The Spell Book
an excerpt

When the main course of roast venison and boar was over, Orren rose from his chair to make a speech. He raised his cup and took a breath, but his gaze fell upon the center of the hall, an open space that was meant for riotous dancing later. A figure stood there, and as he stared, the boisterous chattering first fell to a respectful murmur, then to deathly silence as the people turned their gaze from Orren to the figure.

It was a woman, dirty and in rags and horribly disfigured where her skin was blackened by burns. She stood stooped and stiff and shuddering but her eyes were bright and mobile. She held the attention of the room.

"Pigs!" She spat, nay, she shouted in a voice stronger than any believed possible from her appearance. "Barbarians! I come to beg for help and this is what I find? Plumed savages feasting in the wake of a hundred deaths?"

Orren's face turned pale. "Guards..." but his voice carried little conviction. Raum looked at his father, trying to understand, but the king would not meet his gaze.

"Yes, yes, that is what you would do," screamed the woman. "Drag me away and hide your shame. Cowards! Hiding in your mighty castle while your people die from unspoken evils. Oh, the dragon will strike again. I know! I have seen!"

The guards, in their newly-brilliant armor, approached the seething woman and made motions to gently lead her away and it was then they knew her for what she was. She flung her arms up, stiff and palms out. The force from her hands recoiled the guards and tossed them to their backs as one. A girl screamed and the men murmured and moved as if to leap from their benches, but they did not.

"Hear me now!" The witch ran her eyes over the crowd with scorn, stopping at Raum. She stalked towards him as she spoke. "You sit and know joy as your people die. Let it be now that you know only the loneliness and despair of death until you fulfill your duty to the land. Let it be now, on the eve of your wedding, that no love or affection can abide in your soul until you avenge the evils befallen your people."