The whitish mist touches my feet, chilling them. Though in the night's darkness, it seems dirty gray, frightening and too thick. I look around, listening intensely. It's like there's a big space around me, but I can't see it, all shrouded in the fog swirling around me. Only the inky blue night sky with sparse stars looms somewhere high above me. Darkness and silence. Though the darkness is relative, it's probably a cloudless night, because still the faint light from the moon shines through the thick fog, keeping me from being blinded by the darkness around me.

"Seraphus?" I whisper. There is no answer. I squat down and run my palm over the ground. Wet grass, loose soil, no flowers, just weeds. Abandoned land. It can't be otherwise, since any land has energy. And there's none here. Nothing at all. No vibrations, no life energy, nothing. Only in the Abandoned Land the ground has no memory and energy. Although vegetables, fruits, grass and flowers grow there, but they have no healing or useful properties. They only serve as food and a means of decorating houses.

Straightening up, I raise my hand to light the fireball. Focusing on the warmth inside my body... and there is none. Frowning, I search for the warmth within me again, for this just can't be possible. My heart is restless and beating fast, blood running through my veins. I'm alive, so the warmth is there, but the power of fire is gone. This element has always been a piece of cake for me, just like the others. So I stare in shock at my palm and don't understand why the fire never appeared. I try to create wind to disperse the fog, but that doesn't work either. The fog, as if mocking me, grows even thicker, coating my skin with water droplets. It's also getting hot. It's stuffy. I pull back the collar of my shirt, licking my lips, and try again to summon at least some power. But it's gone; it's like I've gone empty. Even the sweat rolling down my face is water, but I can't control it.

A chill of fear grips me.

"Seraphus!" I shout, heading forward. I'm waving my hands to dispel the fog a little when I hear a rustle. Freezing in place, I listen. "Seraphus? I'm scared. I've lost my powers, Seraphus."

But he doesn't answer me. I don't know how I got here. The last thing I remember is Seraphus and the heat of desire sweeping through my body. Seraphus' lips were so close...

Another rustle, and now a loud one, distracts me from my idle thoughts. I turn around and suck in the sugary-sweet scent. It's like poison in my throat, and I cough. And the stench gets worse and worse. Covering my nose with the palm of my hand, I try to breathe a little through my mouth and head forward. Slowly. One step at a time.

The wheezing makes me freeze again. It's not even wheezing, it's the wheezing of dying or sick people. That's how I imagine it, because I've never seen people in my life. But what I hear strikes fear into my bones. I realize that my body and my mind are reacting to danger in this way.

"Who's here?" I whisper. "Is anyone here?"

The muffled moans and wheezes are getting closer. Maybe someone is hurt? Maybe someone has been poisoned by the fog and it is he who has that vile and stifling odor, as the stuffiness and dampness intensify because of it?

A silhouette in the fog appears in front of me. I wait. He's coming towards me, but he's walking all weird, stumbling and getting tangled up in his own feet. I wait some more. And then, out of nowhere, this guy appears from the fog and I can see him.

"No," I exhale, looking at the dead man in horror.

This is dead land, not the abandoned land. This is the land of the dead. The books had drawings and classifications of the dead and in front of me, is an inferior creature. With no mind, no awareness of action, in front of me is just a starving monster. It looks terribly scary. The skin is almost transparent and gray-green, the eye sockets are empty, you can see the skull eaten by animals or just broken. There's whitish saliva dripping from its mouth. It's poisonous. It paralyzes the victim, and the victim cannot die, feeling the dead eating the flesh. The victim lives for a long time, still unable to die, knowing only that he is now food for many years for them. The dead may look rather frail, but they are not. It's just a mask they wear to lower the vigilance of their victims. They are strong, just like the other dead. But while the others have remnants of reason, these are only driven by instincts. And their only one is to survive, and to survive they must eat living flesh. And there's one of them standing in front of me. They can't see, they have no eyes; they know by smell. They go for the scent of living energy, flesh, and blood.

I slowly back away because I don't know how to fight them. These creatures practically disappeared from our world after the war. They were used by the dark ones as long as they fed them, and then the dead ones, called dejeu, got out of control and became another enemy. It was written in the textbooks that such creatures were almost extinct, and it takes great power and more than one necromancer to summon them. They are dangerous because they infect other creatures with their poison and the creatures die and then become them and obey only instincts, sometimes coming after their relatives and doing the same thing to them. It is considered the worst curse we have, and that curse is in front of me.

Dejeu's nostrils flutter, and I hold my breath. At times like this, the textbooks tell us to play dead, not to breathe, not to move, not to even look at the dead man. I do so, and inside I panic. The rumble of my terrified heart seems so loud that it's hard not to notice it. My mind is a jumble of thoughts. I don't know how I ended up here. I don't understand how this happened. I'm remembering everything I've read. I need to attack him before he attacks me first.

The wheeze echoes through the grave silence around me. I flinch involuntarily, and goosebumps immediately run up my skin, even painfully. He's noticed. I raise my head to attack and freeze, staring in horror at the hundred, if not a thousand, silhouettes ahead. I can't see them well, but they're moving right at me.

Oh, shit!

Putting my hands out, I call for fire, but nothing. Absolutely nothing. I twitch my hands again, calling for water... air, at least something. Nothing happens. Dejeu leaps at me, and I bounce back and run. Running with all speed away from them, and they move faster than me. They have different abilities in general, including speed.

My lungs are on fire. I'm about to be caught and torn to hell. Abruptly, I hit something hard. Falling backwards, I immediately jump up and my head hurts. I'm led sideways, throwing my arm forward and bumping into a wall. A transparent, invisible, protective wall. The wheezing becomes so loud and so close to me that I think I'm about to die of unbelievable fear. Sweat covers my face, running down my forehead as I squirm against the wall. Turning around, gulping, I see that I'm surrounded. I'm done... Seraphus. The protective dome. I try...desperately try to remember everything I'm supposed to do in the upcoming practice. But it's not working. I just don't have the power. No powers at all. I'm being jumped on by these creatures. I scream in pain as their venom penetrates my chest. I'm torn apart by the pain. My eyes blurry from bursting tears, I see these creatures piling on top of me. They're pulling me in every direction, teeth clawing at my skin. I fight back, flailing my arms, twisting my head, yelling and screaming...and the pain keeps spreading down my body from my chest....

A loud scream is the first thing I hear when I open my eyes and a soft, dim light hits them. I'm shaking and shivering. I keep waving my arms, screaming and kicking.

"Kan, Kan, it's me. You're safe. I've carried you to your room."

Seraphus holds me by the shoulders and then hugs me, enveloping me in his warmth, clutching me tightly in his strong arms. Tears run down my cheeks from the echoes of pain throughout my body. I'm shaking from the icy, deathly cold.

"It's okay. It's gone now. You're safe. You're in the House. You're safe," Seraphus strokes my hair. Through my tears, I realize I'm in my room. I'm not in that creepy place. I'm not in any danger. I'm alive.

I cling to Seraphus's shirt with trembling fingers and bury my face in his shoulder.

"That's it," he strokes my back, rocking me slightly from side to side. Little by little, the fear recedes, replaced by fatigue.

Seraphus pulls away from me a little, but only to hand me a glass.

"Drink it. It's a sedative. You'll feel better." he brings the glass to my lips and I drink greedily, not letting go of his shirt. I'm afraid.

"That's it," Seraphus, smiling softly at me, sets the glass on the floor. "What did you see, Kan?"

"How did you know I saw something?" I whisper.

"Usually, this sort of thing happens at the very beginning of the Oracles' and dark mages' way of progression. The first vision is always accompanied by pain. It happens suddenly, when the creature's emotions are at their peak and one of the energies has grasped what is hidden from the others. But none of them acted like that during the vision. They go quiet, as if they were asleep, and then they open their eyes and that's it."

It makes more sense to me now. Nevertheless, what I experienced was so real. Physically felt.

"But I'm not an Oracle," I mutter.

"No, they don't have any powers other than foresight."

"So I'm a dark mage?" I raise my gaze to Seraphus.

"No, you have enough light magic in you. Pure-blooded dark ones can sometimes see things, but it's very rare. I've only seen once in my life and that's it, my father never at all. My uncle saw them twice and his husband once. That's it. So what have you seen, Kan?"

I take a deep breath and quietly and quickly tell him everything in all its colors and sensations. Seraphus listens intently, occasionally stroking my back to reassure me when I start to shake again.

"I was wrong... yes, I think I was wrong." Seraphus frowns. "The visions, as I said, are different. Oracles are never involved there, they only watch. And you felt everything on your own. I can only assume it was your powers that played tricks on you, Kan. Probably an energy stream full of fear and negativity came out of you, bounced off me, and came back to you. Maybe it was because of my story and you took it personally. Or maybe it has been accumulating in you for many years and only now, when you are growing your powers, it has managed to fly out of your body."

"But everything was... I felt it," I whisper, touching my chest. "I felt my heart being ripped out, Seraphus. I felt them tearing through my chest and getting to my organs. I choked on blood. I could feel their venom... the pain."

"This can't be a vision of the future, Kan. They're different, I know. Yeah, it's similar at first, but the rest of it isn't. I've never encountered anything like this before. Unless..." Seraphus falls silent and rises from the bed.

"Unless?"

"You've been cursed." he turns his head in my direction. "Someone put a curse on you, created a powerful, vengeful spell against you."

I let out a moan and cover my eyes. This is the last thing I need.

"Who needs me?"

"I would argue," Seraphus tsks. "The reasons can be trivial: envy, jealousy, and even just a desire to subdue or humiliate, to drive you mad, to embarrass you. I'll bring you an infusion. It will cleanse you of this nastiness and then we'll see. Okay?"

"Yes, thank you. And this horror won't happen again?" I ask him, depressed.

"No. Tomorrow I'll give you an amulet as well. It will protect you from any curse. It will absorb it. That way, we can also clarify what happened. When the amulet is saturated with this dirt, it will crack and the energy will come out. It will have an odor, and from it, as well as the magical trace, I can easily identify the one who disliked you so much. It'll be fine." Seraphus touches my cheek with the tips of his fingernails.

"Thank you."

Seraphus nods at me and removes his hand, then snaps his fingers. A swarm of gargoyles immediately appears around me. They chirp, rub against my body, and eventually settle down, each finding a spot next to me.

"They'll spend the night next to you."

"Hmm, they sleep next to me or on top of me every night, just like in class. One of them definitely sleeps on my lap," I hum, stroking each gargoyle gently.

"Little traitors," Seraphus chuckles without malice. "I know they've settled on a new place near you, but now they have a mission. They're going to keep an eye on who approaches you, what's going on. And if they notice anything strange or smell an evil influence on you, they will report to me immediately."

"I see. How did you tame them? I heard they are your creatures?" I wonder. Seraphus sits down on the bed and smiles softly.

"I was a very wild child, and also quite dangerous. I had a lot of dark magic in me and sometimes I couldn't control it, inadvertently harming my babysitters or servants. I was feared and so was left alone. Gargoyles were statues in my bedroom. They were arranged around the carved pattern of the fireplace, and then I thought about how nice it would be if they were alive. They did, and they came to life right before my eyes. But only I saw them, then I let my father see them, as well as my brothers. Those who don't have dark magic can't see them, even with my permission. Gargoyles don't show themselves to the dark ones either, unless I give them a sign that it's safe and they can detect themselves. They may be small, love to eat and sleep, and are also cranky, but they are loyal and have a good sense of smell. More than once they've helped me catch students who were planning to cheat on tests, find out the correct answers, get back at me, and more."

Smiling, I scratch the rumbling gargoyle under my chin.

"They're very kind and caring," I whisper. "I've always been taught that dark magic creatures are treacherous, cruel, and dangerous, just like the dark ones themselves. But that's absolutely not true."

"Your father told you that?"

Nodding, I take a deep breath and nod again.

"He hates you," I quietly venture to say. "He so despises all the dark ones, ridicules them, humiliates them. He's filled with a fierce anger and hatred. That's how I realized that not all light is good and not all dark is bad. I have seen enough to decide for myself that there is no dark and light magic. There is magic and often it's not for the good. I still don't think it's fair that Mother divided us so completely, because that's what causes us to dislike each other. But here..." glancing around my room, I smile softly at Seraphus, "it's so nice and peaceful. There are no prejudices, no hatred, no anger, no divisions. I would stay here forever."

"You can stay, Kan. You have so much potential. You could even become a teacher like me or a healer after you finish your education. Arcandalia, or the Land of Knowledge, is a separate kingdom. There are different powers here and there is no conflict between them. There are also only mixed marriages. These beings also need a healer or herbalist or mage."

"So I can get a part-time job?" I ask him excitedly.

"Why do you need a part-time job, Kan? I haven't heard of Isengard getting drastically poorer."

"It's his gold, and I need my own."

"Why?" Seraphus gazes intently into my eyes. I don't want to lie to him, but I have no choice. And I can't lie to his eyes, so I lower my gaze to my hands, stroking the gargoyles.

"I'm never going back. Never," I whisper. "I won't go back voluntarily. I need gold to go to the Abandoned Lands and live there."

Because Lua's out there and he might need me. I have to find him as soon as he succeeds. I'll be there for him, I fear for my friend. He's not adapted to life at all, and he's different. He's not like an elf on the inside. He's like me. And I fear that he might be hurt or used. And Isengard... I'm sure he won't just let his son go, he'll find him and take revenge, maybe kill him secretly and make it look like a coincidence. He won't forgive Lua for that kind of betrayal and shame.

"There is very little magic in the Abandoned Lands, Kan. Your power will fade there. Everything there is dead to us. People live there, and they are still very wary of those who move there. There are usually criminals hiding there."

Swallowing, I jerk my head up.

"I don't care," I reply sharply, glaring at Seraphus. "There's no way I'm going back there. Never. If I do, I'll come back dead and no other way. I'd rather die than face him again."

"Kan..."

"I'm tired." I cut Seraphus short and lay down in bed. "I'm sorry, I'm exhausted. I want to sleep."

"Yes, of course. I'll come back here to leave you a healing potion and an amulet."

"Thank you Seraphus, good night."

I close my eyes and pretend that I really do want to sleep. When I hear Seraphus sigh, clearly not unaware that I didn't want to discuss the matter, I squint harder and hate myself for not being able to tell him the truth. And I so wish I could be honest with him. But it's dangerous. Yes, I trust Seraphus, but I only trust him with my secrets, and part of that involves Lua. I can't put him in danger.