Sightwitch by Susan Dennard (21)

I had no idea where in the Witchlands I was. When I strode through the doorway, fire had consumed me—or perhaps it had been cold. I couldn’t tell. It was all so fast, so intense.

Then I was there. Somewhere other, where rain slashed and thunder boomed. Tree varieties I’d only seen sketched in books bent and creaked against a storm.

Cypress and salt cedar trees were so much larger in person, and much, much more frightening when they were about to break.

I was soaked before I’d made it ten paces from the doorway. Small runoff rivers cascaded across my feet and into my boots. I wasn’t sure where I was going, I simply aimed for the eye of the storm. The skittering charge in the air thickened and shimmered the nearer I approached.

Captain’s magic drew me to him; I was a magnet slinging toward a lodestone.

Rain battered me. Winds surged behind, against, around. I fought on, until the jungle fell away to reveal a narrow spit of beach where waves rocked and dragged.

I’d never seen the ocean, yet there was no time to take it all in, for without the jungle’s cover, the storm’s force doubled.

Hail pelted down. I had to fling up my arms to block against it. Yet I’d found him. A cyclone swept around him, much too strong for me to cross.

More concerning, though, was the boat he held above his head.

A huge beast of a ship, like the Dalmottis used for trade. His winds kept it aloft, while lightning slashed and jagged around him. It hit the boat’s planks, the sand, and even Captain.

I narrowed my eyes, straining to focus through the brilliant light and whipping sands.

That was when I saw them: men. An entire crew’s worth, half of them crawling away while the other half ran as fast as the wind would let them.

Oh, Captain, what have you done? He had cleaved again—of that much I had no doubt. Yet he’d been able to come back, inside the mountain. Surely he could be saved again.

I certainly had to try, if for no other reason than to save the crew now trying to flee.

My arms fell. The hail beat into me anew, but this was nothing compared to the hell I’d faced inside the mountain. If I could face monsters in the Crypts and shadow wyrms, if I could battle Sirmaya’s ice and come out alive, then a little storm was nothing to fear.

Sand scraped my face; lightning sizzled my cheeks. Then I was to the ship’s shadow.

The boat jolted, dropping close. I fell to the sand. “Stop!” The word ripped from my throat and vanished on the wind. Even if I hadn’t worn my throat raw while screaming in the ice, I could never produce enough sound for Captain to hear.

Yet as I dragged up from the sand, something dug into my hipbone. The bell. In a storm-torn instant, I was on my knees and wrenching the bell from its pouch. Then I swung that thing with all my might, directly at the sky. Directly at Captain.

The sound was neither pure nor loud, but it was enough. It rippled through me, more feeling than anything else.

Captain felt it too. Through the lashing sand and lightning, I saw him tense. Then roll his head back.

He wheeled around, the ship spinning with him and crashing lower, lower. Low enough for me to see barnacles and caulking, to hear cows’ plaintive moaning from within.

Then a groan of wood, a smash of lightning, and Captain threw the boat. As easily as Tanzi skipped stones off the Sorrow, Captain launched the trade ship into the jungle.

I never saw it land. My attention was on the sailors, finally able to run. Soon, they were nothing more than shadowy specks beyond a wall of wind.

Captain stalked close. His skin roiled and shifted. Tarry lines pulsed beneath his pallid cheeks. His eyes were black from rim to rim.

But there was no violence in his posture. No death. He was puzzled more than anything else.

So I slung the bell again. Harder. No rhythm or beat, just a vicious clanging to holler above the storm.

Then, as Captain came toward me, I screamed the only words I could think of—words he’d sung to me before.

He stopped his approach. I did not stop mine. On and on, the bell rattled in my grasp, and on and on I hollered.

He crumpled to his knees, and the winds answered in kind. Softer, softer they spun.

I sang the final line, and the pustules smoothed on Captain’s face. The lines of tar shriveled and shrank.

I stopped ringing the bell, and as the last wind whispered away, the final shreds of darkness swirled into nothing. Familiar blue eyes met mine.

Then Captain bowed over, breath heaving, and rasped, “Thank you, Ryber. Thank you.”