The Price of Magic

Chapter I

Screaming.

Fire. Fire everywhere.

The crackling of wooden houses falling to the ground in piles of ash.

“Clara! Run!” A voice ordered her.

Running. Running forever.

A voice in her head. Arcadia. Go to the kingdom of Arcadia.

            Clara Oswald gasped, her eyes flying open and ending the dream that had haunted her sleep as long as she could remember. Sitting up, she sighed, relieved to see she was still in her tiny room above the potter’s workshop.

            “Clara?” She recognized the voice of Donna, the potter’s wife.

            “Come in,” Clara said, getting out of bed.

            The door opened to reveal both Donna and her husband, Christopher, the potter. His hands, as usual, were stained with clay. Both looked worried.

            “What’s wrong?” Clara asked.

            “Did you have the dream again?” Christopher asked.

            Clara nodded. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a nightmare about what happened when I was a child.”

            When Clara was seven years old, her village had been burned to the ground, and her parents had died in the fire. She lived with her uncle for a time, who had been a very powerful sorcerer, but when he was mysteriously poisoned and killed, Clara had nowhere to go. That’s when the voices started. Clara would hear some sort of voice telling her to go to the neighboring kingdom, Arcadia. She’d found a home in the kingdom with the kind potter and his wife. Now, fifteen years later, Clara continued to live with Christopher and Donna, and she served as a sort of apprentice.

            “Dreams aren’t always what they seem, Clara,” Donna said. “Was the voice in it this time?”

            “I-I can’t remember.” Clara sighed. “I think so. It’s in almost every one. But again, it doesn’t mean anything. Someone told me to come here, so I did.”

            Donna and Christopher exchanged a worried look. “Clara, you told me the voice was in your head,” the potter said.

            Clara shrugged. “I’m not sure anymore. I’ve had the dream so many times that I don’t even pay attention to it anymore.”

            “What about your…gift?” Donna asked slowly.

            That was another thing. Clara had a sort of gift, or talent. Some would even call it magic. When Clara became extremely upset, she could control the wind, and sometimes even other elements of nature. Once when Clara was eleven years old, she managed to cause a rainstorm in the kingdom that lasted a week before she figured out how to control her powers. Magic of any kind was banned in Arcadia, as proclaimed by Prince Simeon when he took the throne following the mysterious deaths of his parents, the king and queen.

            “Nothing has happened,” Clara replied irritably. A light breeze blew through the room. Christopher and Donna questioned her about both the dream and the powers every morning, and by now Clara was sick of it. “See, now you’re upsetting me,” Clara said, looking up at the papers flicking around the room.

            “You must learn to control it!” Christopher scolded. “You can’t be discovered. It’s too dangerous.”

            “You don’t think I know that?” Clara retorted. The wind grew stronger. “I’ve been trying to control it, but you’re making it worse!” She stormed out of the room and went downstairs and out into the village.