Chapter 13 Sirsha
Sirsha
The Duranis closed in on Sirsha from all sides and she cursed herself for not getting out of the park faster.
“You should run, little witch,” Div said from beside her. “They will bleed you and make a series of ineffectual noises that they hope will lure my spirit into you. But they have not the power to free me.”
“Do you speak to her, Vessel?” Dolbra, who’d followed Sirsha as she tried to escape, now glanced around as if hoping to spot Div. “Does she know of my devotion? My loyalty?”
“Yes.” Sirsha tried to back away from Dolbra and her approaching horde. “And she says to bugger off and take a shower.”
Sirsha lunged between two Duranis and dashed through the manicured, lamplit park. Within seconds, one of the Duranis leapt at her, sending them both sprawling amid the lovingly trimmed hedgerows.
“Why do you run, Vessel?” The woman pinned Sirsha down by the shoulders, spittle flying into Sirsha’s face. She was stronger than she looked. Faster, too. “You have been chosen by the Holy Savior! You—”
“Get the bleeding hells off!” Skies, it was like battling a giant leggy grasshopper.
“Shall I send her on her way, little witch?” Div circled. “She is powerful. She could hurt you. But she is not stronger than me. To kill her would be but the twitch of a finger.”
Sirsha ignored Div, dislodging the woman herself, but as she hastened to her feet, the Durani caught her around her legs and a dozen more closed in, bringing Sirsha down.
Panic flooded her. She couldn’t be caught by these women. They had no idea what Div might do to them through Sirsha.
“You must let me go,” Sirsha said. “You don’t understand what you’re trying to free. She’s killed hundreds of children. Maybe thousands. She’s not an orator or a savior or a lost spirit. She is the incarnation of suffering and hunger and she won’t spare you.”
But the Durani didn’t listen. Dolbra bustled over. “Bind her tightly,” she said, “and prepare her for the ritual. We must do it here. Now. While we have her.”
Six of the Duranis held down Sirsha’s thrashing body while the others formed two concentric circles around them, chanting.
The language was familiar. Karkaun.
“You’re using warlock magic for this?” Sirsha said, but the Duranis only continued to chant as Dolbra drew a curved knife from her robes and began to whisper words over it.
“Karkaun words do not mean Karkaun magic.” Div’s voice was so severe that Sirsha was reminded of her mother teaching her as a child.
“The Duranis have enough knowledge to be dangerous, but not enough to be competent. Come now, use your cleverness and free yourself. You must have a knife hidden somewhere.”
Sirsha had many knives, but she didn’t know how the bleeding hells she’d reach them. She was pinned down like a speared goose. And she didn’t dare call on her magic in Div’s presence, for fear of the creature drawing down her willpower, leaving her weak and vulnerable, her magic tainted.
She wished, foolishly, for Quil and his light-swift scims. For Arelia. For Sufiyan. Even Kade. Anyone who might help her. But she was alone and there was nothing she could do about it but try to survive any way she could.
Sirsha let her body go boneless. She rolled her eyes back into her head. “Techt fraghtas imma edk drackm!” It was the only Karkaun she could remember at the moment, something Loli Temba used to mutter when she was irritated: Curse your goat mother’s shriveled womb.
Of course the Duranis didn’t understand Karkaun, but they did recognize it. Startled, they loosened their grip.
Sirsha arched her back, as if possessed, and let out an ear-shattering screech.
“It’s working!” Dolbra exclaimed. “Keep chanting, sisters!”
At that moment, Sirsha wrenched free. She shoved through the Duranis, who watched her, briefly frozen, no doubt assuming that their pitiful chanting had worked.
Sirsha ran.
The Duranis howled in rage at the trick and gave chase immediately.
But instead of running for the gate ahead of her, through which she could exit the park, Sirsha grabbed for one of the many lamps adorning it.
With the sweep of her arm, she cast it on the ground, grimly satisfied when it exploded in a burst of glass and flame.
“Stop her!” Dolbra screamed, her robes on fire.
Sirsha grabbed for two more of the lamps, casting them behind her, one after the other.
The women hung back now, shy of the flames, but terror gripped Sirsha and she kept grabbing and throwing lamps until a wall of flame roared up between her and the proselytizers.
A desperate need filled her: a desire to be safe from the Duranis, yes, but also to hurt them as they’d wanted to hurt her.
Most of the zealots had backed away, but Dolbra screamed as her robes burned like a torch. The flames from the lamps roared higher. They shouldn’t be that high, Sirsha thought, pausing mid-throw. Should they?
“You—” Sirsha gasped, looking for Div, who observed the screaming zealots with chilling disinterest. “This—this is your magic—you—”
“Oh no, little witch,” Div said. “This is simply oil and flame combined with your fear. I must say, I am impressed.” She wrinkled her nose at the smell of charred flesh and nodded at Dolbra. “That one will die because of you. If you don’t want to be jailed for murder, I suggest you run.”
For once, the creature was speaking sense. Sirsha was out of the park in moments and reached the stables in ten minutes. She left Eltcia in twenty, wheezing, her body still weak from months of malnourishment, her mind shivering in confusion and anger.
She drove her horse down the road at a gallop. The panic in her chest was gone, replaced by dread. Div’s malice and evil were infecting her. Why else would she have kept throwing the lamps? The Durani had backed away. Sirsha could have made her escape without hurting them.
But she hadn’t. Dolbra was dead because of Sirsha. She should be disgusted with herself. Horrified. Instead, for the briefest of moments, Sirsha had felt joy. She’d wanted Dolbra to die. She’d hungered for it, a gnawing yearning within that felt like it could never be sated.
She knew the feeling, for she’d experienced it on the day she’d woken up joined with Div. That day, she’d looked into Div and seen—
“The Owa Khel,” Sirsha whispered. “It is part of you.”
“A place of raw, bloody claws and pain. Yes. It is part of me,” Div said. “And part of you, too.”
“You did this to me,” Sirsha said. “You—you brought the Owa Khel into me. I can feel it.” She put her hand to her chest and shuddered.
“Do you ever wonder why, little witch?” Div said. “Have you asked yourself why I chose you?”
“Because I’m the idiot who made a vow to kill you,” Sirsha said bitterly. “What is the Owa Khel to you, Div? You escaped from there, didn’t you? Answer me!”
But only the wind heard, even as Sirsha wheeled her horse to a stop, face hot with fear and rage. Div was gone again and even if she hadn’t been, Sirsha knew she’d get no answer from her.
The road felt terribly lonely, dark as the maw that seemed to stretch within Sirsha’s chest. You’re a failure, she thought to herself. You cannot find Div’s weaknesses because she has none. You’re no closer to defeating her than when she joined with you months ago.
“No,” Sirsha gasped aloud, because that voice speaking wasn’t hers, it was Div’s.
“You’re Sirsha bleeding Westering,” she snarled to herself. “S’rsha Inashi-fa. You don’t give up. Not this quickly, anyway.”
The emptiness within faded and Sirsha’s mind cleared. She focused on the moon lighting the path before her, the verdant green of the forest surrounding, and urged her horse off the trail toward a spring so she could water her and collect herself.
She hadn’t failed. She’d learned that Div wasn’t allied with the Duranis.
That she seemed particularly attached to Sirsha and wouldn’t want something to happen to Sirsha’s body.
She’d heard two stories about Div now, and both featured a person who had been wronged.
Div had finally admitted her connection to the Owa Khel after months of Sirsha wondering about it.
Perhaps most importantly, Sirsha had called on her magic, even if it was brief. She’d tracked with it. She’d spoken to the earth.
As she checked her mare’s saddle and filled her own canteen, an idea occurred to her.
When she tracked, she was usually chasing down a person or object.
She’d never used her scenting for something intangible.
But the elements saw everything, went everywhere.
Perhaps they could hunt down Div’s weaknesses, too.
Or at least give Sirsha a sense of where to go next to discover them.
Sirsha grabbed her canteen and drank deeply, hands shaking in excitement. She hadn’t considered it before because she hadn’t been able to use her magic before. But now…
She’d need to be quick. Div was gone, but she never went very far. She’d be back the second she smelled magic.
Before she could second-guess herself too much, Sirsha reached for her Adah coin and called the magic to her. Help me hunt down Div’s weaknesses, she called out softly.
Little one. It was, to Sirsha’s surprise, the wind that whispered. It was a taciturn element, usually offering no more than a word or two. You hunt the wrong prey, the wind said.
Sirsha remained silent, anxious about Div’s return, worried that if she spoke at all, the wind would disappear. Her patience was rewarded.
You seek her weakness. Instead, you must hunt for her truth. Look.
A gust of leaves swirled around the clearing before an image flashed through her head—jungle, a waterfall, a hidden door. Loli Temba’s house.
Go. Seek the truth.
“I can’t,” Sirsha said. “I—I’m the reason Loli’s dead. She told me not to come back, and I did and Div murdered her.”
The horror of Div’s violence was etched in Sirsha’s mind forever: The way her friend’s heart had transformed to ash when Div ripped it out of her. Sobbing as she and Quil pushed Loli’s body into the river she loved so much. Sufiyan’s and Arelia’s devastated faces when they understood what happened.
Sirsha’s guilt, eating away at her for weeks, reminding her that if she had simply listened to Loli and stayed away, her friend would still be alive.
“Will you camp here tonight?”
Div. Sirsha jumped, for she hadn’t felt her approach.
The creature stood before her now in a strange new guise—that of a child Sirsha didn’t recognize.
The child’s eyes were wide and dark, her hair as red as the flames that had killed Dolbra.
For a moment as Sirsha met the child’s gaze, she saw an ocean seething with terrors, the sky above it yellowed like dirty snow.
Her palms grew slick, but she clenched her fists against the fear. She didn’t know what the Owa Khel was to Div—not yet. But it was part of her. Perhaps that was a weakness. Perhaps it was only a truth. Either way, it was a beginning.
Div tilted her head, dark hair obscuring her eyes. A smug smile played about her lips and Sirsha remembered what she’d said in Jibaut. Soon, you will be mine too. You, your magic, everything you are.
But not yet.
“What are you thinking, little witch?” she whispered.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Sirsha said, and then wheeled toward the Thafwan jungle and Loli Temba’s home.