Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 48193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 241(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 241(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
In the stories they tell afterward, they will have been within arm’s reach of Princess Charlotte’s gown and close enough to hear the vows she and Prince Adom will speak to each other. Mothers and fathers will tell their children stories of the day for years, and children will fall asleep hoping that one day they’ll be able to go to a royal wedding, too.
I get carried away with the vision of it and have to cough to clear my throat. Look at me—a few hours alone in a storm, safe in my cottage, and I’m having all kinds of feelings about a royal wedding that I do not want to attend.
Perhaps I should lie down and go to bed for the night. It must be toward evening. It is earlier than usual, that is true, but it is so dark that the time does not matter much.
If the storm isn’t going to let up, then the sound could send me to sleep. It’s not so different from the sea.
I have just committed to the idea when there is a knock at the door.
My body freezes, my legs as stiff as stone. I’m in a half-crouch, stuck between sitting and standing, and my thoughts are filled with the rain. Surely, I did not hear a knock. Surely, it was the rain or the wind—some element of the storm. A piece of earth blown across the hills and slapped wetly on the door.
But that knock—that imagined knock, I only thought it was a knock—did not sound wet, like a piece of earth. My heart bucks and a fear I recognize all too well comes over me.
I do not move, other than my pounding heart. It was nothing. It was nothing, and I have nothing to fear.
Another knock comes.
This one is undeniable. Despite the rain, so loud on the roof that I can hardly hear my own breathing, and despite the wind, which howls past the cottage, that is unmistakably someone’s fist pounding at the door. My throat dries and tightens. Did I not cast the spell to not be seen?
I imagine the size of the fist it would take to make that sound, audible over the rain, and the strength someone would need to possess. Even to reach the cottage in the first place cannot have been easy.
Dread fills me, chilling me from head to toe. I wave a hand at the shutters out of an old habit, but they are firmly shut and latched so tight that even my panicked magic does not budge them.
Whoever is outside cannot get in…unless they have the strength to break down the door or punch through my protection spells and the walls itself.
More questions flood my mind, carrying on the wave of my dread. Who would come here in the middle of a terrible storm? Who in all the lands would think to knock on my door? I know the rumors that are said about me in every village I have ever visited, because I have had a hand in starting those rumors. On the few occasions that I’ve left the cottage and spent time in cities and villages since I lost my coven, I have made a point of asking a quiet question or two to someone in a tavern who looks like they are fond of travel.
I do not exaggerate much. I am true to the extent of my powers, which are considerable in comparison to someone who cannot wield magic. I am also true to my desire to be left alone.
I have heard there is a witch in Athica who lives by herself, I will say, keeping my voice low and checking over my shoulder as if I expect to be overheard. I have heard she is powerful and angry. Have you heard of this witch? She requires many miles of space around her cottage or else… I let the person I am talking to fill in the blank of what or else might mean.
Gossip is a tried and true way to put information into the world. Travelers need some form of payment for their presence at an inn, and a neat piece of gossip is a way to form quick bonds with other people. I know these travelers.
And yet someone is here. In all the years no one has dared. Perhaps they know not where they are or who I am. A lost wanderer in the storm. Empathy overwhelms me but still I am wise to keep my guard up.
Cautiously, I finish standing up, shaking myself out of my frozen, indecisive state.
It is only a few steps to the kitchen, where the athame hangs from a hook, cradled in a leather sheath. I swing the sheath over my head and pull it into place on my shoulder, then draw the athame.