by Rain Oxford
“That isn’t even the issue right now! You said you only do light magic, yet you would capture someone to make me help you! I’m definitely not going to fight my brothers now!”
“I wish you would reconsider. I’m sorry about this.” She made a dismissive gesture with her hands and two of the four men from the garden appeared behind me. Before I could do anything, each of them took one of my arms and started dragging me towards the door.
No matter how much I struggled to break their grasps, the men were too strong.
“Stop,” she said. They stopped, but they didn’t let me go. “Sorry, but I can’t have you escaping.” She snapped her fingers and my wand shot out of my pocket into her hand.
“Give that back!” I yelled. I was ignored, though, and the men dragged me out into the hallway. As we passed many different rooms, I looked for Merlin, but I didn’t see any sign of him. When we reached the end of a dim hallway, a third man appeared right in front of us. The outfits that hid their faces were creepy enough without jump-scares. I realized that he had a club on his clothes, as did one of the men restraining me, which meant there were more than four of these people. “Please let me go.” They didn’t say a word.
The man in front of us paused for dramatic effect before opening the door. I gaped. If this was what Livia thought of as a prison cell, I was okay with being captured for a while. The bed was wide enough for me to lie sideways on it and covered with richly colored blue blankets and pillows. There was a rosewood wardrobe to the left of the bed with gold accents. A small table to the right of the bed held a three-candle candelabrum.
Across from the bed, there was a window with its shutters closed and a bookshelf full of books. As soon as the masked men let me go, I went to the window and tried it. I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find it was sealed. Since there was no latch and the wooden frame was oddly warm, I figured it was locked by magic. All three men were gone by the time I turned around. I tried the door, but it was also locked.
“Merlin?” I asked, trying to speak in his mind again. Either he didn’t hear me or he wasn’t capable of answering. Unable to figure out another way out, I went to the bookshelf to see what I had to work with. There were a few old fairytale books, some history books, diaries, grimoires, and such, as well as a fair number of books written in foreign languages. I grabbed a couple of the history books and put them in my bag for Merlin.
I was searching the room for any way out when I heard a latch turn and the door opened. Livia stood there with a plate of bread, broccoli, and apples. “Have you reconsidered?” she asked, setting the plate down on the table beside the bed.
I gave her my best glare. “You should know that the Dracre do not take kindly to threats.”
She nodded. “I can see the sorcerer in you, even if others can’t. You are protective, and that’s not a sorcerer trait, but I think if you were pushed beyond a certain point, you could be more devious than any of your brothers. Elvira is probably counting on that.”
“Then I’ll warn you right now that you’re on the right track if you mean to push me to that point.”
“I’m not your enemy.”
“You sure act like it,” I said, gesturing to the whole room.
“I am not without faults, and I can’t be sure how everything will turn out. All I know is that if you face Magnus, your brothers will win.”
“Then you should be trying to reason with them instead of locking me and Merlin up.”
“They don’t have a choice; they will always be sorcerers and nothing more. You should get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow you will understand.”
I opened my mouth to argue… and everything went dark.
* * *
My dreams were weird and basically involved getting locked away in a tower with Magnus’s monster keeping me trapped. Merlin had to save me. I woke to a plate of potatoes and eggs. I was a little irritated that I had slept through my chance to escape and even more irritated that my aunt had used magic on me in the first place. My frustration wasn’t because what she did was wrong, as I expected that from a sorceress, but because she had done it so easily. I wanted to be that powerful.
“Merlin?” I called, trying again to speak in his mind.
Again, I got no answer. I went to the door and tried the knob to find that it was still locked. I sat against the door and contemplated how to get out. My mother taught me potions and curses, but none of that could help me here. I was about to sigh with frustration when it hit me. Along with reading, my father taught me some life skills, like lock picking.
I pulled a pick out of my bag and got to work on the lock. It was the first time I had to use the skill without my father standing on the other side. Like most sorcerers in the world, he had a sink-or-swim philosophy. It probably had to do with his family’s history with dragons. After being locked in a burning shed and forced to pick the lock to escape, I found this to be easy. I had the door open in moments.
I made my way back to the study where I hoped my wand and staff were. The room was unlocked and my magic tools were placed neatly on the table. It seemed like a trap, so I scrutinized the room instead of immediately grabbing them. Other than books, there was nothing interesting or useful. What was important was that the window was unlocked.
Of course, we were on the third floor, but it looked like I could climb down the side of the castle. The difficult part would be saving Merlin.
I was just about to try to contact him again when I heard a loud crash. I ran out into the hall to see that Merlin and Bralyn had escaped whatever Livia had used to keep them away. Merlin growled at me and I looked around for a place to run or hide, when I saw Livia standing right behind me. It was her that the wolf was growling at.
Then I started looking for a place to cover myself, because his snarl told me without a shadow of a doubt that there was going to be some blood splatter. I stepped out from between them.
“How did you…?” Livia started.
Merlin ignored her and spoke to me over her. “You said you did not know if you were okay and then you stopped answering!” His growl was thick even in his thought-speech.
“Merlin was worried sick over you,” Bralyn said. “He tore right through the door.”
“Why were you worried about me?” I asked.
“Because I was.” He stopped in front of Livia, still growling.
“Merlin, this is Livia Dracre… my aunt. She’s the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter.”
“I know.”
“You know what? Did you already know she was my aunt?” After a moment, he stopped growling and dipped his head in a nod.
“I knew as soon as you told me who your mother was. I met Livia and her sisters when she was young, but I did not recognize the castle.”
“But you knew why I’m this way.”
“I had an idea once you told me who your mother was and mentioned your brothers.”
“So you knew I could never be a sorcerer? Were you just using me to get to Magnus so he could remove your curse?” When he didn’t answer, I stepped back into the library and shut the door.
“What are you doing?” Bralyn called through the door. “This is not the honorable way to handle the truth. You should face your enemy and defeat them in battle until they conform to your truth.”
“I need some time to be alone to think!” Since the latch was on the inside of this door instead of the outside, I flipped it to lock myself inside and sat down in one of the chairs. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want to think. No matter how much of a failure I was, I was still a sorcerer. My family tortured me, but Dracre was a respected name. Not being a sorcerer at all was… I didn’t know what it was. Panic wasn’t a reasonable behavior, but I couldn’t get my heart to slow down. In fact, the harder I tried to calm myself, the faster my breathing became.
“Ayden, come out of there,” Livia said.
“Go away!” I didn’t care how whiny that sounded; I was angry, upset, and confused all at onc
e. Merlin lied to me. My entire life, I thought something was wrong with me because I couldn’t do dark magic. Livia, the aunt I never knew I had, told me that I was both a wizard and sorcerer because I was the seventh born, but that didn’t make any sense either; I only ever screwed up on dark magic.
What it ultimately boiled down to was that nobody believed I could really be a sorcerer, not even Merlin. They kept talking about me accepting myself, but they all apparently had plans for me being a wizard. I could prove myself to be powerful, whether I was a wizard, or sorcerer, or whatever. I could make the choice for myself without their help.
I looked out the window, which faced the back of the castle. Bralyn had said that he used to swim from his land to this one, and sure enough, I spotted another island nearby. Without giving myself a chance to question my plan, I picked up my bag and staff, returned to the window, and transported myself to that other land.
Chapter 13
I appeared right in the middle of town with my sorcerer robe billowing in the wind, the magic from the wand looking much less silly than usual, and… I tugged on a lock of my hair quickly and was excited to see that it was still black. Yes! I look like a sorcerer… I forced myself to stop grinning like a fool, because sorcerers didn’t get excited.
People stared and they moved away, but it was interest rather than sneers on their faces. I wasn’t sure what to do. Livia said that my staff would show me the way, so I held it up. Nothing happened. I held it out towards the castle and then all the way around me as if I were trying to point to someone with it. When the crystal faced north, it pulsed with a deep orange light for a moment.
Although I had no reason to trust my aunt, especially after she locked me up, I didn’t have anything to lose. I headed north, which was further into the heart of the city. I had never been to these lands and I doubted anyone here would know of my family, but everyone would recognize the signs of a sorcerer. It would have been easier if the crystal in my staff was still deep red instead of almost completely clear.
“Excuse me,” an elderly woman said, reaching out for my arm as I passed.
I stopped and turned to her. “Yes?” I asked.
“Are you a wizard or a sorcerer?” She pointed to my staff.
“What do you need?”
“Six sorcerers came through here last night looking for someone. When nobody could help them, they took my magic roses.”
“Magic roses?”
“Yes. They are eternal roses that contain transformation magic. You would be surprised how popular they are.”
“I bet I would be. Who were they looking for?”
“They said he was a blond, blue-eyed young man with a green sorcerer robe that had a…” she trailed off, when she noticed my robes. “Just like that.”
“Well, I’m not blond, so I’m obviously not who you’re looking for. Can you tell me where these sorcerers went?”
“They haven’t gone anywhere yet. They’re at the tavern.”
I could feel the blood drain from my face. “Where’s the tavern?” She pointed to a building almost directly in front of me. “They’re in there?”
“Yes. Can you get my roses back? I can pay you.”
“I can’t help you. Those sorcerers are the Dracre brothers, and they’re dangerous.” So why are they after me? I thought of what Livia said; I had a choice. I could defeat Magnus, or I could not, but either way, I had to stop my brothers from being even worse than me.
I started to pour magic into my wand when someone crashed into me from behind, knocking me to the ground and everything out of my hands.
“Sorry! Sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going!” a boy yelled, scrambling back to his feet and pulling me back up. “Oh, gods! You’re one of them!”
I saw him then. He was about sixteen, dressed in clean, plain clothes, with shaggy brown hair and hazel eyes. He was also backing away in fear, staring at the emblem on my chest. “No, no, don’t worry. I’m not like them.”
But he wasn’t listening. “Please don’t kill me!”
“I’m not going to kill you!” I picked up my staff and wand, but my bag had spilled open. As I began to gather my goods, the boy kneeled and helped me. He frowned at the fish that was wrapped in a cloth, but didn’t comment. When everything was back in the bag, I held out my wand. Unfortunately, the sound of people laughing and arguing spilled out into the street before I could do anything, telling me that the door of the tavern had just opened. “Please don’t be them. Please don’t be my brothers,” I whispered.
“You shouldn’t have punched him,” Thaddeus said. “He was just about to tell us where Magnus was.”
“Of course I punched him!” Febarin argued. “He wouldn’t give me that charm! Don’t you realize what it did? It could make me see through illusions!”
“And why would you need that?”
“Because I might need to see through an illusion, obviously.”
Febarin was the fourth son in my family and undoubtedly the least intelligent. He once proposed to a girl by cursing her entire family into an endless sleep, putting his sword to her heart, and saying that if she broke his heart, he would break hers. Terrified, she agreed, but Mother found her unworthy so Febarin let her go. I snuck out afterwards and broke his curse over her family. Although he could never prove it was me, I think he suspected it.
Despite the fact that he was short, like me, nobody called him a runt because he was very muscular. Well, there was a fair amount of fat on him as well. In fact, I would say there was more fat than muscle if I weren’t afraid of losing my teeth for saying so. His hair was kept very short because Mikron used to pull on it when they were little. He also had an ugly scar on his right ear from a fight he got into with an ogre that owned his favorite tavern.
The ogre was a good family friend and tried to buy me from my mother when I was born. I suspected the ogre’s intention was to eat me, but it was just as likely that he wanted to do something obscene, like make me clean his house or send me to get vegetables from the market.
I hid my face from my brothers. To my shock, they passed right by me. My black hair must have disguised me enough, along with the fact that they didn’t see my face, but all of my brothers should have recognized the green robe. Just as I thought it, Thaddeus stopped and started to turn.
Instinctively, I held out my wand and let my magic surround me. An instant later, I appeared on a hilltop overlooking the city, which was my exact intention. “Let’s see if I really have a choice.”
I stuck my wand back into my pocket and took my staff in both hands. I imagined a bubble around the city— not one that would cut off the air, but one that would prevent anyone from entering or exiting the city. My brothers were very powerful, so I had to make it strong. Magic tingled along my skin as I brought up every memory of hiding from them. Every time I ran instead of fighting because I knew very well how dangerous they were, every feeling of fear, every instinct to survive… I poured it into my magic. It would only be temporary, but it would give me a head start.
The magic was dark in nature, so the energy that flooded the crystal was as deep a red as it had ever been. I wouldn’t hurt the townspeople, but my brothers would take their frustrations out on them. It couldn’t be helped because Livia was right; if they defeated Magnus, there would be no stopping them. Killing Magnus would give them a taste they wouldn’t be able to resist.
When the city disappeared completely, I gaped. Panic rose until I felt my magic settle as the spell clicked into place. It was still there. The city was right in front of me, just invisible. All I could see was a field of grass and dirt.
The oddest part was that I had never had so much power before, and I had the sneaking suspicion that I was able to accomplish it because it was both light and dark magic. I wasn’t hurting anyone, not even my brothers. At least, that was my justification for the part of me that couldn’t stand harming people. After all, if I hadn’t trapped my brothers, who knew what trouble they would cause lookin
g for me?
I was still wondering why they were after me or how they got so close when I turned my staff back to the north. Once again, a deep orange light pulsed through the crystal. With one last glance behind me, I started walking north.
* * *
I walked all day, and with no one to talk to, I was forced to think. The only thing I could think about was what Livia had told me and what Merlin had already known.
After an entire lifetime of wondering why I was such a failure, it was too much to learn that it wasn’t completely my fault and that there was someone else like me at the same time. Not just like me; she is family. I stopped in the middle of the road. I should have asked more questions or just… listened maybe. I didn’t want to, though. Even knowing that my mother would kill me without a second thought, it never occurred to me that she would lie to me. She knew all along that I was like this for a reason. Maybe she did think that I would have more dark magic because I was male, but she still could have told me why I was so different.
And then there was Merlin. The worst part wasn’t that he only wanted to use me; it was that he didn’t think I could handle knowing it. Then again, I didn’t exactly handle it well. I knew he wanted his curse broken. Then why didn’t he let me try breaking his curse?
Doubt, hope, anger, and confusion twisted around inside me until I just felt sick. What was I if not a sorcerer? Everyone was something… everyone except for my aunt and me. Or are there more of us? There were books about us, apparently, but that didn’t mean there were others still alive. Are there half mages, half seers? Maybe half magicians, half necromancers… That was a terrifying thought; someone with control over the dead and illusionary magic was truly the last thing this world needed.
By the time the sun had set, I was exhausted, mostly mentally. I was also hungry, since I ate the last of my fish for breakfast, so I stopped at a small city. As I wandered through the town full of stone buildings and surrounded by wooden houses, I decided that the towns in Akadema were tiny.