by Rain Oxford
I nodded. “I’m really tired.”
“Go to bed, then, and we can discuss it in the morning.”
I didn’t argue and he stepped out of my way. Once I was alone in my room, I took a deep breath and sat on my bed. I hurt a child. I cursed the fox without meaning to. My aunt told me that I had “neutral” magic, so I could do both light and dark magic. It made sense to me that the reason I was so bad at sorcery was because I didn’t want to cause chaos to innocent people. That meant if I did want to, I could hurt someone.
I could kill someone.
The problem was that I hadn’t been trying to hurt the fox. I nearly killed her on accident. Merlin came from a world where wizards and sorcerers were the same thing, but the idea that someone could be both a wizard and sorcerer was unheard of here. I was born a sorcerer, and what happened with the fox proved to me that there was no way I could be both. It just wasn’t the way here, so I would have to choose. I had a choice, and that was more than anyone else got.
Before I ran away from home and met Merlin, I would have chosen to be a sorcerer because I thought that was the only way to be accepted. It wasn’t, though. People would accept me as a sorcerer if I behave like a sorcerer, and they would accept me as a wizard if I behave like a wizard. It was just my family who wouldn’t accept me.
Guilt churned in my stomach as I reflected on my entire life. Just before I finally fell asleep, I made a decision.
Chapter 3
I woke with my stomach growling, so I headed down to the dining room. Merlin normally woke me early and we would eat breakfast with the wizard, but since he was gone, I wasn’t particularly interested. Instead, I would eat whatever I could conjure and get started on practicing magic.
Thus, I could understand why Magnus looked surprised to see me. I sat down in my usual seat and pulled the bowl of flowers towards me. I put a few of the flowers on my plate and waved my wand, transforming them into bread and potatoes. I couldn’t help but to smile every time I did this, because before Merlin and Magnus started teaching me, I could only manage to transform stuff into apples and broccoli.
Magnus had explained that it was because I was trying so hard to make it not apples and broccoli. I couldn’t conjure meat with wizard magic, so once I stopped fighting my wizard magic, conjuring any food I wanted that didn’t come from living animals was easy.
“I want you to take away the dark magic inside me,” I said.
Magnus sat back and frowned. “I was hoping you would never ask this of me. It would be a terrible mistake.”
Not long after I joined Magnus’s side, I found a drawing which indicated that Magnus and Livia knew each other and even had a daughter together. Although I told Merlin about it, I never brought it up to Magnus. “I know you and my aunt had a daughter.”
“She told you about Sonya?” he asked.
When my aunt’s first daughter, Veronica, tried to kill her, she locked away her darkness. That resulted in her second daughter, Sonya, being pure good. Unfortunately, Veronica killed Sonya.
“She told me about Veronica, Sonya, and locking her power away because Veronica was a sorceress. She didn’t tell me that you were Sonya’s father.” He didn’t say anything. I really wanted to tell Magnus about the ghost girl I met because I was pretty certain she was Sonya, but I had to be gentle about it. I didn’t know if finding out that his daughter was a ghost would upset him or help him.
“I will not seal your dark magic,” Magnus said before I could come up with a way to tell him.
“Why not?”
“Because Livia has always regretted it. Why can’t you accept who you are?”
“I’m trying to! I don’t want to hurt people!”
“It’s not in you to hurt someone,” he said.
“Obviously, it is.”
“I see why it worries you, but you should understand that removing your dark magic is not to be taken lightly.”
“Is it irreversible?”
“In a way. To take away your dark magic is to take away a part of what makes you complete. I admit I didn’t think you actually had any darkness in you, though. If I locked it away, you would never be the same.”
“Well, it’s obviously not fatal, because my aunt is fine. Besides, she locked me, Merlin, and Bralyn up so we couldn’t go after you, so I know she’s not completely good.”
Magnus sighed. “I thought you figured it out a long time ago. Think about this; your aunt is a very powerful person. How did you get out of the room she locked you in?”
I didn’t see where he was going with this. “I picked the lock.”
“Did you honestly think you could have escaped if she didn’t want you to? Did you really think she forgot to take away your things?”
I shrugged. “I thought she was underestimating me because I was so bad at being a sorcerer.”
“Ayden, she wanted you to come to me. That was why she made sure your staff would lead you to me.”
“Then why did she lock me up?!”
“Your seer friend, Dessa, went to Livia and told her what would happen. Livia knew she had to interfere in order for you to learn to accept your light magic.”
That was not what I expected him to say at all, and it made me question how much of my life Dessa manipulated. Was it just Livia? Did Dessa somehow cause me to leave my home? How was I supposed to know? Maybe Merlin had a reason for distrusting seers. She was my friend, but I didn’t like being manipulated, especially since I trusted her to tell me what I needed to know.
Then again, she told Merlin I would die on the day his curse was broken. Was she lying? Was she misleading him? Why didn’t she explain?
“Ayden?” Magnus asked when I didn’t say anything for a while.
“I did accept my light magic. Now I’m trying to be a wizard so I won’t accidentally hurt anyone.”
“I will not do it.”
“Fine.” I shoved my plate away and stood. “Then I will be in my room until you change your mind!” I stomped out of the room, knowing full well he would be too shocked to follow me. Outbursts of emotion were a sign of weakness for sorcerers, and my brothers would have preyed on me for it. Magnus, on the other hand, would give me privacy to cool down.
I went to my room and packed as little as I could get away with, which included one change of clothes, some food, a knife, some rope, my flame-proof dragon-hide gloves, a pair of snapping rocks, my wand, my staff, and my Dracre robe. I snuck down the stairs and towards one of the back doors, but sinister whispers stopped me in my tracks.
There was absolutely no reason for me to make the detour to the magic room, yet I found myself doing it anyway. Inside, the syrus was almost vibrating with the force of the magic inside it. The crystal on my staff glowed, almost as if threatening the box to behave. When the whispers suddenly became much louder, I let go of my staff to cover my ears. “Shut up! I’m not letting you out!”
My staff did not fall. Instead, I felt magic being pulled from me into my staff right before a red burst of magic shot from the crystal into the chest. The syrus vanished. I glared at my staff. “What did you do to it?”
As if feigning innocence, it fell to the ground. I rolled my eyes, picked it up, and shut the door on the way out. Sneaking out of the castle was almost too easy; it was even easier than sneaking away from my home.
With my staff, wand, and bag, I started the long trek to my aunt’s home. I could have tried to transport myself with magic, but that was more likely to screw up the further away I was.
* * *
It was a nice day to begin a journey; warm without being too hot, sunny with some clouds for shade, and a nice breeze. Mokora, the land Magnus lived on, had more mountains and larger cities than Akadema. There were quite a few traveling salesmen transporting their goods in colorful carts. I was tempted by the colorful clothes and fancy foods, but didn’t have any money.
I did, however, enjoy chatting with the travelers. I learned about the local myths and that everyone was curious abou
t Magnus’s castle. Everyone thought Magnus had packed up his castle and moved it, so some people weren’t sure it still belonged to the powerful wizard. The castle was also known to move. However, that rumor might have been spread because the castle was invisible when the chimera had been guarding him.
When I had asked Magnus why the chimera was keeping him, he said he wasn’t sure. He believed someone sent it to him to protect him, but the chimera’s natural instincts were too strong. While it kept others from attacking him, it also kept him from going anywhere.
When there was a lull in travelers on the road, I practiced my wizardry. The two kinds of wards I was taught could be wizardry or sorcery. The first kind was created just to warn the wizard or sorcerer of an intruder. This put very little strain on me and could be sustained for days by a fully trained magic user. The second kind was a defensive ward, primarily used by wizards. It only protected against magic attacks, not a blade. Sorcerers used the same kind of ward, but they used more magic to make it hurt anyone who tried to cross it.
I sat on a large boulder a little ways from the road. As I had been taught, I relaxed my muscles and cleared my mind. The scent of dirt and grass filled my nose and I focused on the warmth of the sunlight beaming down on me. I imagined my magic spilling out of me to form a bubble around me. It was not a bubble to keep out air or light, only magic. If magic struck it, that magic would bounce off.
Second, I imagined levitating all the rocks around me except for the one I was sitting on. As my magic spread out, I sensed the rocks. They felt similar to the dirt, but they were more concentrated. A few dozen rocks of various sizes rose from the ground. I pulled them towards me, imagining them stopping only when they reached the ward around me. They did exactly as I commanded, and then began swirling around me. Once they got up to a decent speed, this magic would be extremely protective.
It could also hurt someone.
The thought was sudden and doused my enthusiasm. As it did, my magic went quiet and the rocks collapsed to the ground.
* * *
As the sun began to set, I strayed from the road to look for a good spot to sleep for the night. I wasn’t too tired, but I didn’t want to get caught out in the open by a band of thieves or a vampire. Before I found a comfortable place, I felt something wet and cold land on me.
“What in the world?” I asked, looking up. Two more frigid, wet drops hit my face. Akadema never got snow, but I knew snow was white and fluffy from the stories I had heard. This was wet like rain, yet colder than any rain in Akadema.
There were thick clouds, not directly over me but close enough. The rest of the sky was clear and sunny. In fact, the clouds were too low to be natural, like when my mother would create storms over a village or vegetable garden.
Even knowing it was a bad idea, I headed further into the storm. With every step, it became colder and the rain became more sludgy. I slipped my robe out of my bag and put it on to shield me from the cold. Finally, the rain changed into a light, powdery snow, which would have been beautiful if it wasn’t also very dark since the last glimmer of sunlight was blocked out by the clouds.
I quickly found that the storm was centering around a small clearing where a young man was sitting on a large, moss-covered log. “Are you okay?” I asked. He had his face in his hands.
When he looked up, his face was pink from the cold. “I’m fine. You shouldn’t be near me.”
“What’s going on with the weather? Are you doing this?”
“I’m not doing it, but it is my fault. I’m cursed.”
“That seems to be going around lately. Don’t tell me you tried to steal from some sorceress.”
“No, of course not. My sister was courted by a sorcerer and when she turned him down, he cursed me instead of her on accident. My parents sent me away until I could get this curse removed. The storm just follows me around.”
“Well, I could try to break it.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“I didn’t ask for any money.”
“Why would you help me?”
I shrugged. “Because I can, I guess.”
“Are you a mage?” he asked.
I scoffed. “Mages are for healing cuts and illnesses. Only a wizard or sorcerer can break a decent curse.”
“I didn’t mean to offend; I don’t know a lot of magic people. You’re a wizard, then?”
Sort of. “Sure.” I stood in front of him and studied him closely. Curses like this were no more complicated than scramble spells and minor transformation. I set my bag aside, leaned my staff against it, and pulled my wand from my pocket.
“This isn’t going to hurt, is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I never asked.” It never hurt when I broke curses on myself, though. I waved the wand. Break this curse. Magic poured out of me, through the wand, and into the man. I quickly felt it encounter the curse. It was easily as powerful as the curses my brothers used, but not as powerful as the one used on Eva’s family.
The person who used this was angry, selfish, and definitely clever. This curse was created to humiliate the victim. In fact, I sensed that it was supposed to get worse if the victim fancied anyone in particular. The sorcerer’s resolve was strong, the details of the curse were thought out, and the construction was skillful. It seemed the only weak point was that the curse was meant for someone else.
This man had no way of fighting the curse, but I could. I hacked away at the curse inside him by creating a ward just like Magnus and Merlin had taught me. The difference was that I created the ward as deep inside the man that I could and expanded it outward. It felt like the curse was pushing down on my body, but I kept expanding the ward even as I struggled to breathe. I kept pushing.
Lightning struck the crystal in my staff, strangely missing my bag.
Finally, the curse snapped, the ward turned on my own magic, my magic retreated, and the ward collapsed. The man and I were both panting. Apparently, he had felt the same pressure of the curse. When the clouds above us dispersed, he grinned with excitement. “You did it! Thank you!”
“No problem.” I was going to miss the snow, though.
I picked up my staff and gasped when it shocked me. A small, white cloud instantly formed right above me and thick snow began falling, only to melt before it reached the ground. I glared at my staff. “Don’t start acting up again!” I demanded of the staff as I reached up and waved the cloud apart.
The magic faded, almost reluctantly, and the cloud disappeared. That shouldn’t have made me so disappointed.
“What is your name?” the young man asked.
“Ayden.”
“I’m Jedrin. Thank you again for helping me.”
I left him and soon found a comfortable spot under the cover of a massive tree. I didn’t bother to make a fire or even eat. I used my bag as a pillow and my sorcerer robe as a blanket. As I gently settled the staff over a thick root so that I could reach it without the risk of rolling over onto it, I whispered, “Don’t do anything silly while I’m asleep.”
Fortunately, my staff only woke me five times during the night by shooting bursts of magic at nothing, and I only had to put out two fires.
In the morning, my wand was apparently irritated with me, because although I was able to turn a lump of clay into a lump of bread, it tasted like broccoli and apple. I ate my breakfast despite that and was back on the road by sunrise.
* * *
The sun was high in the sky and the cool breeze that made the previous day comfortable was absent. It occurred to me that I didn’t have to rush to get to my aunt; I lived my entire life with my sorcery, so it wasn’t likely that I would accidentally hurt someone in the next two or three days.
Then again, until I accepted my light magic, I couldn’t really do dark magic. My mother had taught me all kinds of sorcery that I either refused to do or failed miserably. It wasn’t because I didn’t understand or that I was weak. I was still a Dracre. Or, at least I would be until I had my sorcery
removed.
My bloodline only consisted of the most malevolent sorcerers and sorceresses. If I convinced Livia to remove all dark magic from inside me, could I still call myself a Dracre? My mother would spit on my name if she knew what I planned to do. Then she would kill me painfully.
Just as I decided to stop at the next village I came upon in order to cool off and get a nice meal, I heard a commotion from the right. There was some screaming and cries for help, so I decided to check it out.
I followed the dirt path over a hill, where I saw a quaint village in a shallow valley. Well, normally it was probably very pleasant. At the moment, though, it was on fire. It occurred to me that this was extremely familiar. Fortunately, I didn’t see any pillagers running around, though.
When I originally ran away from home to prove myself, I had planned to cause havoc along the way. I failed miserably. It made sense to me that since I set out to request that my aunt make me a full wizard, I should act like a wizard.
That meant helping strangers, always acting honorably, and smiling at babies. I shuddered at the thought of babies. Children were fine, but the only babies I had ever seen were unimpressive to say the least.
As I wandered into the town, a strong, distinctive odor of dirt and decay hit me. My magic recognized the presence of another magic user. I stopped right in the middle of the road, put my sorcerer robe on, and held my staff tightly in my hand.
Protect, I thought to the staff. After my staff made my skin impenetrable several times, I was shocked when the magic instead transformed the staff into a sword. I scoffed. “Coward.” I couldn’t really blame the staff, though; I was worried for myself as well. Nevertheless, I charged forth. There was no mistaking the presence of a necromancer, and had I known when I was still on the main road, I might have kept walking.
The first huts I reached were burning, but silent. All the screaming came from the center of the town. I fully expected something to attack me, so every little snap, crackle, and pop made me nearly jump out of my skin. I pulled my wand out of my pocket.
