“How am I supposed to write a letter to Isadora in the middle of the forest?”
The muttered question fell on unhearing ears. Luteis had long since fallen asleep. She curled a little tighter to his warmth, crinkled the broad leaf she held in her palm.
No ink, no quill. No method to send the letter to Isadora, either, even if she could write it. Perhaps magic wouldn’t be the worst thing . . .
Her thoughts turned.
She could make charcoal and scrawl a message on the leaf. She’d done it before. Lighting a fire without Luteis’s help was out of the question, though a conflagration was unlikely with the forest so wet.
Well, she could clear an area, start a fire, and use the resulting charcoal. But that would wake Luteis, and he needed to rest. She didn’t want to stumble around the forest, either. Besides, it would take awhile to get the flame started, and the burned wood had to cool. After touching it, she might accidentally wipe it on her face and never know.
Did that matter?
Sort of.
She shook that aside. No, she’d never cared what she looked like before. She’d run all over Letum Wood with soot and charcoal and mud stains in the past, and it hadn’t mattered.
Except everything felt different now, especially the little things. She didn’t want to look like a heathen just because she couldn’t see. When she had sight and she appeared a bit wild, it was different.
Less about capability, more about choice.
Mam’s words darted back through her mind. Luteis isn’t enough. Hearing them again, in a looped refrain, set her teeth on edge. Oh, she’d never forget such a comment. Of course he was enough! He was the reason she had no sight in the first place. He was her eyes.
Her heart.
Luteis would always be with her.
Al . . . always.
Mired in her faltering thoughts, Sanna squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember. What had Letum Wood looked like at night?
Her eyes opened.
This, in fact.
Utterly dark.
With a sigh, she turned so her back pressed to Luteis’s leg. Shifting brought a wave of cold over her shoulders, but his radiating heat ebbed it away. Unbidden, Mam’s words returned.
Sanna growled. She needed to find Isa, talk to her. Her sister would be able to make sense of what Mam said, because she couldn’t.
Handfast Elliot!
Interest in Jesse?
Necessity drove such maternal machinations, surely. Sanna could understand the motivations behind it. Yet the thought of Mam handfasting anyone but Daid stymied her, leaving a rock on her chest that made it harder to sleep.
If she only had a spell . . .
Talis, the previous brood sire for the Dragonmaster community, had outlawed magic out of fear over what it had done to dragons in the past. He prevented witches from learning incantations, lest poachers more easily find them and danger alight upon them again.
Now, Sanna wondered . . .
The urge to use it felt wrong. She harbored the desire carefully in her chest, still too afraid to speak it. Talis was long dead. She watched the light bleed from his eyes after Daid delivered the killing blow. Talis wouldn’t know, nor be able to punish her. Isadora used it constantly. So did witches outside of Anguis.
Still, a fear of magic persisted.
Sanna closed her eyes, snuggled so close to Luteis she felt the pattern of his scales along the ridge of her spine. His long wing shuffled, folding farther over her in toasty protection.
Finally, she fell asleep.
* * *
The exasperation in Isadora’s voice woke Sanna before a nudging along her foot.
“Really, Sanna?”
Sanna blinked awake, pulled from groggy dreams half-filled with fire. She stretched, arms elongating.
“What?”
The noises of Letum Wood had woken back up. Calling birds, settling tree branches. Wind rushed by, whistling through the thin undergrowth to beckon winter closer.
“Why are you sleeping on the ground, when you can have the whole attic to yourself at Mam’s?”
Sanna pushed up, grounded by the gritty feel of dirt against her palms. “I just . . . wanted to be with Luteis in the trees. Some of us like sleeping outside.”
Her slightly muffled reply must have come from behind a scarf. “It’s freezing out here, Sanna!”
“I’m with a forest dragon. He’s so warm. Besides, I’m wearing my coat.”
“It’s not all that safe.”
“Letum Wood has never been safe. And you didn’t protest before,” she hastily added.
Isadora huffed. “I always protested, you just didn’t listen. It’s even less safe now that you don’t have your sight.”
Sanna unclenched slightly. At least Isadora addressed the issue straight on. Unlike Mam, who didn’t like the words blind or sightless or can’t see.
“You’re kidding, right?” Sanna pushed to her feet, woozy. Luteis shuffled at her back, his teeth snapping together at the end of a yawn. “I snuggled a forest dragon all night. What was going to approach me?”
Correct, Luteis said with a huff.
Isadora sighed. “Right. Well, I suppose there are worse places to sleep. Though it still doesn’t seem wise to wander in the winter. But you’re an adult. The decision is yours.”
“I sleep better when I’m with Luteis, anyway, than on a lumpy mattress or inside where it gets hot.”
“I came to check on you.”
“I’m fine. Figuring my life out, as you can see.”
Isadora paused. Sanna could still recall the way Isadora’s eyebrows used to come together, wrinkling her skin and nose, when she fell into thought. Did she do that now? The silence broke with a quiet declaration.
“Mam told me what happened yesterday, when she talked to you.”
“Weird, isn’t it?”
Another pause, this one gratifying. At least she wasn’t the only one having a hard time thinking it through. Isadora’s arm came through Sanna’s and tugged.
“Come on, let’s walk together. I have a feeling you don’t get to just walk in the forest much anymore, and there’s a small game trail. Luteis,” she called over her shoulder, “you’re always welcome.”
Your sister, he drawled, is also welcome at my perch anytime.
“Luteis says thanks.”
That’s not exactly what I said.
She ignored his precision.
“Let’s walk,” Isa suggested.
A thrill darted through Sanna. No, she didn’t get to safely move much. She missed the way she used to run across tree branches, slide on the moss. Thinking about it brought a lump to her throat that she swallowed back.
She gratefully kept up at Isadora’s side, hand on her elbow.
“Root on your right, then you’re clear for a bit,” Isadora said crisply. “Now, let’s talk about Mam and what she said.”
“Handfasting Elliot. Can you believe that? Did she mention her plans for me and Jesse? Weird!”
Isadora swayed to a stop. Sanna lurched at her side, then spun to face her.
“What?”
“Yes, there’s news of Elliot,” Isa said impatiently, batting Sanna’s arm with her other hand. “And Jesse, too. Honestly, Sanna, neither of those should have come as any sort of surprise to you. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today.”
“It’s not?”
“No! I’m here to discuss you and Luteis and . . . whatever you’re doing living out here in the forest. Mam said you could have her old house to yourself—the entire thing—and you didn’t want it. That’s what I wanted to talk about.”
Sanna scowled. “I’m not going to live next door to Mam for the rest of my life.”
Isadora tugged her firmly along again. Sanna stumbled, righted herself, and forced her legs to move. Luteis pushed lazily to his feet. The clacking of scales rippled through the air as he shivered. He seemed to lumber to their right, where he’d follow, unseen.
“Can we talk about you and Max first?”
“Nice try,” Isa drawled. “No. Eventually, yes. But first, we’re going to talk about you living in the forest. Let me make one thing clear: I think you should live in Letum Wood.”
“Really?”
“Yes. There’s no reason losing your sight has to stop your life. I don’t think you should do it without help, though.”
“I don’t need help.”
“You do.”
“I have Luteis!”
A brief pause likely indicated a roll of her eyes. “Witches live perfectly functional lives without their sight all the time. There are resources available to you out in the Network. What if you learn a few things, then come back?”
A shudder rippled through Sanna. She did not want to talk about this. This conversation led down other paths, like going into the Network and talking to strangers. Sensing that steel in Isa’s voice, however, she had little choice. How would she escape?
Run into the forest?
“I’m not like other witches. I wouldn’t belong in the Network.”
“That is an eternal truth I shall never dispute. Nevertheless, neither are you so different that you couldn’t learn to be independent. Lucey knows other witches without sight. She’s helped them as an Apothecary.”
“So?”
“She could introduce you.”
“Then what?”
Isadora blew an exasperated raspberry. “They could help you adapt to your changing vision.”
Silence swelled between them, loaded and painful. She didn’t want to think about this. Letum Wood was her only escape. She had Luteis here. Though she couldn’t see her beloved trees, they still made her feel safer than life in the villages.
“I’ll think about it.”
Isa’s lack of immediate response meant she understood exactly what Sanna wanted to do—throw her off track.
“Will you really?”
A note of hope, concern, surprised Sanna. Of course Isadora would worry about her. She’d expected as much. But to this extent?
“Yes, I’ll . . . think about it.”
Eventually.
“And magic? Will you let me teach you a few spells yet?”
“No!”
“Sanna!”
“I said I’d think about it! One thing at a time, Isa. I’m still just . . . I’m figuring it out, all right? You have to let me do it at my pace. It’s overwhelming otherwise.”
Isadora sighed, an aggravated thing. “Fine, but if you don’t, I’m going to send Lucey here with a blind witch anyway. They should be able to teach you some helpful spells, if you won’t let me.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Watch me,” she muttered.
Sanna smirked. “Shall I try to?”
“Oh, you know what I mean. I’m serious, Sanna. I’m holding you to it. I know you didn’t ask to lose your sight. I know it’s not fair. You deserve to still see, and you lost your sight attempting to save your dragons. None of it makes sense, and I’m angry at all of it. You must be livid. But that doesn’t mean your life—the one you wanted—is over. You can still be Sanna of the forest and a blind witch. You need to know that.”
A traitorous flare of hope brightened the cold chambers of her heart. Isadora had put into quick words everything Sanna both feared and desired. Her agony culminated in the fact that she didn’t ask for blindness. She served the creatures she loved the most, and lost everything.
“Thank you.” Sanna’s chin tilted up, voice thick with tension. “I vow it, Isadora. I’ll think about it. Please, give me space?”
“I will. I promise.”
“Thanks. Can we talk about you and Max now? I mean, it’s only been a day . . .”
“Max and I . . .” Isadora trailed away.
A raspberry followed, eradicating the tension that built up with the question. Sanna held her breath, startled by how much concern she held for her sister. Technically, she hadn’t met Max yet. Not really.
The thought of Isadora handfasted to a stranger didn’t sit well.
“What are Max and I?” Isadora cried. “I don’t know, Sanna. We’re a handfasted couple that hardly knows each other, living in a manor that’s too big for both of us, and neither really know what sort of life we want to live. Last night, he agreed that we can give this a three month trial period, so that’s what we’re doing.”
“Three months?”
“I suppose that I’ll know by then whether we can live together or not.”
“Does he love you?”
A lonely pause followed. “I hope so,” Isadora murmured, “because I so badly want this to work. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out.”
“You love him, don’t you?”
“Hopelessly.”
“You deserve someone to love you as much as I love Luteis.”
“I know. I adore him, Sanna.”
“But—”
“I know. I know. The question is whether he can give the same back, as Luteis does for you. Brokenhearted or not, I won’t stay with him if he can’t say the words. You know, you’re not the only one stumbling around in the dark these days. Sometimes, I think all of us are a little bit blind.”