Cover by @withjejide!! This is a collection of short stories by me! If I have a friend who wrote it I will tag them in it! If you have any suggestions, please tell me! I am always happy to write some more!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Now Evan, you know that you have to become a knight like your father " My mother say bluntly while making us a salad.
"Mum, I don't want to be a Knight, the magic school would do us good! I could spell us food and money and water, mother why must I follow my father, I want to learn magic" I say reluctantly and begin to help mother chop some tomatoes.
Every other boy my age has to grow up to be like his father. Those lucky kids who ride brooms and cast spells while I have to train to be a squire next year. The king even has magic and uses it often to protect us. The lucky ones that have magic within them go to the school while the others do their parents jobs. Most of the families on my street have to be Knights as well, the only difference is they embrace that fact. They go outside in their free time and do duels with one another. I carefully dump the tomatoes I cut into the salad and look at my mother's worried face.
"You probably don't even have an" She says but gets cut off by the sound of trumpets blaring outside.
The trumpets mean the king is coming to see us all in the wide gathering place next to the shops on my way to school. I run to the door, open it and dash outside. I run along the cobblestone street along with other children my age. All of us sixteen, which means we must get to the gathering place in sixteen minutes. All the kids on my block are boys who will become knights soon. They can run faster than me because their fathers teach them about being a knight before becoming a squire. I take a left at the fork in the road and so do the other kids. The next block of houses had many girls who are now running in their dresses. They are laughing and talking to one another while running and laugh gallantly. What could the other have said to make them laugh so hard? We take two more rights, then a left, and another right as more and more people crowd the streets. When we finally get to the gathering place we see the knights surrounding it with their spears in front of them.
"ONLY KIDS SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE MAY COME TO THE GATHERING!!!" They shout and most people run back towards their houses.
Why do they only want the sixteen-year-olds? Is this some kind of party just for us? I walk pass the knights and into the gathering place where the King and his son stand on a podium. Other sixteen-year-olds of every class stand in front of them in silence, waiting for what they have to say. I run up to the crowd before the King and get in a good place to watch him. He stands in his robes with the wand of power in his hand. It's a black wand with a yellow tip, said to take the hand of whomever it chooses. The King's son sits on a velvet chair that was brought to the podium. His name is Mathy, I think, and he looks over us with worried expressions.
"Everyone! Quiet down please!" The King says even though no one was talking, "I have two things to tell you! One is that this wand that I yield it no my own, it will choose one of you to be the owner of it, I have no idea what it would want with you when it could have my son, but whoever gets it gets a free spot in the magic academy!"
Cheers arise in the crowd of Sixteen-year-olds.
"Silence!" The King shouts, "My son Mathy will also need a bride by the age of seventeen, young maidens prepare to come and bow in front of Mathy at the ball I will be holding for him! And now to let the wand choose!"
The King throws the wand in the air. It freezes in midair, then starts to spin quickly, faster and faster while it changes different colors. Then it stops abruptly and starts to float downward. The wand floats elegantly like a leaf falling from a tree and land abruptly on my shoulder. I look at the king as he smiles at me and asks me to join him on stage. Me, a poor boy with no nobles or dukes in his family, will get to live my dream of magic.
