The Last Moon Witch Read online

  “Lola, the child,” Chynn warned.

  “Better to lose it than to let a witch have it.” Lola bared her teeth as she stared at Notia.

  The pines above them swayed ominously. Fire carpeted the sky, racing down the trees and devouring everything in its path.

  Lola put a hand on Chynn’s shoulder as he raised his staff above them, rings jangling as he reinforced the shield around them.

  Notia raised her good eye to the fire descending upon them. Shards of metal glimmered amongst the flames. Acid flechettes. Now was her chance.

  “Goddess great and goddess good, speed my flight through these woods,” Notia whispered, pressing her hands against her chest, holding the baby and the sickle close to her heart. One last warp, using the forbidden power of the dark moon.

  The blaze licked at her hair, and then reality shifted, taking on a fractal curve of light married to darkness, with Notia at the center. The space around her splintered like ice on a lake. The crack was deafening as the shards gave way and Notia fell backward into it.

  “No!” Lola shrieked, leaping out of the shield to grab at the fleeing witch.

  Chynn pulled her back as the fire engulfed the forest floor, watching as the witch’s portal melted away.

  Notia collapsed in the snow just outside the barrier that protected Umeå, her entire body shaking in the cold. It was a sharp contrast to the heat that radiated off her burnt skin.

  She fumbled with the clasps of her apron to check on the babe tucked into her dress. The poor thing had cried himself back to sleep in all the commotion and fighting.

  “It’s all right, little one. I’ll keep you safe. I promise,” Notia whispered as she looked around, collecting her bearings.

  It had been years since she’d been here. The countryside hadn’t changed much, and she couldn’t be far from her destination. But she wasn’t certain if she could make it before she froze to death. Her magical reserves were exhausted. Curse work was a last resort, something she rarely used, and it took a terrible toll on her.

  Dawn was breaking, sending a colorful display of green and pink swirls through what was left of the atmosphere. She’d grown up seeing the dancing aurora ribbons, and they gave her comfort. It was good to be back in her homeland.

  The northern portions of Sweden had been of little interest to anyone during the war, given the country’s secular nature. An oversight that had allowed different cults and covens to seek refuge in the icy landscape. Notia silently beseeched the old Norse gods for strength as she began to crawl along the barrier. With a groan, she hauled herself into the service access of a sewage drain that poured out of the city.

  Her fingers were numb when she finally emerged from the sewer grate, covered in filth. Not far now. Umeå’s layout had changed little in the past three centuries. She clawed her way up the stone steps and pawed at the door of her destination.

  “Björn!” Her voice cracked, hardly able to rise above a hoarse whisper. “Björn!” She slammed her fist against the door. “Björn!”

  She was so cold, and the baby was likely freezing as well, despite the layers of swaddling he’d been wrapped in. Notia couldn’t tell. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Björn!” A sob broke out of her throat. “Please! Open the door . . . please.”

  Her head was heavy. She was so tired. Notia leaned against the door, gazing at the waking city around her. Electric hover buses whisked people through the streets on their early commutes. The glow of sunlamps began to warm homes, and neon lights flicked on in the cafes. The sound of hover skis echoed across the frozen river as they guided massive cargo barges to the port.

  Little bots spilled out of massive street scrapers and began to clear away the ice and snow from the sidewalks. Advertisements flicked on in vivid yellows and blues as they projected their products in hologram displays.

  It was good to be home. At least she would die in the place of her people.

  The door opened, and Notia tipped backward onto the carpet of the house.

  A blond bearded face stared down at her. “Notia?”

  “Björn.” Notia reached for him. Her hands felt impossibly heavy. “I–I . . .” Her teeth chattered too much to speak. Each breath she drew took tremendous effort. “S–Sanctuary. I invo–invoke sanctuary. P–Pl–Please.”

  Björn crouched next to her, pulling her inside his home and hastily looking out the door before shutting it.

  “We get you warmed up first, ja?” He leaned down and scooped Notia up in his arms, noticing the baby tucked between the layers of her dress. “Oh, dear. Eira! Eira, I need your help!” he called up into the house.

  He placed Notia down on the floor before the radiant heat stove. Then he set about freeing the baby from her dress. Eira came rushing into the room, a hand resting on her swollen belly. A bipedal home assistant bot followed after her, waving its arms in distress.

  Apprehension etched her face. “Björn,” she whispered. Her hand went to the back of the bot’s head and flicked a switch, deactivating it. “We can’t keep them here!”

  “Take him.” Björn passed the baby to Eira.

  “She invoked the sanctuary pact,” Björn said firmly as he grabbed a heater out of the closet, turning it to the highest setting.

  “And what about our child?” Eira scowled as she looked down at the swaddled babe in her arms.

  “We can work out logistics later. Right now, we need to keep them alive!” Björn shot back.

  The babe in Eira’s arms whimpered weakly, fidgeting in its layers of blankets.

  With a sigh, Eira stared down at the child, rocking it absently. The witch looked like she’d crawled through Hell, smelled like it too. A rank stench of burnt garlic and flesh was emanating off her. The babe was shivering, its tiny face covered in dirt and soot. It would be wrong to turn them out so close to the Yuletide, sanctuary pact or not.

  “Fine.” Her expression softened. “They can stay here, but just for a little while. We can’t put a tiny thing like this out in the cold.”

  As if sensing the shift in mood, the baby babbled happily in Eira’s arms, his tiny fingers clutching at the obsidian pendant.

  4

  Fifteen years after that fateful night, hidden within the now forgotten Grössjön nature reserve just outside of Umeå, the once nameless child awoke.

  When he was five, Notia had given him the name Kanruo. He’d grown tall and lean since she had arrived with him in Sweden. He now towered over her and could even throw her over his shoulder if he wanted.

  Kanruo yawned, his black eyes staring up at the earthen ceiling above. He sucked in a deep breath of the cinnamon and pine scented air of the half-buried home.

  As he stretched out underneath the layers of cozy blankets, his eyes wandered to the tiny, half-completed altar he was trying to create. It was an exercise in conjecture and frustration as he tried to piece his identity together.

  He’d asked Notia why there weren’t more people like him in Umeå. Despite the presence of the international university in the center of the city, there were no children who looked like him and only a handful of adults.

  “That’s because your bloodline hails from Japan,” Notia had told him. “Once, before witches were persecuted, there were many magical practices in your homeland. If any survived the purge, I do not know.”

  She explained that there had even been magic users from his homeland who had joined the Moon Witches, adding their culture and beliefs to the rich patchwork quilt that made up the eccentric cult.

  For his tenth birthday, as his curiosity grew and his mind matured, Notia presented him with the burnt and charred remains of the tomes the Japanese Moon Witches had kept, along with a stack of translation books.

  The damaged texts were now carefully stacked on his bookshelf alongside a collection of crystals and jars of herbs. One grimoire sat on the corner of his desk, surrounded by his Japanese study books. The workbooks were endlessly dog-eared with notes scribbled in the margins. Calligraphy p
ractice sheets were scattered among the mess. The sloppy characters were a testament to his attempts at piecing together the fragmented knowledge he had.

  It was hard work to translate the old books by hand, but translation software was out of the question. Nearly everything on the open market had a backdoor function that fed data back to the Union, and they couldn’t risk being discovered.

  The lack of technological assistance made the process laborious and at times confusing. Notia had raised him speaking English and Swedish, and the flowing characters of Japanese didn’t always directly translate. The lack of context left him feeling disconnected and lost as he painstakingly tried to piece together the information.

  How could he pay respects to his ancestors if he didn’t know who they were? Could he make his own sacred charms, or did those need blessing in order to have any power?

  It would have been nice to be able to speak to someone about the cultural intricacies of deities and sacred objects.

  But there were moments of victory. For every ten setbacks, he found a single piece of information that resonated with him down to his core.

  Hanging from his door were paper strips folded in a zigzag pattern, a shide, one of his successful attempts to reproduce a sacred Shinto item that he’d found a note about in one of the tomes. It was the one he’d felt best about, a feeling of rightness settling over him as he’d completed the final folds. They were supposed to ward his room, along with all the crystals and witches’ knots that hung from the ceiling.

  Kanruo liked to think they worked, that he’d successfully reached out to a part of himself. As soon as he’d hung them up and prayed over them, petitioning the moon goddess for peace, some of the seasonal gloom lifted.

  Winter in Umeå was unkind. Barely an hour of sunlight shone each day in December, and the lingering darkness gnawed at the mind and tricked the psyche.

  The twelve-mile walk into town was out of the question with the temperatures so low. Notia didn’t have a vehicle—that would require a Union registration—and the concentrated magic of opening a warp portal outside the dampening barriers would have been unwise.

  But today was the winter solstice, signaling the last of the darkening days and two weeks until the new year. Which meant they could start going into town when the weather warmed. He could see his friends! But perhaps most importantly, it was a day of celebration, Yule!

  Kanruo climbed out of bed, motivated by the promise of more daylight. The cool air snapped at his skin as he pulled on a pair of heavy leggings, thick socks, and a long, white, asymmetrical tunic. He quickly ran a comb through his long black hair, twisting and pinning it into a half-up bun on his head.

  He skated across the smooth wood floors in his socks, coming to a stop before Notia’s room and slowly easing the door open.

  She was still asleep, her breathing slow and easy from beneath a pile of blankets.

  Kanruo tiptoed up to her and gently shook her shoulder. “Notia!” he whispered loudly. “Notia! Wake up! It’s Yule!”

  Notia gave a groan, cracked one eye open to stare at him, and rolled away. “And it will be Yule for another seventeen hours, Kanruo.”

  “Come on! Don’t you want to know what your gift is?”

  “My gift is three more hours of sleep,” Notia retorted, swinging a pillow at him.

  Kanruo grinned and batted it away. “Come on! Yule! Presents! And Björn’s family is coming over!”

  That had been their tradition for as long as Kanruo could remember. Every Yule, under the cover of nearly endless night, in an unmarked snow-hover, Björn brought his wife, Eira, and their son, Alrik, to celebrate the holiday with them. It was a gesture of solidarity and goodwill, something that brightened the winter darkness.

  Notia half-heartedly swung the pillow at him again, and he yanked it out of her grasp, throwing it back at her.

  Notia deflected the fluffy attack as she slowly sat up, scrubbing at her face. “I don’t know where you get your energy from.”

  Kanruo snorted. “You’re not that old, Notia.” It was true. She looked barely out of her twenties. Her brown hair was soft and thin, and her skin was unmarred by wrinkles, scars, or age spots.

  “You’ve seen me every day of your life. Of course I seem ageless to you.” She pulled her legs out from under the blankets and stretched. Slowly, she stood, wincing slightly as she put weight on one of her legs.

  “You all right?” Kanruo stepped to her side, his hand hovering at her shoulder.

  “Fine, I just pulled something,” Notia assured him as she put her foot on the ground more firmly. “Now, how about you go make some coffee and tea, and use the good stuff today, not the synthetic. I’ll be out to help cook in a minute, okay?”

  Notia had just pulled a tray of saffron sweet buns out of the oven when the rhythmic knock came at the door.

  “Get that, will you, Kanruo?” she asked him as she swatted his hand away from the hot pastries.

  Kanruo went to the door, peering out the hidden peephole before throwing the door open. “Björn! Eira!” The couple came inside to escape the cold and darkness, trailing snow on their heavy boots. They hugged Kanruo tightly as they pulled off their layers of scarves and coats.

  “Where’s Alrik?” Kanruo looked back out into the endless darkness. He stepped out onto the patio, not wanting to get his socks wet in the snow as he looked for his friend.

  “Right here!” Alrik jumped onto his back from where he’d been standing offside, stuffing a fistful of snow down the back of his tunic.

  Kanruo yelped, flailing at the sudden icy intrusion as he tried to get the menace off him. Alrik was tall and blond like his father, although today, his hair was green. He was charismatic, always into mischief. He was Kanruo’s best friend and his biggest crush.

  They tumbled into the snow, wrestling and flailing. Kanruo grabbed handfuls of the frozen fluff, flinging it blindly at the other boy.

  Alrik wriggled free, kicking snow at Kanruo as he backpedaled and laughed.

  Kanruo held his hands up to ward off the spray of snow. “Oh, it’s on now! Yuko! Raijū! To me!” He clapped his hands together and called upon his magic.

  There was an echo of thunder through the dark sky, and the ether spilled open. A fraying gash ripped through the silk of reality as a pair of komainu were birthed from the veil. The mighty lion-dogs traditionally stood in pairs guarding Shinto shrines in the sketches Kanruo had seen. Imposing beasts from the heavens, symbols of protection, and they repelled evil.

  Kanruo had instantly been drawn to them. They’d been his first summons, and it had felt like he’d found another part of himself. It had been then that Notia had proclaimed his magical gift: manipulation. Not of the mind nor of the elements, but of matter itself.

  The komainu stood before him now, their eyes black as coal and their coats sleek and shimmering iridescence as if fluid was beneath their fur, tightly curled tails wagging enthusiastically as massive paws the size of a person’s face dug at the ground.

  “Oh, come on! That’s not fair!” Alrik complained.

  “Pounce!” Kanruo gave the command as he gathered up snow.

  Raijū and Yuko leaped forward, tackling Alrik into a snow drift and licking at his face, letting out mighty barks that sounded like rocks tumbling down the hill. Kanruo joined them, taking great pleasure in shoving snow in Alrik’s face.

  The duo began laughing as they suffered the slobbering onslaught.

  A sharp throat clearing brought them out of their revelry, and the two boys looked up to see Notia standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

  “I’m not heating all of Sweden, you know,” she scolded, but a smile was pulling on the corners of her lips even as she tried to look strict.

  Raijū and Yuko bounded over to her, tongues lolling as they panted excitedly.

  “Sit,” Notia told them firmly, and the two beasts skidded to a halt, planting themselves expectantly at her feet. “You two” —she pointed at Kanruo and Alrik— “in
, before you catch your death.”

  Yuko whined, the noise a squeaky door hinge. Notia frowned at the komainu and then sighed. “Fine, you two as well. Can’t leave you in the ether on Yule. But you know the rules. No going on the sofa.” She shook a finger at the beasts.

  Raijū let out a rockslide of a bark in agreement, and he and Yuko shrank down to a more manageable size, following the boys inside as Notia shut the door.

  “I’ve got a change of clothes for you two in Kanruo’s room.” Notia shooed them away as she went back to the kitchen with Björn and Eira.

  “So, how’ve you been?” Alrik asked as he and Kanruo peeled their snow-soaked clothes off.

  “Cold and grumpy. I hate winter.” Kanruo rubbed his feet to bring feeling back into them. “How about you? How’re things with Gull and Kjell?”

  The last time he’d seen Alrik had been at the fall festival. He’d had purple hair and a cute girl hanging off one arm and an equally cute boy hanging off the other.

  “Ah, well, we’re . . . we’re taking a break for winter. They’re from Oslo, down south, and had to visit family.” Alrik didn’t look very pleased. Breaks from relationships for him usually didn’t ever resume.

  “Well, maybe next year, you can go with them?” Kanruo tried to encourage him as he pulled on a dry shirt. He was a little jealous of Alrik. He wasn’t ever without a partner or two. But that was expected since he was the son of a politician. Björn was the governor of the stretch of icy land that Umeå was in.

  They lived in two different worlds. Even if it were possible, a falling out would ruin their friendship. Which meant that no matter how much Kanruo might want to be the one on Alrik’s arm, he couldn’t be.

  “Eh, maybe. How’s your training going?” Alrik quickly changed the subject. “Made any headway into that whole soul-searching-to-connect-with-your-people thing?” He looked pointedly at the unfinished micro-altar.