The Sorcery Code (The Sorcery Code #1)(39)
Gala approached a merchant closest to her. “What are you selling?” she asked him.
“I have the best dried fruit at the fair, for you or your mother and aunt.” He smiled widely, offering Gala a handful of raisins.
She took a couple and put them in her mouth, enjoying the burst of sweet flavor on her tongue. Esther took out a small coin and gave it to the merchant, thanking him, and they continued on their way.
“Ale for the ladies?” a man yelled out from one of the stalls. There were huge barrels stacked on each side of him, and Gala wondered if they contained this ale he was offering.
“I will get some,” she said, curious to try the drink she’d read about.
“No, you won’t,” Esther said immediately, frowning. “I don’t want you drunk on your very first day with us.”
“Oh, come on, let the lass have some fun,” the ale merchant cajoled. “She won’t feel more than a little buzz from just one drink.”
“All right, fine,” Maya grumbled, handing a coin to the man. “Just one drink.”
Gala grinned. She would’ve tried this ale regardless, but she was glad she didn’t have to argue with the two women.
Looking satisfied, the merchant took a mug, walked over to the pile of barrels, and started pouring from one of them into the mug. Gala noticed the way the barrels shook with the man’s movements, as though swaying in the wind.
“Hurry up,” a male voice said behind Gala. Turning around, she saw a young, well-built man standing there. As soon as he saw Gala’s face, his eyes widened, and his cheeks turned red. He mumbled an apology, his gaze traveling from the top of her head all the way down to her toes.
Gala gave him a small smile and turned around to look at the merchant again. She was getting used to these stares.
The merchant handed her the mug, and she took a sip, swirling the drink around her mouth to better taste it. It wasn’t nearly as delicious as the raisins, but it did send a warm feeling down her body. Liking the sensation, Gala downed the mug in several large gulps and heard chuckles from the men standing in line behind her.
“You should pace yourself,” Maya admonished, and Esther gave Gala another frown.
“I’ve never had ale before,” Gala tried to explain, not wanting the two women to worry. “I think I like it even better than your stew.” Turning to the merchant, she asked, “Can I have another one?”
At this, Maya grabbed Gala’s hand and dragged her away from the confused ale merchant and his customers. Gala let herself be led only as far as the next stall and then stood her ground firmly.
“You are strong for one so small,” Maya said, looking impressed when Gala resisted her tugging. “It’s as though she grew roots,” she told Esther. “I can’t make her move another inch.”
“This is just a clown stall,” Esther told Gala, sounding exasperated. “There is nothing for you to see here.”
Gala didn’t agree. To her, the stall was fascinating, surrounded as it was by dozens of children. Children—these miniature humans—were an enigma to Gala. She had never been a child herself, unless one counted her brief stage of development in the Spell Realm. Then again, she reasoned, perhaps she was like a child now compared to the person she would become.
Another thing that interested her was the man with the painted face. He was wearing strange-looking clothing and doing what seemed like sorcery for the children—pulling out coins from their ears and then making those coins disappear. He also seemed to be doing it without any kind of verbal or written spells. When she focused on his hands, however, she saw that he was actually hiding the coins in his palm. A fake sorcerer, she thought, watching his antics with amusement.
Suddenly, there was a loud shout. Startled, Gala looked back toward the ale merchant’s stall, where she heard the sound coming from.
What she saw made her freeze in place.
One of the older children had pushed a younger girl into the stack of barrels at the ale merchant’s stall. The large barrels swayed perilously, and Gala could see the top barrel beginning to fall.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl. In Gala’s mind, she saw the chain of events exactly as they would play out. The barrel would fall on top of the girl, crushing her frail human body. Gala could even calculate the precise weight and force of the falling object—and the child’s odds of survival.
The young girl would cease to exist before she’d had a chance to enjoy living.
No. Gala couldn’t stand to see that. Her entire body tensed, and without conscious thought, she raised her hands in the air, pointing them at the barrel. Her mind ran through the necessary calculations with lightning speed, figuring out the exact amount of reverse force necessary to hold the falling object in place.
The barrel stopped falling, floating in the air a few inches above the girl’s head.
The silence was deafening. All around Gala, the fairgoers stood as though frozen in place, staring at the near-accident in morbid fascination. The ale merchant recovered first, jumping toward the shocked child to pull her away from under the barrel.
As soon as the girl was not in danger, Gala felt her focus slipping, and the barrel fell, breaking into little bits of wood and splashing ale all over the place.
The rescued child began to cry, her small frame shaking with sobs, while the spectators seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Many of them were staring at Gala with awed expressions on their faces, and one woman took a step toward her, addressing her in a quivering voice, “Are you a sorceress, my lady?”