The island’s walls were no protection. Not against Witches.
26. Forbidden
Senna lay on the lumpy mattress, staring at the ceiling and worrying about Joshen. She relived everything that had happened, finding a hundred places where she’d gone wrong, a hundred decisions she should have made differently. Mistin slept soundly beside her. She had considered singing while her “friend” slept, but anything loud enough to be effective in these cramped quarters would surely wake the girl. And she’d seen how fast Mistin could move.
Still, Senna might have risked it. It had worked before, when she’d hummed to the Four Sisters. But now she was in the middle of the Darkwell Sea. Where would she go?
No matter how many times she looked out the tiny window above their shared bed, she saw only the stormy seas. The last sense left to her was listening. She sometimes heard the sailors above the wind and rain. And always the steady sound of a Witch singing to the ship.
That in itself was curious. The woman’s song was strong—she should only have to sing every now and then, but she hadn’t stopped but for an occasional break since she’d started hours ago.
Her song suddenly ended. There was silence except for booted footfalls. And suddenly, Witch song rang out. At least four of them were singing. In response, wind whipped against the ship, which surged forward.
That many Witches could sing them up to a speed that would snap the mast. “Are they mad?” Senna wondered aloud.
Mistin sat up, listened, and said groggily, “We’re headed to the barrier. That means we’ll be home by nightfall. When I left, I never thought I’d see it again.”
“Where are we?”
“You might have heard it referred to as the Darkwell Squall.” With a sleepy smile, she lay back down.
Darkwell Squall—Senna had heard of it, but she couldn’t remember where. Was this what Grendi had meant by the place of storms? After pushing back her blankets, Senna knelt before the window and rested her chin against the casement. The dark had a texture so deep it felt like velvet all around her. And still all she saw was the endless ocean and clouds and rain.
Using the illumination of an unseen lantern, she looked back the way they’d come and noticed the slant of the rain and the direction of the waves. The ship was going against both. That must be why the Witch had to sing all night, but that didn’t explain the sudden addition of three more.
Senna shifted her line of sight to look ahead and saw something astonishing through the blur of rain. A shimmer of color. A curving wall of bruised green and purple emerged from the storm, stretching as far as she could see.
An intense foreboding crashed over her. If the ship touched that color, something horrible would happen. They must turn around and never come back. The feeling was so overwhelming that it felt as if her brain were shutting down. There was only one thought: flee. A small cry of fear passed her lips.
Mistin patted her back. “It’ll be over soon.”
The room was filled with color as the ship sliced through the wall. Senna was suddenly inundated with music—the strangest music. Cringing, she listened to a song of forgetting and forbidden places.
A moment later it was gone, and she was left with nothing except utter confusion. Even the storm was gone. All was calm and quiet. She looked out the window.
The wall was no longer foreboding. It was a rainbow of bright, liquid colors. Senna finally understood. This barrier was much like the barrier that surrounded the Ring of Power and protected the Witches during their songs. But instead of an uncrossable boundary, this one created fear and a sense of impending doom to keep strangers out.
“How is it possible?”
Mistin yawned. “The currents and winds keep ships away. The storms blind them. If either of those fail, the barrier won’t let anyone in from the outside. Even those of us who left—I didn’t think I’d ever be able to come home. But that changed a few weeks ago. Now it just scares the hide off anyone who approaches it, but it can be crossed both ways. I don’t know why.”
Senna’s heart beat faster. The first time she’d Traveled, she’d come upon something she couldn’t pass, so she’d altered it to let her through. Altered, but not destroyed. “If no one could traverse the barrier, how did you go through it the first time?”
“Getting out is easy. Getting back in is—was—impossible.” Mistin rolled over and tugged the blankets around her shoulders, clearly wanting to go back to sleep.
After crossing the barrier, Senna had been attacked by foreign Witches who lived on an island not far from a land with mountains—Calden was just over a day’s sail from Tarten. It all made sense.