El Cantar de la Reina Bruja

By Victoria Sandbrook

Mothers, hear me! I am alone but for your graces. My mistakes have bound me. My weaknesses have hobbled me. My pride has torn me from you.

Alejandra pricked her finger on her rough iron chains and whispered lilting iambs until all appearance of fatigue fell from her. When they came for her, she would look herself again.

Well. Not her true self. Not even the self she’d donned a decade ago to snare herself her king. What chaos there would be if her husband’s guards — nay, the entire kingdom! — discovered that the bruja chained in the metal palanquin had been their queen these ten years. “I must hide you from the priests,” Ciro had said, pallid with self-pity over his own deceit. “They would burn you for heresy.” Thus, Alejandra discovered what husband-kings did with unwilling, powerful wives. Now he risked much by dragging her on this yet unblooded campaign. But he had a rival to conquer: a widowed queen he thought to wed. With his wife’s help, of course. (Continue Reading…)

Suddenwall

By Sara Saab

In the amnesty-city of Vannat, Aln Panette has let guilt go.

The city of Vannat is a strict and inscrutable rulemaster, so Panette doesn’t question the rules. She lives a plain, clean life. Keeps her recollections as free of the war as she can.

Panette figures she has earned an indulgence or two for her decade as a soldier. Memories of Odarr Harvei are one indulgence. Harvei’s smile of fifteen years ago flashing in the light of the war caravan’s lanterns, her easy company, their mild one-upmanship. The unbroken sky above them.

Other small indulgences Panette allows herself:

Leading the stallions at Vannat’s racecourse stables through their daily exercises.

A now-and-then treat of salted fish in tart molasses that reminds her painfully of Camillon, her home.

And in this city of unremarkable languages passed naturally from parent to child, not a drop of magic in the syllables, not the barest trace of rebellion or fury, Panette indulges in the knowledge that — at least in Vannat — the killing has stopped. (Continue Reading…)

Candied Sweets, Cornbread, and Black-eyed Peas

By Malon Edwards

No one wanted to come out of their houses. Not at first.

They could see my father’s blood soaking the cobblestones. They could see it dripping from the machete in my hand. They didn’t want to come bab pou bab — face-to-face — with Gran Dyab La, the wicked little girl who had just disemboweled her own father.

I wouldn’t either, if I were them. (Continue Reading…)

Hosting the Solstice

By Tim Pratt

—for Heather

The first note came a week before Halloween. I glanced at an empty parking lot while I was out walking Bradbury and the leaves blew around to form the words “IT’S YOUR TURN TO HOST.”

I put my head down and tugged Bradbury’s leash to hurry him up and pretended I hadn’t seen anything at all.

The second note came a week later, when my son Rye was working the haunted house fundraiser at the high school — he was only a freshman, but his obsession with monster makeup tutorials from the internet meant his “bloody-face-wound zombie” was good enough to join the seniors-only “scare crew” for the big terror finale just before the exit. My husband, Corey, was handing out candy to trick-or-treaters in the living room. I went into the bathroom and saw the words “IT’S YOUR TURN TO HOST” dripping in blood down the shower wall. (Continue Reading…)