The Faery Godmother by Verity Goodwin

Author:Verity Goodwin [Goodwin, Verity]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

Morath,

I have to go. Please try to understand… I never meant for this to happen.

I know you won’t believe it now, but I do love you.

PART TWO:

ENTWINING

“Ho, there!”

Heads turned as a spectacle unfolded in the Windshire town square.

The speaker was a brash young man of perhaps twenty–b raw and handsome in a rough-cut way, manifestly aware of the eyes upon him. A young woman giggled, simpering in his direction. He grinned lazily, sending her a wink in return.

Hitching up his trews, he swaggered toward the center of the square, cutting a diagonal into the beeline that a grim-faced, dark-haired woman was making toward the Council Hall.

“Oh, Godmother !” he called, his voice ringing out in a way that invited even more attention.

The object of his attentions might as well have been made of stone for all the notice she took of him. As she continued on her course, the man hawked and spat on the ground. “I’m speaking to you! Are you deaf?”

He tilted his head to the side, obnoxiously smacking his ear as if to make water fall out. Still there was no response–until he threw himself into the woman’s path and grabbed her arm.

“Answer me! I require your services!”

Before anyone else had time to speak, to call out a warning, the young fool was on his back in the dirt, several lengths away from her.

Dazedly, he sat up. “What’s the matter?” he grumbled, brushing himself off. “Haven’t you ever been touched by a man before?”

Then a great blaze of rage surged across her face.

An expression of fear swept aside the man’s brazenness, but it was too late. Morath advanced on him, her hand held out with fingers splayed. Lightning crackled between their tips.

He scrambled backward in the dirt. One flick of her wrist froze him in place.

An enormous dust cloud swirled around the square, blocking them from view. A long, drawn-out scream followed.

The window of the hall flew open. “Morath!”

The cloud continued to swirl defiantly. Somewhere within its borders, the man shrieked again. “Help me, someone!”

The window slammed shut. A few moments later, the doors of the Town Hall flew open. Verath rushed out, the words of a spell tumbling from her.

The tornado in the square stopped cold, dust and dirt plummeting abruptly to the ground. Everyone craned their necks to see what had happened to the young fool.

Morath stood ominously still over the prone body of the sobbing, blubbering man. Realizing that he was free of her hold at last, he staggered to his feet, terror on his face.

A face that no longer reflected an animalistic attractiveness, but the premature weathering of a difficult, poverty-ridden life. Handsome features had been replaced by aged, sunburnt skin and drooping jowls.

Touching his cheeks with trembling hands, the young man hastened to look at his reflection in the water of the communal trough. “She’s destroyed me!” he howled, holding his head.

Verath took Morath by the arm and led her away, not speaking until they were safely inside the Hall again. “Really, you can’t go around doing things like that,” she scolded.

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