Page 1 of Witchlight
THE GREAT CROSSING
Long ago, before the gods walked among us, we were the No’Amatsi people. The people of shared love, of Thread-family. We lived in the northernmost stretches of the Fareastern continent until war chased us from our home.
We traveled west, following the Moon Mother, whose Threads were great ribbons of color across the sky. First she led us away from the war. Then she led us into the one place no humans dared to tread: the Sleeping Lands.
It is a vast expanse of snow where magic waits so thick in the air that those who go in, do not come out the same—assuming they come out at all. And although we, the No’Amatsis, did come out alive, we were markedly changed. The cold leeched all color from our faces; the magic turned our eyes golden and green.
When we finally left the Sleeping Lands and entered this new world, the people there did not welcome us. We had crossed the uncrossable. But much more alarming was the fact that we had magic.
In those days, only the gods had magic.
Those gods, however, did not fear us as their children did. Instead, they welcomed us. There was Owl, who watched over the creatures and plants of the Witchlands. Swallow, who controlled the seasons and the storms. Comet Bright, who gave us fire (but who sometimes lost their temper and spread it over the land). Old Uncle who protected the rivers and seas—if he could be bothered to wake up from his nap. Then Wicked Cousin, whose domain was the dead and the deadly.
And lastly of course, there was Trickster, who delighted in mischief and thrived off of chaos.
Soon enough, the No’Amatsis became the favorite of all the gods. They were fascinated by our Thread magic—so different from how magic worked in the Witchlands. But that favor only made the locals hate us more. They wanted to know whywe,people from afar, were more favored than they? Why werewemore beloved than they who had worked and toiled for an eternity to please their gods?
Then one day, the unthinkable happened: the gods turned on Moon Mother, led by the one who’d always claimed he loved her most.
Trickster.
After that, magic flowed through the earth into everyone. Each soul in the Witchlands received the power which previously had been only divine. Some received more than others; hierarchies formed; the powerful dominated those with less; and war spread across the Witchlands.
Worst of all, a shadowy sickness began to appear—oily and thick. Fast and violent. “Cleaving” it was called, for it seemed to sever a soul directly from its body, too fast for anyone to stop. And too fast for anyone to escape, for when one person cleaved, many more were likely to join them.
To no one’s surprise, the No’Amatsis were the ones blamed for the transformation across the Witchlands.Before you came, the world was not like this! You are the reason we cleave and suffer and die!And so our people withdrew from the world that had briefly been our own. Hunted again. Chased away by war. Except this time, we had no Moon Mother to guide us. No new continent toward which we could flee. So we hid ourselves in the forests and the mountains, behind morning glories and bear claws, and we waited for a time when the gods might one day walk among us again.
And when our Blessed Moon Mother might return, her Threads blazing forgotten colors across the sky, beacons for her children to follow home.
PART 1
Initiate
Kullen,
I hope the Goddess releases you from your sleep soon—and I hope there are enough pieces of you still inside to understand why this diary is lying on the ice before you.
Do you remember me? Do you remember everything we went through? How I found you in the mountain, no name, no memory? How I found you again in Nubrevna, and we lived for a time like nothing could hurt us…
But the inevitable caught up to us; your Paladin soul couldn’t be ignored forever; and the Raider King forced you to his side. At least until Merik lured you into this sleeping ice, at the cost of himself in the ice beside you.
He has awoken again, though.
You have not.
Like before, I don’t know what these pages will show you. I only know what I’ve written and what I hope the words reveal. Then you can make the right choice when the sleeping ice releases you.
I have gone deep into the Sightwitch Sister Convent—all the way into the lowest levels of the Crypts—searching for explanations of what has happened to you. Surely, in all of those thousands upon thousands of Memory Records, there issomeonewho has experienced what you’re going through. Why has Bastien’s soul taken over yours?
I don’t think this is a possession, in which souls are bound to bodies not their own. Because youareBastien—or rather, you carry the same reincarnated soul of the Air Paladin that Bastien did. This is what all Paladins experience: they reincarnate again and again, each new iteration able to remember the past lives that came before. When Paladins reach a certain age, something in their lives will “trigger” all the memories to awaken.
We went through your trigger together, do you remember? When we were trying to escape the mountain a year ago, and you discovered the blade and glass.
But remembering the past lives is not the same asbecomingthe past lives.
I will keep searching, Kullen, and Iwillfind an answer.
Also, I must warn you: the blade and glass are no longer inside the mountain. Stacia Sotar and Admiral Kahina of the Red Sails have them in their possession. They are both Paladins, and they have both gone to the Raider King’s banner.
