Page 135 of Pirate Witch
RYSEN
Five days. That’s how long it takes for the witches to reach a consensus on how to help our witch. Five days spent paralysed by fear, unable to do much more than watch her sleep while the world moves on around us. No one came out of the battle unscathed, but Nilsa is the worst of all of us.
Amelia has taken her aunt’s place as queen—though she’s decided to put off her coronation until after Nilsa has recovered—and already she’s introducing sweeping reforms. The Blood Pits have been destroyed. The mines are closed permanently. The salt wall around the city is being brought down for expansion and prisoners are having their sentences reviewed.
Worship of the three goddesses has been permitted once again, and I know for a fact the new queen has offered the positions as High Priestesses of Cawshome to Elsie and Reva—not that they’ve made a decision yet. No, the two young witches have barely looked up from their books long enough to notice the changes.
It’s exactly the kind of future we fought for, but it feels empty with my mate lying pale and drawn on the bed.
Most of us haven’t left the ship. Once again, only Cas’s alpha tendencies are keeping us fed and washed. Kier woke up a few hours after Elsie left, and he was sore for a few hours before his healing kicked back in. Since then, he’s been just as fixated on Nilsa as the rest of us. Except—if it’s possible—he seems to feel twice as guilty.
It feels like last time, when we rescued Nilsa from this harbour after she brought down the Claw. Only this is worse. A hundred times worse.
Because this time we know what’s wrong with her, and we know that she might never recover. All of us are blaming ourselves, which only adds to the melting pot of stress, tension, and anger on the ship. Eventually, the arguments get too much, and on the third day, the inevitable happens.
I’m not sure who threw the first punch, but Nilsa’s cabin is wrecked by the time I manage to pull Kier off of Val. I create a new rule then and there: each of us gets one hour in the room with her, and the first person to start a new brawl forfeits their right to their hour until she wakes up.
None of them argue. After seeing Nilsa, untouched on the bed, surrounded by shattered lamps and shredded furniture, they know as well as I do that it’s for her benefit. Next time, she might not be so unharmed.
Our mate won’t get hurt because of how unstable we all are. Not on my watch.
When Elsie and Reva step onto the gangplank on the fifth day, it’s Klaus’s hour. He’s taken to singing his mating song to her whenever he visits, and I can hear it from the upper deck. Even though male siren song doesn’t work on me, it’s obvious that the tune has become more and more mournful with each repetition.
I haven’t spoken much since we found Nilsa, and so the witches don’t seem surprised when I lead them to Nilsa’s room in silence. We collect the other members of the crew as we go, and by the time we reach her cabin, all of us are there.
Klaus’s song cuts off as the door opens, and anger lights his eyes for a second until he recognises the witches.
Elsie and Reva don’t say anything as they push through the messy space and climb onto the bed. Together they turn our mate onto her front, lift up the shirt we’ve dressed her in, and expose the red, glowing sigils on her back. Is it me, or have those gotten even brighter?
“Please tell us you have a plan,” Cas says, breaking the silence.
“We do,” Elsie confirms.
I swear my heart almost gives out at those words. Relief leaves me shaking and my knees turn to jelly, forcing me to sit on the end of the bed or risk falling.
Reva holds her hands over Nilsa’s sigils and closes her eyes. Elsie echoes her, and soon the glowing red is outshone by the combined light of silver and gold.
The Lunar witch mutters something, and Nilsa groans in her sleep, making all of us tense. But whatever experiment the two are conducting, it doesn’t last long. They draw away, expressions guarded as they stare at one another. With their power gone, the red glow from Nilsa’s sigils returns, fiercer than before, casting their features in crimson shadows until they look alien.
I don’t need to be a witch to know that they’re silently deciding how much to tell us.
“Out with it,” Val barks, clearly unable to stand any more of the tension that’s cloying the room. “Just tell us, whatever it is.”
I nod in agreement. “Whatever you are scared of saying, not knowing is worse, I assure you.”
Reva blinks slowly. “We think we can heal her.”
Nothing inside of me relaxes. If anything, my muscles wind tighter, waiting for the inevitable ‘but’ which is coming.
“We just tried filling Nilsa’s body with Lunar magic to see how her body reacted,” Elsie explains. “Right now, the war between Solar and Lunar power within her is pretty equal, and we think it’s being kept that way by Fate’s sigil, instead of fluctuating depending on whether it’s day or night like it should. When we change that balance, one can overpower the other.”
“If we flood Nilsa with Lunar magic, we might be able to wipe out the Solar power.” Reva runs a hand through her short hair. “Or we could end up destroying the balance that Fate’s sigil is holding and destroy her mind completely. Best-case scenario, she becomes a Lunar again and the mark of the Sun remains dormant unless she tries to use it once more. Worst case, she’ll die an incredibly painful death.”
“That’s it?” Nos asks, his tone dull with defeat. “There’s no other option?”
“Apart from waking her up and letting her mind decay further until she eventually ends up either mad, like Alletta, or a complete vegetable? No.” Elsie’s eyes are rimmed with dark circles, but the stare she levels us with is powerful just the same. “This has never happened before. We scoured the entire libraries of both Cawshome temples and found only the vaguest records of witches wielding the power of both Goddesses. The High Priestesses purged the information, and they didn’t leave us much to go on. We’re guessing using scraps of information and whatever sense Danika has managed to glean out of Alletta’s ramblings.”
I’m not surprised they asked the mad witch for help, but it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
