by Bob Dattolo
Skip the ingredients. How to hold them. How to store them. How do you cast it without any of that? Umm…in a nutshell, you build the spell. There are three blocks used in construction of a spell.
Intention. This is what you want the spell to do.
Limitation. This is what the spell should impact plus any time constraints.
Power. This is how much power you put in.
All around these three blocks is focus. That’s used as the mortar to hold the entire thing together.
That sounds so simple, I’m just not sure it’s going to be. I mean, I’ve never…
Holy hell.
It’s not I’ve never. It’s definitely an I have.
I was going to say that I’ve never cast a spell before. Except I have. The mortmagi were removed. Now that I think about it and the pain I felt and the things going through me, I can say that I cast that spell. I wanted them gone. Removed. I wanted my eyes healed.
I built that spell without knowing what I was doing. Something I shouldn’t have been able to do; yet did. Let’s skip how that part was possible, since you shouldn’t be able to have magic if you don’t have your eyes. I can’t even remotely start to answer that one. It’s just that now that I think through everything, that’s exactly what I did. I built a spell. My intention was to be freed from the mortmagi. To be able to see again. The limitation…the limitation was…what? I didn’t do any of it intentionally, but I can feel the blocks. What was the limitation? Focus all power on removing the hated things, then redirect all of the power to my eyes. Then, once that was done, to fade.
That was the intention.
The power? That was pretty much everything in me, pushed by my anger and fear.
The focus is self-evident. I was willing to risk it all. Everything. My life. My safety. Hell, my sanity. Had I not been able to get free, Reggie would have made me go insane from pain and torture before I died unless I managed to kill myself.
He held that out there as a threat enough times, although I never needed it.
“Hmmm…” I cast a spell before. That means that I have to be able to cast one again.
Light. I want a small light, a weak ball, directly over the palm of my hand. I want it to last until I cancel it.
Those thoughts kept rolling through my head as I worked my magic, trying to get it to do something.
It did nothing.
11 tries before approaching sounds and a now-familiar voice let me know I’d be getting a visitor. That gets the book shut and slid into the others so that it’s not obvious that I was looking at it. Instead, I opened my folder to my paperwork again.
The door opened, and Parece looked in. She has a confused mix of curiosity, anger, and something else on her face that I can’t place. “She’s here.” She stepped through, holding the door open for the two girls she was talking to in the caf. Their scent wafts to me pretty quickly, and it’s clear to me that they share the bathroom with us. The earth mage is the last one through the door, which gets closed behind her. She doesn’t lean against it or lock it, so I have to assume I’m not being locked in. That’s a decently good start to what I have to assume is a cross-examination of some sort?
Man, I’m so cynical!
My roomie moves to stand in the middle of the room, while the other two sit on the couch on her side of the space. Interesting. I kinda thought they’d sit on the couch on my side to assert their dominance in some way.
I’m half a second from asking if we should get an overhead light that can shine in my eyes for their questioning session, but then my roomie moves first. “Your eyes are white. Your hair is white.” Her voice is juuust shy of angry.
“Those weren’t questions. But yes, white.”
The fire mage puts her arm on the back of the couch, “That’s impossible. There aren’t any mages or dragons with white eyes or hair. Ice is the closest.”
Her tone sets me on edge. It’s the same as from Parece. Just with more…accusation in it? Maybe that’s what I’m hearing.
“I’m sorry, you are?”
Her eyes narrowed as her lips pressed together. She didn’t speak until I was sure she was gonna snap and start yelling at me. “I’m Paige.”
“Nice to meet you, Paige. I’m Maddie.” The earth mage shifted in her seat, “And you?”
She grudgingly responded with, “Riley.” She sounded almost petulant at having to answer me.
“Nice to meet you as well.” I nodded at my roommate. “And according to my paperwork, you’re Parece Howell, right?”
Her slow pacing stopped at my question. “How’d you know that?”
“Umm, like I said? It’s in my paperwork? You read a ton of it, it’s on the first couple pages somewhere.” Does she think I snooped or something?
She looked to the other two before turning back to me. Power flared from all three of them, and I tried to reach for it to feel through it. Hmm, she has a truth spell. Paige has…a silence spell? Interesting. It feels like it’ll stop people from hearing us from outside the room. Riley’s spell is the one that sets me on edge. It basically blocks the room. No getting in or out until the spell is broken or ended. Unless she grants access directly.
“Tell me again why you’re late to school? Why is your name Stricken?” She took several steps closer, trying to loom over me.
If only she knew just how vulnerable I’ve been in my life. How very, very vulnerable. Her height just isn’t enough to scare me. Either is her anger-filled voice.
“Maybe the few shows I’ve watched in my life have steered me wrong, but this doesn’t seem to be how I expected to meet a new roommate and neighbors? Or am I missing something?”
Literal fire crackled up Paige’s arms as Parece growled at my questions. Riley smiled at me, “You might as well answer. Three against one.”
My focus shifted to her, and she reacted like it was physical, “Is that what this is? Three of you against me? Hmm, and here I’d been loosely hoping that the warnings I got about this place weren’t quite the reality. Seems they may have been closer to the truth than not. If that’s the direction that this is coming from? Three against one? Then I’ll keep my answers to myself.”
Paige stood up, fire flaring higher. Riley laughed at my response, not sounding all that jovial. Parece hit my desk and stood right over me, skin bulging like she wants to shift. “Answer us!” Her voice is deep, guttural. I learned from Reggie that losing control like that and skin bulging is a sure sign that a dragon is on the edge of losing it.
My voice dipped, practically demanding that they pay attention as I responded quietly, “Hey, Parece? Want to see what happens if you come after me? I belonged to an earth dragon from the age of 13 up until less than two weeks ago. I was his. I’ve been raped multiple times per week for more than four years. Beaten. Whipped. You come at me with your demands about my life, when you could have simply asked? Made pretend that you weren’t trying to demand things? My life isn’t a secret. But you come at me with this bullshit?” I stood, practically shoving her back without even touching her. “My own parents hammered mort-fucking-magi into my face when I was nine years old. I lost everything. Now I have it back. You’ve never met anyone like me in your entire-fucking-life. You want to play schoolgirl bully? I lived with a mass murderer and was his pet for four years. You’d better bring your A-game if you think you’re intimidating. Come at me. I don’t care. Kill me. I don’t care. I’ll tell you this, though. You fail? You fail, and I’ll tear down your entire fucking world.”
She took several steps back from me as I smiled at her.
Riley laughed more, this time sounding better, almost happy. “Oh my fucking God, are you serious? That really happened?”
My attention moved to her, and I backed off just a tad on the kill-em-all mode I was sliding into. “Which part?”
“You were kept?” She gestured at her eyes, “What your parents did?”
“One hundred percent serious.”
She looked shocked that I respond
ed.
“Since you asked nicely, I’ll add to it. I was nine. Had my inducement ceremony the day I got my period. I remember that much. Then I was beaten, and my father hammered those things into my face. At least I assume it was him. I can’t even picture his face, even though I know I saw it. Same with her. They tore me apart inside with magic, broke a bunch of bones and had some fun beating me, then threw me away in an alley. A little old lady found me and nursed me back to health. She was murdered by the earth dragon when I was 13 for not moving when the owner wanted to sell the building. He kept me. I showed him that I was his.” She tilted her head, “I knelt down and put his hand on the back of my neck.”
Parece hissed, “Oh my fucking God! You gave yourself to him?!” She sounds more horrified than angry, so I’ll give her props for her attempt to back it off a bit.
“I did. The cops watched the videos, and that’s the only reason I wasn’t murdered. During the time he had me, he killed more than 300 other people that he brought home. They all fought back. For me? I was used and abused and given to his friends at times, but I was treated decently otherwise. Limited freedom, but at least I wasn’t being torture-raped to death.”
I looked across the others. Paige’s fire is pretty much out at this point as she stares at me with the strangest look on her face. “So, I get it. My last name is Stricken. You hear that. You see the scars. You don’t get why I have white eyes and hair, but neither do the cops. You don’t get why I have magic, but I can assure you that I most definitely had mortmagi in.” Hmm, “In fact?” I grabbed one of the packets from Captain Garrison and flipped through it to pull out a picture. Parece didn’t take it as I held it out to her, so I showed it to all of them. “This is me. 18th birthday. Not that I knew it was my birthday.”
The picture shows me with the mortmagi in place. He captured a number of images for me, and I rather liked this one for some reason.
“So I’m stricken and I’m a Stricken by name, but I have magic. I also have a life that taught me to not take much lying down. I’ve been warned that everyone will want to go for me once the news gets out there. To that, I say bring it. I don’t fucking care. I’m willing to work with allies if I can find them, but I’m just as fine staying on my own. It’s been that way for more than half my life.” My smile turned feral, “And I managed to get those fucking things out of my face, heal, get my magic back, and tear apart the two motherfuckers that were raping and beating me there at the end.”
None of them reacted as I sat back down. They’d look at each other for the longest time, then shift back to me. Then do the cycle again. And again. It lasted long enough that I had to pee.
This is so freaking crazy. Let’s leave them to whatever it is they’re doing and pee. Then maybe they’ll want to talk again. None of them reacted as I got up, although I caught them tensing as I headed for the bathroom. No idea why. Not that I care, my bladder is screaming for some reason, and I kinda need to go now. Right now.
When the door to the bathroom doesn’t open even though the handle turns, rage swamps through me before I can even start to control it. That starts growling as I stare at the handle, then yank the door open. I swear it was like it was locked even though the handle turned just fine. Riley made some sort of sound behind me, but I didn’t bother hanging around to find out what it was for. This girl has a date with a certain porcelain throne.
Chapter 11
My time in the bathroom wasn’t all that long, yet they didn’t seem to talk much while I was gone. Instead of trying to listen harder, I finished, washed my hands, and then headed back in.
I felt it as soon as I crossed through to our room. The silence spell. Now their voices reached me.
Riley looks rough and is holding her head, “…don’t know! It was just fucking crushed!”
Parece and Paige jerked to stare at me as I took my seat again. It took me a solid ten seconds before I realized what happened. Just not how it happened.
Riley had a spell up to stop people from entering or leaving the room without her allowing it. I just…I broke the spell. Without even realizing it was there.
No wonder they’re both looking afraid.
Parece helped Riley up, “C’mon, let’s go talk in your room.” They left, heading through the bathroom to reach their room. The silence spell shifted less than a minute later, and I felt it go up around their space. No spell to stop people from entering, though. I don’t know if that’s because Riley is the only one that can do it and she’s hurting? Or…I don’t even know.
Dammit.
I have no idea if what I just did or said was a good idea. I didn’t tell them anything that I consider secret. They can google my name and find a ton of the details out there, so it’s not like I can really hide it away all that easily. The details? Yeah, more than likely. Just not most of it. I’m not ashamed of what I had to do to survive at Reggie’s place. Enraged? Yes. Ashamed? No. That’s in no way due to how I felt about things on my own. That’s definitely other-me’s input there. Normal me was filled with shame for the longest time, then it started to wear off a bit through sheer repetition and numbness. Other-me? Nope. It was needed to survive, so there’s no shame involved in the slightest.
Honestly, her viewpoint is the better of the two. At least I can function now.
Fine. Let my roomie and her two friends talk on their own. I can’t tell if I made any inroads with them or if I just gave them more ammunition against me. I’m not against being allies, I’m really not. I guess we’ll see what comes of that.
Instead, let’s look at my paperwork again.
We have six classes in a day, with classes running from 8am to 3. Classes are an hour and 15 minutes long in the morning, with all of us taking the same three courses, just in a different order. We’re all in the same lunch. No idea why they’d do it like this.
I have basic magic first. Sounds like we’ll be talking about how to do magic and all of that. Then a combined normal course that hits English, history, and social studies in the same class. The twist here is that they focus on the supernatural during it. How you do that with English is beyond me, but I guess I’ll find out. My last class before lunch is magical practical application. More magic?
Lunch splits the day, somewhat, with two more classes after that.
We head back to classes for affinity focus, which sounds like more magic studies based on our individual affinities. No idea where I fall. They don’t actually say here.
Then the last class is an either/or situation. If you’re a mage, you go to gym. If you’re a dragon, you go to dragon focus.
Honestly, it sounds like three classes based on using our magic. The basics of it. Using it in spells. Then using it in affinity-specific spells. That’s not horrifying, but I’m thinking most kids are tired as hell when they’re done.
Toss in gym and dragon focus at the end of the day, and that’s got to be exhausting. Dragon focus would be where they shift and work on flying and things like that. How to use their breath. All dragony things that the mages don’t need to know about.
So…yeah. The paperwork doesn’t tell me where I need to go. I don’t know if they have a class of 30 working on mixed affinities or not, so…I’ll just show up in this room and see what happens.
My last period is just kinda blank. It shows gym and dragon focus but doesn’t tell me which to go for.
Ugh, this would be at least a little easier if I knew what I was and where I’d fall.
Reading through the rest of the paperwork is pretty simple once I weed out the advertisements, stuff I don’t care about, and then some other things that don’t seem to pertain.
I did read the rules about things. Speaking of, I dug out the laptop they gave me and fired it up. The paperwork says to let it update, so let’s do that. That should help me with any research, papers, some homework, and then gaining access to the school site and some other things. They even say that they have a chat room. I’m just not sure why, when you only have 91 people in th
is class. Doesn’t seem worthwhile.
While that worked on updating, I pulled the rules again.
Fighting is…not outlawed. Within reason. They’re very clear that there should be no deaths outside of challenges. No maiming outside of challenges. Wonderful. Challenges will be reviewed for legality before they’re granted. There has to be a reason.
You can opt to not accept the challenge, but that brings up potentially bad things. If it’s deemed a good enough reason, you could lose immediately. Meaning the person can kill you without you being able to fight back. Draining your magic is a possibility too if that’s what they want.
If it’s not deemed that big of a deal, you could just be whipped on a post. I’m unclear if someone in the school does it or the person challenging you does it. There could be a payment that has to be handed over. It seems like it varies.
Sooo screwed up.
Sex is allowed. As is nudity. Dragons are notorious for not caring much about being naked, so they’ve decided to not try and limit them. As for the sex? Raping is a bad, bad thing. Unless it’s a challenge. Then pretty much anything goes. We should be safe outside of that, though.
That’s good. I’ve had enough of that in my life.
Theft, if it can be proven, will also get someone in trouble. What kind of trouble? I’m not clear on that, although whipping sounds like a possible punishment.
Academic dishonesty will get you whipped. So no cheating. No plagiarizing.
They don’t care about bullying, within reason. Hazing is allowed, as long as it doesn’t cross the line. Then again, if you fight back? You’re allowed to do that. That makes me think hazing doesn’t happen all that often.
There’s no mention about allies or enemies or how to deal with them. No safe spaces. Nothing like that.
Magic has to be practiced in the workspaces set aside for it or outside. You can do it in your room, but if anything gets away from you and something gets damaged, or someone gets hurt? That could be grounds for being challenged by the person that was hurt but will definitely be a whipping at minimum by the school for the damage. On top of having to pay to fix whatever was damaged.