1st 5 Pages September Workshop - Politano Rev 2

Name: Nora Politano

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Title: The Witch's Way

Sixteen-year-old Gwyn O’Muireann is good at stealing things—like food, and jewelry, and her surname. The one thing she’s never been able to steal for herself is a better life. And gods, has she tried.

Gwyn is a witch. This happened by pure accident of birth, and without her consent, but witch hunters and slave traders don’t really care. Her kind is the only one capable of opening the barrier that divides the mortals from the old land of magic known as the Otherworld. Since humans can’t seem to keep the good sense they were born with when it comes to magic, it’s not an enviable position. It becomes even less so when she’s kidnapped.

 
 Her captor is a madman named Nim, hell-bent on seeing the Otherworld for reasons he won’t share. But the forest that guards the barrier is filled with all manner of monsters, including a banshee that whispers of terrible fates awaiting Gwyn if she cannot escape Nim. Amid a world of malicious spirits, cannibalistic tribes, and ancient, powerful races, Gwyn’s wits are her only chance of survival. But she didn’t make it this far by playing fair, and she certainly isn’t going to start now.  

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Torches light the growing darkness, dancing to the beat of furious drums. The air is alive with it, with color and music and shadows that weave to match my every move. Faces blur into one, into nothing, and nothing matters but the music. I am the flute, clear as a brook running over sand. I am the fiddle, leaping across the strings faster than the eye can follow. I am the drums, pounding against the stones with a force that makes the earth shake.

And then the music stops.

I sway on my feet, panting, as the crowd erupts into cheers. My feet and hands burn from trying to keep time with the song, and the world is still spinning even though I’m no longer moving with it. It’s worth it for this feeling; heart thudding so hard it’s all I can hear, head still leagues above the ground. In my sixteen years, I’ve heard a thousand things called “magical”, but dancing is its own magic completely.

I should know.

Dizzy and breathless, I curtsy to the crowd and collapse beside the musicians in an untidy heap of red skirts.

“Well done,” I rasp, scooping a cupful of water out of our bucket.

“Ye as well.” Fergus, our leathery old fiddler, hands me a rag to mop my face with, eyes twinkling. “I could ha' sworn ye were seconds away from taking flight.”

“I could've sworn she was trying to open the earth to swallow us,” Kagen says cheekily, wiping down his flute. I smack him upside his head.

“Good earnings,” Aidan observes, rattling our cup. Coins slide against each other with clinks and shinks—the sounds of a generous audience. “What say we take the rest of the night off, do a little celebrating?”

I roll my eyes. I’ve worked with these three long enough to know that “little celebrating” actually means “drink ourselves near to death”. I have more important things to do. Tonight is the first time I’ve been in any town since winter, and every daft sheep from here to Baile Gaelu is flaunting their finery. I intend to take full advantage of it.

“I’ve had a night,” I announce, hauling meself up. Aidan offers me the cup, but I wave it away. Coppers would take up valuable pocket space. I dance for the thrill.

Beyond our circle of cleared space, the people are a river, pulsing and roaring over the stones. In their current, treasures untold. I try to summon up a bit of pity for them. None comes.

Tying my hair up, I wrap a scarf about it and tuck any errant curls away. The process is comfortingly familiar, the way a well-worn pair of boots can make me feel more meself simply by slipping them on.

Anticipation hits like a third mug of ale. It’s been too long.

Fergus frowns at me. I probably have the look of a madman, but I don’t care. With a jaunty salute, I plunge into the crowd.

The Lunster Spring Festival is the reemergence of life after winter. In one night, months of frost, hunger, and death vanish, their white stillness exploding into a tapestry of too-bright colors and sounds that threaten to overwhelm the senses. Rich and poor spill over the lines that separate our ways of life, crushed together by exhilaration. In the vast outdoor square, with the night air unable to chill us, and the thick scent of sweet cakes and roasted nuts tempting us forward, I might be brushing elbows with a fisherman or a priest from the castle temple.

It's a pickpocket’s paradise.

My hands are swift and feather-light, barely touching on one person before moving to the next. I slip a pouch of coins from the tawdry belt of a nobleman and into my cloak. A girl runs past in a hairnet studded with seed-pearls, and I'm gone with the thing in hand even as her hair tumbles over her shoulders. A woman whose veil marks her as a harem girl makes the mistake of flashing her golden bangles, and I purposefully stumble into her, sliding them off her arms under the guise of steadying her. When she shouts, “Thief! Give that back, diabhal!”, a bubble of laughter escapes me, because really, does she expect I’ll turn about and hand them right over at her say so?

Even if anyone cared enough to notice—which is rare at a Fest, since anyone who’s robbed is simply told to have better sense next time—I’m lost in the shuffle quicker than a jackrabbit. Gods, I love this.

It’s the elation that triggers it. A voice of warning in my head, telling me to slow down. Reluctantly, I tuck my hands into my sleeves and take a deep, calming breath. I can’t let meself get caught up in the moment. One slip, one look at my hair, and I’m done for. There aren’t many witches in Gaelfre. It’d take less than a day to round us up.

For a moment, I am positively serene. Then I catch sight of the market, and deithe thuas, it’s even larger than last year.

The voice nags again. I remind it that I know what I’m doing. I am practiced in the way that only the threat of an empty stomach and sleeping on the street can teach a person.

Not that I’m under the delusion that I steal solely what I need. Half measures never got anyone anywhere, if you ask me.

I eye the flock of festive stalls, where vendors sell every imaginable ware from ribbons to pots to magic cures. My pockets are getting full, but I wonder if I could fit a dagger….

“Gwyn.”

My heart jumps into my throat at the hiss— but it’s only Aidan, materializing at my shoulder like a ghoul.

I smack him, annoyed. “Ye gods, don’t sneak up on me like that! I thought you were drinking.”

“I got interrupted.” He grabs me by the arm. “Dance with me.”

Deaf to my protests, he drags me to the center of the square, where musicians play a boisterous market song and dozens of couples have lined up. With anyone else as handsome as Aidan, I might be pleased. But he’s ten years my senior, and the old boy is desperately in love with my friend Faolan. They’ve been sweethearts for ages. I’d never be able to stand him that long.

I scowl at Aidan as he pulls me through the first steps of the dance. “What’s this about?”

“Why are there soldiers watching the market, Gwyn?” His voice is remarkably calm, but his blue eyes are steely.

Soldiers.

The word tastes of fear: blood and rust and metal.

I go rigid, pulse racing too fast and too hard. “Soldiers? Where?” How did I miss them?

“Don’t look.” His grip on me tightens. “They’re not in armor. I only noticed because one of them drew his sword, and he had the king’s seal on his hilt.” Aidan glares down at me. “What trouble have you made?”

“Nothing!” I protest. Then, when he gives me an all-too-knowing look, I amend, “Nothing more than usual.”

He’s unconvinced. “Think.”

Huffing, I cast my mind back over the past couple weeks. The last few days have been occupied with non-stop traveling to Lunster, which meant no time for anything other than picking up a few odds and ends in towns we stopped over. Before that… well, there was the incident in Sian, but I’d worked that out.