3(?) hours left to find Tanzi—
Having company made the journey much better.
There.
I wrote it because it’s true: having company made the journey better.
Yes, I was worried about Tanzi and the Sisters. Yes, I was trying to keep track of time’s passage as best I could. And yes, I constantly had to hurry Captain along. But it was nice not to be alone.
Captain was fascinated by everything. He asked a thousand questions, like some newly arrived Serving Sister to the Convent.
In fact, just as I had with many a new Sister, I had to explain who the Sightwitches were, what our mission was, and why I was inside the mountain at all.
I told him everything. About our benevolent Goddess Sirmaya, about the Rules and the glamour, about how I had been the only Sister left. I told him that, despite thirteen years here, I’d never been Summoned inside the mountain.
He was so easy to talk to, and for a man with an injured chest and no memories, he was a surprisingly good listener. His sympathetic grunts and occasional oaths sounded genuine, and the sudden snow that fluttered around us made me think he truly felt my plight.
“How do you speak Nubrevnan so well?” he asked at one point as we tromped down a square stairwell marked on the map as simply The Way Below and with a little 34 scribbled next to it.
Thank the Sleeper there were Firewitched lanterns to light our way since I’d lost my own when I’d lost the pack. They winked into power without any command. We would reach ten paces away and whoof! the next lantern would flash to life.
“We learn all the languages of the Witchlands,” I explained. Step, step, step. “We begin by learning songs, so that the melodies help stick new syllables and sounds into our minds.”
“Let me guess. You started with ‘The Maidens North of Lovats.’”
“It was the third song, actually.” I glanced back, impressed. “How did you guess?”
“Because ‘blighter’ isn’t a real word—and you’ve used it twice now.”
“Not a real word? Then why is it in the song?”
“I don’t know. For rhythm’s sake, perhaps?” And then, absolutely unbidden, he splayed a graceful hand to his chest—the unharmed part—and began to sing. “The Maidens north of Lovats, none ever looked so fair—”
“No!” I swung around, palms rising. “No singing! Who knows what creatures are in here that you might wake up?”
Captain’s face sank. Then he turned to the Rook, who’d been riding on his massive shoulder this whole time. “I wasn’t that loud, was I, Rook? Ow.” He swatted the bird off his shoulder. “He bit me!”
“Of course he did.” I fought to keep my face set firmly in a frown. “His name is the Rook, not just Rook.”
“The ‘the’ is that important, is it?” He rubbed at his ear and pouted like a sullen child the size of a tree trunk. Even his wrists and ears were enormous.
When the air around us warmed with a charged heat, a delight sifted through me. Captain was finding his magic again. It was only a matter of time before he remembered how to use it.
“The ‘the,’” I said, resuming the hike, “is as important as the lack of a ‘ta’ in my name. Ryber, not Ryberta. The Rook, not Rook.”
“But you’re a person,” Captain argued, his footsteps resuming behind me. “It’s a bird.”
“He’s a bird,” I corrected.
“Noden save me—you really don’t ever break the rules, do you?”
“What does that mean?” Heat fanned up my cheeks. How did he know I liked rules so much? He’d only known me a few hours.
I almost wish I hadn’t asked the question, for he proceeded to describe in explicit detail (what an ability for recall considering he had no memory!) every single rule I’d told him to follow since leaving the workshop—as well as every single time I’d scolded him for not following said rules.
“Forty-three times,” he told me. “Hye, I counted, and I’d say there’s no denying that you really love your rules.”
“I don’t love them,” I muttered. “But why have them if you aren’t going to follow them?”
“Or,” he countered, picking up his pace and falling into step beside me, “maybe rules exist simply for the breaking.”
My chest tightened at those words. He sounded exactly like Tanzi, and the only way I could hide the sudden tears burning behind my eyes was to offer him the same answer I’d always given her.
Though first, I offered a hard scoff. “I like rules.” I stomped a bit faster. “They give me structure. They give me a clear path to follow—which is Rule 15, by the way: Always follow the marked path.”
“But maybe the marked path isn’t the right one. Maybe,” he dragged out that word as if still thinking, “there isn’t one set path at all.”
“Of course there is. There are no coincidences, and there is no changing what is meant to be.”
“But how do you know that? How do you know all of this”—he twirled his hand—“is what you’re meant to be and not something else?”
I skidded to a halt so fast I almost tripped—and for some reason I really can’t explain, a fury rose inside me. A boiling, vicious heat that I could convey only in a single word, “What?”
Captain took the question exactly as spoken. “I asked how you knew that—”
“I heard you, but why would you say that?”
“Well, you said you are the only Sister without the Sight, which has me thinking: maybe that’s simply not what you’re meant to be.”
“Of course it’s what I’m meant to be,” I gnashed out. “There are no coincidences! I found the Convent on my own when I was only four years old. I’m the only Sister ever to do that! Which means Sirmaya brought me here because this what I’m meant to be. A Sightwitch Sister. A powerful Sightwitch Sister. End of story.”
As I kicked into a raging stomp, hands shaking at my sides, a tremor struck. Stronger than before, it stole my feet from under me.
I crumpled to the steps, curled in a ball with my hands over my head, and waited for the quake to pass.
It lasted for at least a minute, the mountain grinding and furious. Dust puffed and plumed. Stones roared against stones.
Sirmaya is angry. It was the only thought I could produce. Sirmaya is angry. Sirmaya is angry.
I just prayed she wasn’t angry with me. I had forced my way into the mountain, and I had broken more rules than I could count.
When at last the shaking subsided, I didn’t move right away. I simply lay there, wound up and with my pulse thumping in my ears.
Had I made a mistake? Was the Goddess angry because I had chosen the wrong path?
No, I decided at last. Captain was wrong. There were no coincidences, and this was my path.
I would finish what I had come to do. I would find Tanzi and the other Sisters, and no matter what might happen, I had to stay firmly gripped upon that.