Free Water Witch by Thea Atkinson Page B

her heels as
Alaysha did her best to leave her father's camp as sedately as she could. She
didn't want him or any of his guard to know how it all had affected her.
Ferret, on the other hand, couldn't seem to get away fast enough and when
stepping on Alaysha's heels failed to propel her faster, she took to darting in
front, running ahead, then having to come all the way back.
    At one point, Alaysha tried to wave her
off. She really wanted to be alone. She'd always known number nineteen was
supposed to die, and she'd always killed for her father without question, but
now it seemed wrong. A warrior -- man or woman -- did as was bid in war; it was
what they did. It was their duty. The Emir called them to service and the thing
was done. There were no questions, no regrets. Some died in service, some
lived, and some retired to teaching the craft to the youngers. Alaysha had
trained the same as the rest, except her lessons had been of necessity,
private. Several skilled men and women went down in service to training while
they tried to teach the young witch the ways of offense and defense.
    She let Ferret skip ahead, dodging a loose
hound returning from the hunt, and watched her halt suddenly, slink to the
side, and disappear into the trees.
    Several of Drahl's scouts had gathered
around the fire pit, lifting their open mouths to the light rain. The fire
sizzled next to them, sending puffs of smoke heavenward. Alaysha paused to
watch them and to brood over the dozens of people who came from their tents
with hollowed gourds to collect the water. They, like Yuri, would think she had
brought the rain purposely and they still wouldn't be grateful. And their lack
of gratitude was still solidly set in fear.
    She'd trained as a warrior over years, and
in her first months, she killed daily because she couldn't control the fear
that brought the power. Each day in a tilt yard past the South wall she practiced.
Two men went down the first day, then two more, the next. Yuri realized after
that to tell his warriors to go easily on the six-year-old and they might live.
    In the end, none of those early trainers
did. As her prowess grew, they trained her harder, fiercer. It was only a
matter of time before the trainer did something that brought her fear, and then
he would just suddenly stop, then fall like a limb cut from a tree to the dust.
And Alaysha would pluck the eyes from the soil and hoard them in a pouch she
hid in a hole in her room beneath the earth.
    It was a memory she would rather not have
recalled. Those days when her father was trying to help her learn control, when
her power was still in its infancy and confined to a few short paces, Yuri
quickly realized he couldn't keep sparing his trainers or his warriors, and he
soon sent in slaves. They were even fiercer than the warriors, and far less
decisive. That made them more frightening.
    Only later did she learn they were offered
freedom for themselves and their families if they could just kill the witch.
    And so they trained more desperately than
any trainer or warrior ever could.
    She never gained full control of the
ever-growing power. She was able to project it, certainly, but not call it
back, and if genuinely frightened, it sometimes came upon her unawares. But she
did at least learn to become desensitized to fear of attack and death. Yuri had
most definitely given her that.
    Maybe too much so.
    Yuri's threat of her death had no effect on
her, but he did not know that. In truth, she thought she'd welcome it after all
this time. She had nothing left to live for. Existence was not the same thing
as living.
    She reached her own campsite and began
gathering her things. Better to live alone than to live as a piece of air no
more useful than to be inhaled and expelled without thought.
    Yuri would believe at first she was off to
do his bidding, and that suited her. Later, when she didn't return, he would
begin to suspect the truth, and he might send Drahl to search for her.
    She would