Page 76 of Sightwitch
“No.” I twisted away to frown in the Rook’s general direction. I knew this would not go well, yet it was turning out harder than I’d imagined.
BecauseIdidn’t want him to forget me either.
I hopped off the boulder, and grass blades scratched at my knees.
Kullen followed, leaping down in a graceful whip of wind. His shadow stretched long over the meadow.
“Is this why you made me write down what I remembered? You knew I would forget.”
“Hye,” was all I said before striding to the falls’ edge.
The Rook paused his cleaning to watch me stalk his way with Kullen fast on my heels.
“Then I won’t leave,” Kullen said, though it was less assertion and more plaintive beg. “I’ll stay here—”
“And do what?” I cut in. “This is no place for you, and an entire army is trying to find you.”
“A navy,” he murmured in a veryCaptainKullen-like correction. Then, with sudden animation, he added, “You said ‘buried.’ That the memories would be ‘buried in a place I cannot find them’—which means they’ll still be in here. I just have to … to dig them up somehow.”
“You won’t be able to.” It took all my control to keep my stern Hilga mask in place.
“I will,” he insisted, and there was an edge to his voice I’d never heard before. A determination—a strength that could tame storms and summon cyclones.
“It’s time,” I said, motioning to the falls. To the river below. “You need to go before some Nubrevnan accidentally finds this place and I’m forced to kill him.”
He sniffed, a bitter sound. “You would never follow through with Rule 37.” He strode to the cliff’s edge, and though he scowled down at the sailors and ships, I do not think he truly saw them.
“Will we ever meet again?” he asked eventually, dragging his gaze back to mine.
I hesitated. There was one side of Lady Fate’s knife, one path that I could take in which I was certain we would meet again. The answers to healing Sirmaya might reside somewhere in that Paladin mind of his, meaning one day I would need to find him.
And if I was being honest, I wanted to find him.
But there is always the sharp, hidden side of Lady Fate’s knife, where what we want is not what we ultimately get.
“I … will try,” I forced out, groping for the right words. Then I bobbed my head curtly and repeated, “I will try to find you. One day, Captain.”
“Ah.” His shoulders relaxed. A warm breeze gusted around us—not from the summer’s day, but a charged wind. A happy wind.
Then Kullen flashed me his widest grin yet, and I couldn’t help but match it with my own.
Either he was getting better at smiling, or I was getting used to it.
“Good-bye, Captain,” I said with a small bow.
He lifted a fist to his heart and swept a bow so low that his pale head scraped across the grass. One bow for me, then a second for the Rook, who still splashed upon the shore.
“Safe harbors, Ryber Fortiza,” he declared as fresh, magicked winds furled in. The grass lashed and waved. “And safe harbors to you, the Rook.”
Then Kullen Ikray launched off the knoll, leaving me, the Convent, and his memories of us both far behind.
Y18 D261 — 87 days since I became the last Sightwitch Sister
MEMORIES
The doorway to the underground city waited before me. Once I stepped through, I wasthrough. There would be no easy return to the Convent. Unlike the other passages, this door had been created to go only one way. Refugees who’d entered the underground city could not return for safety reasons.
I felt bound to the stone, unable to move, just as I had for the past twenty-five drips of my new hourglass.
