Witch Born(117)

“It’s so beautiful. Thank you.” Senna fingered the waning gibbous that had been Joshen’s. In addition to her ring, it was the closest connection she had to him. “But Joshen doesn’t have his piece anymore. How will he find me?”

Lilette looked sad. “He’ll have to use his wits, just like everyone else who is lost.”

Senna was silent for a time. “How will I find the Witches?”

“I will take you. But remember, time moves differently here. Four days have passed. The Tartens and Caldashans have already crossed the ocean and resumed their attack on Haven. They’ve nearly breached the last of the island’s defenses.”

Lilette wrapped her arms around Senna’s neck. The Creator’s aura flared a blinding white. When the light faded, Senna found herself aloft in the sky. Lilette was withdrawing and fading. But she wasn’t alone. A tall, masculine shape moved beside her, and they were holding hands.

Her Guardian. Lilette had followed him in death, while Senna had returned from it to find Joshen.

Below her was Tarten. Men were locked in a pitched battle; smoke was thick and acrid in her throat. Ships rose and fell on an angry sea. But they were looking up at her now, their faces slack with wonder.

Senna shone like the sun, her dress the orange red of glowing embers, her hair flaring around her like flame.

She caught the sight of green dresses. Witches. She saw into their hearts. They had abused the power given to them. Instead of harmony, they had sought discord and chaos. They’d proven themselves unable to bear the burden placed upon them.

She listened to the music all around her. The muted hum of brass, the high cry of the strings, the thrumming of the drums, and the confused chaos of the woodwinds.

Senna sensed the pain waiting for her at the end of her songs, but there was no time to dwell on it. Power rapidly leaked out of her. She would need every last drop of the energy still strumming through her to accomplish her task.

She let her aura flare. She sang and the Four Sisters went silent. She pulled a cord of music here, changed a note there.

Slowly, the Four Sisters’ melody melded to hers until every sound, every pitch blended together into a symphony of might. Senna set the boundaries of the climate, creating self-contained orchestras of sound.

When she was finished, the sound of the rich music all around her had wilted like a frostbitten bloom.

She had taken the Keepers’ ability to control the climate and returned it to the Four Sisters. She knew the price of her song—hurricanes, floods, earth tremors, hard winters, and inadequate summers. From now on, Witches would be able to curb the weather, but not rule it. They would be able to stir the earth, but not rend it. Shift the waters, but not lift them. She left them the ability to control the plants.

That done, her song shifted to Tarten. She restored every plant, every flower beyond the lands she had already healed with Lilette. As she sang, her aura faded, and her immortality and immeasurable power diminished, slipping from her body like water from cupped hands.

Pain came in her power’s wake—a deep ache in her hip that spread down her leg and up her side.

She sagged, her strength nearly spent. She was almost mortal again. The music that had become such a part of her had gone silent. She felt empty, spent like a guttered candle. She spoke to those watching her. “Why? Why were you not as you were meant to be? Songs meant to protect were used for destruction and gain. And so I have bridled much of your power, and all the world will suffer for it. But no more than the suffering you’ve already caused. And perhaps you will one day be worthy for that power to be restored.”

She flicked her wrist and waves rose up, carrying the Tarten ships away. Then she called upon the wind to carry a single figure toward her. Grendi. Though weak, Senna was still a Creator. She looked into the woman’s heart and saw hatred and malice like a hard chunk of tar. Grendi’s veins ran with it. And there was more.

Senna’s eyes widened. “You are a Witch.”

Grendi flinched as if she’d been slapped.

Senna read the woman’s soul like a diviner reads tea leaves. “A witch with no power—a Wastrel who watched her sisters and mother bend the world to their will while you stood in the shadows, powerless and alone.”

“They were an abomination! A scourge I vowed to exterminate!”

Senna winced in disgust. Grendi had aided Espen in her hunt to imprison the Witches. When their plot failed, she’d tried to slaughter them. She would have succeeded if the Witches hadn’t razed the city and cursed Tarten.

Then, instead of using Tarten’s dwindling resources to evacuate her people from their dying lands, Grendi had plotted Haven’s destruction.