Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 860: Their Respective Journeys

When the last statistics report landed in his hands, Barov finally exhaled — a careful, controlled breath — and waved his subordinate out.

“Yes, my Lord.”

The door closed. He was alone.

He opened the desk drawer and removed more than a dozen forms, smoothed them on the table, and placed the final one on top. The stack was complete. Everything required for His Majesty’s expedition — food, gold, materiel — had been arranged, down to the last line of figures.

He ran his fingers across the paper the way someone else might stroke velvet.

These rows of numbers looked like a cipher to ordinary eyes. To Barov they were a musical score, and the melody they played was one he had been composing toward for decades. In a week and a half, Neverwinter had executed a logistics transfer that eclipsed anything from any previous campaign — in scale, in precision, in the sheer mass of resources moved. He had written the proposals. He had built the statistical tables. Through them he could see the wheat-laden ships threading the inland river northward, could hear, almost literally hear, the sound of gold royals moving through the city’s veins.

He could not entirely suppress what he felt.

If you asked him to name this score, he would call it power. It was the only honest name.

After three years, Neverwinter had become something extraordinary — not in military capacity alone, but across every dimension that a city could be measured. He had known the finances of Graycastle in his time as assistant to the Crown Treasurer; he understood, better than almost anyone, what it meant that Neverwinter’s resources now likely equaled those of every other city in the kingdom combined.

The shame was that no one could share it with him.

He removed his monocle and looked at the empty chair on the other side of the table.

There was only one other person who could read these figures and feel what he felt in reading them — the Pearl of the Northern Region. In some ways she was the same species of person as himself: someone who found the architecture of logistics genuinely beautiful, who understood that the real work of power was not the sword but the supply chain. He had occasionally thought they might have been something like friends, in a different arrangement of circumstances.

The thought dissolved quickly. Exclusive possession was worth more than companionship. Always.

He stood, walked to the window, and reached into his breast pocket.

The coin he withdrew was old — the gold worn soft, the engraving shallow from handling. A mountain on its face. The emblem of the Witch Cooperation Association, which he had found three years ago in the Western Region forest.

He had kept it private from the start. His original purpose had been pragmatic: if the Church moved against the Western Region and he needed evidence to bargain for his own safety, this coin would serve. But time had transformed it. It had become something closer to a talisman. A reminder.

Was His Majesty, who protected witches, evil? The question had stopped making sense to him a long time ago. The Church had claimed to hold the moral franchise on this question, and the Church had been defeated by a king with two hands and a city that ran on clear thinking. The evil ones were the ones who lost, because they had confused arrogance for strength. Even the demons in the Barbarian Land were less contemptible than that.

It would not last much longer in any case.

His Majesty’s campaign against the Kingdom of Dawn had been delayed, but Barov had been patient for twenty years. Another year was a small ledger to clear. And when Roland Wimbledon unified the kingdom and was crowned as its only king, Barov himself would ascend to the summit of the machinery he had spent his career building.

He touched his beard, and quietly laughed.

“Today’s session ends here.” Agatha set down her pen and organized the experimental data with her usual precision. “Have you packed? Tomorrow is departure day.”

“I don’t have many things.” Isabella shook her head. “Not much to pack.”

Life in Neverwinter had been simpler than she’d anticipated. Her days were occupied by displaying the God’s Stone to the ice witch for observation and record-keeping; her remaining time was her own, provided she didn’t leave the diplomatic building. She had not been harassed or humiliated. She had not been treated as a Pure Witch in the way she had expected — as something categorically separate. Agatha’s manner toward her was essentially the same as her manner toward anyone else, which was to say: direct, somewhat demanding, and entirely without sentimentality.

“By the way,” Isabella said. “About last time — thank you. For telling me.”

“The news about the Church?” Agatha shrugged. “In your position, I’d still want to go back. A farewell, at minimum. A proper ending.” She let it stand. “But that’s a separate matter. At the moment — you can’t travel like that.” Her gaze dropped to Isabella’s sleeve. She crossed the room and took hold of it, rubbing the fabric between her fingers. “This has gone white. And it’s winter weight. When the weather turns hot, you’ll be miserable.”

“It’s nothing. I’ve endured harder conditions than —”

“This isn’t an endurance exercise. The expedition will run months, not weeks.” Agatha cut across her. “You can’t wash clothes every day on the road, and your companions will notice.” She dropped the sleeve. “We still have time. I’ll take you to the market and we’ll find you a few pieces.”

Isabella heard the word companions and held very still for a moment. “I don’t have money,” she said carefully. “I’m not receiving a stipend.”

“I do.” Agatha’s tone was settled. “Call it a loan.”

“Five years is —”

“Short,” said Agatha. “Short compared to how long the Taquila witches waited for anything. And the Battle of Divine Will won’t end quickly. You won’t always be in this position — unless that’s what you want.” She held out her hand. “So what is it?”

Isabella did not answer immediately.

The last of the afternoon light came through the window at an angle, very gold, the kind that arrives only briefly and is always brighter than the hours on either side of it. In it, Agatha’s outline softened and nearly disappeared — only her extended hand remained distinct, palm up, waiting.

Isabella lowered her head and took it.

At that moment, the sun seemed to reach all the way through her.

“Are you sure it’s alright — for me to come?” Anna asked. She lay in the curve of Roland’s arm in the dark, her lake-blue eyes catching the moonlight. The words came quietly, with a certain weight that was not exactly worry but was adjacent to it.

They had not had much time together lately — the God’s Punishment Witches, the preparations, the endlessly proliferating meetings. Tonight they had found each other again, and they were still talking, still catching up on everything the days had taken from them.

“We’ve been building toward this for a long time,” Roland said. He stroked her back slowly. “And it isn’t only a military campaign. Propaganda matters — public presence, banquets, appearing before people as something legible and unified. At those occasions, arriving without a companion would be conspicuous.”

Anna nodded, a small motion of her head.

“I meant what I said.” His voice steadied. “One day, every subject in Graycastle will know who you are. Even being a witch won’t diminish that.”

She didn’t ask whether it was truly all right. She didn’t ask what would happen if everyone objected. She said, in the same quiet register he’d used: “Even being a witch — I want to be with you. Whatever comes.”

He felt the corners of his mouth lift. That was her, precisely. Not the words anyone would expect her to say, but exactly the ones she meant.

“Then we’re decided.”

The next morning, the Neverwinter port was crowded and loud, the concrete boats riding low under the weight of the First Army and their supplies. They arranged themselves in orderly columns and moved slowly out onto the Redwater River, leaving one after another.

At the fleet’s head: the flagship Roland. At its highest point, the High-Tower and Spears banner of Graycastle snapped in the wind, visible from the shore.

Everyone in Neverwinter understood what it meant when their Lord sailed. When he returned, there would be only one king in this land.

Someone on the pier shouted it — long live the king — and the sound spread outward along the waterfront like a wave finding the shore, taking everything in its path.

It rolled like thunder. It sounded like a horn.

The war had begun.

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