The Price of Magic

Chapter II

Clara struggled in vain against the ropes binding her to the rough wooden plank that had been planted in the center of the kingdom. Piles of the peasants’ only firewood were scattered around her. She was terrified; the Prince was actually going to burn her alive. She was going to die.

            Several villagers were gathered around. Some looked scared, others sympathetic, and some even looked excited. Because watching someone burn to death is always exciting.

            The Prince himself appeared, looking smug and proud of himself. Clara glared at him and purposely made the wind pick up a little higher than it already was. He glared back at her for a split second, before gesturing to one of the knights to throw the first torch on the wood. The knight obeyed, followed by several others, and soon the flames were growing higher and higher. Clara panicked. She couldn’t get out of this. She was going to die. She closed her eyes, expecting to feel the extreme heat and excruciating pain at any moment.

            “Stop!”

            Clara opened her eyes to see that one of the knights was trying to put out the fire. He threw logs off the fire until he couldn’t get any closer. But he was still too far away. Clara was still trapped. The flames were almost to her feet when she felt a drop of water on her face. And then another. And another. She looked up. It was raining.

            Clara laughed. She’d made it rain! Focusing on the rain, she made it come down harder, and then the sound of thunder cracked in the distance. In no time at all, the strong flames had been reduced to sizzling, smoking wood. Clara sighed in relief. She was safe.

            The knight who’d been trying to save her earlier climbed over the piles of wood and used his sword to slice the ropes binding her to the wood stake. Clara rubbed her wrists and looked up at the knight. “Thank you,” she whispered, then descended the wood pile, throwing an ice cold glare at Prince Simeon as she passed him.

            “Sir,” one of the guards said, turning to Simeon and drawing his sword, “shall I go after her?”

            Simeon shook his head. “No, let them go. I’ll get her eventually.”

            “Wait, I didn’t catch your name,” The kind knight called after Clara.

            She turned around. “Clara. Yours?”

            “Sir Matthew. It was good to meet you, miss.”

            Clara nodded. “Thanks again, for saving me.” With that, she turned and headed toward home.

***

            “This is unbelievable!” Christopher exclaimed once Clara had told him what had happened. “I told you not to go out alone! I knew something like this would happen! You can’t leave the house anymore on your own, not ever! Burned at the stake! This is an outrage!”

            “Christopher, please calm down,” Donna said. “It’s not her fault.”

            “It is entirely her fault!” Christopher shouted. “She has to either learn how to control that…that gift, or she can’t go anywhere at all!”

            “You can’t just keep me trapped in here forever!” Clara argued. “And did you ever think that I can’t control it because I don’t know how? I’ve had this, this, whatever it is, my entire life but no one has ever told me how to control it, only how to conceal it! And clearly that isn’t working!”

            “She’s right,” Donna said. “If you want her to control her powers, you must teach her yourself, Christopher.”

            The old potter sighed. “I can’t teach her! What do I know about magic? I’m afraid she’s on her own for this one. Clara, you have two choices. You can stay here and only leave the house when it’s absolutely necessary, or you can leave the kingdom altogether and use your powers as you wish. It’s your choice.”

            Clara stared at him in disbelief. “You’re…sending me away?”

            Donna looked almost as shocked as Clara did. “No, dear, of course not!” She shot a glance at Christopher. “You’re not going anywhere. You’ll stay here, and live as you always have. We’ll help you as much as we can to control the powers.”

            “Thank you, Donna,” Clara said, hugging her.

            Later that night, Clara was about to go to sleep when she heard a knock on her bedroom door. She opened it cautiously. After the events today, she could never be too careful. She sighed in relief when she saw it was only Christopher.

            “Clara, I need to talk to you,” he said. “May I come in?”

            Clara nodded and stepped aside to he could enter. He shut the door and leaned on it, and Clara sat on her bed. “What is it?”

            “Firstly, I apologize for what I said earlier,” Christopher said. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh. I understand that it is difficult for you to control your magic, which leads me to why I’m really here.”

            “And what’s that?”

            “I’m going to teach you how to control your powers,” Christopher said slowly.

            Clara stared at him in disbelief. This shocked her more than his saying that he was going to send her away. “What?”

            “You heard me,” he replied. “You need to learn how to control it, and I’m going to help you.”

            “But you said you don’t know magic,” Clara said.

            Christopher shrugged. “I don’t always tell the exact truth.”

            “So you know magic?”

            He nodded. “Yes, a bit. I know enough to give you a few pointers.”

            Clara shook her head. “Wow, okay. What else should I know about you?”

            “For one thing, I was good friends with your parents.”

            “My parents?” Clara repeated. “How did you know them?”

            “You probably don’t remember, but your mother and father were very powerful sorcerers, in a time when magic was permitted,” Christopher said.

            “I thought it was my uncle who had the powers,” Clara said.

            Christopher nodded. “That too. But your parents even more so. I taught your father everything there is to know about magic. He had a great natural gift, just like you do.”

            “I can’t believe this,” Clara said. “What are the odds that I just happened to come here and live with you, when you knew my parents?”

            “I don’t think this was a coincidence,” Christopher said. “You said you heard a voice in your dream, telling you to go to Arcadia. You’re here, and soon after, the king and queen die and Simeon prohibits magic. It must be connected somehow.”

            “Simeon said that he’d been keeping an eye on you,” Clara remembered. “I think he suspects you of sorcery.”

            “Simeon plays a significant role in this,” Christopher said, beginning to pace the room. “We’ve got a mystery on our hands, Clara. And I think it’s up to you and I to solve it.”

            “A mystery about what?” Clara asked.

            “Magic.”