by Rain Oxford
Magic tore out of me, through the staff, and into the beast like lightning. The pain in my chest felt more like a heavy pressure, but it was nothing compared to the magic inside me, which felt like it was boiling over. The staff was made for this and for the first time, my magic wanted to attack.
It struck the creature and caused the fish head to screech in pain. I didn’t know fish could screech, but whatever. Other than that, the monster was unaffected, so I tried again. This time, it didn’t even hurt the creature a little. The snake head struck and I barely managed to avoid it. Once again, I aimed my staff at it, only for the magic to miss altogether. I decided to take Merlin’s advice instead of using impulse magic. I focused my magic to turn the creature into stone. Unfortunately, the magic bounced off its scales and struck a nearby tree, turning it to stone.
I considered calling my monkey monster, but decided he wasn’t strong enough. Instead, I had another idea. I focused on the desire to protect as I held out my staff like a weapon. Magic poured out of me and created a storm cloud. I had only done this once and I wasn’t even sure how I did it then. The crystal began glowing blue with power instead of red and seemed to take over my magic.
My energy started building inside me without my control. It poured from me, into the staff, out into the cloud, back into the staff, and back into me.
“Ayden, no! This is a trick! You must not use any more magic!” Merlin warned, running towards me. Although it was only moments before sunset, I was amazed at his speed.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. The more magic I use, the stronger I get, and the better I’m going to be able to defeat my mother.”
“You are wasting your energy! That creature is an illusion!”
I scoffed. “It doesn’t look like an illusion.”
When the snake head attacked again, I dived out of the way. Merlin, on the other hand, met it halfway and… passed right through it. The monster vanished.
I just stared in shock for a moment. “I’m sorry, Merlin. I should have believed you.”
“Yes, you should have. Those, however, are real,” he said. I turned to look behind me, where two dozen zombies were stumbling slowly towards us. I aimed my staff. “No,” Merlin said. “Save your energy and run.”
“Sven is in that cave and he needs our help.”
“You may be unwilling to help him if you use much more magic.”
“No. Sven is a sorcerer. Rocana was even somewhat nice. Even if the anger does take over and I do kill my mother, I can still help my friends.” We backed up against the wall of the cliff as the zombies grew ever closer.
“As a sorcerer, yes, but you have no idea what power can do to a person. Not just power, but arrogance. It was arrogance that killed my mother.”
“What? You said your mother died waiting for you.”
“I lied. It was my fault she was killed. I was arrogant and I trusted my power over Cennuth’s wisdom.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what he was trying to tell me. The one thing I knew for certain about Merlin was that I could trust him because he never lied to me. There wasn’t enough time to think. I pointed the staff at the zombies and imagined them collapsing. “Deyja.” Nothing happened. My magic didn’t know how to do Merlin’s magic. “Go away!” I shouted. Even my staff didn’t know how to interpret that. Zombies surrounded us now, a mere moment from devouring us.
I felt the bond between Merlin and me suddenly become stronger than it ever had before, almost painfully so. I felt my fingers tighten around my staff as if I was in one of Merlin’s dreams— as if I couldn’t control my own body. One thought filled my mind. It was not a thought I recognized or could put a name to… until it burst out of my mouth. “Réna!”
Every drop of magic inside me responded instantly and shot through the staff. It wasn’t like a bolt of lightning or fire, but an invisible wave that crashed over the small army before me. Every zombie froze for just a moment before crumbling into dust.
I dropped to my knees, covered in sweat, panting, and wondering what happened. Except I knew what happened, I just didn’t want to believe it. Merlin had used magic through me. “Did you know you could do that when I released you from the syrus?” I asked, still trying to catch my breath.
“No, of course not. I did not mean to do it just then.”
That sounded rational, but I wasn’t in the mood for rational. Merlin lied to me, and then he used me.
Now that he knows he can do it, he’ll do it again.
No, he won’t. Merlin’s my friend. He cares about me.
A friend wouldn’t lie to you.
He had to have a good reason.
He wanted your power. He got tired of being powerless and decided to take yours.
“We need to go before---” Merlin started.
I cut him off, standing. “No, you need to go. I won’t have my mother controlling me and I won’t have you doing it, either.”
“I have never tried to control you.”
“You always try to control me! You keep secrets you don’t think I should know, you constantly tell me what to do, and now you’re using my magic!”
“This is the curse making you---”
“Oh, yeah, blame it on the curse. You said being kind doesn’t mean being a pushover. Maybe you were lying then, too. Tell me your mother’s death is the only lie you told me.”
He hesitated. “I cannot.”
“Tell me you’ll never use my magic again.” Tell me I’ll never have to feel out of control of my own body again. Tell me my magic will never be used against me.
“I did not intend to do it, so I cannot say for certain that I would never accidentally do it again.”
“Then I can’t trust you.”
“You do not mean that.”
“Go away! Don’t ever come back or I’ll protect myself against you!” I almost always read Merlin’s face as easily as if it was one of my brothers’, so I had to look away when I saw the hurt on his. It was so much like the pain I felt in myself. I felt like I had a stomachache… all over my body. Maybe this was because I had used so much more magic than I had ever used before, or maybe it was because I was telling the only person who cared about me to leave.
And maybe it was because Merlin was my best friend. I liked Magnus, Kisha, Livia, and the pirates. Even the Sjau were pretty special to me because we shared something unique. But when I needed advice or just company, it was Merlin I went to. He always knew how to encourage me when I was feeling down or discourage me if I was getting ahead of myself. He knew how to make me learn something I wasn’t interested in. He even knew when I was particularly enjoying a book I was reading.
And now I’ll return to the castle without him. When everything settles down and the Sjau leave, it’ll just be me alone.
Well, Magnus would be there, but he wasn’t Merlin.
By the time I was able to pull myself from the murky sludge of my miserable thoughts, Merlin was gone.
I walked into the cave, only to find one living being who most definitely was not Sven. It was a very large, very scary, and very angry looking bear. I aimed my staff at it and focused my mind… but my magic didn’t even stir. I was too worn out to do magic. I needed food and rest.
“Please do something,” I whispered to the staff.
It ignored me.
The bear, however, did not; it rushed at me. I ran, tripped, and rolled out of the cave, but somehow managed to avoid being shredded by its claws. That was, until I came to a stop and the bear caught up with me. He swiped at me with his paw and his claws dug deep into my stomach. Before he could take another swing, Sven appeared, pushing the bear off me.
“Sven! You’re okay.”
He ignored me. “What do you think you’re doing trying to kill him?!” he demanded of the bear. The bear roared at him.
“He’s going to---” I stopped talking when he slapped the bear in the face.
“Change back.”
To my shock, the bear started shrinking
and its hair receded until there was a beautiful, young woman standing there. She was about my height and age with long, dark red, curly hair and eyes the color of honey. She wore a well-fitted, brown leather vest, a white undershirt, a ruffled black skirt that was shorter in the front and longer in the back, and boots.
I almost forgot she was a bear who tried to spill my guts across the grass.
“What do you think you were doing?” Sven asked her. His normally lighthearted tone was gone. I opened my mouth to warn him when he spoke again. “Ilvera wants him alive. That means not dead!” he knocked on her head, causing her to blush deeply with shame.
“I don’t care what she wants. If I can kill Ayden, I’ll take his power and be stronger than Ilvera.” Despite the redness on her cheeks, her voice was strong. I felt… very weird about that, but mostly I was just confused.
And betrayed. I was definitely betrayed. “So, you were on my mother’s side this entire time?” I asked.
He finally turned to me and smirked. “No sorcerer is as dumb as I pretended to be… except for you, of course. Even your wolf knew I was faking it.” The woman tried to wrap her arm around his, but he smacked it away. “I really thought I was going too far, but you wanted someone to be like you so much that you were willing to believe anything.”
“I thought we had something in common.”
He laughed. “That’s hilarious. Not to hurt your girly feelings or anything, but your brothers should have slapped some sense into you when you were little.”
“Did your brothers beat you a lot?”
“They beat me enough. That’s why I’m strong, whereas you’re standing there, bleeding out into the grass with your magic drained.” He pulled the wand I gave him from his pocket. “And what’s really funny is that I tried so hard to get your wolf out of the way, when I only had to wait for you to do it yourself.”
“What did you do to Houda?”
“When I found out her secret, I took her to Ilvera.”
“Why are you working for her?”
“With not for. I don’t work for anyone.”
When he reached out his arm to point his wand at me, I saw the barest hint of a tattoo on the inside of his wrist. “You’re an assassin!”
He looked somewhat impressed. “You’re not as dumb as I thought. How did you guess?”
“The tattoo on your wrist. I’ve met an assassin from a guild and she had a tattoo just like that.” Of course, I couldn’t see it clearly, so I couldn’t be sure.
He laughed. “Nice catch. Too bad you didn’t figure it out before you chased off your wolf.”
“You said my mother wanted me alive. You can’t kill me.”
“No. All I have to do is transport you to your mother, now that you’re finally ready.” He paused, and I thought maybe there was a chance he would change his mind. Then he grinned. “Of course, there’s nothing to say I can’t mess you up a little first. You don’t need your arms and legs for what your mother has in mind.”
“Why would you do that? I never did anything to hurt you.”
He shrugged. “Because it’s fun, and I have a lot of pent up anger. I’m either going to beat you or Kalyn,” he said, pointing to the woman. “But it’s a terrible waste of time beating a woman; they never listen and they never learn. Would you rather me beat her or you?” he grinned. “Tell me you would prefer I hit her, and I won’t hurt you.” He grabbed her arm roughly and she flinched.
She was my enemy, not to mention a stranger, and she attacked me. But she looked afraid. “Let her go.”
He rolled his eyes with a sigh of exasperation. “He’s not ready,” he said, letting her go. He then pointed his new wand at me. When the tip flashed red and made a fart sound, he glared at it. “What’s wrong with it?! I’ve used it before.”
“It can’t hurt anyone,” I said. My heart sank into my stomach. I hadn’t meant to say that; it compelled me to tell the truth.
“What did you say?!”
“It can’t hurt anyone!” I repeated, the words being forced from my mouth.
“Why not?”
“It’s defective. It can’t hurt anyone, but it can make them tell the truth.”
His eyes widened. “Now, that’s interesting. How do I make someone tell the truth with it?”
“Just hold it out like you’re doing now.”
“And you can’t lie?”
“No, I can’t.” I tried. I really, really tried.
His grin was back, crueler than ever. “Have you ever kissed a girl?”
“No.”
He laughed. “This is going to be fun.” He put it away in one of the pockets of his robe and pulled out another wand. This wand was black with silver sigils etched into it. “But I believe I promised you some roughing up first.”
I tried to get out of the way in time, which wasn’t easy when I was covered in my own blood. I ended up falling and then I felt nothing but agonizing pain. Sometime later, I was able to see again. Sven and Kalyn were facing away and discussing something. My hearing wasn’t working enough to make out what they were saying.
With every muscle in pain, I somehow crawled across the grass and found a hiding spot behind a large boulder. That was all my body could take. As I lay unmoving, I heard them discover I was missing. I hoped they wouldn’t look behind the wall, because there wasn’t much I could do about it if they did.
When a raven landed on my bleeding chest and started cawing for their attention, I knew there was no hope left.
And I let the darkness take over.
* * *
That should have been the end of it. My body was completely depleted of energy and magic. I had nothing left in me to keep me fighting. Nothing but darkness.
I watched what happened next as if it was a dream I had no control over. I saw myself standing again, and I saw myself use my staff to attack. I saw Sven and Kalyn on the ground in the same pain Sven had caused me. I heard myself taunt them with words that weren’t mine.
I was completely detached from myself, as if I had been pushed out of my own body and forced to watch my body be used as a puppet. At one point, I transformed my staff into a sword and fought them.
It wasn’t a dream; it was a nightmare. I was all my brothers in one.
Then, when they had no fight left in them, I heard myself say, “You don’t need to take me to my mother. I’m going to take care of her once and for all.”
And then I saw someone I never expected to see again, and due to my surprise, I couldn’t react in time when he pointed his wand at me. I collapsed, still not in control of myself, still not able to ask Thaddeus why he was there.
* * *
I woke without pain or anger. Mostly, I was just confused. It took me a while to realize where I was. The bed, like the room, was very fancy, but my mind wouldn’t focus on anything. All I noticed was that my staff was in the corner across the room. After a while, I realized I was in Livia’s castle, and as I came to that conclusion, the second to last person I wanted to see walked in.
I reached out and my staff shot across the room to my hand. Thaddeus’s eyes widened with shock, but I was just surprised I didn’t feel stabbing pain in my chest. “Stay back,” I warned, though I wasn’t sure what I would actually do if he attacked. I absolutely didn’t want to go insane again. The feeling of having no control whatsoever over my body was not worth having all the magic I could ever want.
Thaddeus raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not here to fight,” he said quickly. My mind focused a little better and I saw that my brother looked very different from when I last saw him. His hair was shoulder-length, his clothes were on the raggedy side, and he was thinner. He also wasn’t wearing his Dracre robe.
“Did Mother send you to finish me off?”
“Mother doesn’t know where I am.”
“I find that doubtful.”
“It’s true.” He pulled up his sleeves to display dozens of charms and intricate looking tattoos. “These shield me from detection.
It won’t help if she sees me in person or through her spies, but according to the seers I’ve talked to, she thinks you vanquished me along with our brothers.”
“She thinks I killed them?”
“Actually, she thinks you locked us in some kind of prison. She’s not going after us, though, because… well…”
“If you fail her, you’re better off dead. I know.” I laid my staff beside me so he put his hands down. “So, you’re not here to get back into her good graces?”
“She doesn’t have good graces. I spent my entire life trying to be her perfect son, trying to impress our brothers, trying to be the opposite of you. Now that I don’t have anyone to impress, I’m finally discovering that I’m a real person. I have interests and talents that I never had before. I would rather be imprisoned with our brothers than go back to Mother.”
“I didn’t imprison them. I sent them to a world without magic so that they couldn’t hurt anyone.”
He laughed. “That is so very much like you.”
“But you’re still a sorcerer.”
“Of course. I’m happy to be a sorcerer. I have no interest in changing who I am anymore, especially since I’m just now figuring out what that is. I’m also happy not to be famous like you, curse breaker.”
“You know about that?”
“I think a lot of people do, but I might have been paying a little extra attention to news from Mokora because you’re my brother. Of course, so has Mother.”
“Great. Do you have any extra bracelets?”
“It wouldn’t work; she has her eye on you already. Do you remember what happened in Certainty?”
“I remember getting scared and yelling at Merlin. I was horrible to him. Then Kalyn cut me open, Sven revealed that he was working for Mother, and I lost control completely.”
“You don’t remember me saving your life, then?” He looked so disappointed.
“You saved my life? Why?”
He shrugged. “You saved mine. You were about to go and face Mother alone and you would have died, so I stopped you, because you saved me from being in Mother’s control forever. Besides, you weren’t far from where I live and work now. I sensed you when you passed through town and I decided to follow you just in case you needed help.”