Water Witch by Thea Atkinson Page B

speak. She
looked down at her, trying to focus on her mouth. "What?" she asked
her.
    "I said what would they do?"
    "You heard that?"
    "I've ears, haven't I?"
    "I thought I --"
    "You thought you weren't
speaking." The girl shrugged. "They'll have figured it out by
now." She pointed to the water station where several warriors were tipping
clay jugs over and over, finding only puddles of water within to slake their
thirst.
    "It's why they're afraid of you?"
    Yes. It was why they were afraid. Still,
this was the tribe that had brought her up. She couldn't stand to see the
suffering. She had to do something. Surely she could bring rain. So what if she'd
only killed a few and thirsted out only surface water. It wasn't right.
    "I have to do something." As much
as she wanted to go the other way, she forced her feet toward the laundresses
and her dead baby. How old must it have been? Weeks, surely, it was so small.
    She stepped close enough to stand over the
woman who held the tiny corpse in her arms. Alaysha could tell it hadn't been
dried out completely. The eyes were closed, but they were still round beneath
the lids. The tiny hands hanging from the swaddling blanket were gray and
lifeless, but not brown and leathered.
    Maybe she hadn't thirsted the life from it;
maybe she wasn't responsible for all of this.
    The woman must have felt her presence. She
glanced up, pain streaking her features. Within a flash that pain transformed
to rage when she saw Alaysha standing there.
    "You killed her." The lips, dry
and crackled as they were, had a hard time forming the words, but the tone was
unmistakable.
    "I didn't mean --"
    "What good can come from suffering a
witch in camp, in the Emir's reach? Living in fear you'll lose control. Well,
go on drink me too. Send me to my babe."
    "I can't."
    "You won't." The woman would have
spit at her, Alaysha knew, if she could have gathered the fluid.
    "You think I don't know you? You think
I don't know what you are, about your kind?"
    "My kind?"
    The woman would say no more. She stared
ahead for countless minutes and then went about moaning aloud again, rocking
over the form she held. Her grief was so painful, so personal, Alaysha had to
hug her stomach to keep from vomiting.
    A dry hand took hers, and she looked down
into a pair of muddy, concerned eyes.
    "Come on," the girl said.
"We have to leave her."
    A tug, and a deliberate pull so Alaysha's
arm stretched up and out.
    "We can't do anything for her,"
the girl said.
    Breaking her fast didn't seem appropriate
now. The two staggered to the camp, searching for, and finding subtle notices
that the power had indeed begun its work.
    Thankfully, however, there were no more
deaths: only dry gazes from the tribe and desperate, futile searches for water.
The ground was dry -- no morning dew -- but other than that, it was clear the
camp had weathered the worst of the drought.
    Alaysha was relieved until she caught sight
of Drahl making a deliberate path toward her, his bear skin cloak sailing
behind him from the force of his stride. She had a feeling her father's morning
brew had been drunk of its liquid, leaving the bitter, psyche-strengthening
dregs of herbs behind.
    She reached out to grab the girl's hand but
clutched at air instead. She wasn't gone exactly, just had wandered aimlessly
toward a tent smelling of cinnamon and oats. Probably scouting for fare easier
to get than Cook's stomach-fortifying roasted boar slabs.
    Drahl stopped a few paces from her, staring
sidelong at the woman still wailing over her baby. "The great Yuri,
Conqueror of Hordes --"
    "Leader of Thousands, yes, I know the
title," Alaysha said, sighing. "What does he want?"
    "He wants the witch to stand before
him." Drahl wouldn't meet her eyes we spoke, but neither would he keep his
attention on the mourner.
    "Has it to do with a sudden lack of
water?"
    He did look at her then, and Alaysha could
almost taste the spit he would have sent her way if he'd had enough available
to do so.
    "The