The first morning Diya dove into the art of curses was less like a graceful swan dive, and more like a floundering belly flop. If her goal for the initial session was to question whether her tutor could read—and subsequently whether the man had pissed himself—then it seemed things were going right to plan.

  “Perhaps I could take a gander at the spell book?” Diya offered politely. She didn’t elaborate that the last time she had been this frustrated was a situation a few years back in which Shikra went through a phase where she found it particularly amusing to relieve herself on the cadets flying below them. Needless to say, those cadets didn’t share the bird’s sense of humor.

  Orwell thumbed through the pages as if he were looking for just the right curse for the situation. She was hours past questioning whether that right curse even existed. After all, he had selected and then failed to perform no less than thirteen curses in just the last hour. After each failure he took a break to ‘quench his thirst’. “I t-think that t-this one is going to be just the one, girl…”

  “You can do it,” Diya said in the most supportive voice she could muster, which at this point had become fairly despondent. How the hell can this drunkard seriously be the best option we’ve got? I’m all for manners, but I only have a month left, and way too much still to be accomplished.

  Every moss-covered fence in the plaza was a reminder that she was stuck with the old fool. If he was unable to instruct her in the way of curse magic, then her shot at learning all three blood magic arts was as good as dead. Upon first thought, it wouldn’t be so bad. She didn’t know much about the scope of curse magic, but she didn’t see much need to turn anyone into a spider anytime soon.

  However, if she weren’t able to wield all three blood magic arts, that would mean she wasn’t the promised one. If she wasn’t the promised one, then what would that mean for her? Would all those who had hastily flocked to her cause show that same rapidity when abandoning her? Would Tamsin’s feelings be the same even if Diya weren’t the one she spent so many years searching for?

  Diya considered, not for the first time, that if mother nature truly favored her, they might have smote Orwell by now. Who knew, perhaps whoever wrote this coven prophecy centuries back simply had a thing for someone with two different colored eyes.

  No way of knowing now. She thought.

  They were squatting in the ruins of an old library just outside the walls of the new Coven’s settlement, the beams that once held the roof now sagged, forlorn, allowing the moonlight to slip through crumbling masonry in long, uninterested stripes. Seven days had passed since they first began. Seven days, and she was no closer to understanding hexes. In fact, she felt more perplexed then when they started. She was certain that this was hell. A classroom taught by an incompetent instructor for eternity.

  A nearly empty bottle of something amber hued and flammable rolled lazily at Orwell’s feet. It was far from his first of the day, and by Diya’s callous count not the second or third either.

  “Now, curse magic,” Orwell slurred, drooping low to scoop the bottle up, tapping the side of his skull with its neck and missing his head entirely, “is all about… ah… intention. You don’t tell the curse what to do, you dance with it like a lovely lass. Whisper in its ear when the time’s right, if you’re receiving my message.”

  “Even a courier would be hard pressed to receive your message. That is quite likely the least helpful sentence you’ve ever spoken,” Diya muttered, last remnants of politeness setting with the sun.

  She knelt opposite him, sleeves rolled, her mouth compacted and brow furrowed.

  Orwell hiccupped, turning the page in the tome and gasping like he had just discovered an untapped keg on the page that his bad breath could make manifest. “Alright now, this is a good one. The hex of lead limbs. Simple.”

  Her eyes burnt a hole right through him. While his nonchalant demeanor once seemed endearing, the weight of an entire week wasted had flipped that assessment right on its head.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The bearded man whipped out his small blade, and the cycle started again. Shakily, he trimmed a bit of hair from a braid hanging over her shoulder. Toward the start of the week, he had asked permission, but that common courtesy faded fast. Over the course of the seven days, she had lost almost a whole braid to the cause, as he tried repeatedly to successfully cast a curse.

  His apparent inability to feel shame about his week of failure struck her and she allowed her face to fall into her palms and sighed. I’m going to be bald before we make any meaningful progress. I’ve never been bald before. What if I have an oddly shaped head?

  “Eyes on me,” Orwell barked, closing his eyes and holding a handful of her hair over the fire. “Visualize the heaviest thing you can imagine. I’m talking real heavy, okay?”

  Diya looked up at him and gave the faintest of nods.

  He took a deep breath, then threw the hair into the dancing flames. There was a shift in the air around them, a smell like bergamot, then a loud crack like a branch snapping.

  Diya cried out, astounded as her hands crashed to the floor like they were heavy as anvils. The sensation was bizarre, terrifying, and fantastic all at once. It was a futile effort, but still she tried to lift her fists from the cracked cobblestone. No luck. Using all her might, she strained, trying to raise her boots. No luck. Not even an inch.

  She looked up helplessly at her instructor, who was now jumping around and pumping his fist in the air.

  Orwell uncorked the half empty bottle and took a swig. “Looks like I’ve still got it!”

  Capriciously she grinned up at him from her quadrupedal position tethered to the floor. “Thank the winds! Now how do you untether me?”

  The smile fell from his face and he looked around anxiously. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead…”

  Discomfort reared anger and her cheeks flushed red. “You bloody fool! You better untether me from this ground and fast.”

  “I was just kidding!” Orwell laughed, hands slapping his knees. “You should have seen your face! To untether you, I simply need to think of the lightest thing I can imagine.”

  His eyes shut again and his head swayed softly side to side. Seconds later he snapped his fingers.

  Just like that she felt the weight release, and she shot back up to her feet. Her eyes scanned every inch of her outstretched arms before landing on her legs and repeating the examination. Once she deemed everything was back to normal her stoic face lit up and she patted the round man on the back.

  “Well, you finally did it. I won’t lie, after day two I was almost certain you would die of alcohol poisoning before casting any curses. I’ve never been so glad to be wrong.” Diya muttered under her breath, worried if she spoke too loudly that she might wake up and find this success had all been a dream.

  Orwell grinned a big toothy smile. “Took a little longer than I’d have liked but we’re finally prepared. You ready to give it a try?”

  “I thought you might never ask,” she said, and though it was often an exaggerated statement made lightheartedly, there was a hard-earned honesty to it here.

  And so, finally it was her turn. She whipped out her small knife, campfire gleaming off the polished edge and cut free a grip of grey hair from his long beard. There was a flash of terror in his eyes. Diya giggled—an expression she once thought reserved for politicians gossiping in bathhouses—finding an intense glee in finally assuming the role of one impolitely liberating hair.

  Before he could finish his long groan at her rough handling of his precious jaw-jungle she was holding a hand full of hair over the fire. Eyes shut, Diya thought of the heaviest thing she could imagine.

  An anvil. No. An airship. No. Still too light. A mountain.

  She peeked out of her squinted eyes and chewed her lip. What was the heaviest thing she could think of? A flash of inspiration struck her like lightning, and she made a slight sound of satisfaction.

  Township Ghanesha.

  She visualized her home. The ancient elephant larger than any mountain, larger even than a range of mountains. The many layers of crudely constructed buildings leaning haphazardly against each other, as if at the slightest breeze the whole thing might topple like a tower of cards. The ageless creature’s gnarled tusks, each longer than a bridge. The weight of the thousands of citizens who lived in the township atop the beast.

  Her lips creased to a smile, and she threw the man’s hair into the flames. There was no shift of atmosphere. No scent of bergamot. No snapping of branches.

  Only a round-bellied old man offering her a reassuring shrug when she opened her eyes. “No shame in taking time to learn. Slow and steady wins the race after all.” Orwell said, scratching his bald head.

  Diya appreciated his attempt to comfort her, but she knew the problem with old euphemisms was they were often vague enough to be applied to all situations. Life had taught her that situations were far from uniform. Rather, they were shaped by circumstance. Fluid. Therefore, slow and steady felt hopelessly outmatched by fast and furious in this particular case.

  After all, in twenty-one days, sacred Ghanesha would be sacrificed by Zoralia, and as a result everyone back home would die. That was the bleak truth that had burrowed into her heart, digging its claws in deep, and keeping her awake at night.

  Diya had no time for slow and steady. Not if she wanted to save her home.