Witch Song (Witch Song #1)

Chapter 1 of book 2, Witch Born

1. Shadows

 The night was so deep the shadows seemed to bleed darkness. Senna glanced toward the hidden sky, searching for the moon that would not come. Not tonight. Even the strongest starlight was strangled by the dense canopy of trees. The temporary blindness was frightening, but it ensured no one would notice her slipping away.

 With each step she took, the roar of the waterfall grew louder. Finally, she reached the staircase carved into the side of the cliff. Mindful of the slippery steps, she climbed upward until her muscles burned and sweat broke across her skin despite the chill.

When she'd crested the top and crossed the bleak expanse, she glanced at the frothing sea far below. Sea spray misted her skin. She faced westward, towards the distant land of Tarten. Closing her eyes, she cast her senses across the vast ocean, searching and feeling the faraway echoes of the Four Sisters—Earth, Water, Plants, and Sunlight. She concentrated until she could hear their pain, an aching melody.

Senna's tears started again, wetting the salty tracks already on her cheeks. At night, her dreams haunted her. Dreams of a withered land and a dying people. With all the strength she had, she sang.

Let not the curse of Witches

Destroy a land of natural riches.

Plants, preserve life in thy roots,

Seeds sleep in earth, send forth no shoots

Until the Witches shall disperse

This terrible and unjust curse.

She came to the cliffs every night she could manage to slip away. Hoping to right the wrong she'd done, she sang for Tarten—the lands she'd helped destroy months ago.

When her throat was scratchy and she could no longer hit the high notes, she stared at the land she knew was struggling to hold onto any life at all. Because of the Witches' curse, no rain had fallen in Tarten for over two months—death to any jungle, but this one held on deep in the ground, waiting for the promise of her song to be fulfilled.

She withdrew her senses back to her home, Haven. Above the crash of waves, Senna thought she heard the scuff of a boot against stone. She whipped around and peered in the direction she'd come, her heart pounding in her throat. If the Discipline Heads discovered she was subverting their curse, the punishment would be severe.

"Who's there?" Her whisper sounded like a shout in the darkness.

No answer. She wished Joshen were here. The Discipline Heads had done their best to keep her apart from her Guardian. She hadn't seen him in two months. Not since he and Leader Reden had gone on a recruitment assignment.

Hugging herself, Senna trotted back to the staircase and began the long descent into the uninhabited quarter of Haven. At the base, she plunged between trees that towered above her, the tallest over eight stories high, the smallest just over two. Some were so wide it would take twenty witches stretched arm to arm to encircle one. Each tree was hollow and had once been inhabited by a Witch. Now they were empty, proof of the Witches' lingering decline into ruin.

Here, everything still bore faded signs of the Witches' final battle with Espen. A door in a tree creaked on its rusted hinges, a hole yawning where the latch should have been. Broken windows gaped like mouths with hungry, serrated teeth. The destruction was at odds with the life bursting all around.

Still, Senna couldn't shake the feeling she wasn't alone. There was no indication anyone had marked her sneaking away, no indication she'd been followed. But some instinct inside her seemed to chant a warning—through the gloom, someone was watching.