The Prince Of Curses h.s.

Thirty eight

Two weeks have passed.

Two weeks that I've been living every day trying to forget the last two months of my life. 

The guards still stood tall outside my family's bakery, no matter how many times I shouted at them to leave. We did lose customers due to it, but we also gained some too. Some saw it as extra protection from everything else that was going on in the kingdom. 

The castle was shut down from what the town folk have been saying. Not a person enters or exits. Even the next tithing has been canceled, something that has never happened in our kingdom's history.

I found ways around the guards. I snuck out the back exit and weaved my way through alleyways to get where I wanted. I also wore a cloak so I couldn't easily be spotted. My favorite place, the one that I was currently sitting at, was a small clearing between the trees. It was quiet here, because everyone was afraid of the forest. But I was not. 

Even Ayla had her doubts when I convinced her to come along. 

"Wow," she mumbled, as she watched me practice my magic. 

While I knowingly left the spellbooks in the castle— even my own, I still remembered a majority of what I'd read. And something had shifted recently with my magic. I was able to visualize it and manifest it into physical form. I don't know what this meant for me, or how I could use it, but it was pretty cool to look at. 

I looked down between my hands at the floating purple blob. It had specks of gold and silver in it, looking much like the way starlight does. 

"Shh," I hushed Ayla, as I tried to concentrate on it. The blob of transparent magic bounced and wiggled before drawing inward towards my palms. I groaned. 

"That was a record, right?" Ayla said excitedly. She was sitting on her knees in the grass a few feet in front of me.

"It was before you made me lose my concentration," I rolled my eyes playfully.

"It's so awesome you can do that, what's it feel like?" 

I shrugged, "I don't know, it was weird at first and then it just became a part of me. It's kinda like having a third arm or something."

I watched as Ayla nodded, her eyes bouncing to the ground beside me. She stilled, "don't move."

"What?" I questioned, looking to my right. In the grass, a few feet from me was a black snake. Its black marbled eyes stared right at me as its head bobbed side to side. 

Here recently, I've been seeing a lot of snakes, a lot more than I ever had before. Just the other day I could've sworn one followed me to the back door of the bakery. And the weird thing is— they all looked the same. Black scales and void black eyes. Not one tried to attack me. They only followed and stared.

"Shoo," I said, using my magic to scare it away. I shot a gust of fire at it, scorching some of the grass in its wake. 

"Shoo? Nuray that's like the third snake we've seen this week! You're not scared of them? This one was close enough to lunge at you!"

"It's fine. It's probably their breeding season or something."

I stood dusting off my gown. There was no use trying to practice my magic now when I'd lost concentration. It took me some getting used to wearing my old clothes. They were thin and hand-sewn together from scraps of other pieces. Although I admired my mother's needlework, it almost pained me to my core to be wearing these again. 

We had been out here most of the day, and while my parents still encouraged us to go out together and enjoy time away from work, I couldn't help but feel the need to go back and help. Plus, I needed to keep my mind occupied. It's difficult knowing most of the kingdom fears you because they don't understand what you are. Which was the reason I tried to stay hidden while practicing magic.