RED MAGIC
The Othala Witch Collection:
SECTOR 6
by
JC Andrijeski
Copyright © 2016 by JC Andrijeski
Published by White Sun Press
Cover Art & Design by K. de Long
2016
Ebook Edition, License Notes
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Synopsis for RED MAGIC
“You’re not white magic at all. Not a bit o’ ye. You’re red magic... like me.”
Born to be successor to the Regent’s throne, and the highest-ranked witch in the holy lands of District 6, Maia sees her birthright as little more than a genetic practical joke, and a source of constant worry. Unlike every other witch Maia knows, and certainly her mother, Maia is a hopelessly, terrible witch. She can’t do magic at all, no matter how hard she tries.
Faced with the looming humiliation of being replaced as successor to the throne, Maia is on the verge of giving up when a chance meeting on a lonely pier changes everything for her.
A lone, angry warlock makes a deal with her that morning: he’ll tell her who and what she really is, if she agrees to set him free. The fact that’s handsome, frustratingly familiar in some way she can’t pinpoint, and seems to know more about her than she knows herself, causes her to take his questionable deal.
In doing so, Maia learns things about her perfect, idyllic kingdom that she never wanted to know, and nothing in her life will ever be the same again.
To the end of an era...
And yes, the start of a new one.
One steeped in the magic of women and men
Sun and Moon
Heart and Mind
Night and Day
Love and Truth
Chapter 1
WATER MARKET
RED MEAT SIZZLED when it hit the grill, sending up a curl of steam and a blast of rich, blood-like scent that filled my nose and mouth.
My stomach growled.
I’m not supposed to eat meat.
I walked through the aisles of the Water Market like a tourist, trying not to feel guilty as I inhaled as much of the rich, meaty smells as I could in the short time I had before I must present myself at the gates of the wat, or temple where I attended witches’ school.
I shared that privilege––that it was a privilege, I was oft-reminded by my mother, my attendants at the palace, and the monks who taught at the school––along with the rest of the witches descended of royal blood in the capitol city of Krungthoi.
I had friends at that school, having attended since I was a child. Some were dear to me, despite the distance they felt necessary to keep from me, given the oddness of my station.
But I’d always been a stranger there, too.
It was the only life I’d ever known, but I’d never belonged in it.
I made my way leisurely through the market’s stalls, despite my awareness of the latening hour. I knew it was foolish to tarry here for long, but like most days, I ignored that nagging voice. Some deeper part of me needed this, despite the risks of being discovered.
As per my mother’s instructions, which were the same every day, my attendants cloaked me in an ankle-length, high-waisted dress of gray that obscured most of my figure, all the way down to my feet. I wore nondescript shoes, nothing like the jeweled sandals currently in favor at the palace court. My face was painted to make me blend in, as well, but I knew the disguise was never quite enough, if only from the second looks and puzzled stares I received.
The fabric of the sack-like dress was still finer than any I saw worn in the markets or on the streets. My face was still wrong; my figure, more wrong still.
My attendants did my long hair up and back like a commoner, but it still had small pins in it, adorned with semi-precious stones. My skin was still the wrong color, my hips and breasts too curved, my hair too curly even though they styled it as if those curls had been ironed in with rollers and heat, like the other girls at school.
They painted my face nearly white, even my lips, since my darker complexion embarrassed my mother, as well. She cursed me for having some strain of “foreign” blood, from my father’s side of the family, she claimed––which apparently had pirate blood from generations back. She also implied that blood had more human than magic in it.
To her, to call it human was like calling it animal blood.
In any case, I didn’t know the identity of my father, so I could hardly argue the point. I had yet to find anyone in the palace or outside of it, who knew anything of him, or my mother’s marriage. It supposedly took place on one of the islands, and lasted mere months before the unfortunate warlock died, leaving her a widow. From what I could tell, I was the only evidence the union had ever taken place.
Even with all of my embarrassing qualities, I knew my mother would be furious to find me here, mingling among commoners and petty thieves.
Coming to the Water Market was a dirty little secret of mine.
To the monks, it would be like discovering I visited drug houses in the eastern bloc of the city... or hid pornography in the leaves of the scripture I’d been forced to memorize and recite since I was a child. I wasn’t a child anymore, having just turned twenty, but I also could not be permitted to make my own rules.
Next in line for the Regent’s chair––by tradition at least––I was technically the senior magic-woman, or maemd, in my generation of witches.
I was envied for that fact, by every witch and warlock who knew the truth of who I was. At the same time, many smirked at the irony of my parentage, and in truth, I could scarcely blame them. The joke behind their smirks was quite a funny one, cosmically-speaking.
You see, I was an absolutely terrible witch.
Meaning, I wasn’t any good at magic at all.
According to my long line of dedicated instructors, the monks who oversaw us young witches and prepared us to join in our sacred duties, I displayed poor instincts and ability in all things. If I was supposed to go left, my instincts pulled me right. If I was meant to hold back, my instincts told me to charge forward.
I could barely eke real magic from the spells we repeated every morning to purify the wat’s main temple, and I’d been repeating those mantras since I was six years old.
Sadly, I could not hand my birthright to someone else, as much as I wanted. I could never be normal, as much as I wished for that, too. As a result, I viewed myself sourly as a prisoner of my own genetics, and would have gladly handed the role to any one of them.
The ban on eating meat was only one I must adhere to, in a list longer than both my arms.
Many things were forbidden a witch of my station.
Sex. Eating meat. Walking barefoot outside the royal grounds. Bathing in water that had not been purified by one of the Regent’s monks. Touching commoners with my bare hands. Baring my legs in public. Cutting my hair. Showing affection publicly. Showing emotion publicly. Spending a night on a material other than the five specified as approved for a Regent’s Blood: baby goose down from the Royal Aviary, cotton woven by the Regent’s weavers
, silk from the Regent’s personal store of silkworms... and two more that escape me.
The list was long, as I said.
Given how awful I was in my incantations and spells, much less any actual summoning and conjuring power, I had no excuse to break the rules and I knew it.
On the other hand, a more rebellious part of me whispered. What possible difference could it make, to throw those stupid rules to the wind, given what I was?
Walking the dimly-lit market, I mused over the irony of how much freer the commoners around me were. Watching them laugh and argue with one another, hug their children and their friends, touch hands and pour water over their heads in the heat, sing at their work and grin at strangers, I felt an unambiguous envy of their entire way of life.
They were not even bound by the code of non-killing, or “no-harm,” that all witches of royal blood must adhere to.
Ilawanai, first great witch and Regent, protector of our beloved District 6, long ago promised the elder monks that her people would wield magic according to the humans’ sacred laws.
As a result, rather than an army or some other weapon of mass destruction, Ilawanai created Heaven’s Sky to protect us from the ravagers outside the gates.
That protective barrier of illusion had for hundreds of years now enclosed the entirety of District 6. Walls and water assisted, of course––but it was Heaven’s Sky, with its constantly morphing clouds of illusion and disorientation, that truly kept the ravagers out.
According to the royal succession order, I, Maiwe Laiyalara Murretisolrani Mayarani––or “Maia” for short––was next in line to be the Sky’s grand architect and protector. Once I reached the age of twenty-one years, I would be technically eligible to take that role.
Of course, I knew that reality was likely years away, given the good health and relative youth of the current Regent. The basic facts remained the same, however.
At some point, I was meant to rule as Regent of District 6.
But that would not happen, I knew.
If I continued to show myself incompetent in even the most basic magical ability, my Aunt Kalia, current Regent of District 6, would be forced to find another to take my place.
Several possibilities faced me in that, none of them good.
Battling the warring thoughts in my mind through gritted teeth, I inhaled another lungful of cooking meat and my stomach growled.
I had mere months before my twenty-first birthday.
I knew I might be banished.
Some would expect me to kill myself.
It was a strange sort of paradox, that killing oneself to save face remained culturally respectable, despite the edicts against killing others, even ravagers. I knew there were those who would see it as an honorable way to die––saving my family from shame and paving the way for a new leader to take the Regent’s chair. It would even redeem my lack of talent in the eyes of those who cursed me for it now. I strongly suspected my mother would approve, no matter how loudly she wailed at my funeral afterwards.
My stomach growled again, even more loudly.
I had reached the middle of the market, and the myriad of smells now threatened to overwhelm me. My nose still managed to pick out the smell of meat, however, even above all the rest. I had been here often enough now, I could distinguish each animal by scent alone: ox, beef, mutton, pork, chicken, fish, clams, squid, duck, pigeon.
I’d always had an uncanny sense of smell... and taste.
Not that it did me much good.
In the monastery, all of the food was so bland I could barely distinguish one meal from the next. In the palace, the food wasn’t much better to my mind.
My few gifts were as useless as the rest of me.
Perhaps this was where I should go when I could no longer outrun my failure as a witch. I could disappear into the markets, become a water pirate or a bandit. Eat meat and get dirty and swear with others who lived on the docks. I’d be so dark-skinned and filthy without the make-up, my aura so covered in meat and impure thoughts, they’d never find me again.
The thought made me smile... a little bit, at least.
The market went for miles along the banks of the river, spanning most of the city’s Old Town, all the way to the very edge of the Regent’s Palace. Despite its size, the vast majority of it was crammed with people, dark and chaotic and loud. While many of the locals knew and called to one another as they walked by, I could pass through as one invisible.
The market did not care about me.
I’d been told once by my uncle that the whole area by the canals used to be covered in fancy hotels and apartments overlooking the water.
Now miles of water-warped wood and rusted metal blocked most of the view of the river.
The snaking, warehouse-like buildings teemed with vendors hawking everything from textiles to dried and fresh fruit, cooking pots, utensils, glass bowls and cups, clothing of all kinds, oil for lamps, gas burners for cooking, brooms, pets, pottery, plants, livestock, pieces of broken machinery, wires and cables, scrap metal, vegetables from the north and south, wall hangings, old engines, lamps, vacuum cleaners, shovels, paintings on tiles and warped canvases, stone amulets and carvings, necklaces and magic charms, herbs and powders for cooking and for spells, black market items of various kinds...
And of course the meat.
Common humans had no qualms about eating dead flesh.
From what I witnessed, they ate a lot of it.
They wandered the markets, chewing on bite-sized chunks grilled with pineapple and red peppers on wooden spears. They ate it with rice and noodles, in broth and off the bone. I watched them haggle with vendors over larger amounts, as well, presumably to bring home and cook for their families.
I wandered those same aisles, staring at all the objects laid out on the floor and on wooden and plastic tables. No one talked to me, but I smiled and nodded where I could.
In particular, I found the animals fascinating, particularly the exotic ones. I stared in fascination as a blue and gray lizard larger than a good-sized shepherd dog snapped at a passing vender’s ankle, hissing as it lashed its tail.
The lizard turned on me next, still hissing... then it stopped.
Tilting its head, it blinked up at me.
Holding my breath, I studied its coal-black eyes.
I found myself relaxing at something I saw there. I couldn’t explain it really, that feeling of kinship, but it bordered on recognition, the longer I looked at the thing.
The lizard didn’t move, not even to snap at others passing by. It appeared transfixed by me, yet I no longer saw any hostility in its pose. Even when its owner started to drag it back by the chain around its neck, it continued looking up at me, flicking its tongue in an oddly sensual manner, as if in hello. When the owner continued to yank it back, it dug menacing-looking claws into the wood floor by the stall, trying to remain where it was.
“You shouldn’t be chained,” I told it softly.
It cocked its head at me, flicking out its black tongue.
“You shouldn’t be chained,” I repeated. “You’re far too beautiful to be chained. You should be free... like me. Both of us should be free.”
The owner was yelling at me now, still dragging the lizard back, now with the help of a larger friend who wore clog sandals and cut-off shorts. The two of them strained against the thing’s collar, trying to get it back under the table.
The lizard didn’t struggle or snap at them, but gazed only at me.
Free me... I heard softly in my mind. Free me, beautiful one... free me... and I will free you.
I didn’t flinch. The words didn’t scare me.
Rather they brought a swell of emotion to my chest.
I watched it, seeing the intelligence in its eyes...
Free me. Free us both...
...when something smacked hard into my back.
Jumping violently, I turned, startled, to find an old woman carrying a basket of limes and cucumbers on her head. She sc
olded me for blocking the way. I murmured an apology, helping her pick up the fruits that had fallen to the dirty wood.
When I had finished and turned to find the lizard again, it was gone.
I scanned the whole area where it had been, and finally saw the last of it as it was being shoved under the table by three men who now held its whipping tail and hind legs as they maneuvered it into a metal box.
The man who I’d first seen holding its leash began to yell at me once more, motioning for me to go away when he noticed my stare. I didn’t understand most of his words, or even recognize the language.
One word in particular stood out, however.
“Witch!” he accused, pointing at my face. “Witch!”
I’d never had someone say that to me as if it were a bad thing.
He said a string of other words I missed, with “witch” thrown in liberally for emphasis. When he began walking in my direction, I turned to escape and nearly trampled a small child crawling on its hands and knees, reaching for a tumbled heap of puppies caged on the floor. The little girl barely seemed to notice me as she strained for them, fingers extended and covered in something purple that looked sticky.
Forcing the lizard from my mind, and the strange voice I’d heard, I wrapped my arms around my waist and began making my way back to the main path through the market.
I was very close to the river now; the smell of it filled my nose.
I could glimpse gray water through the slatted walls of the river-facing side of the warehouse. This part of the market was also the darkest, and thick with the smells of human life, in addition to the animal and river smells that mixed in the stagnant air.
I knew all of this should repulse me.
The monks would call it the smell of death, of decay. They would say the killing and eating of animals only demonstrated the fundamental corruption of life in the material world.
Red Magic: an Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector 6 (The Othala Witch Collection) Page 1