by Dan Wingreen
Contents
Title Page
Blurbs
Author’s Note
Dedication
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part II
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part III
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Interlude
Part IV
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part V
Chapter 1
Epilogue
To be concluded in
About the Author
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Titles by Dan Wingreen
Awakening Camelot: A Wizard's Quest
Dan Wingreen
Blurbs
On the list of things Aidan shouldn't want, Eallair and the freedom he offers are at the very top. Can he overcome his upbringing and find happiness with a mad sorcerer while fighting the very system he's always believed in?
Aidan Collins lives in a world divided. Sorcerers—people who can safely use magic—make up the majority of the population, while wizards—people with dangerous magic banned by the government—are a highly regulated minority. Despite living as a second-class citizen, Aidan is mostly content with his life in a Wizards' Quarter on the west coast American city of Pendragon Bay, helping young, freshly manifested wizards adjust to their new circumstances as only another wizard can. He has faith the system is looking out for him; a faith he's never had reason to question.
Until one night when he's rescued from two abusive cops by the mysterious sorcerer, Eallair, who—along with ridiculous hair and an unpronounceable name—brings along dangerous ideas of freedom and self-determination. It doesn't take long for truths Aidan's known his entire life to be exposed as lies, and, soon after, Aidan finds himself on the run with Eallair, caught up in his desperate, years' long quest to find the final resting place of the legendary King Arthur and bring true liberty to America. Hunted by unknown threats and increasingly drawn to the surprisingly caring Eallair, Aidan must leave behind the only life he's ever known and find a way to fit into the strange new world he finds himself in. A world where freedom and choice go hand in hand with consequence and responsibility, and where the government he always thought was protecting him is the enemy that will stop at nothing to silence him.
Author’s Note
For those of you who haven’t been following along on my twitter (and considering my follower count, I hope that’s most of you) this book is the revised edition of what was originally released as two books back in 2014, A Wizard’s Quest 1: Awakening Aidan, and A Wizard’s Quest 2: Awakening Arthur. Those books were originally conceived and written as a single novel that was intended to be the first in a duology. However, when the book was picked up by Fireborn Publishing they decided to split it up so they could offer a cost-effective print version.
I was never a fan of this decision.
But I was also a young writer, both in age and experience with actual publishing, so I agreed. I also made many mistakes while writing this (these?) book (books?) and agreed to some unfortunate editing choices. Before I go on, I want to make it very clear that I’m nothing but appreciative and thankful for everyone at Fireborn who worked with me after my books were picked up. They were my first experience with both professional publishing and professional editing, and I learned more about writing and editing in the weeks I worked with them than I had in my entire life up until that point.
Anyway.
For a lot of reasons, I was never one hundred percent happy with the final outcome of my debut novel(s). Judging by the sales drop off after Awakening Aidan, that wasn’t exactly a minority opinion. Since then I’ve gotten much better as a writer and as an editor and it’s always been in the back on my mind to re-edit and revise the whole Wizard’s Quest series with a new publisher. But, since those books were licensed by Fireborn and I didn’t want to deal with trying to have the rights given back to me, I never seriously considered it. Then, earlier this year, Fireborn went out of business and I got those rights back pretty much overnight.
Imagine my delight.
I very quickly decided to give my long-desired revision a shot, and what you hold in your hands (or are reading on your computer if it’s too big to hold) is the result. A fully revised novel, one complete story as I originally envisioned it, re-edited by me with a little over 7,000 additional words along with numerous tweaks and fixes. Aside from those additions, however, I took great pains to keep the original story and characters the same as they were. If you read this before you will recognize every character, every plot point, every theme, and every twist. The ending will be the same and no character who lived will die (and vice versa). All this is supposed to be is a, hopefully, much better and more fun to read version of the books(s) you’ve already read; or, if this is your first time, a good jumping on point for what I think is a pretty decent alternate universe fantasy story.
I hope you guys enjoy it.
-Dan
Dedication
To my husband Nate, without whom this never would have been completed.
Thank you so much for not letting me give up.
And to my parents, for giving me more leeway to figure out my life than any parents in the history of parenting.
Part I
Of Wizards and Sorcerers
Chapter 1
"Hello, my name is Aidan, and I'm a wizard." Aidan Collins smiled out over the group of fifteen or so people sitting in a circle around him, trying to project a calm he didn't really feel. It took every ounce of willpower he had to keep the agitation he was feeling from showing. Which was sort of embarrassing, because wizards his age should have been made of self-control.
This particular Wizards Anonymous group was mostly filled with teenagers who'd just come into their powers. Scared, lost, and facing a life where all their plans for the future were suddenly and unfairly torn away with the horrifying manifestation of the bad magic, the wild magic, that identified them as wizards instead of sorcerers. It was exactly the kind of group he usually did so well in, having lived with being a wizard for the past sixteen years and having spoken in front of hundreds of meetings just like this one. He knew how to help people; it was the only part of his life he took any real pleasure in. He was usually so good at it, too, and he would have been this time, except…
Except that damn light is still broken. Aidan tried to keep from showing his discomfort.
As if trying to get on his last nerve, the offending tube flickered again, the soft blue witch light briefly darkening to purple as the steady background hum of magic, which permeated everything in modern society, was interrupted by the bzzt-bzzt sound of faulty wiring.
Really, it was a minor thing. Something he should be able to brush off easily enough. But this was the third month the light had been broken,
and the Department of Magic and Sorcery still hadn't gotten around to sending someone from the Wizard Liaison Division to fix it; it was starting to grate on him.
And he wasn't the only one. He'd noticed several people eying the light, some glaring at it. They felt the same frustration he did. Anyone else could just fix it with a muttered word or an absent hand gesture, yet they couldn't, because their magic was broken, because they were broken.
"Hi, Aidan," the group chorused.
He swallowed a sigh and clasped his hands behind his back to keep from tugging at his dark blue sweater or running his fingers through his dark hair. It wouldn't do the kids any favors to show how much it got to him.
"It's been sixteen years since I last used magic," he said, both disliking the rote repetition and looking forward to the reaction it usually got from a new group.
Most of the people clapped, looking either impressed or bored, but two of the younger teens didn't. One, a boy who couldn't have been older than fifteen, had his arms crossed and was staring moodily at the floor. Aidan made a mental note to talk to him alone after the meeting, if the kid didn't rush out the door first. The other one, a girl who looked a few years younger, stared at him with wide-eyed surprise. He suppressed a grin. Girls always did the math first.
"Sixteen?" she exclaimed. "But that… You're—"
"Still so young and devilishly handsome?" Aidan asked with a self-deprecating smile.
He wasn't anything special—mostly slim, with the beginnings of a small belly from spending most of his days sitting behind a desk binding books, a decent enough face with a straight nose he'd always liked, blue eyes not quite dark enough to be striking, straight hair that was almost pitch black. On good days, he figured he could pass for slightly above average in the looks department, but he was definitely nothing special. The desolate wasteland known as his dating life could attest to that. He did look younger than he was, though, and that always helped break the ice with a newer group that didn't know him very well yet.
"N-no! I mean—" The girl blushed and looked away.
The sullen boy glanced at her, then snorted and rolled his eyes before going back to glaring a hole in the floor. The girl blushed even harder, and Aidan took pity on her.
"You're right, actually," Aidan said. "Well, maybe not the handsome part, although I appreciate the compliment." There were a few chuckles. That usually boded well for a new group. "But definitely about the young part. I'm actually twenty-six."
The amusement died immediately as everyone did the mental math. Within seconds, everyone except Carl stared at him in varying degrees of shock and disbelief. He waited patiently for someone to bring it up.
"You…manifested when you were ten?" an older boy to Aidan's right asked.
He looked about eighteen, and Aidan heard the jealousy that late bloomers had towards people who manifested their magic early coloring the kid's words.
Aidan frowned slightly. If the boy was in a WA meeting, he'd had to have been classified as a wizard at least a month ago. That he was still jealous so long after being trained by the DMS meant he wasn't adjusting to being a wizard the way he should be. Wizards were a lot of things, but never jealous of other wizards for an early manifestation of powers they could never use. He glanced over at Carl and got a slight nod of acknowledgment. They'd have to keep an eye on him. But for now, Aidan could only go on with the group.
"That's right," Aidan said. "I cast for the first time on my tenth birthday."
"But that's impossible!" the blushing girl—who, to be fair, wasn't really blushing anymore—said. "No one manifests that young! It's…it's impossible! The youngest magic user, wizard or sorcerer, in recorded history was Henry VIII and he only manifested at twelve!"
Aidan's heart ached for her. She obviously cared a lot about history and magic if she spent the time and energy finding books or scrolls that mentioned foreign countries. Even stuff about the homeland of Arthur and Merlin, aside from what everybody knew, was somewhat rare in America. Manifesting the wild magic was always tragic, but kids like her broke his heart the most. She might have made a great sorcerer one day, if she hadn't been born a wizard.
"That's because he's full of shit, Skyler," the sullen boy spoke up suddenly.
"No, he's not, Dallin! Shut up," the girl—Skyler—snapped.
"No, I won't shut up," Dallin snapped back. "Why the hell should we believe anything this government shill says? He's just trying to get us to accept being second class citizens for the rest of our lives, and it's bullshit!"
"Mom said—" Skyler started.
"Who gives a shit what mom said?" Dallin shouted. "Mom isn't here! She threw us to the first government agent she could and then forgot about us!"
"That's not true!"
"Then where is she?" Dallin stood up so fast the backs of his knees hit the chair and sent it sliding back a few feet; he threw his arms wide. "I don't see her! She never came to see us when we were getting trained on how not to use our magic and she hasn't even tried to call us since we got out. Face it, Skyler, Mom doesn't give a shit about us, and neither does anybody else. They just wanna keep us away from the real people and pretend we don't exist."
Aidan blinked. They were siblings? Impassioned outbursts weren't anything he hadn't heard before, but for a brother and sister to manifest, not just as wizards but apparently at the same time, was almost unheard of. Unless they were twins. They didn't seem to be the same age, but it didn't really mean anything if they were fraternal. One could easily look older than the other.
If they were twins, then one of them stood a good chance of being a siphon. Aidan's blood ran cold. He looked over at Carl. The sudden worry on the usually unflappable WA meeting director's face told Aidan Carl thought the same thing.
Siphons were one of the worst kinds of magic users, in some ways worse even than necromancers. At least a necromancer had control over their abilities, had to learn how to use them. Siphons were near-mindless killers. They drained the magic of anyone they got near and used it to fuel their own spells, and as any pre-magic third grader with a month of biology classes knows, the body can't live without magic.
Siphons were bad enough if they were sorcerers, but when a siphon's ability to drain magic was combined with a wizard's inability to cast even the simplest spells without them backfiring, and potentially causing massive amounts of destruction, they became one of the most dangerous people on the planet.
And there's a very good chance there's at least one in the room with me. Suddenly, the broken light didn't seem like much of a big deal.
"Dallin," Aidan said.
He didn't even realize he spoke for a second. Part of him screamed to just run and get the hell out of there. His life might not be anything special, but he didn't want to die in agony as his magic, broken as it was, was violently ripped from his body.
A bigger part of him, though, was filled with images of the kids around him screaming as their lives were drained away, the uncomfortable plastic chairs standing like silent tombstones as they fell to the floor, one by one, any chance of having whatever life they could snuffed out almost before it began. Aidan couldn't let it happen. He cared about his kids too much. Not that caring suddenly gave him any idea of what to do, but he figured keeping the potential mass murderers calm probably wasn't a bad idea.
"Calm down, Dallin." Aidan winced. Really? Calm down? That's the best you can do? It was too late to try anything else though; Dallin had already turned away from his sister.
"Calm down?" he yelled. "Or what? You gonna ship me off to get re-educated, government man? You gonna send me away so you can keep peddling your bullshit stories so everyone will think you're just so special?"
Okay. He's obviously angry about a lot of things. The government, me "lying", and his mom are probably the major ones though. So how does that help me?
It doesn't. Crap. I'm gonna die.
Or maybe not. He didn't even know if Dallin was the potential siphon or if it was Skyler. Or both.<
br />
Aidan swallowed. He couldn't just ask, "Hey, by any chance, are either of you in any danger of turning into insane, magic-sucking murder machines?" He barely held back the strangled laughter creeping up his throat. Oh, why in Merlin's name did I say anything?
But he had. And now the kid was focused on him. Aidan spared a quick glance over at Carl, but the older man wouldn't interfere. He wouldn't risk provoking the boy as long as his attention was on Aidan and not the kids. It wasn't like he could do anything anyway. Everyone in the room, including Carl, was a wizard. Which meant, even if Dallin was a siphon, they couldn't use magic to try and stop him without possibly killing everybody else in the room as well.
He thought maybe a few would try though, if they figured out this could be more than just a kid venting his frustrations at his unfair life. Thankfully, so far everyone else just seemed bored, nervous, or slightly amused. But it could change in an instant.
Step one. Keep everyone else calm. Okay, how do I do that? Act like you would if Dallin was just another angry kid. Yeah. That could work. Aidan took a deep breath. He could do that. Probably.
"I'm not special, Dallin." Aidan tried to keep his voice as steady as possible. To his great surprise, he seemed to be succeeding. "I'm just like you and your sister and everyone else here."
"Bullshit," Dallin spat with all the conviction of a fifteen-year-old boy convinced he was on the wrong side of an injustice.
Aidan’s nerves began to steady. He'd dealt with boys like Dallin for years.
"You're just a DMS shill who can't even be bothered to make up good lies."
"No, Dallin." Keep saying his name. Make him relate to you. You heard that somewhere, right? "I'm not lying, and I don't work for the DMS. I really did manifest when I was ten."
"Oh, yeah?" Dallin crossed his arms. "Prove it."
Aidan held his hostile gaze for a few seconds, then smiled slightly. "Okay."