Page 122 of Witchlight
And Stix could never abandon them.
Especially because Ragnor had been right; the Rook King had not; and the proof of that was all around her.Thank Noden no other cities in the Witchlands rely on magic as much as this one does. There would be destruction everywhere across the continent, no doubt, but at least no other city was built almostentirelyfrom witcheries like Lovats was.
At that thought, a question came, as sharp and brilliant as a beaming sun:Why is that?Why wasthiscity, which had been named for an Exalted One from a thousand years ago, so dependent on magic? And was it important—was there somethingtherethat Stix ought to recall and use?
There was no time to consider this, or even to really let the thoughts fully surface. Because then Cam and his storm hound were before her. Winds battered. People fled, not knowing that this creature and its rider had saved them—or perhaps too driven by unshakable fear to care.
Stix leaped at Cam, and the hug she gave was enough to lift him off his feet. They hadn’t spent much time together before she’d sent him to warn Vivia against invading raiders, but she could easily say then—and she could especially say it now—that she’d never encountered anyone more loyal and true.
“How are you here?” Stix asked, finally letting him drop back to hisfeet. “How do you have these creatures with you?” She twisted to the storm hound—a small one compared to the beasts still slinging across the skies.
And… she’d seen this small one before, hadn’t she? When she’d chased the man she’d believed was the Fury?
“I don’t have an easy answer, sir.” Cam grinned his charming grin, dirt smeared across his face, and his hair was damp from floodwaters. “But I was told to come here by two girls inside the mountain. Sightwitches, they are. And they said I would find Aurora, and she would bring me here. That’s her name.” He grabbed for the hound, and with the ease of a boy and his puppy, he nuzzled against the creature’s massive neck. “Aurora, this is Captain Stacia Sotar.”
Aurora’s only answer was to blink.
“The girls told me,” Cam continued, “that onlyIwould know this city—inside and out—well enough to help it, and then—” He broke off as a new figure staggered to their side.
Without spectacles, Stix didn’t recognize the man. He leaned on crutches while bandages encased his right leg. There were so many people, fleeing or limping or searching for loved ones, that onemoreperson trailing this way scarcely registered.
Until a voice filled her brain: “Stacia.”
Shock swelled through her. After all these months, she’d thought there was no one she wished to see more than Vivia. That no face could lift her up so high, and no voice could steel her heart.
She was wrong.
“Father,” Stix croaked.
“Stacia,” he replied.
Even as his city fell apart, he was ever stoic, ever strong. And it was that strength that had always kept Stix’s waters smooth. Growing up with powers that often overwhelmed, with her white hair that made others laugh, with weak eyesight that meant advancing in the navy would be a struggle… She could never have done any of that without this man right here.
And now, he could not keep standing without her. She grabbed for him, both arms sliding around him to keep him from falling off his crutch, and for several seconds, they held each other. Two Sotars in the city they both had always loved and protected.
“You’re hurt,” Stix tried to say.
But her father only shook his head. “I will survive. Which could not have happened without your powers. Or your creatures.” He looked at Cam now, his eyes almost skimming past Aurora as if afraid to look upon her directly.
And Cam, a well-trained sailor, snapped his posture high. “Sir.” He bowed, fist to heart. “I’m here with sea foxes and storm hounds to help the city. Just tell me where we’re needed.”
“The Cisterns,” Sotar said right away, as if his mind couldn’t grasp the enormity of what Cam had just told him—of magic creatures coming to save the city—and so he defaulted to training. “They’re collapsing, and waters are flooding into the Skulks.”
Stix hissed. “And the under-city? Is it flooded too?” She hadjusttaken all those people there. Had shejustled them from one death into another?
“I don’t know if it’s flooded because no one can get in.”
“I can.”
Stix and Sotar snapped their attentions back to Cam. Gone was the boy’s earlier smile. Now there was only a stern slant to his jaw. He looked older. He looked indomitable. “I grew up in the Cisterns,” he explained. “I know every passage, every entrance. And this must be”—his attention flicked to Stix—“what those girls in the mountain meant when they’d said only I knew the city well enough to help.”
“Then we’ll go there immediately. And I will summon the sea foxes.” Stix shifted as if to ease her father back onto his crutch.
But his posture gave way and a bark of pain left his throat.
Another hiss from Stix. “Youarehurt, Father. Let me heal you. I have some skills—”
“No, no.” Her father tugged weakly. “There are healers gathering at the temple on Hawk’s Way. I will go there. You are needed in the Cisterns and the Skulks.”
