Soul of Magic (Soul of Magic Book 1)

TWO

The town which Kyra came upon at the end of the path was a lot farther than she could have anticipated. The night had already fallen and the moon risen before she arrived in. As she walked, lot of people kept glancing at her and she fully understood why. A woman, especially one of her age, didn't normally travel alone, not to talk about at that time of the night.

But understanding aside, the townspeople’s glances were the furthermost thing from Kyra’s mind at that moment. The sudden burst of strength that had gripped her earlier was gone and it replaced by an even larger feeling that she desperately had to see to; tiredness. "Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, Kyra," she said to herself as she walked. "One foot in front of the other."

She finally looked up as the road branched into various streets and realised then that she had no idea of the town's layout; she had been too busy avoiding the stares to ask. Fortunately, three men were passing by just then and made to ask them. However, not even one of them acknowledged her presence when she spoke to them, almost as if they were oblivious to her presence.

"Don't mind them, my girl. They're just being rude," said an old woman as she came up behind Kyra that she jumped with a start. But the old woman didn’t seem to notice her fright; or pretended not to. "Tell me, what are you doing outside all alone at this time of the night?" she asked.

"I just arrived in this town," she replied. "Can you please tell me where the tavern is?"

"By the Creator, you're travelling alone?" she said, her eyes widening in surprise as she looked Kyra from up to down again; she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. "How old are you?"

"I clocked seventeen three weeks ago," she replied, earning another scandalised look from the woman. "Please ma'am, I haven't had a decent meal all day, can you please point me towards the tavern?"

"Of course, my girl," she replied, giving Kyra a pitiful look and thinking she had probably run away from home to meet a man. "The tavern is just right down the road, don't turn to the left or to the right and you won't miss it."

"Thank you very much," replied Kyra, quickly continuing on her way before the woman could ask more about her supposed runaway.

True to her words, Kyra found the tavern right down the street, just a few buildings away from the point she had met the old woman.

The tavern was a grey heavy wood building. At just two floors high, it loomed over the town filled with only small houses. Its wall were pretty clean, its surface undisturbed; a clear sign that it was built recently. A sign of a pride of lions announcing the tavern as The Den hung above the doorpost, shaking as if in greeting when Kyra opened the door.

The inside of the tavern proved a lot warmer than the outside, courtesy of three hearths placed in the corner of the reasonably large establishment. The tables were distributed evenly across the room, some occupying as much as five chairs while others only held one. Some occupants of some tables had pulled in extra chairs to up to six round a table accommodate their numbers and others added extra tables to give more room for the steaming plates of food and foaming ales in front of them. But despite the cacophony of arrangements, the tavern surprisingly maintained a level of order; at least, as orderly as room full of drunken men could be.

Immediately Kyra closed the door behind her, all activities ceased and the eyes of everyone zoned in on her, nailing her to the spot.

"Hello," she breathed with a sheepish smile and a small wave and they all turned away, almost as if they together came to the conclusion that she wasn’t worth their time. Using her hair to hide her face, Kyra quickly crossed the room to an empty table at the far corner of the room. The last thing she needed was trouble and no one made trouble like a drunk.

"Welcome to The Den, what can I get you?" said a fat woman with a dirty brown apron who came to meet her as soon as she was seated.

"Please bring me your best loaf of bread, a bowl of meat sauce, and a cup of your best wine," she listed off and the woman turned to go and get her order ready when she stopped her. "Also, do you know where I may lodge in for the night?" she asked.

"Of course, my husband, Paul-" the woman pointed to a man at the top of the staircase in the room who waved back in response "-owns an inn. It's right upstairs."

"Thank you very much," Kyra replied, thanking the woman again as she brought the small feast to her.

“That would be three gold and two silver coins,” she said and Kyra immediately counted them into her hands.

The woman held a very surprised look as she left. It was customary for a customer to haggle a price before paying it and she would normally argue it for about three minutes before they even agreed to pay half of what she had demanded. But the young girl with the black hair had barely even blinked an eye before she paid and it baffled her.

What the woman didn’t know that the money that had used to pay for the food wasn't exactly hers, it was her uncle's. Thing is, her Uncle was so rich that he sometimes left coins lying around the house, forgetting to pick them up. Being the good daughter that she was, Kyra would pick the coins up after him until her pouch was full and then return it to him; only for him to lose them again and the whole process to begin anew.

But careless or not, her uncle’s habitual forgetfulness proved helpful to Kyra as she was now in possession of three pouches filled with gold and silver coins in her satchel, making her almost, if not the, richest woman in the land; not that any man in the room would allow it to remain that if they knew. And she wasn’t prepared to let them know.

Like an underfed animal, Kyra descended on her meal ravenously, forgetting for a few minutes what she had been taught her about how a proper lady should behave in public. She had just finished her meal, playing with a piece of bone and enjoying the cup of wine in her hand as she crossed her legs on the table, much to the disapproving glares of the people around, when commotion suddenly erupted outside.

"It's happening again," announced one of the men as he stood up with a flagon of ale in his hand and swayed outside. The other men seemed to understand what he was talking about as they all followed him outside too, different expressions on their faces from anger, to excitement, to just utter boredom. Kyra had no idea what was going on but she followed suit anyway, more out of curiosity than anything.

Stepping outside, she realised that the whole town seemed to have converged in one place. Everywhere was so tightly packed that it was add to see around anything. At the very back, Kyra shoved her way to the front and then wished she hadn’t. In the middle of the converge clearing, a man half beaten to death was been dragged in circle by the horse rode by another man who was clearly the richer and more powerful of the two. Some of the crowd cheered him, others jeered him; but none made any impression on the man as he looked as if he might as well be the lord of the realm.

All of a sudden, a woman burst out of the crowd, running in an attempt to help the dragged man and stop the man dragging him. She failed in both attempts. "Please, have mercy!" she shouted, tears running down her face as she ran after the man on the horse. “Don’t do this, I’m begging you.”

But the rich man wouldn't listen. "Now you’ll see what happens to those who tries to betray my confidence," he said to the spectators before calling, "Dragur!"

Immediately, a burly man wielding a big, wicked-looking sharp axe stepped out of the crowd, earning a gasp from the people. But no one made an attempt to stop him even as they all looked displeased at his presence

"Yes, Master," said Dragur, his voice booming like the thunder as he knelt in front of the rich man.

"End him," came the command and Dragur raised his axe.

She was about to witness an execution, it suddenly dawned on Kyra and fear gripped her heart. “Don’t!” she shouted and all of a sudden, a burst of energy shot through her body.

Time began to slow down around her and everything came in great details to her eyes. She felt the wind caressing her cheeks in strands, whispering strange words in her ears which she had never heard before but somehow understood perfectly. It was an instruction, an encouragement, a call to action. The energy collected in her palms and she directed it at Dragur and his master, immediately sending both men flying backwards in a massive gust of wind. The both of them landed on their backwards, rolled a few times on the ground, and then they stopped; they were knocked out cold.

"Witch!" someone suddenly shouted from the crowd and all eyes turned to her. But this time, they were filled with contempt.

"Wait," was all she could say before the whole town rushed at her in a fit of fury. The strange energy she had felt before had deserted her by now and all she could do was turn tail, grab hold of her satchel very well and run like her life depended on it.

The reason why Kyra had always been filled with so much indecision about her life came back to her as she ran for her dear life. She was a witch; and in her world, witches were never meant to survive.