1st 5 Pages October Workshop - Harris Rev 2

Name: Lynn Harris

Title: VALISTA

Genre: YA fantasy

Pitch:

Stolen from her desert tribe, sixteen-year-old empath Adanya is cursed to fatten a predatory witch who feeds on fear. Her torment becomes the witch’s meal of choice.

Prince Regin’s glorious destiny is to lead his father’s forces and annihilate the desert tribes. But when he finds Adanya in the clutches of the witch and they fall in love, Regin realizes he must defy his father’s command. 

The only one who covets the imminent war more than Regin’s father is the witch, who knows she will feast on the suffering it elicits. To mitigate the witch’s curse and save their homelands, Adanya and Regin must journey to Valista, a world where their fears take life-threatening forms. Their bond is tested, and a new truth emerges—there’s more to the witch’s interest in Adanya than merely as a meal.

Told in alternating perspectives, VALISTA, a YA fantasy, explores how courage can survive amidst oppression and hate, and how fear drives religious oppression. The manuscript would appeal to fans of THE WINNER’S CURSE by Marie Rutkoski, STOLEN SONGBIRD by Danielle L. Jensen, and SNOW LIKE ASHES by Sara Raasch. It is complete at 95,000 words and is a stand-alone work with series potential.

Revision:

Why wasn’t it you?

Father’s words are like a well-honed blade through my flesh.

Kneeling beside his pallet on the floor, I blot his feverish brow with a damp cloth. His body shudders as he coughs, a wet sound that deposits blood on his lower lip, then he gurgles on his inhalation. I wash the red droplets away, something I’ve done for weeks now that he can’t, and rinse the rag in a bowl of water beside me. 

Why wasn’t it you?

I swipe my sleeve over my own sweaty brow, despising this shadow that haunts me. Father only said it once, on the first full moon after the summer solstice, the day chosen to celebrate my birth, staring at me with eyes blurry from cactus wine. I was barely five, but I remember his voice, thick with alcohol and torment. He hadn’t accepted life as it was—a wretched daughter but no wife, his beloved lost to childbirth. 

I mended his clothes. I cooked his favorite meals. Sheared our sheep and traded our wool while he blunted his pain in drink. It was never enough. He never wanted me.

Yet I do all I can to hold on to him.

Staccato raps sound on our door, snapping me from my thoughts, and my heart stutters. The village healer. She’s seen fit to come.

I hurry across the packed-dirt floor and open the door. The healer’s expression is aloof, but her emotions rip through me as if they were my own. I fight my body’s responses—her disdain urges my eyes to narrow, her scorn clenches my jaw. She’d rather be anywhere but here. 

Keeping my face composed, I step from the threshold. “Please come in.”

She enters, saying nothing, her satchel slung over her shoulder. She glances around our mud hut with a grimace, and my gaze follows hers. A single room. Thread-bare rugs. Sleeping pallets on the floor instead of the usual cots. Nothing like the lavish quarters of a healer. 

My lips tighten—I know it’s sparse. I don’t need her to remind me. 

The healer kneels by Father and places a hand on his forehead. The faint flicker of our fire illuminates the goddess tattoo at the pulse point on her neck. Pulling her satchel forward, she retrieves a poppet crafted from coarse fabric with a simple painted face and places the doll on Father’s chest. She slides a necklace from inside her shirt, kisses the dark, jadeite stone lashed to its leather tie, and lays it on the poppet.

I wrap my fingers around my own necklace. We all carry them, these green minerals found in the mountains far to the north. We keep them close for comfort and small healings, but the healer uses a large one, one free of imperfections. From across the room, its pulsing energy thumps against my skin, dwarfing the gentle throb of my own stone.

The healer rests a hand on her gem, another on Father’s chest, and begins to chant in the ancient language of our people, using the stone as a conduit to remove the sickness from his body and transfer it to the poppet. I slip out the open door into the desert sunshine. 

Leaning my back against our hut, I close my eyes and suck in the fresh air, the dry heat is as familiar as my own skin. The sounds of our village drift to my ears. Women bargaining at the market. The rhythm of small feet at play. An occasional old man’s laugh. Sounds so normal they make my chest ache.

A hint of a breeze brings me the familiar smell of hay and dung from our barn. I should tend to our neglected flock while I can. Stealing away while Father slept has allowed me to feed and water them, but there’s a pregnant ewe that needs watching. 

My shoulders stay pinned to the wall. They stiffen when the healer calls my name. 

Adanya. I don’t hear the name often. It’s ironic I carry it. It means ‘Her father’s daughter.’ Father never uses it. He calls me Girl.

The healer repeats the call, her tone harsh. I don’t move, my fists tight to my thighs. She joins me outside our hut, and her face is creased in a deep frown. “It is not good,” she says. 

I choke on the lump in my throat. Our relationship is not much, but Father is all I have. 

She hands me the poppet. “I’ve transferred what sickness I could. Burn it to cleanse your hut.”

Sensing her eagerness to be done with this business, I hand her the bag of wool I placed outside the door days ago, hoping she’d come. She hurries away as all villagers do when forced to visit us. Father’s angry outbursts and erratic behavior drove them away years ago. They avoid him. And me.

Clutching the doll in my hand, I wrap my arms around my stomach and enter the hut. The stench of sickness hangs in the air. A few steps take me to the fire, and I toss the poppet into the flames. It crackles and hisses when it ignites. Its smoke turns a bright green and forms a tornadic vapor that swirls out the smoke hole in the ceiling. The poppet disintegrates into ash.

When I return to Father, his dark eyes are open. I dampen the cloth in the bowl and mop his face and chest. His gaze, glassy with fever, locks onto mine, and he mutters, “Farai.”

I freeze at the use of my mother’s name. Before his illness, he often lamented how much I resemble her, his anguish seeping from every pore. He strokes my hair, hand trembling. “My Farai. So beautiful.” 

Love flows from him in a way I’ve never felt, and I squeeze my fingers around the cloth. This emotion is not for me.

Why wasn’t it you?

Father’s chest racks, and blood spews from his mouth, more than ever before. I dab the mess, but it keeps coming until he lies back on the pallet, eyes closed, barely breathing.

I scramble back, my breath ragged gasps. It didn’t work. The healer’s magic didn’t work. If he dies, the isolation … the loneliness …

I bolt blindly out the open door and stumble into the side of a horse. It whinnies and steps sideways, almost bumping another horse and rider, and the warrior on its back utters a coarse sound. “Watch yourself!” 

The warrior’s irritation lashes through me and curls my hands into fists. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, shrinking back toward my hut.

His face tightens, but he says nothing more, riding on with the other warrior. Goats crying in distress are tied across their mounts in front of them, and bulging burlap bags dangle from the horses’ flanks.

This is happening more often. Drought and crop failure have forced people from outlying areas into our village. The stress of feeding all the newcomers is forcing raids on enemy Andvari farms to ease our hunger. We’re allowed only two warriors to do this task by the Honani leader. The rest of our young men train with her deep in the desert, leaving those of us along the border—old men, women, and children—defenseless against Andvari reprisals. 

The riders stop in front of the village chief’s home and dismount. My neighbors congregate around the men, their voices loud and animated, congratulating the warriors on their success.