Rewrite That Witch
CH136 · Rewrite
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Chapter 136: The Dilemma

The festival atmosphere in Clearwater Port had been going on for two weeks, and Garcia Wimbledon found it exhausting.

From the top of the Lord’s Tower she could hear it — the drums, the singing, the particular quality of noise that a city makes when it has recently won something and hasn’t yet started calculating what it cost. The harbor was dense with the Black Sail Fleet’s ships, and the new additions from Eagle City’s looting were already being worked into the fleet’s formation, which meant the sailors were sober enough to do their jobs but not enough to be fully useful.

Ryan had mentioned it once, tentatively, the way he mentioned things he wasn’t sure she wanted to hear. She’d told him to let it run. Men who had survived what they’d survived were entitled to something.

She stood at the tower’s railing and watched the sea and thought about the pills.

The Clan Heads of the Sandstone and Black Bone clans arrived together, which she had noted before was what they did when they were coordinating. They performed the greeting — may there always be an oasis in front of you, may the stars of heaven always light your path — with the fluid intonation of people who had said it many times today.

Goddess Kaaba spoke first. She always spoke first; it was the reason Garcia had chosen the Sandstone Clan’s partnership over Black Bone’s, because a clan led by someone who controlled the timing of information was more predictable than one led by brute force.

“After the last battle, many of our warriors experienced symptoms of weakness,” Kaaba said. “Another dose of the pills relieved the symptoms, but our supply is running low. We hoped Your Majesty might be able to provide more.”

“We haven’t forgotten,” the Black Bone Clan Head said, after receiving a look that would have silenced most men. He received it without flinching, which was why he was still alive.

Garcia sorted her hair where the sea wind had disordered it. “The pills have rare ingredients and a complicated production process. There’s no surplus at the moment. When the next batch arrives, you’ll receive your share — at the agreed price.”

“And when—”

“I don’t have that information.” She nodded once to her guard.

They were escorted down without further discussion.

When the door closed, she let herself sigh. Just once.

“You’re worried about the warriors who used the pills,” Ryan said.

She didn’t answer immediately. He had been with her long enough to understand that the absence of a denial was itself an answer.

The Church had described the pills as an enhancement — something like a strong draught that temporarily elevated a soldier’s capacity, with mild after-effects that faded. What she had discovered, after the Eagle City battle, was that this was not quite accurate. The after-effects didn’t fade. They accumulated. If the second dose didn’t arrive before the first wore completely off, the effect inverted: weakness first, then pain, then muscle atrophy. Her own loyal soldiers — the ones who had swallowed the pills to hold the line against Timothy’s last charge — were showing the symptoms.

The Church knows this, she thought. They described the pills the way they did because they wanted me to deploy them broadly. Which means the dependency was the point.

The door.

“Your Majesty — a priest, representing the Church.”

She stood straight.

The priest named Dicar had the manner of a man who was about to deliver bad news and had spent the journey rehearsing his expression. He greeted her in the Church’s formal mode, which she waited through without interrupting.

“The five thousand pills you requested,” he began.

“Are not here.”

“The full quantity would exceed even the production allocated to Hermes itself. What I’ve been able to bring—” He paused. “One thousand.”

“One thousand.”

“The remainder will follow as quickly as—”

She crossed the terrace in three steps and stopped close enough that he would have to hold his ground or step back. He held his ground, barely. She spoke quietly, which was always worse than volume.

“You will tell the Holy City that I require the remainder without further delay. If that delivery is late — if my soldiers’ symptoms become irreversible because the Church failed to supply what it promised — the priest responsible for that failure will be decorating my flagship’s highest mast. The Archbishop will understand this is not a figure of speech.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“The gold royals are as agreed. Ryan will collect the current shipment.”

The priest excused himself with significant speed.

Garcia returned to the railing. The sea was the same gray-green it always was, and the wind was the same wind.

“If Timothy had moved against me two months later,” she said, “I would have had adequate preparation.”

Ryan stood where he always stood when she was thinking aloud — close enough to hear, far enough not to intrude. He was the most useful person she had, partially because he understood this distinction.

“You did well,” he said.

She had done well. She had stripped Eagle City to the walls, filled the drainage system with oil, and set it burning as she retreated. She had traded the land south of the border for Sandpeople support, and given those warriors the pills that had turned the battle. She had not miscalculated. She had simply run out of time.

“Distribute the pills to our warriors,” she said. “Use only half the current shipment. We need to make them last.” She turned from the railing. “Ryan—”

The door again. A guard with a sealed letter.

The seal was from her intelligence network in King’s City. She motioned Ryan to open it; he broke the seal and unrolled the parchment. She watched his face instead of the letter, which was faster.

His face went still.

She crossed the terrace and read the first line.

On the twenty-second day of spring, the Church seized the capital of the Kingdom of Eternal Winter, declaring that the kingdom is now under their rule.

She stood looking at it for a long moment.

So it begins, she thought. Not surprise — she had known the Church’s ambition was directional, not incidental. But Eternal Winter was the first domino, and the sound of it falling was different from the theoretical knowledge that it would fall.

“How long,” she said quietly, to no one in particular, “before they look south.”

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