Page 13 of Witchshadow

She sucked at a pipe, smoke rings circling her white-haired head and cool-toned walnut skin. She wore an impeccably pressed coat that reminded Stix of a Nubrevnan naval uniform, except where her own coat in Lovats was navy, Kahina’s was rich, starfish red—and Stix suddenly felt like a new recruit, failing to meet muster in her sweat-sticky white blouse and brown breeches.

One more thing she missed from home: her clothes.

Beside Kahina stood the Hammer, his stone arm gone. He looked at Stix and Ryber with no attempt to conceal his annoyance. Up close, Stix’s spectacles revealed amber-brown skin and black hair coiled into six long tails like she’d seen on some travelers from a southern stretch on the Fareastern continent.

“I don’t throw fights,” he said in Dalmotti with a slight accent, and Stix frowned, confused.

Ryber, however, understood his implication immediately. “We aren’t here to bribe you.” She moved in front of Stix with liquid ease and puffed out her chest with the confidence of a well-seasoned merchant. Her ware, of course, was Stix.

They’d played these parts—trainer and fighter—enough times now that Stix should have been comfortable with them. But unlike Ryber, who could slip as easily into roles as she could new clothes, Stix always felt stiff. She didn’t have the Sight; she’d seen very little of the world outside of Nubrevna; even speaking in Dalmotti required concentration because she hadn’t practiced it in almost a decade.

“We have come to offer you the fighter of a lifetime.” Ryber offered Kahina an Illryan-style bow: fist to forehead, chin dipping low. They’d heard that Kahina, like Ryber, had roots in Illrya. “I present to you, Stix of Nubrevna.”

“Sticks of Nubrevna?” Kahina puffed her pipe. “Never heard of her.”

“Because this is her debut in the Slaughter Ring.” Ryber flashed a smooth smile. Another braid sprang free. “Until now, she has only ever fought in Lovats.”

This was true. The extent of Stix’s spectator sporting had been done at the Cleaved Man every sevenday.

“She was called the Water Brawler there,” Ryber added. “And she’s never lost a fight.”

Also true.

“And you are the first Master of the Ring we’ve approached with this opportunity.”

Definitely a lie.

Kahina sniffed. “Another Tidewitch. We have plenty of those in the Ring.” She shifted away.

Stix stepped forward. “I’m a Waterwitch, actually. A full Waterwitch.” To prove her point, she offered her right hand to Kahina and let her title dangle in the air like bait on a hook. Her Witchmark hung there too, a hollow diamond indicating full mastery over all forms of water.

Kahina paused. “A full Waterwitch, you say.” Her honey-dark eyes sharpened onto Stix’s face. Seconds drifted past.

And Stix slowly felt their roles reverse. She became the bait. She became the target of a fish too large to escape.

Kahina removed her pipe from her mouth. A jade thumb ring winked. “Have we met before? You look… familiar.”

Ryber, who was usually so poised—so good at mimicking the people she’d once seen and never forgotten—glanced at Stix with open surprise.

“No,” Stix said. “We haven’t met before.”

“Indeed?” Kahina smiled, a sideways thing. “Well, in that case, Lady Fate must favor you today, for I have just the idea for you.” She turned her face to the Hammer, though her eyes remained on Stix. “Tell the guards that Kahina wants the Water Brawler in tomorrow’s arena.”

The Hammer scowled but didn’t disobey. He simply stalked into the hall, red cloth over the doorway flapping behind him. Meanwhile Kahina popped her pipe back into her mouth. The bowl sparked, sending smoke to wreathe around her white hair.

A Firewitch,Stix thought as she and Ryber aimed for the exit after the Hammer.No one ever mentioned Kahina is a Firewitch.

It was sunset by the time they reached their inn in the Baedyed territory of Saldonica. Streetlights flickered to life, and evening patrols directed crowds as a day’s work segued into a night’s revelry. The voices pushed against Stix’s skull, furious she had left the Ring.Come this way, keep coming.

“I know,” she groaned at them, clutching her forehead as she staggered out of a hired carriage and toward the tidy inn. Though she didn’t lean on Ryber to ascend the stairs, she did regret picking a room on the third floor. It had seemed private at the time; now it seemed impossibly far away. It didn’t help when an orange tabby tangled in her legs halfway up the narrow, creaking steps.

“Where did you come from?” Ryber cooed, scooping the cat into her arms. “Are you a stowaway from the Ring? You are, aren’t you?” She nuzzled the cat’s ear, which was missing a corner, and at Stix’s face of mild horror, she shrugged. “I like cats. Plus, they’re good luck around here.”

This was undeniably true, for as the saying went,Six-fingered cats will ward off mice.Not that Stix had ever heard that phrase before her arrival in Saldonica. Now it and the rest of the rhyme were everywhere her bespectacled eyes could land. On small signs inside the inn, carved into walls over tavern booths, etched into rings, or recited by merchants and pirates and innkeeps alike.

Three rules has she, our Lady of the Seas.

No whistling when a storm’s in sight.