by Rain Oxford
“Yes. She is uninjured, and since she could not understand a word your mother said, there is no emotional damage.”
I was walking towards Thaddeus to make sure he was okay, since he was on the ground, when I sensed movement behind me. Maybe it was because my magic was on such high alert or maybe I was just so familiar with Ilvera’s tricks, but I reacted instinctively. I ran to Kalyn and crashed into her, throwing us both to the ground, barely dodging a blast of magic.
My father snatched Ilvera’s wand out of her hand. “You stop that,” he admonished as if she were a naughty child. “You were beaten, so stop embarrassing yourself.” They both vanished.
Kalyn and I were both breathing heavily. She pushed herself up and over so that she was lying on top of me. “You saved me again,” she said.
“I guess it’s a habit now.”
And then she kissed me.
It was the perfect first kiss; sweet, soft, and innocent… at least until she jerked away. “What was that?”
“What was what?” I asked, confused and a little insulted.
She slowly scooted off me. “You didn’t feel that?”
“Feel what? I didn’t do anything.”
“Magic.”
“Well… that’s flattering.”
She laughed. “Not like that.”
“Have Sven command her to do something,” Merlin said.
“What? Oh! My father said you were under a curse! Sven, order her to do something.”
Sven and Jeb were off to the side, discussing magic rings. “Get over here, Kalyn, and give me that ring.”
Her response was quite vulgar and definitely not obedient. Sven gaped at her.
Kalyn grinned ear to ear, as if she had been freed from the worst curse imaginable.
“It is as I suspected,” Merlin said. He grumbled something else, but the only word I could make out was “complications.”
“You did it!” I said. “The curse must have been broken when you got your magic back.”
“Maybe,” she frowned. “But I don’t have magic that can break curses. Maybe you broke it unintentionally.”
This time I heard what Merlin said and I chose to ignore it.
* * *
Nasku was gone by the time we all got our bearings, so we headed inside. Mason, Blue, Evelyn, and I worked together to break the curse on our friends and family. We released Rita and her sons first so that they could help break more curses. It took all day, but we eventually freed everyone.
We had a large celebration meal that was bittersweet, for Magnus was dead. My father had said we hadn’t lost anyone in this battle, and in a way, it was true; we had lost Magnus long ago. However, he was still my friend and I was going to miss him. We freed Vactarus and invited him as well as Livia’s ghost daughter. Sonya wasn’t terribly upset that her father was dead because she barely knew Magnus.
That night, Kalyn and I talked in my room. It was mostly stories of our past, but we also talked about what we were going to do with our futures. I planned to continue breaking curses until the next crisis cropped up. Kalyn wanted to see her family and apologize to them for leaving. She hadn’t decided what to do afterwards.
Shortly after she left, Merlin came in. “How is Nimue?” I asked.
He sighed mournfully. “She wants to return to Gmork’s castle.”
“What? Why?”
“Love is complicated. Maybe… someday. Speaking of which, how is Kalyn?”
“She’s fine. She’s going to go see her family. She’s not hurt or anything, so she’ll probably leave before I wake up in the morning.”
“I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“You will understand later.”
“So… I couldn’t help but notice that Baltezore has gold eyes.”
“Yes, he does.”
“And you have gold eyes.”
“What a strange coincidence.”
“You don’t believe in coincidences. I also couldn’t help but notice that Baltezore was a dragon… and you can be controlled by a galaxy stone.”
“Ayden, I know where you are going with this, and you need to stop.”
“But what if---”
“No, Ayden. It is impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
With a sigh, I let it go and grabbed the book off my nightstand. “Where do we go from here?”
“Well, everyone except the Minof family and Thaddeus are planning to leave tonight or in the morning. Livia is leaving this castle to you. I suppose it is up to you. Do you want to stay here? Do you want to stay with the Minof family? Do you want to live with the Rynorm family?”
“Can we just… decide on the way? I mean, can we stay here until we want to leave and then stay somewhere else until we want to leave?”
“I have lived that way for hundreds of years. It gets lonely.”
“How could it get lonely? We’re friends, and we’ll always be friends. Besides, you have a lot of dragon magic to teach me now that I can do it.”
He smirked. “That is the best plan I have heard all month.”
Epilogue
Two days after stopping Ilvera and saving magic, Merlin and I took Nimue to her world. We appeared in her room, scaring one of the servants who had been dusting the vanity.
Nimue was home and happy, but I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I pulled a book out of my bag. “We’re going to get this curse broken once and for all,” I said.
Merlin groaned. “This is why you wanted us to come here rather than simply sending Nimue through.”
“I’m not going to be the reason you’re trapped as a wolf for the rest of your life if I get killed. Your life is too short as a wolf and mine is constantly at risk.” I didn’t wait for him to argue; I headed out the door and down the hall. I remembered the castle well enough to find Gmork’s magic room.
“You cannot read the book,” he said, following me.
I pulled the pendant out from inside my shirt. “I borrowed the Siren from Vactarus.” The Siren could translate spoken and written word and enabled me to make the curse in the first place.
I reached the three-story magic room, which was in a tower. Each story had a sturdy, rough stone floor, with a wooden, winding staircase in the center. The first level contained mostly magic books, the second was full of dark ritual instruments and other weird items, and the third was an alchemy laboratory, full of potions, chemicals, and potion ingredients. On the top floor, I set the book down on the table and started gathering ingredients and tools. When Merlin joined me, I told him to help.
“This is not worth the risk. Dessa said you would die when we break the curse. I cannot stand the thought of being the death of you.”
“I’m not letting this chance slip by. I’m not going another day knowing I’m keeping you from Nimue.”
“You are not the reason Nimue and I cannot be together.”
I gathered a cauldron, mortar, and pestle while Merlin finished gathering the ingredients. I didn’t bring my staff, but my wand would work.
There was a small pit built into a table with fire sticks and a metal grate, which I set the cauldron on. With magic, I lit a fire under the cauldron and started adding the ingredients. Fortunately, everything was labeled and the dark wizard had enough ingredients for me to make the potion a second time.
I added two bottles of bitter ale, a handful of nightshade, a gold coin, three cobwebs, a small handful of powdered wolf stone, a medium pinch of powdered wolf’s fang, and a large pinch each of blue lotus, yarrow root, powdered wolf’s heart, powdered lapis lazuli, powdered black moonstone, and powdered white moonstone. I mixed all of the ingredients together with my wand, allowing my magic to seep into it, and brought it to a simmer.
I let it simmer for thirty-three heartbeats, then pulled the dress of a young child out of a leather sack, opened a large crystal bottle, and strained the mixture through the dress into the bottle. The potion was a light brown color.
&n
bsp; I dumped out a large jar of graveyard dirt in front of the window and set the crystal bottle in the dirt. It had to sit there until the potion turned as white as the moon. “How much of the incantation should I have to change?” I asked.
He read over it, although I knew he had read it many times. “Change the last line to ‘You now become man once again.’ That should work.”
“That’s it?”
“Magic like this is controlled mostly by your intention. You have to want to make me a person again. You are not trying to break the curse; you are trying to change me into the person I once was.”
“But I’m the curse breaker.”
“Not if you want this to work.”
Urge, pain, overwhelming flame
Growing tail, pointed ear and sharp fang
Blood rush, growling rage
Burning power, the wolf’s hour
Fur, claw and muzzle clad
Before the blood moon’s
Invisible red glowing sand
Muzzle, black nose, furry chest
Pierce me, and manifest
You now become man once again.
After speaking the incantation, there was nothing more we could do until it changed.
* * *
Nimue brought us some food after making sure everyone in the castle (including Gmork) was safe. She asked if there was anything she could do to help us. With the Siren around my neck, I could understand her and she could understand me.
“If— I mean when this works, are you going to come back with us?” I asked her.
She blushed. “I don’t know.”
I looked at Merlin. I couldn’t ask him if he was going to stay and I couldn’t possibly be selfish enough to ask him to leave her. The whole point in returning his form was so that he could be with her. Well, that and because he needed to have his independence back. “Are we staying here when this works?” I asked.
“We shall see.”
Finally, the potion turned white. “How do we do this? Nimue can’t really kiss you again.”
“I will drink it directly.”
“Will it work?”
“It must.”
I helped him drink the potion and waited for it to take effect. Maybe it was a good thing it started working immediately, but I hated to see the pain on his wolf face. “Is it working, or is it going wrong?”
When Nimue and I both tried to help him, he growled. “Get back!” he demanded aloud. We did, reluctantly.
I heard his bones snapping in between his howls of pains. His fur slowly receded and his paws lengthened and shrunk into hands with nimble fingers. It didn’t look as painful as his transition into a wolf. Soon, he was a man. However, unlike with shifters, he had no clothes on, so I draped my Rynorm robe over him. “It worked. It really… oh.” I felt a tight pain in my chest that stole my breath and the room spun. “I think I used… too much---” a sharp pain shot down my spine, causing me to shout involuntarily.
More pain racked my body and I dropped to the floor. My legs wouldn’t hold me up. Merlin was trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear him over my frantic heart and pained screams. I felt my bones break and cramps stabbed at every muscle. That wasn’t as bad as the mind-scrambling itch that broke out over my skin. I tried to scratch the itch in my chest and felt hot blood coat my thick fur. My claws had torn my skin.
I tried to beg Merlin to make it stop, but all that came out was a garbled growl. I had never felt so much pain. I wanted it to end more than I wanted to continue breathing. The next thing I heard was Merlin telling me not to scratch as he restrained my hands…
Paws.
They were paws now.
I had white, furry paws.
As the pain faded, I could only whimper. Merlin was petting me gently. When I tried to ask him what happened, I couldn’t get past the strangeness of my elongated mouth. “What happened?” I asked in his mind.
“We will figure it out and fix it,” he said.
That was his comforting way of saying he didn’t know. “Am I at least a big, frightening wolf?”
He motioned to Nimue, who got up, found a mirror, and brought it back to me.
No, I wasn’t a large wolf. Even as a creature as mysterious as the wolf… I was a runt. I was white as snow, not blond like my hair, but my eye color hadn’t changed. Strangely, that was comforting. It told me I hadn’t changed inside, only outside. “I can live with this.”
“What are you talking about? You have friends who rely on you. We need to change you back.”
“This is what the dragons were talking about, right? They kept saying that there was a price for magic. At least you can be with Nimue now. I’ll never find someone I love the way you love her.”
“You are too selfless, young sorcerer.”
“Young wolf now,” I corrected. “I’m a vicious hunter of the night. If Thaddeus tries to tease me, I can bite him in the---”
“Hush, Ayden. Do not get attached to those claws, because you will not have them for long.”
“At least you can actually break the curse.”
“You did nothing wrong. I could not have done it better. Give me time to figure this out. Go for a run. Nimue, take him out to the garden. He should get to experience that before I reverse this.”
Nimue’s eyes widened with fear. “Oh, no, he can’t leave this room in that form. Gmork would eat him in a heartbeat.”
I growled. The thought of facing that massive black wolf… made me eager. I should have been afraid. Instead, I wanted to find him and fight him.
Merlin patted my back. “That is the wolf instincts trying to take control. The wolf does not care that Gmork is ten times your size. You will have to pass up the opportunity to run as a wolf. It is a pity. Nevertheless, I will have you back to normal before you can learn to stand on all fours.”
In response, I carefully started moving and stretching my limbs, getting used to them before trying to put pressure on them and make a fool of myself.
He laughed and got to work.
* * *
When I finally attempted to stand, I didn’t stumble once. Of course, I had spent way too long fiddling with my limbs because I didn’t want Merlin to get discouraged. Nimue had brought us both some clothes and then helped me untangle the scraps of mine.
My tale was harder to get used to than having four legs.
Merlin snapped the book shut, sat beside me with a heavy sigh, and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m so sorry, Ayden,” he said tiredly, dropping the usual formality in his tone. That was unnerving. “I’m afraid I don’t know what to do because you did nothing wrong. That should have broken the curse. Unless…” he let go of his hair and looked at me like I was the strangest thing he had ever seen. “Unless you didn’t want it to work.”
I growled at him. “Of course I wanted it to work! How could you think otherwise?!” The outrage and hurt made me growl louder. My posture changed uncontrollably, as if I was about to attack. I wouldn’t, though. I would never attack my best friend.
Even if he did accuse me of sabotaging the potion.
Merlin grabbed my right ear and jerked it gently, startling me. The anger evaporated. “I am not accusing you. I know you want what is best for me. I simply think you subconsciously know what is right.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I know. It would take you hundreds of years to understand. Hold still.” He stared into my eyes until it felt uncomfortable.
Then it felt horribly uncomfortable; the itch was coming back. All over my body, my white fur was melting back into my skin. Then pain spread through my chest.
Although I knew it hurt just as much as before, I was separated from it, as if I was dreaming it. By the time I regained full awareness, I was back in my true form and Nimue had draped my robe over me. “I don’t understand,” I said. My throat was a little scratchy and I was drenched in sweat, but I was otherwise fine.
And Merlin was a wolf again. He whined gently from the pain.
<
br /> “Did my spell fail?”
“No,” he said in my mind. “It worked perfectly— more perfectly than I could have thought possible. You made it so that I can go back and forth at will.”
“At will? You mean… I’m going to have to feel that pain again?”
“Only if I want to take the form of a man again. Furthermore, it seems the pain lessens every time.”
“Then I didn’t really break the curse. I just… transferred it to myself temporarily.”
“Ayden, this is what I was meant to be.”
“What?”
“I spent hundreds of years as a man. There is a strange freedom in being a wolf.”
“But you can’t have Nimue this way.”
“I never did. I love Nimue and I always will, but she was never mine and never will be.”
“I don’t understand!”
“I know.”
“She loves you and you love her.”
“I wish that was enough.”
“I’m going to strangle you both and lock you in the basement until you figure it out!”
He laughed. “Since you technically transferred the curse rather than breaking it, you might have inadvertently stopped Dessa’s vision of your death from coming true. You defied destiny.”
My body was sore, but at least the wound on my chest from my claws had healed. “Does this at least mean you got your immortality back?”
“No. However, maybe this has extended my life. Either way, I am at peace. Life is not a matter of winning and losing, because death is the end whether you are a winner or loser, whether your life is short or long. Life and death are balance. Without death, there cannot really be life. Thus, I was not really alive as an immortal.”
“I think… I might understand.”
“Wonderful. Now, take us home so that you can see what it is like to run as a wolf.”
“No way. I’ll take us home, but I’m not going to ever feel that itching again.”
