Page 55 of Sightwitch
The Rook nudged Captain’s leg, purring with concern.
“What are you?” I breathed, my body still as stone.
“I don’t know.” With a harsh exhale, he pushed into a sitting position.
The light behind him shrank even more, and the Rook hopped around to Captain’s leg.
Twice now, the bird had chosen this Nubrevnan man over me. Yet I was neither upset nor angry.
The Rook did nothing without reason, so the question was: What was his reason?
“You cleaved,” I said, finally drawing in my legs as if to rise.
Captain nodded slowly. It sent the light bouncing. “But then the cleaving stopped.”
“That’s not possible.” I knew it wasn’t possible. Sister Hilga and Sister Rose both had taught me that, and I’d read it in Memory Records too.
“But it did.” He mimicked me, pulling in his own legs. “A voice told me, ‘Not yet,’ and then the … thefirein my veins went away.”
Though my wrists groaned in protest, I pushed myself to my feet. “The voices you heard before the cleaving—who were they?Whatwere they?”
“I don’t know.” He wagged his head, and as he continued to speak, I approached him, one measured step at a time.
I kept my hand on my knife the whole way.
“They used words I didn’t understand, Ryber, and they screamed and screamed and screamed. They were hurting. Someone had … had betrayed them. That much I knew—that much I could feel. Except that it also felt likeme. Like the voices weremymemories and I had been betrayed.”
I reached Captain’s side, and as one, he and the Rook lifted their gazes to me.
The Rook bristled, a challenge glittering in his eyes.
Captain, however, looked so deeply ashamed, so deeply sorry, I thought he might ask me again to kill him.
We held each other’s gaze, his chest unmoving. Mine bowing in and out. Three breaths I took. Then he said, “I don’t like this place, Ryber. I want to leave. After we find your Sisters, please: I want to leave.”
It took me a moment to gather my words. The truth was that I didn’t know how to leave. I didn’t know what would happen once I found Tanzi and the others. For all I knew, I would join them.
And at my core, that was certainly what I hoped for.
So I answered simply, “We’re almost there, Captain.” Then I extended my hand to him.
He tensed at the movement. Then he seemed to realize what it meant—that I was not only allowing him physical contact, but I was offering it.
The edge of his lip twitched upward, but he didn’t take my hand in his. Instead he lumbered to a stand on his own—which I appreciated. After retrieving the torch, I found him hunched, a pillar of shame with the Rook resting on his shoulder.
“If it happens again,” he said. “If I cleave again, please stab me with your knife, Ryber. I don’t ever want to frighten you, and I don’t ever want to hurt you.”
“Hye,” I said, though I stared at the Rook as I said it.
For we both knew he would never let me kill Captain. There was something special about this Nubrevnan man, and I had my suspicions of what that might be.
Y2787 D271
MEMORIES
For once, all of the Six were present at today’s meeting in my workshop. Not that the Rook King contributed much. ’Tis strange how he sits at our table and speaks when spoken to, yet he never feels as if he ispartof the group.
This whole enterprise was his idea, so of course he is part of it. Of course, he is one of us.
