The Raven's Curse

by Rain Oxford

  Merlin sighed. “You realize you are lecturing manners to a man you accosted, right?”

  “Respect goes both ways.”

  “He’s that way!” the man squeaked.

  I recognized the fear in his voice; it was the same fear my brothers instilled in all who crossed their paths. Yes, the man was rude, but I threatened to curse him for it. The worst part was that I meant it. That wasn’t me.

  I lowered the staff and gave him my best fake smile. “Thank you. Have a great day.”

  Merlin followed me in the direction the man had pointed. “I believe you scared him worse with your sudden change of personality than your vague threat.”

  I nodded. “I didn’t intend to be that mean. I lost…” I stopped talking as I realized we were near a large field. On the north side of the field, there was a large, wooden building. The field was rounded on the south side with a cliff drop into the ocean. A dozen people practiced a sword technique in front of the building, while one lone person practiced by himself far away from the others. Since he was the closest to me, I watched his performance.

  At first, I thought it was neat that someone could be so skillful without any magic. If I had any skill other than magic, I might have had a much happier life. Of course, I would never have met Merlin or become a curse breaker. My father had tried to teach me to use a sword, but I wasn’t interested at the time.

  I noticed that his posture was wobbly. This was very much like the stance Bloodbath had taught me. “I think you have that wrong,” I said. “Do you want me to show you?”

  “No, I have to figure it out for myself.”

  “That’s silly. Isn’t it your teacher’s job to show you?”

  “He did, and everyone else understands. He says that if I can’t figure it out, I can’t move forward, so he sent me here to practice it by myself.”

  “Ayden, it is not your place to interfere with another’s apprentice.”

  “If I could do it better, I should help.”

  “You do not know this person like his instructor does.”

  I considered this for a moment. Although I didn’t agree, Merlin knew more about this stuff than I did, since he’d had a number of apprentices over the year.

  “You don’t happen to know Gideon Sloan, do you?”

  “I wish I didn’t sometimes.”

  “Well, that’s not very nice.” Truthfully, I was worried that Gideon wouldn’t be as easy to convince as Mason. Zelli proved that not all of us had light magic.

  “Why are you interfering with my student?” a man asked, approaching us. He was muscular and tall. His brown hair was cut short and his face was clean with hard angles. His most distinguishing feature was his eye color; he had one grass-green eye and one sky-blue eye. There was something about his arrogant expression and stoic face that told me he was a warrior. His black clothes were simple and had a design on it, no doubt a tribute to his warrior guild or his teaching practice.

  “I had a question.”

  “About my school?”

  “No, about---”

  “Then you are interrupting my lesson. Leave.”

  “Who cares? It’s just a class, and you weren’t even teaching him anything. I have more important matters.”

  “Ayden!” Merlin warned.

  I ignored him. Just because the man was a warrior didn’t mean he could dismiss me. Sorcerers got respect because they demanded it. “I’m looking for Gideon Sloan.”

  The man narrowed his eyes. “I know him, and I can tell you where to find him, on one condition. You interrupted my lesson, so you will be the lesson. Defeat me and I will tell you where he is.”

  “This is not you. Apologize for interrupting his class and walk away.”

  “No way. He knows where the Sjau is and he’s intentionally keeping it from me. He challenged a sorcerer. He should have known better.”

  “He is a trained warrior and you promised not to do magic.”

  “Unless I had to. In this case, I don’t have a choice.” With the barest spark of energy, my staff transformed into a sword. I smirked. “I don’t mind teaching you a lesson, but I should probably warn you; you’ve just challenged one of the most powerful sorcerer families on Caldaca. If you want to retract it, just tell me where to find him and I’ll pretend you didn’t.”

  He grinned arrogantly. “Thanks, but I’m even more inclined. I thought this would be too easy. Now I know I don’t have to hold back.”

  “You must not have fought a sorcerer before.”

  “I’ve fought a number of sorcerers, and none were able to beat me.”

  “You need to---”

  “Merlin, just wait. I can’t be distracted right now.”

  He sighed. “What is it with sorcerers and princes? You never listen.”

  The man pulled his sword from its harness at his waist. His students created a large circle around us as Merlin grabbed my bag in his teeth and moved out of the way. “First to draw blood is the winner,” he said.

  I scoffed. “Sure.” As if any sorcerer would stop at first blood.

  “And feel free to use magic.”

  “I will.” Attack, I thought to the sword/staff. Magic flowed through me into the sword, causing the blade to glow red. I ignored the pain in my chest, though it was quite a bit worse than the previous times. When magic shot out of it like lightning, he intercepted it with his own blade. To my shock, his green eye glowed green. At the same instant that my magic struck his sword, his blade glowed green and absorbed my curse. “What did you do?!”

  The warrior grinned. “Did I forget to tell you? I’m not just a warrior; I’m also a mage.”

  I hadn’t bothered to check to see if he had any magic. I had just assumed that because I was a Sjau, I was more powerful than a warrior. I should have been afraid. I wasn’t overly calm like when I faced Veronica, but I was definitely less afraid than I should have been. I should have listened to Merlin.

  Instead, I swung the sword the way Bloodbath taught me. He blocked with twice the speed and counterstruck. Fortunately, his block had thrown off my balance and caused me to trip backwards, narrowly missing his attack.

  “Don’t lock your knees,” he said. “You move slower, your balance is week, and your opponent can predict your strike easier.”

  “Thank you,” I said automatically. I got to my feet and did as he said. My next thought was to attack him with magic again, but that felt wrong. Protect me, I thought to the staff. I felt magic flow out of me, into the staff, and back into me. My skin became numb and a little cold. The sting in my chest, however, worsened.

  In my moment of distraction, the warrior slashed at me. His sword would easily have sliced open my stomach had I not been protected. Thanks to my spell, my skin was undamaged.

  It was his turn to be surprised. “Impressive. I thought defensive spells could only be done by wizards.”

  There wasn’t anything I could say that wouldn’t get me in worse trouble, so I tried to distract him by fighting harder. I used every move Bloodbath taught me, but I was clumsy at best. I wasn’t built like a warrior and up until this fight, I never wanted to fight anyone with a sword. He struck me many times with nothing to show for it.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t remember why I wanted to fight the warrior so much in the first place. Although what he had said sounded so insulting before, it was really just a matter of opinion. He obviously cared a lot about his students’ education and he didn’t know anything about the Sjau. In my moment of revelation, the warrior stabbed me in the stomach with the pommel of the sword.

  On reflex, magic welled up, ready to attack, but I dropped my staff, fell, and clutched my stomach in pain instead. Merlin jumped between us and growled ferociously. “I’m okay,” I said, though my voice came out strained.

  He took a few steps back until he was beside me. “Are you sure?”

  “Maybe some broken organs, but whatever was wrong with me is gone for now.”

  “You realize that provoking a trained warr
ior was a bad idea?”

  “I realize that everything I did since we got to this land was a bad idea, but especially dismissing your warning. I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.” The man held out his hand and I let him pull me up. As soon as his hand touched mine, the pain lessened. “Thank you,” I said.

  His eyes widened with surprise. “You weren’t my weakest opponent, but you could use a lot of improvement.”

  “I know. I’ve only practiced with a pirate captain, and even then it wasn’t for more than a few days. Thank you for hitting me.”

  “Do you need healing?” he asked. “I think you hit your head.”

  “No, you just knocked some sense into me. It’s my own fault for mouthing off to a warrior. I know how important honor is to you and I shouldn’t have bothered you or your class. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve never heard a sorcerer apologize before.”

  “And you probably never will.”

  “Everyone, get back to work,” the man said. The students rushed to do as he said, leaving us alone faster than I thought possible. “Are you saying you’re not a sorcerer? You were acting like one.”

  “Yes, I was. I have a sort of personality problem right now.” I lowered my hood and face mask. “I’m not normally an arrogant jerk,” I said, picking up my sword and transforming it back into a staff.

  “So, you’re a wizard?”

  “No, I’m not a wizard, either. I’m very sorry about interrupting your class and I’ll make it up to you another day by doing chores or something, but I’m in a big hurry. Lives are at stake. Even though I lost, can you at least point me in the right direction? I think walking is going to hurt for days.”

  “I don’t know. You seem a little unstable.”

  I looked at Merlin and he nodded. “You told Bralyn and he was fine with it. Maybe this warrior is equally open-minded.”

  I was more worried about the fact that I couldn’t run if this man decided to lock me up for being an aberration. “My name is Ayden Dracre. Everyone on Akadema knows my family’s name. They are very powerful sorcerers. I, on the other hand, was born blond with blue eyes and no dark magic whatsoever. I tried to be like them, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone. My magic was always light, or, when it did come out dark, it still ended up helping people.”

  His expression was not trusting.

  “I left home to prove that I was a powerful sorcerer and ended up finding out I was anything but. In fact, I’m not a sorcerer at all.”

  “So you have no magic? Are you a warlock?”

  I had to push away irritation. “No. I am the seventh born son of the seventh born son, and that makes me a completely different magic user. I’m called a Sjau, and---”

  “You are volunteering a little too much information now,” Merlin interrupted.

  “Sorry.”

  “For what?” the man asked.

  “I was saying sorry to Merlin. He can talk, but only I can hear him.”

  “Then you really are crazy.”

  “No, I’m just…” in pain, for one thing. Unlike the sting in my chest, the pain in my stomach wasn’t going away. “Anyway, my mother is out to kill all of the Sjau because we’re supposed to be very powerful, so I’m trying to warn them.”

  “So, Gideon is a freak like you?”

  “Probably not. I’ve met two other Sjau and they’re both perfectly normal.” Well, Zelli was normal. Mason had wizardry and mage magic, which was pretty unnatural. Still, I didn’t want to betray Gideon, or any of his possible secrets, to a stranger.

  “Why not hire a warrior to warn all these people?”

  “Some of them don’t know what they are and I should be the one to explain it since it’s my mother who wants them killed.”

  “Is there a bounty on them?”

  “No.”

  “Is there a bounty on you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. Merlin growled, obviously suspicious of the man’s question. “It’s okay, Merlin; he’s a warrior.”

  “I consider warriors to be mercenaries. From the short time Bralyn was with us, I assume warriors to be soldiers for hire to anyone, so why would he not be interested in a bounty.”

  “Warriors travel the world, slaying monsters, saving damsels in distress, and fighting in armies when necessary. They’re trained fighters who do whatever they need to do, sometimes for money, sometimes for glory. They aren’t afraid of death; they’re only afraid of dishonor. They’re not interested in bounties.”

  “Actually, some of us are,” the man argued. “Of course, that’s only unofficial warriors who are not guild members. The rest of us cannot receive bounties. Fortunately, I am a guild member, and a mage wouldn’t take part in that anyway. You seem like a fairly respectable person.”

  “Thank you. Coming from a warrior, I know that means a lot.”

  “Being different than your family and not knowing why can make you forget to value your strengths.”

  I nodded. “I’ve already taken up too much of your time. I need to go find Gideon now. It was nice to meet you.” I picked up my bag and started to walk away, only for Merlin to sit down where he was. “What’s wrong?”

  “You have not told Gideon about Magnus and the castle yet.”

  “I will when I find him.”

  “You have already found him.”

  “What?” I looked at the warrior. “You’re Gideon Sloan?”

  He smirked. “So the wolf is the brains of the operation?”

  “What?”

  “Just smile and agree,” Merlin said.

  “Yes, I am Gideon. We’d better take this somewhere more private.”

  * * *

  Gideon led us to the wooden building, which had a huge main room. Apparently, that was for training when the weather didn’t permit for outside training. Several small rooms surrounded the large room. We were invited into one of these rooms which had nothing but a low table and dark purple pillows on the floor. We sat down and I explained everything from the very beginning all the way to the discovery that something was making me more of a sorcerer.

  When I was done, there was a thoughtful silence. Finally, Gideon said, “I agree with Merlin that this is caused by your mother. I have never heard of a curse to turn someone into a sorcerer, but I don’t know that much about curses.”

  I blushed. “I didn’t consider that it might be a curse. I thought I would know if I was under a curse, but Merlin had to point out that something was wrong with me in the first place.”

  “On other worlds, it is impossible to make someone turn dark, so I overlooked that possibility as well,” Merlin admitted. “This may have been a case of us being too close to the problem. We knew it was something causing you to act more like a sorcerer. A curse makes sense.”

  “Mason said the only way for my mother to change me would be to capture me.”

  “He could have been wrong.”

  “Besides, the people who are losing their magic definitely don’t have a curse on them. I’ve checked.”

  “If it was related to that, Mason, Zelli, and I would have noticed something wrong with us as well. I don’t think it’s related at all,” Gideon suggested.

  “Maybe it’s not my mother but something wrong with my magic itself. It keeps getting worse when I use magic.”

  “You’re fighting it, though, which makes it sound like a curse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m a mage, so although I can’t break curses, I know how to identify them. From everything you’ve said, it sounds like you’re fighting it without realizing it. The confidence you’ve been feeling, I think that’s just you. The arrogance, irritability, and anger, that’s the curse. I’m just making an assumption from what you’ve told me and the way you said it. When you need to do something, you feel confidence. I believe that’s because, for the first time in your life, you feel like you have a real purpose. Confidence is not a sorcerer trait— arrogance is.”

  “Are all mages this
observant?” Merlin asked with obvious approval.

  “Mages are known for their wisdom. That’s why they run warrior guilds,” I told him. “So, how does that mean I’m fighting the curse?”

  “Well, if the curse is made stronger every time you use magic, it would make sense that it would encourage you to use magic more. Instead, you’re using it less because Merlin has asked you to. You only seem to be losing control when people antagonize you. That sounds like you’re fighting the curse.”

  “Tell him to hurry,” Merlin said.

  “Why?”

  “You are squirming and about to lose focus.”

  “Oh.” He was right and I hadn’t even realized it.

  “Am I making you uncomfortable by talking about you?”

  “No, it’s just that my stomach is really hurting.”

  He frowned. “I didn’t think I hit you that hard.”

  “You have not eaten since yesterday morning.”

  “I might be hungry, but I can worry about that later. I need to summon Fluffy so that Magnus can create a golem to help you get to the castle. You are going, right?”

  “A golem would just slow me down. I appreciate you coming all this way to warn me, especially since you didn’t know who I was or what kind of magic I had, but I’m not going to hide from anyone.”

  “Please don’t say you’re going to face my mother. She’s not to be taken lightly.”

  “Not at first. I will face her when the time comes, but first, I will put my warrior skills to use and help you warn the others. I’d like to learn more about the Sjau, why we have this special magic, and what our limitations are. There might be others like you and me, who don’t know why we’re like this. I want to know… why I was chosen. What’s special about me other than the order of my birth? Am I special, or am I cursed?”

  I completely understood. He wasn’t raised in a family that hated him like I was, but he had no idea where his magic came from or why he had it. “I’m sorry. I don’t have those answers. I wish I did.”

  “Maybe if all fourteen of us get together, we could figure it out. We could help each other. I know what it’s like to have conflicting natures. I had to hide my magic from my family and it was exhausting. Warriors have a unique way of life, but like sorcerers, they’re usually arrogant. Mages are supposed to be wise and humble.”