Page 71 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Seventy-One

Sava

Sava was gob-smocked when the world plunged into gray darkness while everyone around him exploded in light.

Haz whooped. Everyone who had been lying or kneeling stood, unnerved as they left their own bodies.

Sava had lived in Pahuuda his whole life, had seen it in glittering daylight and the darkest of nights. But he’d never seen it like this, in muted shadows while everyone’s bodies were reduced to frozen shades. He waved a glowing pale blue hand over his own darkened face.

This is what I’ll see when I die, he realized.

“You get used to it,” Khana assured him.

Phramanka snorted, poking her own body. “Really?”

“No.”

A woman crooned, “Well. I haven’t had to deal with something like this in quite a while.”

Everyone stilled. Khana had described Death as a shapeshifter who usually came to her in a multi-colored dress. But now, they appeared as Tsermayu, an ink-skinned woman whose dress was the night sky, a crown of stars, fish, and coral floating around her indigo head. She seemed to float, her dress and hair billowing around her as if she was underwater.

The Ghura did not kneel or bow. But that was what one did for a goddess, right?

Sava and everyone else stood half-frozen, staring at the goddess in awe and trepidation, trying to figure out what to do.

Khana strode forward with casual confidence. “We have a proposition.”

Athicha anxiously tapped their foot. Sava gripped their arm, hoping that their all-too-familiar agony would end in just a few moments.

Khana explained their idea. Tsermayu pondered it. She tipped her head to the others. “They aren’t witches, which means there’s not much wiggle room I can squeeze through. Whatever collective total they offer must equal a full human soul, not a part of it like you did with Haz. Who are we bringing back?”

“Neta Cituva,” Khana said. “And I’ll also need the life force to heal her injuries.”

Tsermayu paced, disappearing briefly from Sava’s view with Khana blocking them. When she came out, she looked exactly like Neta, down to the leopard cloak. Except her eyes were all black and had only a fraction of her intensity. “This one?”

“That’s it.”

“She specifically told me that you were not to trade any part of yourself for her. That if you did, she would refuse to return. I must honor that.”

Damn it, Neta, Sava thought.

Varisa choked, but Khana smiled. “All right. I won’t trade anything.”

Tsermayu grinned with Neta’a face. “I love it when you humans find loopholes. All right, then. What are we trading?”

There was a long, awkward pause as Sava and everyone else realized that they hadn’t actually thought this far ahead.

Khana dropped her face in her hand, muttering about how they should’ve planned this better. Tsermayu chuckled. “No rush. Time is frozen here.”

“Memories or passions, goddess?” Phramanka prodded. “The more intense and emotional, the better?”

“I also accept emotions themselves, although taking one usually means taking its opposite. You can’t have joy without sorrow, after all.”

Sava wracked his brain. He knew he had several options: all of his memories of Myrta, his passion for music, his love of Pahuuda… but parting with any of them sent a lance through his chest. Next to him, Heimili ran a hand down his face, scratching his beard in thought.

“Fuck. This is hard ,” Itehua muttered.

It shouldn’t have been, right? Logically, the choice was easy. But being forced to pick which parts he could slice off and still be himself …

Sava looked at Khana, her soul slightly dimmer than the rest of them. Missing pieces of herself for their sake. How did she do this so often?

“Maybe I can give my love of animals,” Xopil suggested.

Itehua snorted. “Now that we have a behemoth in town that only you can keep in check?”

“Oh. Right…”

“It’s too much of a part of you,” Tlastisti agreed.

“When I traded a memory, Khana agreed to tell me what I gave up,” Haz offered. “So, if you’re going that route, I’d recommend something that someone else can tell you about.”

Not a bad idea…

Yxe tugged on his wool hat, then went up to Tsermayu and muttered something to her. Khana, nearby, hissed. “You don’t want to give up fear, Yxe. That keeps you alive.”

“Not all of it!” he squeaked, then ducked his head when he realized he had a lot more people’s attention. “Just… uh… public speaking? Please, goddess, ma’am?”

Tsermayu raised a finger and touched Yxe’s forehead. She chuckled. “Yes, from you that would be quite the offer.”

Sava straightened. “We can give emotions about a specific thing ?”

Tsermayu looked at him with Neta’s face. “Yes, if it’s intense enough.”

“And… we won’t lose our memories of it?”

“Not unless you want to.”

Well, that made this much easier, even if it made him feel guilty.

Sava replaced Yxe. “I still have feelings for a dead woman. Will they be acceptable?”

“Sava, no,” Khana protested. “That type of thing makes you who you are.”

His chest warmed at her concern. “I have to bury her eventually, Khana.”

Tsermayu tapped his forehead, frowning. “You already are. There’s only about another couple of years of life left in them. Less.”

“Are they acceptable?”

She nodded. “You’ll remember Myrta but feel nothing for her.”

Athicha pulled him away, signing, You certain?

Sava thought about Myrta’s wide smile, the way her singing voice would go wobbly and off-tune when she got drunk, their first kiss in a snowbank. His next breath was shaky. “You know she’d want this. She’s gone. And if she knew her ghost was keeping us from living our lives, then she’d find some way to come back with or without a witch just to kick our asses.”

Athicha’s eyes watered. They pulled Sava into a hug.

“Thank you.”

Sava almost jumped at hearing his friend’s voice. He shouldn’t have been surprised, though. This was a spirit realm. Physical scars, even those that stole a person’s voice, would mean nothing here.

One by one everyone else came to their decision. Most of the Poison Darts agreed on some combination of memories: Itehua’s first fight with Neta the day they met Haz’s first battle. He waffled between that and his whole experience with Bhayana but elected to keep those memories of abuse “so I know what to look out for next time.”

Phramanka and Thriman, after a bit of discussion, swapped memories: she giving up their first few weeks of their courtship and he giving up the bumbling weeks of flirting leading up to that. Tlastisti gave up a two-year period where Xopil took care of an aging tortoise (it was apparently the first time he’d cared for an animal and it left an impression), while Xopil offered the day he got stabbed and accidentally revealed Khana’s witchcraft.

Athicha offered their passion for carving. Not snow-sculpting, but carving solid materials such as wood, bone, and ivory. Heimili gave up his hatred of Bhayana, after confirming with Haz that she was dead.

Sava drifted to Khana and squeezed her in a hug. “I’m sorry. I hope you never have to make another decision like this again.”

She snorted, and he knew that hope was futile. But for now, with what they were all doing here, they could push that day off further.

Varisa was last. She asked, “What’s left?”

The goddess thought for a moment, and Neta’s form shifted and flared with dozens of colors and lights before settling back down. “I’ll need either five years’ worth of strong memories or a very intense passion or emotion. Especially if you want the life force Khana needs to heal your daughter’s injuries. They were extensive.”

The businesswoman pondered those. “I’ve started a romance with a hunter named Rasku, but I wouldn’t categorize it as a ‘very intense passion or emotion…’”

Tsermayu poked her forehead and shook her head. “No. It has the potential for it, though.”

“Then my time in the empire, before escaping the man my parents tried to sell me off to. However many years you need.”

Tsermayu smiled. “That is more than enough.”