The Raven's Curse

by Rain Oxford

“Blue could be in serious need of help.”

  “Zelli could also.”

  “I have a very strong feeling that we need to go to Blue first.”

  “I don’t agree. That just sounds like a waste of time. You don’t have magic, so there’s no way for you to know for sure. Right?”

  “That is true.”

  “Then it makes no sense to go after the one who’s further away only to come all the way back. We’ll go after Zelli first.”

  He sighed, but he didn’t argue. “Is your chest hurting?” he asked instead.

  I shrugged. “Yes, but it’s bearable.” I put the mirror and wand away and mounted Kirin. “Keep heading north.” Kirin took off at a fast gallop. After a while, however, I patted Kirin’s neck and he slowed to a trot. Merlin slowed as well. “Merlin, I’m sorry. I was rude when I said that you don’t have magic. Even though you’re cursed, you still know more magic than I ever will, and I shouldn’t have said it like that.”

  “I assume the ache in your chest is to blame, for pain can cause anyone to be irritable.”

  * * *

  We travelled until sunset and then I made a fire because the night was pretty cold. When Merlin insisted I eat something, I transformed some clay without really paying attention. I didn’t feel like eating any more bread, fruit, or vegetables, but I didn’t want to argue with Merlin. To my great surprise, the clay changed into a roasted bird’s leg.

  And it wasn’t tofu this time.

  “Um…” I said wisely.

  Merlin sniffed at the meat. “What were you trying to transform it into?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Nothing in particular. I guess I wanted it to be anything but bread, fruit, or vegetables.” I studied my wand to see if it had the answer. It was very straight, made of rosewood, and had elegant sigils engraved in the handle. It wasn’t a sorcerer’s wand, but it also wasn’t like Mason’s.

  “The sigils changed,” I said.

  “How so?”

  “Well, I remember what I carved into it because I made it four times. Every time, it changed as soon as I did any magic. The wood is still rosewood, but the sigils have changed back to what I originally carved. Maybe it means I’m getting more powerful.”

  “That is not the way magic works here. I worry this may be your mother’s doing. Maybe she is the cause of the pain in your chest.”

  “I don’t see how. Well, actually, I don’t doubt that she could kill me from a distance, I just don’t know why she would. She went through a lot of trouble to create me so that she could take my magic; she’s not just going to kill me now.”

  “What if she decided to kill you to get you out of her way? Perhaps she decided you were not going to change, so she turned her attention on stealing magic from the other Sjau.”

  “I don’t think that’s it. I think my mother is too stubborn for that.”

  “Well, you know your mother better than I do. What do you think she would do?”

  “Figure out how to make me be a sorcerer. She was always encouraging my brothers to treat me poorly because that was how they wanted me to be. I get that, but it didn’t work. I think her next step would be to come up with another method.”

  “What would it take to make you do dark magic?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Before I met you, I would have done it if I could. Now I don’t want to. Maybe if I had to do dark magic to save someone… but that doesn’t sound very likely.” I heard a bird in a tree take off and realized how quiet it was.

  Merlin sat and stared into the fire worriedly while I put my wand away and ate.

  * * *

  I woke to a prickly sensation down my back. The large moon was dark, the small one was almost gone, and the fire had died, so there was very little light to see with. “Merlin?” I called. He wasn’t there, so I assumed he had gone to howl. I called his name again in his mind. Still no answer.

  “Kirin?” The unicorn didn’t reply, either.

  I tried to sit up, only to find my body unresponsive. That was when I saw glowing red eyes staring down at me from the tree. I thought I had this dream before. My staff was right next to me, though it did me no good if I couldn’t reach it. Once again, I tried with all my might to move my arm.

  Nothing.

  A creepy caw broke the silence.

  I closed my eyes because if I was going to be eaten, I certainly didn’t want to watch. “Staff, come to me,” I whispered. The staff ignored me. “Please, you’ve done it before.” Still, it ignored me. Maybe it was a dream or maybe it was just fear that prevented my staff from coming to me, but I didn’t like how powerless it made me feel.

  Even though I needed my wand or staff to focus my power, I still had magic in me. When one of the glowing-eyed creatures flew down from the branch, I reacted instinctively. I cleared my mind of all things but creating a ward and released my energy as if I had a wand in my hand. The energy flowed out of me…

  And exploded. Without my wand or staff to guide it, my raw magic burned everything in its path, including the air.

  As soon as the fire was out, I grasped my staff automatically. I could move again. I could also see Merlin and Kirin fighting off what looked like ravens. There were at least fifty of them swarming Kirin while Merlin did all he could to protect him.

  I swiped at the ravens with my staff until one of them landed on it and used his momentum to slam it into my knee. I smacked the massive bird and he took off. This time, not focusing on any curse in particular, I pointed my staff into the largest cluster of the birds. “Attack.”

  To my surprise, red magic shot out of my staff and struck every single raven, easily twisting to avoid Kirin and Merlin as if it knew not to hurt them. All of the ravens turned to stone and fell to the ground, some breaking wings or legs off when they hit the hard dirt.

  The pain in my chest came back, stronger than ever. I knew either Merlin was correct that it had something to do with my magic, or something was wrong with my heart.

  Kirin rushed towards me and slowed just enough for me to grab hold of his harness and heft myself over his back. When his leg knocked my staff out of my hand, Merlin grabbed it in his teeth and chased after us.

  It took some work, but I eventually righted myself. Just as the sun was rising a while later, Kirin and Merlin slowed down.

  “What happened?” I asked. “They were attacking Kirin.”

  “They were attacking the saddlebag,” Merlin corrected. “They might have been after the magic mirror.”

  “The potion Asiago used on Veronica must have worn off.”

  “Not if he created it correctly.”

  A couple months after I joined Magnus and banished my brothers to another world, Veronica kidnaped Livia. To defeat her, a necromancer named Asiago slipped a potion into her food which eliminated Veronica’s magic, including her ability to control animals.

  “I don’t know anyone else who can control animals like that. Plus, how well do your world’s potions work here? And besides, Asiago isn’t a sorcerer, so maybe the potion he made using Vactarus’s magic ring doesn’t last because it wasn’t his magic.”

  “If that is the case, and I am doubtful it is, then all of Gmork’s servants will have gained their magic back and could overthrow Nimue.”

  Chapter 6

  Even when the sun was high in the sky, it didn’t chase away the cold. I halfway fell asleep in the saddle for a while. Eventually, Kirin slowed down and I heard the sound of the ocean. At the top of a hill, we looked down over the beach. Unfortunately, there were no boats or people. “I’ll try to use the mirror to see where we’re going. If I can do that, maybe I can transport us. There’s no way my mother is just waiting around for me to transport myself. If I do it quick---”

  “Ayden, I have a very strong feeling you need to avoid using magic as much as possible, at least until we figure out what is causing you pain. Furthermore, if your mother does want to capture you, I would not put it past her for a second to be ready at any moment for you to u
se a transportation spell.”

  I actually opened my mouth to argue before I caught myself. I trusted Merlin. He was the only one who really wanted what was best for me. “I haven’t been using magic frivolously, though; we keep running into problems.”

  “The fact that we keep running into situations requiring you to use magic is rather suspicious. What happened last night was an attack, yet you were not injured.”

  “Veronica might be afraid of us after we beat her. Maybe she just wanted the mirror.”

  “You really are quite stubborn. If Veronica was controlling those ravens, her best chance of getting the mirror would have been to attack you while you slept. I cannot help but to think the goal was to force you to use magic.”

  Before I could respond, Kirin started trotting down the path to the right. “Where are we going?” I asked. Of course, the unicorn didn’t answer. “Do you even know?” He shook his head. “Great.”

  Merlin looked curious as he followed behind. Eventually, we came upon a small cave and Kirin stopped. I got down and pulled my wand out of the saddlebag. “I hear someone in there,” Merlin said.

  “Someone dangerous?”

  He turned his head slightly and listened for a moment. “No. It sounds like someone is in pain.”

  “Stay here,” I said, putting my wand away and grabbing my staff.

  “You are joking,” Merlin said. When I tried to enter the cave, Merlin intercepted me.

  “You said it wasn’t dangerous.”

  “That does not mean you should just run in there.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “You should at least be hesitant to run into a dark cave.”

  “You said he sounded like he was in pain.”

  He sighed. “Maybe I tell you to follow your heart too much.”

  As I entered the cave, Merlin was right next to me. It had looked completely dark from outside, but there was enough light to see that it was divided into three tunnels. In one tunnel, I could see the flickering of fire. “Hello? Do you need help?” I asked.

  After a moment, an old man limped out, carrying two full sacks. The man’s clothes were dirty and raggedy. His hair was long, white, and just as dirty as his clothes. He was also very thin and frail-looking.

  He stopped and scrutinized me, obviously not impressed. “Are you feral?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you crippled?”

  “No.”

  “Then you should offer to take my burden.”

  “Sorry.” I leaned my staff against the wall and gently took the sacks from him. One of them was ridiculously heavy, but the other wasn’t. “Where do you want these?”

  “In my cabin.” The old man started walking towards the exit.

  Before I could argue, he grabbed my staff and used it as a walking stick. As if it could feel my irritation, the crystal glowed dimly blue. I didn’t sense any magic, however, so I didn’t worry about him using it. “I really don’t have time to---”

  “You have time to help an old man.”

  I looked at Merlin and he nodded. I didn’t really want to carry the sacks for the grouchy man, but I would feel terribly guilty if he was injured or worse trying to carry them when I could do it instead. We followed the man out of the cave.

  He stroked Kirin’s mane. “No unicorn should have a saddle,” he said.

  “I didn’t saddle him, and he wouldn’t be here if it bothered him that much.” Still using my staff to support himself on, the old man unstrapped the saddle with one hand. “Wait! The mirror!”

  I felt energy flow through me automatically. Unfortunately, without my staff or wand to guide my magic, it was volatile. All magic users could do magic accidentally and naturally. My mother said this was how we learned to control it. Merlin believed otherwise; he said when we did magic unintentionally, it was the magic that was in control of us. This time, I saw his point.

  The ground between Kirin and the man exploded, startling the unicorn. The saddle snapped and hit the ground. Kirin took off and I groaned. If the mirror was broken, there was nothing I could do.

  Unconcerned, the old man ambled away. Merlin opened the saddlebag and pulled my bag out of it. “We will have to check the mirror later.”

  We followed the man across the beach, over a hill, and into the woods. Finally, we reached the man’s cabin, which was rundown to say the least. Inside was even worse. There were some cooking supplies, a chipped and charred table, a small bed, and three pots on the floor that were obviously meant to catch leaks in the roof. Too bad Merlin can’t teach me to turn dirt into stone or something, because it would take just a moment to fix the leaks.

  As soon as the man sat on his bed, I put down the sacks and took my staff from him. “Be careful with those,” the man said, standing. He picked up the sacks and set them on the table carefully.

  “You weren’t very gentle with my things. I’m sorry if I hurt your rocks.” I shut up when he pulled the contents out of the heavy sack. I had been wrong; they weren’t rocks.

  It was a dragon egg.

  Merlin’s ears lowered with agitation. “Ask him what he plans to do with that.”

  The egg was the color of a blue sapphire with gold marbling. My father had told me very little about dragon eggs and I’d never seen one in person, but I had seen several paintings of them, so I knew what it was. “You’re not going to hurt it, are you?”

  “Of course not,” the man snapped, snarling.

  “Then why are you…” I stopped when he emptied out the contents of the second bag, which was a collection of broken, silver shells. “What happened?!”

  “He hatched.”

  “There’s a baby dragon out there?”

  Merlin shifted his feet with discomfort. I could sense that his mind was racing and he wanted so badly to ask his own questions. He was obviously very concerned about the dragon, and rightly so; they were still hunted. Dragons were hunted for their protective hide, natural weapons, and the magical properties of their blood.

  “Ask him if he knows for certain it was male,” Merlin said.

  “Does it matter?”

  “How much about dragons did your father tell you?”

  “As much as my mother allowed. I know what dragons can do and I’ve heard a lot of legends. My father’s family were dragon trainers. I thought that meant they just trained dragons, which is silly, because what would they be teaching the dragons to do? However, the dragon in the Endless Forest said it was the dragons that were teaching the sorcerers magic, not the other way around, in exchange for protection against hunting. I don’t know why dragons didn’t just openly hunt people since people openly hunted them.”

  “Dragons are wiser than people.”

  “Anyway, I learned more about dragons from them than I did from my father. I knew that dragons were powerful and that his family had over a dozen dragons and a number of eggs. When my mother married my father, she tried to take over, but that’s not how it works. At first, my mother and my grandmother fought a lot, so my mother tried to ‘help’ instead. Dragons suffered and my grandmother decided to let them go.”

  “What happened to the eggs they had?”

  “I don’t know.” Most likely, my father never told me because he didn’t want my mother overhearing it. “Are you sure the baby dragon was male?” I asked the old man.

  “No female dragon has hatched on Caldaca in over a thousand years.”

  I gasped. “Why?”

  “There are many theories, and that is all they are. Not even the dragons know the truth.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was a dragon trainer.”

  “Do you know the Rynorm family?”

  “I do. They are good people.”

  “They are sorcerers.”

  “They are still honorable and respectable even if they only use magic for personal gain. Too many sorcerers these days think dark magic means they must be despicable people. You, for example, can have manners and help an old
man in need despite your dark magic.”

  “I’m a Dracre. We’re the worst of the lot. Do you know about the dragon eyes?” I asked, holding out the crystal on my staff.

  He didn’t look at it. “Of course I do. Yours is not fully developed yet.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It will be dark blue, almost as black as the sky, when it is fully bonded to you. In the dark depths will be glowing spots like stars.” He pulled a small box out from under his pillow. Inside was an amulet just like he described. It was extremely dark blue; much darker than mine, with small sparkles inside, whereas mine had rainbow shards inside.

  “How long does it take for it to finish bonding?”

  “That’s between you and the stone. What it will be able to do when it’s fully bonded depends on all the decisions you make, the challenges you face, and the way you feel about dragons.” He picked up one of the pots and dumped it into the sack. Surprisingly, the water didn’t drain out of it. Even more surprisingly, he slipped the egg back into the sack and made a motion with his hands over it. I was wrong about him being powerless.

  Merlin growled.

  “Dragon eggs need heat to hatch, and the only way to protect them is to prevent them from hatching. Move the bed out of the way.”

  With a sigh, I set aside my staff and did as he asked. Underneath the bed was a trap door. Without waiting for directions, I picked up the sack with the dragon egg and, as I had expected, the water had turned to ice.

  Merlin sniffed it, growling again. “My ability to sense magic must be failing.”

  “He’s not a wizard,” I said. “He’s an elementalist. They’re extremely rare; I’d only ever heard about them before. He has power over the elements. I’ve read that when they’re not doing magic, you can’t sense their magic. It’s a means of protecting them since they’re so rare.” When the old man lifted the trap door, I gently set the ice-covered egg in the hole. There were four more sacks. “How many eggs do you have?”

  “This makes five.”

  “Are you certain you can protect them? What if someone attacks?”

  “Tread carefully, young sorcerer, lest you injure a very old man’s pride.”