Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“I am Emily. Witch of Eversong. I am the daughter of Emelia, Granddaughter of Evangeline, and direct descendant of Eve. I have one purpose: to tend to those who live in my village and ensure their safety against all threats. While acting in their defense I cannot be harmed.”
I feel a wind playing with my hair, though there is not so much as a breeze on this ship. Where I stand is our territory. Our village is not a place on the Earth. It exists where I, and my people exist. Our village can be anywhere. It has never been this far from the surface of the planet before, I suppose, but that makes no practical difference. We bring our humanity with us.
“Witch? A human superstition,” Phenix’s voice shakes even as he tries to argue with his own experience.
“Not a superstition, an old custom. One squandered by those who gave up the ways of the small world for the new one. Everyone used to know that there is power in community, the same way there is power in family. People still say those things. They just don’t know what the words mean.”
There’s a stunned silence.
“The funny thing is,” I say, seeing as I have the floor. “Pastor Jay was a real handbrake on the whole affair. His beliefs confused people, weakened the old bonds, separated us from the old ways. And then one of your idiot aliens threw him out of a spaceship. Since then I have never been more powerful.”
“A real human witch,” Phenix says, standing upright. “At the height of her powers too. How fascinating.”
“I am not at the height of my power. I am just barely getting started demonstrating what humanity truly is, what community really means.”
He looks at me with the gaze of a man who does not have a clue what I am talking about. I elaborate.
“My power does not come from physical matter. It comes from the fact that people matter.”
Phenix groans at me. “How saccharine and pathetic,” he says. “How absolutely….”
I smell chicken soup again. I smell fresh balls of yarn. I smell peppermint crushed into a mortar. I remind myself fully and completely who I am, who I was knit into creation to be.
His soldiers are flanking me. It is clear that they mean to apprehend me. Again, they believe me to be weak. They think whatever happened to Phenix was some kind of trick, or fluke. My next move will be much more concrete and pedestrian.
They are careless. Even though at every turn we have bested them, these aliens still believe that their greater stature and telepathy and their fancy ships mean something. But they mean nothing when they put their weapons in range of human hands.
There is another kind of magic I am familiar with. A simple, brutal, base magic called: opportunity.
I pull the side arm from the closest soldier, I lift it square in front of my face, and I shoot Phenix Wrathelder right in the middle of his. His head jerks back as a blast of energy obliterates his skull, turning his unpleasant features into a mash of basic biology.
“Holy shit!” I hear Commander Rex crow behind me.
“Emily!” Zain shouts my name.
I turn the gun toward him and pull the trigger four more times in quick succession. BAM BAM BAM BAM.
After the final shot, Zain leaps up, the chains falling from his limbs. Each and every one of my shots was aimed true, which is fortunate for him because it means the chains were broken rather than his arms and his legs being blown off.
Zain rushes for me, gripping me and pulling me forward before thrusting me behind him. The Wrathelder soldiers don’t know what to do. They are shocked by how quickly their leader was dispatched, as am I. I’ve never hurt anybody in my life, and now I’ve point blank killed someone. I had no idea it was so easy. I keep the weapon in my hand in case I need it again, but I do not.
The soldiers and the villagers and Zain do what the soldiers and the villagers and Zain have always done: kill everything that needs killing.
10
When everybody who needs to be dead is dead, Zain comes to me and wraps me up in his arms. I let him hug me, because his embrace makes me feel like I am whole in a way I do not feel without him. For a moment, all is well and all is forgiven. Then he speaks.
“You’re a witch. You should have told me. You should have told me a lot of things. Like what a good shot you are.”
“Agreed,” Commander Rex says from the rear. “I’d add that witch to our battalion any day.”
My grandmother made sure I knew how to defend myself. Just because I seem sweet and quiet and like hand-knitted clothes doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use a weapon. She also taught me to keep my power to myself until it was absolutely necessarily needed. I like to think I made her proud today. But I can’t bask in pride, or even relief, because Zain’s arrogance makes my indignation flare into absolute outrage.