Witch Born(35)

After shutting it softly, Senna rounded the desk standing between her and the twisted stairs and climbed up.

At the top, she tried the Council Room door. It was locked. Sweat started on her brow. She couldn’t remember what the rest of the keys went to, let alone if any of them opened this door. She tried one after another. On the second-to-last key, the lock gave with a snick.

Her heart in her throat, Senna eased inside. Before her was a large window overlooking the Ring of Power. All the other walls were lined with books.

Senna locked the door behind her so she’d have a little warning if anyone came inside. She drew the heavy curtains, then lit a lantern and turned the wick down to a faint glow. She held it before her and started scanning the titles. Her mother had said the first Witch War was hundreds of years ago.

She picked the oldest-looking books and pulled some down. They were all accounts copied from older manuscripts written by a Head of Sunlight. None were quite old enough. Putting them back, she tried some even more faded ones. Finally, she found the one she was looking for—a musty-smelling book by a Head named Merlay, who appeared to be in her mid-thirties.

Senna eagerly started reading. She learned Haven had been exclusively for students once. Adult Witches lived wherever they chose, but most preferred to dwell in Tarten—apparently Haven had been beside Tarten then—so they could participate in the songs that shifted the seasons. There had been two big celebrations in spring and fall to usher in winter and summer, during which time songs were said to fly in the air. Thousands had flocked to see the Witches’ singing. Senna couldn’t imagine living in a world where people traveled to see a Witch sing.

She skimmed through accounts with dates of the first frost for each country. There were ledgers specifying the perfect amount of snow and rainfall for each region. Witches were dispatched to deal with blights and even a plague of locusts.

Merlay wrote about their difficulty finding enough room for all the new Witchlings and detailed the money coming in from countries to show their gratitude. She mentioned letters asking for Witches to be stationed in regions struggling with poor soil or with a tendency for unpredictable winds, earth tremors, drought, or flooding. And a whole hundred Witches to deal with a newly formed volcano threatening Harshen in the north. That hundred had never come back. The entire ship had sunk when they’d hit uncharted rocks off the coast of Vorlay.

Senna sat up straight and read more carefully.

Before Merlay could investigate, war had broken out between Harshen and Vorlay. Though the fighting was hundreds of leagues away, smoke from the battles had tinged the twilight and morning skies blood red.

And then stories began trickling in of an entire country decimated. By Witches.

It took Merlay months to piece together the truth. How Harshen had exaggerated a dormant volcano’s threat to acquire a large group of Witches. Most were either young or old—Witches who’d finished raising or had yet to start their families.

Harshen’s king, Nis, had imprisoned and tortured the Witches until they helped him destroy Vorlay. But Nis hadn’t stopped there. He’d moved on to another country. Merlay’s spies gleaned rumors that he plotted to take over the whole world.

The Witches didn’t have an army. Their only weapons were their voices and their Guardians. So they’d made the only choice they could. They’d sealed the heavens, cutting Harshen off from the rains, and threatened to do more if Nis didn’t release their Witches.

In response, he’d slit the Witches’ throats. The Heads had all voted to let Harshen die. But not all the Witches had agreed with the Head’s decision. Some had fought. Led by a girl, barely into her Apprenticeship. Lilette.

Senna gasped. “Lilette.” The name rolled off her tongue like a song in the silence of the room. Lilette wasn’t a country, but a woman.

Horrified by what the Witches had done, Lilette took those few who would follow her and left for her home country. Calden.

Senna closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure she could bear to read anymore.

Hadn’t her mother warned her? Once learned, knowledge cannot be unlearned. Senna was beginning to grasp the burden truth could become.

Gathering her courage, she turned the page. Songs now came from two different voices, confusing the elements. The conflicting rhythms grated against each other. Storms whipped up that flattened entire villages, destroyed fleets of ships. Crops froze. Leaves failed to drop before the hard frost killed the trees.

Merlay never actually wrote the words, but Senna felt her fear. Lilette and her Witches’ songs were stronger. Strong enough to destroy Haven at any time.

Certain an attack was imminent, Merlay had struck first. She glossed over the details, simply referring to what happened next as “the tragedy,” but Senna gleaned enough to understand Haven had struck so hard and fast they had annihilated Calden and every Witch who had fled to it. She believed the entire nation had sunk into the sea.