First Spell Read online

  “Shh, keep your voice down. They surely heard your scream, but no need to remind them you’re in here.”

  I waited for his answer, he huffed in impatience, and said, “They’re sorcerers who, like young petulant children and fools, think their way is better than ours, and they’re willing to kill to get what they want.”

  “Kill?” I said at the same time as my brother said, “Sorcerers?”

  “Really?” The ghost looked from me to my brother. “You know nothing of what I speak?”

  I shook my head while Nando said, “No, nothing you’re saying makes any kind of sense.”

  The ghost threw his hands in the air. “What the devil was Mordecai thinking getting the two of you, though he only said he was getting one?” He looked between the two of us suspiciously. “Always following whatever his runes tell him without a care for the consequences.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You don’t even know what a sorcerer is.”

  “Oh, I know what a sorcerer is,” Nando said. “From story books. From children’s tales.”

  The ghost chuckled. “Let me guess. You don’t think sorcerers are real either?”

  Nando squirmed in his seat, his eyes never leaving the proof sitting between us that what we had once believed was inaccurate.

  “Like I said, we don’t have time for this. I need to help my brother as best as I can in my current condition. All you need to know is that those sorcerers out there embrace dark magic. They’re here to kill my brother, and they’d kill me again if they could.”

  “Why?” I squeaked.

  “Because we are two of the magicians who stand in the way of these buffoons declaring the existence of magic to those ignorant of it.”

  That doesn’t sound quite so bad, though I could barely believe I was having the thought.

  “If we don’t stop them, they’ll impose their will and magic on everyone, and trust me when I tell you, they won’t be gentle about it. They’ll kill all who oppose them, and if their victims happen to have no magic, they’ll kill them without a thought. To them, those without magic are beneath them, and they should do as they’re told.”

  I gulped. “Like us?”

  “Like you what?”

  “We don’t have magic.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “We don’t, I’m sure of it.”

  “Just as you were sure that ghosts and sorcerers didn’t exist?”

  Yeah, just like that. I swallowed again.

  “My brother might be rash and head strong, but he’s no fool, not like those sorcerers out there. If he came to get you, it’s because you mean something to magic.”

  “Maybe that’s the case for my brother, but not me.”

  The ghost arched bushy eyebrows on his translucent face.

  “Really,” I insisted. “Your brother only came for my brother. Our uncle foisted me on him.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. I’m only here by accident.”

  The ghost smiled, and I found myself both terrified and drawn to his smile. “My brother and I don’t believe in accidents, nor do we believe in coincidences. You’d be wise to do the same. If you’re here, then you and your brother mean something important to our cause. If not my brother wouldn’t have wasted his time on you, nor would he have put himself at risk like this. The SMS, Sorcerers for Magical Supremacy, has been hunting him for some time. He rarely puts himself out there like this for them to find him.”

  He looked distracted for a moment, and again it seemed that he was talking to himself, as if he’d forgotten we were there at all. “I told him not to come, but he wouldn’t hear of it. It’s bad enough that I died for this cause, I can’t have him dying too. But did he listen to me? No, he never did. He never does.”

  He sighed and looked up, seeming to startle to see us there. “I’d better go help him however I can.” He looked at his see-through hands with regret. “Both of you, stay put. No matter what you hear or think you see, don’t come out.”

  “But I’d like to help if you only tell me how I can be of service.” Nando’s words were wasted.

  A soft pop, like a bubble bursting, sounded, and the space the ghost had occupied was empty.

  I ran my hands across the seat. It was cold, as if no one had ever been there.

  I shared a look with my brother that said, What the dickens is going on?

  My brother placed his sword on the seat between us and ran both hands through his hair, something he only did when he was unsure what to do. Since that rarely was the case for him, I didn’t see him do it often. His usually tamed hair stood up in unkempt waves.

  I was looking at him, hoping he’d be able to figure out what to do, when his eyes widened bigger than they had when the ghost materialized in the carriage.

  “Look out!” he said and lunged toward me, yanking me away from the window and against the seat behind me.

  I caught a flash of bright light and then the snarling face of a young man through the window as he looked in.

  “Oh no! Nando.”

  But my brother’s eyes had already closed. His dead weight slumped against me.

  Chapter 3

  My instinctive cry for help died on my lips. The sounds, which filtered into the carriage compartment, made it clear that neither Mordecai nor his brother’s ghost could afford to do anything to help Nando at the moment.

  Although the sounds were different than any I’d heard before, with their absence of clinking, engaged weapons, I recognized them for what they were: the sounds of battle. Only this was a very different kind of battle than the ones I’d learned about. This was a skirmish that shouldn’t have been possible—only it was—and I wasn’t fool enough to waste time on denying what was clearly unfolding right beside me, just beyond the thin door of the carriage. The only thing that separated me from these dark sorcerers or whatever they were was a thin cut of polished wood.

  I struggled to adjust my brother’s limp body so that it wouldn’t crumble against the carriage floor, and managed to drag him onto the seat next to me. As soon as I propped him up, he slid over and slumped against me.

  I blinked back useless tears and put my hand against his chest. I held it there, completely motionless, while I waited. I didn’t even breathe while I prayed for proof that my brother still lived.

  Nothing. No movement or beat beneath his shirt.

  I shook my head, equally desperate and determined that my brother should not die right then with me in this stupid carriage with this stupid man and his ghost of a brother who came to get us—seemingly only to deliver us to lethal danger. Uncle’s company had been awful, but at least we’d been safe from injury.

  “Dale, Nando. I will not let you die on me, so don’t you dare.”

  The tears I’d been holding back broke through. My chest started shaking no matter how much I thought it a waste of my energy.

  But... I didn’t know what else to do? There was no beat of his heart to make my hand jump.

  “Dale! Just beat already.” But no beat of his heart arrived to deliver me from the quickly mounting panic and terror. I pushed against his chest roughly. I only caused his limp body to slip to the other side of the seat.

  I lunged and grabbed him before he hit the opposite wall of the carriage, arms straining to hold him at the awkward angle while I stood, crouched, over him.

  Another light, farther away, not as strong as the one which had done this to Nando, flashed through the fogged windows of the carriage. I flinched and turned my face to the side and away from the window, but I didn’t let Nando go, not when he was heading straight toward that window.

  If he was alive—the tears came furiously as I adjusted my traitor thoughts. Since he was injured, he couldn’t take another hit. One had been enough to do this to him, I couldn’t expose him to more. If only the carriage had curtains like so many others!

  I dragged my brother’s body back against the seat and held him straight up. My biceps bulged at the effort to keep him from sliding
, and my tears mixed with the starts of sweat.

  Outside, people were shouting. They called out common words I recognized, but in an order that made little sense.

  Spells! They must be casting magical spells, I realized, my eyes widening for that moment in which I forgot my brother’s predicament for the awe of our situation.

  I was in the middle of a fight where the weapon used was magic. That thought drew out for a few long moments, during which I barely recognized my life or me in it.

  The curious part of my mind wanted to listen and register all I could of the fight between sorcerers. But the part of me that was anxiously waiting for my brother to act like the living overruled curiosity, and I pushed the yells and crashing sounds away.

  “Nando,” I pleaded. “Please.” I wedged myself between him and the window he was closest to and encouraged him to slump into me. I clutched him against me with one hand, and placed the other beneath his nose.

  My eyes stung from the tears. I closed them and imagined I felt the heat of Nando’s breath against my fingers.

  Something big crashed into the opposite side of the carriage. I jumped and dropped my hands and Nando. I scrambled to lean him against me again while my eyes—wide open and wild now—took in the cracked and dented wood of the carriage wall.

  Light flashed through the window, but it was fainter, a golden white, as if the light had been pointed away from us.

  I stared toward the window and the opposite wall of the carriage... waiting. Though I wasn’t sure exactly what I was waiting for until it arrived. Something smaller banged against the carriage. A body, I just knew it. I hoped it was the body of one of those dark sorcerers and not Mordecai’s. He was a mere stranger to us, but he was the only (living) ally we had in this fight.

  I heard a cry of anguish, but it was far away from where we were, and I snapped myself back to Nando. I still wasn’t sure how much damage that first flash of light caused. He still hadn’t shown me he was alive.

  He was though, he had to be, if for no greater reason than it was the only option I’d accept. If he had to be injured, fine. I’d even accept a severe injury at this point, as long as it was one he could fully recover from and be the brother I admired and loved—something I didn’t tell him often enough.

  I wedged my shoulder into his arm so that it pressed him against the seat and placed a hand on the side of his neck and the other on his mouth.

  “Dale, breathe! Make your heart beat!” A few seconds passed by and my words softened to a whimper. “Por favor. I can’t go on without you.” I cried openly. “I need you here with me. Nando, please.”

  THERE. A beat. It was soft and sluggish but it was the best thing I’d felt in ages.

  I wrapped my arms around him as best I could, sitting next to him in the cramped carriage, and I let go of my terror. My chest heaved as I struggled to cry and breathe at once.

  The occasional burst of diffused light and the cries of pain and defeat that filtered in from outside no longer rocked me. Nando was unconscious but alive. I discovered myself suddenly numb to everything else.

  I cried until my nose started dripping. I wiped my nose on the back of my hand, not caring in the least that it was gross, and snuggled into my sleeping brother.

  The battle beyond the walls of the carriage wasn’t mine to fight. As long as Mordecai won, and we didn’t fall into the hands of the dark sorcerers, then everything would be all right. Nando would recover, and life would continue much as it had.

  I should have known it then that we were beyond the point of no return and that nothing at all would be the way it was.

  My life and Nando’s had fundamentally changed; I just hadn’t accepted it yet.

  A roar, so mighty and vicious that the walls of the stopped carriage shook, announced that nothing about the life we’d led would be allowed to continue.

  Once more, my breathing hitched while the echoes of a beastly roar reverberated through the cabin.

  “What. The dickens. Is that?”

  I wanted to shake Nando awake, because whatever was arriving on the scene was much bigger and had to be far more terrifying than a few dark sorcerers.

  Chapter 4

  “Retreat! A dragon’s flying in!” yelled what I could only assume was a terrified, retreating sorcerer.

  “Those are words I never thought I’d hear, that’s for sure,” I said. Since Nando hadn’t stirred yet, I had no need to talk, but it gave me something to do to stave off any more panic. I’d had my fill for the day—for a decade!—and I didn’t want to be afraid any more.

  But despite my intentions, I was afraid, I was very afraid. If the sorcerer claimed a dragon was flying in, then I didn’t want to imagine how large the beast that could cause the ground to shake with its roar from afar must be. What would happen once the dragon drew nearer? What then?

  All I knew of dragons was from fairy tales. If the stories were to be believed, then the dragon could burn us all to a crisp without ever touching down. Nando and I, along with all the sorcerers outside, would die from a dragon flyby.

  The dragon roared again, and this time even my bones shook. My teeth and eyeballs rattled and I clutched at my brother.

  Now that the greatest danger seemed no longer to come from what looked like light—magic spells?—flashing through the windows, I wanted to peek outside, beyond the fog, to the beast which might just deliver doom on us all in its rapid approach. But would my getting close to the window jeopardize me further? When I was the only one taking care of my brother, I couldn’t put myself at risk.

  But... but I was desperate to see. And if these were our last moments, then at least I wanted to catch sight of a dragon before I went.

  I deliberated for too short a time considering what was at stake, slid Nando down the seat so he was mostly laying down, and scooted from the seat. I walked in a crouch over to one of the windows. While the unnaturally heavy fog had cleared up quite a lot, all I made out were the figures of two bodies fallen to the ground close to the carriage. The details of their faces were obscured by the lingering fog, but I was certain neither man was Mordecai.

  They were far too young, with clean-shaven faces and short hair. Also they wore breeches and a shirt instead of the long loose gown Mordecai wore. I sighed in relief before I even realized I’d been worried for the strange old man who’d appeared out of nowhere to buy us from our uncle and deliver us to this, whatever exactly this was.

  I pressed my face against the glass and looked upward, but the vantage point limited my line of sight, and I saw nothing but the hints of a bright blue sky behind what I now suspected to be some kind of magic-induced fog.

  I flicked a glance to Nando, still partly laying, partly leaning, awkwardly against the seat, his sword, useless, wedged between the bottom and top cushions. I scooted to the other window. I looked down to find the ground free of littered bodies, though I did make out a riderless horse. I tilted my attention upward. No dragon.

  The glass started to rattle in its pane. Definitely a dragon, I just couldn’t see it through the small cutout in the carriage.

  I should stay put. There was no way I should open the door to look. Hadn’t I begged Nando to remain safe in the carriage? Not to open the door? Hadn’t Mordecai’s ghost brother implored us to stay hidden within the carriage?

  There were a whole lot of reasons why I shouldn’t open the door. I opened it anyway. I did it quickly before I could back out. If there was truly a dragon flying overhead, didn’t I deserve to allow myself to see it? Shouldn’t I be able to see what I’d believed relegated only to the pages of fanciful books until minutes ago?

  If I was about to die, then why not go out with a final unbelievable image? I pushed open the door, stepped down from the carriage, and pressed the door firmly shut behind me. At the least, I wouldn’t let any of those bad sorcerers discover Nando.

  Maybe with me out here the attackers would believe I was the only one in the carriage. After all, I’d been the only one they’d
heard, and I didn’t think the young sorcerer who flashed Nando had registered what he’d seen inside. There was a good chance the sorcerer who’d harmed Nando was the one laying on the ground, closest to the other side of the carriage. Perhaps this was how I’d save Nando from further harm.

  Even as I had these thoughts, I understood they were just rationalizations for my actions. The truth was that I was curious, and wanted desperately to see a dragon. I wanted to believe there was so much more to this life than being abandoned by my parents to an unkind relative. I wanted more than a life where I always felt like the odd one out, misunderstood and alone, despite my brother’s efforts to make me feel loved.

  I wasn’t stupid, I knew that. But I was ultimately ordinary. Extremely, totally ordinary. I was good at some things, but I wasn’t great at any of them. I was smart enough, nice enough, and pretty enough—but just enough. I wasn’t extraordinary, and I wasn’t special.

  If there truly was magic in the world, then that would be extraordinary enough to make up for all the plainness in my life. That would add the spark to my existence that I’d been craving as much as I craved my freedom.

  I was either delusional or magic was real. I didn’t think I was hallucinating, which meant that what I desired was right there, just beyond the carriage. The extraordinary was within my reach, even if only for the moments preceding my death.

  The dragon would crisp me along with everyone else as it flew by. But at least I’d see it. At least I’d know that everything was so much more special than I’d ever allowed myself to hope for before I died.

  The ground moved beneath my feet. I leaned against the closed carriage door and tilted my head up.

  The dragon was nearly overhead. At the speed it was moving, it would fly over us in seconds.

  I didn’t smile or cry out, I simply stared, grateful to have this one moment of undeniable magic for myself.

  The dragon was larger than I’d imagined. Perhaps it was even as large as a house. Not one as big as Uncle’s, but certainly as big as the houses some of the common folk lived in with entire broods of children.