Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet Read Online Free Page A

their noses and mouths. One of them gallops faster than the rest until he is nearly beside me. He draws a rusted sword from a sheath strapped to his saddle.
    I gasp and trip over my own heels, but the earth rises to meet me as I fall. My palms slam into the packed red soil, which surges up like an ocean wave, rolling until the soil can no longer hold its shape. I fall with the dust and topple to the side of the street, dirt raining over me. Pebbles bite my hot skin, and I cough, desperate for air, and scrabble to my feet. My mind is gone. There is only heat and heartbeat and perspiration burning my eyes, and the thundering of hooves from every direction, echoing off buildings and trees and my chest. The rolling ground has blocked me from the first marauder, but more come, the thunder of their charge ringing in my ears.
    I pick myself up and run, run, run until I reach the shop. I throw myself inside and slam the door. Race for a sack of flour and a cistern to barricade it, though I know it’s barely anything in terms of protection. My hands shake as I shove them into place. Fire licks my throat.
    I flee to the back of the small space. There is no back door, only my countertop, stove, cabinets, and the window. I see brown-clad marauders through the pane, and their silhouettes sear the backs of my eyelids.
    The air is too thick. The oven churns it hot. I can’t breathe.
    The glass at the front of the shop shatters. I cry out. My body shudders as I drop to the cupboards beneath the counter and fling them open, pulling out pans and bowls until there is a space large enough for me to fit inside. I crawl into the opening and shut the door as best as I can. Shaking arms pull my knees to my chest, and tears soak my trousers. Another window breaks, and every shard of falling glass echoes on the underside of my skin. Sweat slicks my short hair to my face as someone’s fists pound at the door. I grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut. Can’t breathe, yet maybe that’s for the best. I can’t scream if I can’t breathe.
    I hear them inside my shop, overturning goods, talking to one another in harsh, clipped words. There are cries outside my windows. The scent of burning cake seeps into the cracks around the cupboard doors. I do not move from my space; I cannot move from my space. Not even when the marauders leave. Not even when they return hours later, ransacking whatever goods they haven’t already destroyed. They pillage my shelves, then open every cupboard until they find mine.
    A man twice my size seizes my arm and drags me into the street. I fight him, screaming and raking my nails over his skin. He hits me with something—the hilt of a knife, perhaps—and my vision seesaws. He drags me to the village square, half by my elbow, half by my hair, tearing my trousers over rock and road the whole way. I try to wrestle away, but it rips hair from my scalp, and I see his sword in my face, feel its blade against the side of my nose. Fresh corpses litter porches and alleyways, militia and not. My stomach clenches, and bile burns up to my tongue and back down again. My vision grays and clears, grays and clears.
    The marauder releases me in a cluster of other townsfolk just off center of the town square. I count them, desperate to identify familiar faces. None of them is Arrice’s. None of them is Franc’s. We total a baker’s dozen.
    Four marauders, black from the bridge of their noses to their feet, surround us. They bear blades of different sizes and makes. One has a short spear fastened to his back, and another has a round weapon I’ve never before beheld on his belt. Somewhere behind me, a man screams a high, wet sound. I shut my eyes and cover my ears with my hands. Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.
    I know who it is, though, because the woman beside me screams and leaps to her feet, widemouthed, running to her beloved. I know she has no brothers, only a husband. The marauder with the spear strikes her down, and only