Free The Awakening by Bevan McGuiness

occasional customer and she saw neither Wyn nor Niall. At night she sat in silence, staring at the fire dancing its mystic dance as it consumed the logs she had bought. The cracking of the flames was the only sound she heard; all the other noises seemed to drift past her without impinging on her consciousness. She stared intently, seeing every flicker and every waver of every flame as it licked hungrily at the logs.
    How long she would have been able to live like this, thinking of nothing else, she never knew, for one night she was disturbed by a heavy pounding at her door. Hwenfayre looked at the door, momentarily disoriented. What was she to do? The pounding came again and she remembered that she was expected to open the door in such situations.
    Slowly and stiffly, she stood and walked to the door.
    ‘Who is it?’ she asked through the wooden door.
    ‘Wyn,’ came the gruff reply.
    Hwenfayre opened the door. ‘Wyn,’ she asked, ‘what are you doing here?’
    ‘I,’ he paused, apparently groping for words, ‘I wanted to see you, to see how you were. I have not seen you for some days.’
    ‘I am well, thank you,’ she replied, unwilling to enter into a conversation that might require her to talk about the past few days.
    ‘Good,’ he said. He stood there, uncomfortable, in her doorway.
    ‘Was there something else?’ Hwenfayre asked. She put as much dismissive disdain as she could into her voice, wishing him to leave.
    ‘Hwenfayre—’ he began.
    ‘Yes?’ she interrupted.
    ‘Hwenfayre, we need to talk. It’s about the other night, on the wall. Some of the men are talking, and…’ His voice trailed off uncertainly.
    ‘Come inside.’
    Once Wyn was inside, Hwenfayre looked up and down the street before closing and bolting her door. Wyn sat on the one chair.
    ‘So what are these men saying?’ she asked.
    ‘Hwenfayre, they are saying dangerous things. They say that you are a witch who has power over the very elements, and that you called up the storm that drove off the Raiders. They say that you have bewitched the Coerl, that you were the mysterious woman who was with him that night on the wall.’ He paused and stared intently into her lavender eyes. He stared for so long that she felt he was examining her very soul. Finally he broke off and continued. ‘Hwenfayre, it has even been said that you are somehow in league with the Raiders.’
    ‘But that is folly!’ she exclaimed. ‘How could theybelieve that I am both in league with them and that I called up the storm that drove them off? Surely they must know that I am no sorcerer!’
    ‘Some of the men were badly shaken by the storm. They are ready to believe anything just now. Especially now that there are stories of the Children of Danan around town.’
    ‘The who?’
    ‘The Sea Wanderers, the Faeries of the Wave, the Sea Dancers, the Fish-lovers. Surely you have heard tales of them?’
    ‘Oh yes, the Sea Dancers, I have heard of them. What of them?’
    ‘Haven’t you heard the stories of how they are able to control the Sea and the mighty beasts of the deep? What of the tales of their unholy rites? How they sacrifice their children to the waters and eat their captives in rituals too black to describe. Surely you know that they are the very image of evil?’ As he spoke, Wyn’s eyes grew hard and piercing. He glared at her, as if daring her to disagree, or perhaps to agree.
    ‘I have heard tales, yes. But not those. I have heard of their love for the sea, and their wondrous singing, and their beautiful ships. I have heard how they travel all their lives on the sea, never coming to land. But I have not heard any of the others.’
    ‘Hwenfayre,’ Wyn began, then paused. He had a look about him of one who has something to say, but is not sure how to. ‘Hwenfayre…’ His voice was gentle. ‘They do come to land.’
    The following day, Hwenfayre woke early. Wyn’s odd comments about the Children of Danan had playedon her mind all night,