Page 7 of All the Wandering Light

“It isn’t enough,” I said. “We have to get back to Azmiri before the witches attack. We have to help them.” My mind was on Azar-at’s magic. I wouldn’t use it unless absolutely necessary, and saving Azmiri fell into the category of absolutely necessary. Would the witches attack the village before striking the Three Cities, or would that come later, after the emperor’s armies had been defeated? Azmiri was next to the Amarin Valley, one of only two corridors between the emperor’s lands and the Nightwood.

My frustration surged. It was impossible to know what the witches were planning, or if they planned at all. I felt a sense of dislocation at the idea of River taking part in an attack on Azmiri, as if I were trying to force a key into a lock it didn’t fit. I shoved that feeling away. River was a witch. He was capable of anything.

I pictured Father striding through the village on one of his nighttime rounds, the stars gleaming crisply, the houses dark save for the occasional flicker of dragonlight. I saw the shadows begin to stir, to coalesce, figures taking shape from the darkness, surrounding him.

I would use Azar-at’s magic to defend the village. No matter what it cost me.

“If the witches have truly regained their powers, all hope is lost,” Mara said. He was looking at Lusha. “We know they’ll take revenge on the Empire. There’s no reason to believe it won’t be brutal and swift.”

“So we should just abandon Azmiri?” I snapped. “Stay here with the ghosts?”

“I’m merely stating that—”

Lusha held up a hand, and we both fell silent—Mara, with an understanding nod; me, with a mutinous glare. “What do the bells say, Tem?”

Baffled, I watched Tem open his pack. He withdrew the kinnika.

“How did you—?” I took a step forward. “River threw them off the summit.”

“Biter,” Tem said. “He brought them to us an hour ago. They’re all right—only one broken.”

“The witch bell?”

“No.”

I couldn’t look away from the kinnika. I thought of the city on the summit, and the remains of the dead witch king. River, wreathed in shadows.

“That bell is the best weapon we have,” Lusha said.

“It’s the only weapon we have,” I said. “According to Chirri, the kinnika are one of a kind.”

“Tem thinks he can amplify the magic.”

I stared. “What?”

“It’s just something I was experimenting with,” Tem said, flushing.

“Not ‘just,’” Lusha said. “It’s brilliant.”

Tem, who was rarely on the receiving end of praise, least of all from Lusha, looked vaguely alarmed. He handed me one of the bells, a small, plain one with a notch in the rim.

“I’ve imbued it with the same power held by the witch bell,” he said. “Or rather, altered the magic it held before. It’s a form of transmutation—at least, I think it is. The Janyim scrolls describe it in detail. You remember—Chirri assigned you an essay on them.”

I gazed at him blankly. I vaguely recalled Chirri lecturing me on the Janyim scrolls, one of the ancient shamanic texts, but I must have discarded the information, like most of what she had taught me. Tem sighed.

“If we can create more of these talismans, we can protect the village,” Lusha said. “You said it yourself: River was overcome when you rang a single bell. Think what we could do with a dozen, or more.”

I turned back to Tem. “And you can do this?”

His face was pale. “I think so.”

“Then we take the kinnika back to the village,” I said. “Before the witches attack.”

Mara was shaking his head. “Given the distance, I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“We’ll make it possible,” I said. “I won’t let him—them—” I couldn’t finish. I didn’t have to. I could see my fears reflected on Lusha’s face.

“We’re at least two weeks from Azmiri,” Mara said. His voice was quiet and carefully steady, as if he thought to calm me. “That’s if the weather’s fair, and if we walk from dawn to dusk—”