I woke up to the scent of eggs and potatoes, and my stomach growled. Beside my bed was a plate with a generous portion of eggs along with seasoned potato cuts mixed with cheese and onion. I spareda moment to wonder who had prepared the meal before I devoured it like I was starving. When I was finished, I dressed, grabbed my wand and staf, and left to explore the mansion. All of the bedrooms were on the second floor. Right before I reached the staircase, I happened to glance into a room to my left and stopped. It was a huge library, which I couldn't resist. I closed myself in the room and studied the books. Most were ancient grimoires on magic, yet others were about mythology or grand quests. It was too warm for me to light the fire, so I pulled a few books down and sat on the window seat to read.
"This is not where I expected to find you, young sorcerer," Merlin said, pulling me back to reality. I glanced out the window and realized it was far past morning. Merlin sat in the center of the room, looking almost amused. "I like books," I said. "Mother only ever let me read about curses and potion ingredients." Who taught you to read?" he asked. "My father. He had a lot of older brothers, like me, so he often took pity on me when my mother wasn't around." "You are not, by chance, the seventh son of the seventh son, are you?" "Yes, I am, Why?" He hesitated. "We should discuss that another time. For now, let us begin your training. Pick up the staff, and attack me." "Attack..." I looked around at all the flammable paper. "But the books would get hurt." Merlin gave me a scowl, turned, and walked out. I was very glad he didn't push. Yes, I wanted to be a malevolent sorcerer, but that was no excuse to destroying books. I followed him out of the room, down the stairs, and through a back door.
Behind the mansion was grassy field. It wasn't lush, green, and trimmed like I had imagined it would be. No, it was more befitting the house; the field had waist-high, brown grass and was speckled with boulders, thorn vines, and abandoned, half-disintegrated battle equipment. "Is this to your bibliophile satisfaction?" "My what?" "Never mind. You apparently have more depths than I had originally thought." "Oh," I said, assuming he was insulting me. My brothers ridiculed me for pretty much everything I did, but most of all for my desire to read books. Of course, none of them could read, so they didn't know what they were missing. I felt a little stab of pity for them. "Put your wand away and attack me with magic." I stuck my wand in my pocket and put both of my hands on the staff in front of me. Attack, I thought to the staff. Nothing happened. Fire. Sill nothing. "Any time now," Merlin said. "I'm trying. I'm thinking it really hard." "Thinking a command is not the same as feeling it. When you conjure food, you do not think food, you feel hunger. When you silenced Vactarus last night, you wanted it. To attack someone, you have to feel it." "But I don't want to attack you." He gave me a thoughtful look. Again, was astounded by his skill in making expressions with his wolf face. "I see. I suppose I have no other choice. Prepare yourself to be offended," he said. Before I could say anything, he continued. "Your blond hair makes you look like my first girlfriend, who was twelve. Your wand looks like a stick of cherry-flavored chocolate. You smell feminine. Your magic is whiter than my teeth." "Hey! That's rude! Don't talk about my magic that way." "Your mother is a warlock." "My mother is not a deceiver with no real magic!" It wasn't the first time someone had called her a trickster, but it was usually the last thing they ever said. Warlocks, who had no magic, were often trying to pass themselves off as sorcerers, so they were despised by all real sorcerers. "She is, and you are a wizard." I knew he was only trying to rile me up, and he had so much as told me it was coming, but I still felt anger boil in my blood. It was different when my family insulted me: they knew my weaknesses and I knew theirs. We were stuck with each other whether we liked it or not. Merlin didn't know me or my evil mother. The crystal on the staff started emitting a dim glow, and the knowledge that I was doing something was all the encouragement my anger needed. I thought of what I wanted to strike with, but that only made the glow begin to fade. was my mother's words that came to mind, not Merlin's. "In any battle it is the one who has nothing to lose that wins," she had said many times. As always, her words were entirely unhelpful. The crystal faded more. "Sorcerers need no reason to be angry, Ayden," Merlin said, abandoning his ploy to incite me. "All magic comes from inside us. Even magical objects were born of the power inside a person. It is pure, manifested desire, for sorcerers and wizards alike. Wizards may desire peace and balance while sorcerers may desire self-gain and raw power, but the more powerful person is the one with a stronger desire. The only way you can beat me is to want a victory more than me. That is why sorcerers find so many reasons to hate and to hold grudges. I have never actually met a happy sorcerer. "My mother is happy," I said. Well, at least I thought so. The fact was, nothing was ever good enough for her, even from my oldest brother, who was her favorite. She always smiled a lot, though, and while it was usually a cruel or treacherous grin, I thought it meant that she was happy. "Of course she is not. After birthing six suitably obedient pawns, her plans were foiled by the son she had been waiting for all along. I suppose you must be the greatest disappointment to her." I started to argue before I realized what he was saying. What does this have to do with my brothers? You said something about it earlier, too." "We can discuss that later. For now, you are in the midst of a lesson, and you have yet to strike me." The staff had stopped glowing completely. "I don't want to fight you. I appreciate that you're trying to rile me by insulting me, butI also know it's not true." He sighed in my head. This may be the root of your problem. No sorcerer is so self-aware and unaware at the same time. It is true that I did not mean what I said when I insulted you, but a sorcerer does not care. A sorcerer can turn on anyone for no reason at all." "What stops a sorcerer from walking into traps every day?" "Nothing on other worlds; they rush into traps quite frequently. Here, however, people value sorcerers as much as wizards for the same reason people do not normally hate sharks. Thus, it does not happen so much. Now, stop stalling and attack me." I was stalling, but I wasn't wasting time. First, I tried to make myself angry. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything to be angry about. I didn't think it would be wise to point this out. Instead, I focused on the desire prove that I was not a wizard. I would prove myself by defeating the greatest wizard of the land and then my family would stop ridiculing me at every turn. The crystal started to glow softly again, This is it. I can do this. I can use dark magic. I would have gone on, encouraged by the energy I could feel thrumming in the staff and my own energy that was starting to prickle under my skin, but that was when the ground exploded upward right in front of me. shrieked and my magic shot through the staff before I realized that the groınd hadn't actually exploded. Instead, it was Vactarus who had popped upUnfortunately, I couldn't stop the magic once it had left me. Bright red energ struck Vactarus, and his body instantly shrunk and transformed into a little black bat. "Oh, so cute!" I cooed before I could stop myself. My mother only let us have large, outside bats that could defend the house and warn us when people wandered too close, so the little bat was pretty adorable in my opinion. Unfortunately, my brothers didn't know how to take care of a bat and thus, we never kept one for long. "Cute?!" Vactarus squeaked, his voice high-pitched. Turn me back!" He was only able to flap his little wings a few times before he plummeted to the ground. I held the staff out to Merlin. "Maybe you should do it." The wolf smirked. "Actually, I think not. You turned a ghost into a ghost bat. I am rather impressed." I grinned as well. It wasn't anything as malevolent as what even my nicest brother did on a daily basis, but it was real sorcery. "Sorcerers have minions, right? Can I have an army of bat minions?"
Merlin rolled his eyes. "Not if you coo at them every time you see them » Vactarus didn't hear Merlin and obviously didn't like being ignored, because he flapped his wings in fury. I resisted making another adoring sound as he was lifted into the air and landed on his head. "Turm me back!" he screeched. I almost aimed the staff at him, but stopped myself right before doing so. Although breaking curses was not sorcery, it took an nderstanding of the magic that caused the curse. I didn't understand what I had done, and I definitely wasn't going to be able to undo it with my new staff. "You were able to remove the silencing curse last night," Merlin reminded me, obviously understanding my hesitation. "I think removing my own curse should be easy, because I know my magic." Or, at least that was what I told myself. The fact that I could easily break my brothers' curses never failed to anger my mother. It was just easier for me to undo dark magic than to do it. Also, as often as my brothers cursed me, it was a life-or-death skill. The first one I ever broke was my eldest brother's, because he cursed me to stop breathing whenever I fell asleep. Unfortunately, when I tried to curse him to bleed profusely from every orifice, my magic just made him smell like wild berries instead. I laid my staff gently on the ground and pulled out my wand. My energy responded readily, as if my wand was a welcomed friend I hadn't seen in a while. I pointed it at the ghost bat and thought, return to normal. Magic flashed. It was white for once, as if it didn't have time to be colorful and parkly and utterly embarrassing. To my great relief, it didn't even do a flutery dance. It struck Vactarus and he immediately changed back into a man... well.. ghost. He righted himself and glared at me. Since he was a spirit instead of a physical person, I wasn't surprised that his clothes were perfectly unruffled. "Sorry. You shouldn't sneak up on Dracre sorcerers. We tend to curse first and ask questions later," I said. Merlin raised an eyebrow at me. "At least, everyone else in my family does." Vactarus's eyes widened dramatically and I realized that I had never told him my family name. You are a Dracre?!" Before I could answer, understanding filled his eyes. "I see. You resemble Livia quite well."
"Who?" I didn't know a Livia, but I did know I didn't resemble any of my family members. "Ask him why he interrupted the lesson," Merlin said. I did, and Vactarus said, "Oh, yes. I just wanted to inform you that there is a seer tournament this afternoon in a village to the north, in case you wanted to see it." "Yes!" I exclaimed excitedly. I snuck out to see one every time I heard one was near. "We have no time for playing around. Are you not in a hurry to get to the wizard before your brothers?" Merlin asked. "Well, yes, I am, but my brothers are pampered and won't move quickly. They will probably stop at every village along the way for food, shelter, and women. Besides, maybe we can talk to one of the seers who can help us with either your curse or finding Magnus.' "Perhaps, but seers are extremely dangerous and often devious." "They are? None of the seers that I ever met were devious. We can go?" He sighed. "Very well. I reserve the right to place all the blame on you when we end up captured and eaten by trolls." I scoffed. "It's not troll season."
We had to leave right then to make it to the tournament. I could hear the crowd before we could see it, but the village was not too far from Vactarus's mansion. When we reached the top of a hill that overlooked the town, I sighed. Well, it's not the biggest tournament, but I guess that's because of the season." The village itself was a fair size and surrounded by vast fields of crops. The houses and shops were made of wood, mud, and straw, but cloth tents were crammed between them and around the village in a lively display of color. Merlin gave me a look. "There are hundreds of people there to watch other people throw casting stones and stare into crystal balls." I gaped at him. What kind of seer tournaments have you been to? You can get food from all over the world, trade mystical artifacts, and hear your fortune. Of course, the main event is watching the seers try to outclass each other. Their magic gets really chaotic after a while. This is small compared to some of them that I've been to." I was already heading towards the town before he could argue. Unfortunately, that didn't even slow him down. "That is another reason that we shouldn't be here. Nothing good ever comes of divination." "Of what?" I asked. "Never mind." By the time we made it down the hill, I was sweating in my thick sorcerer robes and using my sorcerer's staff a little too roughly. Fortunately, I had left my bag and wand the castle. It felt weird not having them on me, but Merlin said they detracted from the sorcerer image as much as my hair and eye color. The tents were so cramped and open to allow air flow that I could see multiple events at once. I knew once the competitions began that the tents would close to cut out the sound. People who were local and recognized my family by the emblem on my robe gave me lots of space. Others spotted Merlin and decided that something on the opposite end of the event was desperately interesting. Traders traveled the world and were well-respected, but some focused on trading magical items. Since wizards and sorcerers were basically stationary, they were not typically targets of traders. Thus, they focused on the novelty of magic, and there were no better examples of that than the tournaments of seers, shapeshifters, and magicians. Traders usually followed these tournaments all year, but people had to be careful when buying from them since some were not part of the guild. It was dangerous buying from a private trader, because they could steal something potentially lethal and sell it to someone else without proper instructions. This was particularly worrisome when it came to curses and grimoires. And they knew how to display their wares. Lightning struck the ground right in front of me, but I ignored it. They could sell enough nmagic to make anyone feel like a wizard or sorcerer, yet I was only interested in finding something that could help me defeat Magnus. Still, I couldn't stop myself from pausing at several tents to observe random people hearing about their fame and fortunes, even if it wasn't true. After all, no one paid to hear they were going to die soon or lose all their riches. The competitions themselves were much bolder. A seer once told a person he was going to die in a horrific and terrible way before the end of the day. He had a heart attack from fear and died. When I told Merlin, his demeanor soured. He really didn't like seers. Because there were so many people, I didn't sense that I was being followed until I felt a gentle tug on my sleeve. I tuned and jumped back to avoid the sharp horn of a unicorn... again. What are you doing here?"I asked, realizing as I said it that it was the same unicorn from the other village. The unicorn tossed his head and nickered. "He came for you. He must think you need his help," Merlin said. "Would you care to explain what you did to make this unicorn like you so much" "I didn't do anything. Please go away! I don't need any help." The unicorn tossed his head again and pranced away. I continued walking without another word to Merlin. "Can I interest you in a leash for your wolf?" a trader asked, stopping in front of me so suddenly that I had to brace myself on Merlin. Since Merlin avanced on the man with a vicious snarl on his face, it looked like I was just trying to hold Merlin back. "Have you ever tried to put a leash on a wolf?" I asked. With his eyes wide, he looked like he wanted to bolt. "No. I've never even seen a real wolf" That's because the people who try to leash wolves are eaten." The words were barely out of my mouth before he vanished into the crowd. I stopped at an information booth and studied the schedule. There were mostly shows going on, none of which were helpful, and the traders rotated throughout the grounds. I considered looking for some explosive powders, but that stuff had a history of exploding in its owner's pockets. Besides, I definitely didn't think I could blow the wizard up. "What about an invisibility spell?" I asked, turning to Merlin. Only, the wolf wasn't there. "Merlin?" I called, glancing around. When he didn't immediately appear, I turned back to the charts that were nailed all over the walls of the booth. I wasn't terribly woried; Merlin was a wolf with wizard knowledge, so he was certainly safe. Plus, if he wasn't, he could talk in my head. As for me, it wasn't my first time at places like this. Therefore, I wasn't worried. That was, until I heard two very familiar voices.
I turned and my heart dropped into my stomach. Zeustrum and Bevras were standing so close to me that I could have poked them with my staff. For the moment, they were too busy arguing with each other to see me. Bevras and Zeus braided their hair the same, wore the same clothes, and carried identical swords. The only way to tell them apart was by the scar Bevras had on his right cheek. They both looked like our father except for their eyes, which were the same burgundy color that all Dracre had, yet neither of them had my father's ability to exert his dominance with a single glare. That was just an excuse for them to use violence instead. Zeustrum had a dangerous mixture of patience and vileness. He devised the most ingenious, sinister plots and could wait years for them to fall into place. Bevras, on the other hand, jumped headfirst into every fight. It was said that the only reason Bevras was born second was because he fought during the entire event. He tried to challenge our father and that was why he had the scar. Our father humiliated Bevras in scarring him because the twins were always distinguishable afterwards. Zeus never treated his twin the same again. I acted on instinct; I ran backwards until I hit a solid wall. Then I turned slightly, keeping my eyes on them, and ran backwards again. My back came up against a tent and since the wall was cloth, I fell agajinst it. Apparently, there was a flap there, because I landed inside the teht. Something hard and pointy broke my fall, but part of the tent collapsed on top of me. I struggled to climb to my feet. Right before I could pick up my staff d decide on a direction to go in, I felt a knife press against my back. "Explain yourself."