if I hold off on translocating for a while,” Mirei added, as a tiny balm for the bad news.

  “We don’t have a while,” Satomi growled, rising to her feet and taking quick, restless strides to the window. “I was going to send you back out, this time to the Hunter schools.”

  The suggestion took Mirei aback. True enough, it was the one place where she might be competent as a diplomat. But why the schools?

  “I thought they might become allies,” Satomi explained when she asked, turning back from the window. “Much in the same way the Avannans have, by playing up the change in our attitudes toward the Warrior. Though I doubt that would persuade all of them. There is word from your friend Eclipse that the Thornbloods are saying you killed Ice.”

  Mirei blinked in surprise. “But I didn’t. I was tempted, but I didn’t.”

  “I know. Someone has, though, and is using that to set them against you.”

  It was surprisingly upsetting. After that struggle with herself, the debate over whether or not to kill a woman she detested on every count, now her decision had been made irrelevant. Ice was dead, and she was being blamed for it anyway. She wanted to say good riddance; the Thornblood had been an irritant to her since her first day out of Silverfire, and had sold fellow Hunters out at a moment’s notice. Yet for all that, Mirei had to offer up a silent prayer to the Warrior, to guide Ice to rebirth. She might have damned the woman to the Void more than once, but she hadn’t meant it literally.

  “I suppose you can send messages,” Satomi said, breaking the silence, but she didn’t sound enthusiastic about the idea. “Instead of going in person.”

  To the schools. Mirei’s mind came back to the problem at hand. “Maybe,” she said, but doubtfully. How much attention would they pay to messages? Jaguar would, certainly, but Wall? Let alone the Grandmasters of more distant schools. The Cloudhawks had no more reason to listen to her than to a bird in the trees. What a pity they weren’t the ones who owed her boons.

  Which reminded her of the problem she still had not solved. “I want to call in our second boon,” she said, looking up at Satomi.

  Returning to her seat and picking up a brush to write with, the Void Prime said, “Oh?”

  “I want to put someone under a blood-oath.”

  The brush clattered back onto the desk. Satomi stared at her. “To what end?”

  “So I can study it. And figure out how to break it.” Mirei waved one hand impatiently. “I won’t swear them to anything important. Just something that will let me experiment.”

  “Experiment? With someone’s life? It’s out of the question.”

  Mirei’s jaw clenched. She chose her words carefully as she said, “The terms of a blood-oath don’t put limitations on the boons. But they must be granted.”

  “I honor that oath by choice,” Satomi snapped. “It was sworn to Ashin and her friends, not me.”

  Something went cold inside Mirei’s stomach, and caution went to the winds. “What a pity, then, that Ashin’s dead.”

  An ugly silence fell between them. Mirei met Satomi’s pale eyes, unblinking. She was running out of ideas for how to save Eclipse, but she wasn’t going to give up. She cared about him too much to let him die. This was the only option she could see. She wouldn’t abandon it.

  At last Satomi said, her voice clipped, “How fortunate for you that we have a subject on hand for you to study.”

  The unexpectedness of that thawed her a little. “What? Who?”

  Satomi smiled thinly. “Kekkai. All the witches close to Shimi and Arinei have had to swear modified oaths, built on the same spell. You can study Kekkai.”

  “Modified oaths,” Mirei said. “How do I know that anything that works on her will work on him?”

  “You’ll just have to hope that it does,” Satomi said.

  AT THE SIGHT OF MIREI, Kekkai sank into a bow that was entirely unnecessary from a Key—even an imprisoned and treasonous one—to an unranked witch. From the depths of it, not rising, she said, “I didn’t get a chance to thank you.”

  “Don’t,” Mirei said bluntly, settling into a chair. The room they were keeping Kekkai in was painfully bare, and chilly; it was as if someone were trying to minimize the risk of her breaking out with destructive Fire magic by limiting the amount of flame that could be used to heat the space. Pointless, of course. Or maybe they were just punishing her.

  Kekkai straightened and sat as well. “You saved my life.”

  “At a cost I didn’t want to pay. And don’t assume you’re in the clear yet.” Mirei reached out. “Let me see your wrist.”

  The Key didn’t bother to ask which one she meant. Pulling back her sleeve, she extended her arm for Mirei to examine.

  The scar shone silver-white, smooth against the skin. “Air. Who cast it?”

  “Shimi.”

  “A blood-oath? I didn’t think she’d have anything to do with the Warrior.”

  “She doesn’t.” Kekkai reclaimed her arm when Mirei released it and tugged her sleeve down, as if ashamed to show the mark. “The Warrior was nowhere in it.”

  Mirei remembered the terms of the spell very well. “But the Warrior is the one who judges whether the oath is fulfilled.”

  “According to the traditional words, yes. Shimi changed it.”

  If the Warrior wasn’t a part of the oath, then what could she possibly learn from Kekkai that would help with Eclipse? Fury surged in her gut. But it was all she was going to get from Satomi, and so she had to try. “What words did you use? Or can’t you say that, either?”

  “No, I can.” Closing her eyes—whether to help her memory or to hide her emotions, Mirei couldn’t sa
y—Kekkai recounted it. “Shimi’s part was, ‘You are forbidden to betray, by speech or action, deliberate silence or inaction, the location and defenses of our stronghold that you now stand in. Should you violate this prohibition, you will die.’ Then I said—we all said, every time she made someone swear this—‘I swear, on my body and my reborn soul, that I will obey the prohibition, or suffer immediate death.’ ”

  No asking whether she accepted. No promise of reward, because the oath wasn’t a charge to do something; it was a ban against doing something. And because of that, the oath would never end.

  No reference to the Goddess, anywhere in it. Just human pride and fear.

  Into Mirei’s thoughts came Kekkai’s quiet voice. “She got the idea from her encounter with your friend.”

  Mirei’s head shot up. “What?”

  “The Hunter. The one who swore to kill you.” Kekkai eyed her, now nervous. “Surely you’ve heard.”

  “I’ve heard.” Mirei got up and went to the small fire on the hearth, reaching her hands out to the warmth. Her fingers were cold. For all that she was here for information that might save Eclipse, she didn’t want to talk about him. Not to this woman.

  “I believe she gave him the normal version of the oath, though,” Kekkai said softly to her back.

  It took a moment for Mirei to see the implication of the Key’s words. She turned abruptly, hands still toward the fire. “Wait—Shimi cast the spell on Eclipse?”

  The nervousness in Kekkai’s eyes edged over into fear. Mirei wondered what her expression looked like, to get that response. “Yes,” Kekkai said. “Even with the Warrior in it. Or so I’m told. I might be wrong.”

  Three quick steps across the floor, and Kekkai flinched back. “But it was Shimi.” The same bitch who had him taken prisoner and didn’t release him when Satomi called the hunt off.

  “She forced him into it,” Kekkai said, her words rushing together. “They had him prisoner in Abern—he told them he wanted to do it, that you weren’t his year-mate anymore, so he didn’t care about you, but she made it be a blood-oath, and told him they’d kill him if he didn’t swear. That he wasn’t any use to them if he wouldn’t. So the only way for him to live was to agree to kill you.”