And here, where they’d turned to avoid the soldiers, the road was littered with decaying plants, none of which had been crushed by footfalls. Sunny leapt a fallen tree, his passing stirring the withered leaves still clinging to the branches. The barn they’d hidden inside so long ago was plainly visible now that the foliage wasn’t there to block it from view. It too was abandoned.
Their mounts were breathing hard and dripping with sweat. The small party stopped to let the horses rest for a while before riding on again.
Senna wondered where all the people had fled.
Cord met them not far from Kaen’s home. “Mistin and I have scouted the surrounding area. It’s clear.”
Senna trotted Sunny the rest of the way to the house. Ghosts of memories rose up from around her. She jumped from the saddle. Joshen and Reden moved ahead of her, their muskets primed.
She trailed after them through the two-room hut. At first, she was blinded by the darkness. Opening her eyes wide, she slowly turned around. Their movements had stirred up the dust. The house had the musty smell of a long-abandoned building. Her eyes watered and she sneezed.
Trying to breathe through the guilt crushing her chest, she hurried towards the side room. She started when a rat ran across her foot. She forced herself to push the door aside. The sleeping mats were missing, as was the food that had been in the woven baskets.
They really were gone. Senna bit her bottom lip and willed herself not to fall apart.
Joshen headed back outside. “I’ll go check the tunnel. If Kaen left us word, that’s where it would be.”
Senna closed her eyes and rested the back of her head against the crumbling wall. Where were Kaen and his family? What about his sister, Ciara?
“They still might be alive,” Reden said as if reading her mind.
Senna straightened to find him staring at her. “You knew,” she said softly. “You knew when you joined us that our curse would do this to your land.”
Reden hesitated before giving a curt nod. “I did.”
“Then why? Why did you help us?”
He studied the landscape beyond the door, no doubt comparing the desolation to the bursting life that had existed mere months ago. “Higher law, Senna. If the Witches died, there wouldn’t be anyone to control nature. And eventually everything would die.”
He’d traded his homeland for the world. He had more courage than she did. “We didn’t have to curse the land, forbid the storms, stop the seeds from germinating,” she said.
“You had to weaken Tarten and more importantly, Grendi, or she would have destroyed you.” He said it with so little feeling.
It was such a vivid contrast to Senna, who felt like she was drowning in emotions. She stepped past Reden, back into the stagnant sunlight. “Well then, I think it’s weak enough. It’s time I did something about it.”
From his position as lookout, Cord twisted in the saddle to shoot her a look of disbelief. “I thought you needed a whole choir for something like that.”
“She does,” Mistin said softly.
Senna winced. She still didn’t understand what was happening to her—why she’d grown stronger since consuming Espen’s song. So much stronger. Why the night they’d escaped from the island her song alone had been as strong as a hundred Witches’. Or why that power had since abandoned her. “I’ll do what I can.”
Mistin nodded. “I’ll help you.”
Cord shifted the horse’s reins from one hand to another and didn’t answer.
Reden studied her. “You go airborne and everyone within five leagues will see you.”
“I know.” Senna twisted around, searching for anything resembling a circle of trees. There was nothing. And even if she could, she didn’t know how to sing one into existence. Their song wouldn’t be as effective without one, but it would have to do.
She listened to the music, or rather the lack thereof. But the Four Sisters were hurting, which meant they were here, cowering from the death and destruction that had been forced upon them. Senna hummed, trying to coax them out. And like wounded animals, they came.
Tipping back her head, she sang in a commanding voice, with Mistin accompanying her.
Wind lift me high,
That my song reach to’rds the sky.
They repeated the song until the wind tugged Senna upward. She needed it to funnel her words up and out. Her skirt swirled around her legs, and she grew lighter. The wind twisted her hair skyward until she thought it must look like a golden candle flame.
She dug deep, searching for the power that had been there before. There. A little pulse of it. To her surprise, her feet left the ground. When she was high enough to see across the tops of the rounded mountains, she switched songs.