The Heir Of Dreams And Curses

Where I find out that I should eat laurel leaves (don't try this at home)

I opened the door to the library and I grabbed the book. A thought occured to me. If all of this is over someday, I thought, I want my own house , with an even bigger library. The biggest library, full of all the knowledge in the Aether Realm. It was going to be like Alexandria's library. 

I shook the thought away. It was so naive, so stupid, to think I could have my own life with my library. During my life I learnt wanting things didn't mean I was going to get them, and it wasn't going to change just because I had friends and a purpose. My skills were needed elsewhere, and it was always going to be that way. One of my fatal flaws was that I couldn't put myself first.

I looked at the fairy book. So far, it had only showed me bits and pieces. They all had something to do with legends. I was willing to bet that, under that invisible ink, there was a full written book and that it was about myths. I just needed a spell to read it from the start to the end.

"Reveal yourself!" I told the book. Words are magical and make everything more powerful. Maybe there are languages that are more ancient and important, like Latin, but I only knew English.

It was a common spell I had used for opening the books in Daniel Winter's private section of the library. When something is concealed, the best spell is the one that asks it to show itself for what it really is. A very simple spell, like I said, but there is a tricky part. You have to especially ask to show itself to you, the Enchanter who's making the spell.

"Show yourself to me!" I growled.

Words started forming on the cover of the fairy book. I held my breath. It read 'Ancient Families'.

So, this was what the book was about. 

I remembered with a shiver that there was a specific reason why nobody talked much about the Ancient Families. Especially some of them. The Winter, Autumn, Rivers and Spring families had many descendants. Their families must not have had many secrets. But what about the Ember family? Raegan had said their powers were weird. And the Summer family? I already knew about their power of darkness, but was I ready to read more about it? That one was my own family, after all.

I decided that, as scary as it sounded, reading it was the most important thing to do. I quickly glanced at all the pages in the book. It was that sort of old tome with huge illustrations and letters in a big font. Its pages were voluminous, but there wasn't a lot of them.

What the book seemed to tell, instead, were a couple of legends of each family and a brief summary of each of them. Until I took a closer look, I thought the summaries told you things like each family's powers and most famous members.

At a closer glance, I realized that it was true, but that were not the only things the book told you. Apparently, each family had a certain food they should eat to boost their powers, just like the colours we wore at school. 

Another weird thing was that, apparently, gems could make us more powerful. 

I read the summary about the Summer family. Here's what it said:

The Summer Family

Motto: "The Destiny is not written"

Symbol: Dragon

Do they mate with humans? Yes, even in recent times

Where they're from: Ireland

Special Power: Dreams can tell them the future, the past and the present

Food that boosts their power: Cherry laurel leaves (uncooked)

Colour: Red

Element: Darkness