In a crooked cottage on the outskirts of the magical kingdom of Ivorydale, where the wind always found a way in and the walls never held in heat, a boy struggled with a broom.
It was early. Though in this part of town, early meant that particular time when the sun had not even begun to think about showing up. Inside the low lit, crumbling space, Calem swept dirt from one side of the floor to the other. Or at least, he tried.
The broom slipped. Again.
"Dammit," he hissed, fumbling to catch it as it clattered to the ground.
His fingers were like loose wires, trying to grip the wooden stick. Calem felt disgusted with himself. The days of self pity and sadness were over. All he felt now was disgust.
For a while it had been like this. And by a while, he meant years, years even before he had taken after the former host of this body.
Calem Margrave had shattered his arm and fingers in an accident with a magic carriage, and he left this body for the new host to suffer the life he had created.
Even worse, the memories he left behind.
—The look on his father's face when the healer mage told him that Calem would never cast a spell again. His hand was broken beyond magic's repair.
His parents didn't even try harder. They didn't take him to find other types of help. They merely abandoned him, sold him to slave traders because he tainted the powerful name of Morgrave— a family of fearless mages.
Calem had tried his best to heal himself, to move his fingers again. Even at that moment, his disgust and anger required clenched fists.
But he was unable to do that and it left him even more frustrated.
His fingers. They were useless; didn't grip like they were supposed to, twisted in angles they never should've had. It was pathetic the way they dangled on his wrists, reminding Calem of skeletons in classrooms of his former world.
Sweeping was torture. Writing was worse. Even simple acts like buttoning his shirt was a bastard war.
Why had he not just simply died? Why reincarnate into this heartless world with broken arms and memories that fueled his character into hate and despair for his own family.
"You done breaking things in there?" Harven's voice bellowed from outside.
Calem snapped out of his thoughts. "I dropped the broom," he called back, voice hollow.
"Course you did."
The door creaked open and slammed shut behind the man. Harven was tall, thick-shouldered, with a permanent scowl that seemed older than the lines on his face. He smelled of stale bread and smoke.
"You can't even sweep a room, boy. How you planning to live past me, huh?"
Calem stayed quiet. He was always quiet around Harven.
"You look at me when I'm talking."
Slowly, Calem turned. "I'm trying."
Harven snorted. "You're trying to fail. That's what you're trying."
He shoved past the boy and went to the table where their stale morning bread lay. "The only reason I never hit you is because of that pretty face of yours. Hopefully a mistress comes knocking one day for you. Then you can finally pay me for all I've done for you."
He tore a chunk of the bread for himself, then glared, noticing how Calem was just looking at him.
"Well? Don't just stand there. Firewood's still wet. Go dry some. And gods help you if you drop the axe again."
Calem's shoulders drooped, but he nodded. "I'll try not to."
Harven walked past him again. "And pick some herbs and riverwood. See if it'll fetch me some coins in the apothecary!"
After that, the door slammed again.
Calem's head hung low, staring down at the broom, his mortal enemy. Then, narrowing his eyes, he lowered his body to pick it up.
It fell. His fingers wouldn't hold on.
He tried again.
It fell.
He tried. It fell.
Again. Again. Agai—
"Argghhh!!" He kicked the broom with rage and it struck against the shelf. Luckily, the contents did not fall to the ground. They only shook slightly, filling the silence of the room alongside Calem's heavy angry breathing.
He looked at the door.
Outside, frost still laced the grass. Calem limped toward the woodpile, dragging the pail he'd used yesterday. His breath came out like smoke.
He looked at the axe leaning against the stump.
And his hands.
That axe was his second enemy. He had to use it less often than the broom, but it was significantly more difficult to use.
Whenever people saw him struggling with the tool, it always turned to mockery.
"Did you know he wanted to be a Mage? With those hands?"
"You can't even hold a quill."
"You should be thankful Harven feeds you. The streets would do horrible things to noble trash like you."
"Stop trying and give up, Calem. It's cruel to yourself."
That last statement was perhaps right. Maybe it was time to give up because no
matter how many times he tried, no matter how many nights he cried into his thin blanket— his fingers wouldn't heal.
But… Calem couldn't just accept this kind of life.
Grunting, he picked up the axe with both hands, his grip awkward. He lifted it. Swung.
Thud. Missed.
The blade bounced off the wood and jarred his wrist.
"Aughh!!" Pain zipped through his fingers. He sucked in a sharp breath, blinking back tears.
But he picked up the axe. And tried again.
Thud.
The wood cracked this time, but did not split through.
He tried once more.
This one missed completely as the axe slipped from his hands and tumbled pitifully into the dirt.
Calem fell to his knees beside it, breathing hard, sweat beading on his brow despite the cold.
This was what it was. Every day. The boy whose hands didn't work. The boy who couldn't cast a single spell even though he came from a family of great spellcasters. The boy who had no place in the Mage Academy and never would.
But—
He sat up slowly and reached into the inside pocket of his worn coat. From it, he weakly pulled a faded slip of parchment: an old Mage Academy recruitment flyer.
"A place where magic and its wielders thrive."
Calem stared at the flyer. 'Magic and its wielders.' If he could just prove that he could wield the tiniest speck of magic, he would be instantly enrolled and Harven would receive reparations too.
He just had to keep trying.
Calem gently folded the flyer, fingers shaking, and sunk it into his pocket. Then he got on his feet, took in a deep breath, closed his eyes and tried to resonate with the mana in the atmosphere.
Then, he outstretched one hand, fingers quivering like cornered mice.
"Come on," he mumbled. "Just a spark. Even the tiniest of embers. Come on!"
Nothing came and his hand began to weigh on him.
"Calem!!" Harven's voice thundered from inside. "Where's the damn firewood?! And why aren't you already on your way to the apothecary?!!"
Calem quickly hurried to the axe. "I'm almost finished!"
☆ ☆ ☆
After he had completed his morning chores, Calem waited outside the apothecary, watching the other boys leave with pouches of herbs and gold in hand. He held a bag of roots he'd dug from Harven's garden, hoping to sell for a few coins.
"Well, well. If it isn't Loose Fingers Morgrave," a voice rang out, dripping with mockery. "Come to sell some weeds?"
Calem looked to his right. Right there with his usual entourage of idiots was Liam Vonce. Tall, blond, with a sharp, handsome face currently twisted in a smirk.
He wore sturdy, clean clothes, ruthlessly contrasting to Calem's patched and stained coat. With a smile on his face, Liam held up a small pouch, shaking it so the coins inside clinked enticingly. "Seven silver coins for genuine sun-kissed valerian root. Master Fenwick practically begged for it."
He looked pointedly at Calem's pail. "What've you got in there? Riverwood again as always and are those moon-roots I see?"
Calem tried to hide then.
One of Liam's friends snickered. "Probably mud pies. Or maybe he dug up his own grave, thinking they'd pay for noble bones."
Liam took a step closer, his eyes gleaming with malice. "I'm sure you've heard the Academy scouts are arriving this weekend. How does that make you feel, huh? " He leaned in, whispering. "My father's already secured my recommendation. I'll be learning real magic while you're still sweeping Harven's filth and dropping axes on your own toes."
Calem remained quiet, his face a mask of weary indifference, honed by years of similar encounters.
Liam straightened up, tossing his hair. "Hah! It's so funny when little Loose Fingers here tries to play cool. You're useless, Calem, just like your hands."
He smirked, then gestured to his entourage. "Come on, lads, let's find somewhere decent to spend this coin. Places like this attract trash." He shoved past Calem, deliberately knocking his shoulder, causing the pieces of riverwood to fall
Liam's friends laughed as they trailing behind him like a foul stench.
Calem lowered to the ground and with great difficulty, picked up the pieces of riverwood, placing them under his armpit.
"Hey! Noble boy!" the guard by the door called. "Your next!"
Calem took one last look at the retreating figures of Liam and his friends, narrowing his eyes silently and angrily, before stepping through the door into the small house.
The warm, cloying scent of drying herbs, strange chemicals, and dust enveloped him immediately. Behind the high counter, Master Fenwick, a thin man with spectacles perched precariously on his nose, was examining a vial of iridescent liquid. His assistant, a gangly youth, was sorting bundles of dried leaves.
Calem approached, placing the pail on the counter with a soft thud. "Riverwood, Master Fenwick. And... moon-root bulbs. Fresh."
Fenwick peered over his spectacles hurriedly. He picked up a piece of the riverwood, snapped it, and sniffed the break. "Passable. I'll give you twenty coppers for the lot." He barely glanced at the small, dirt-caked bulbs. "Moon-roots are worth nothing now. I don't need them."
Calem's heart sank. "Please, Master Fenwick," his voice was tight, strained. "They're good bulbs. I grew them myself. They're strong. Just... I'll take anything."
Fenwick sighed, an irritated puff of air. He looked at Calem's worn clothes, his awkwardly held hands, the desperate plea in his eyes. "Fine, fine. Stop groveling. Don't need the roots cluttering the place, but..."
He turned to his assistant, rummaging in the loot the boy had just brought from the castle. "Here." Fenwick pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment, yellowed and slightly dusty. "Take this old thing. Was going to use it for kindling. Consider it a copper's worth for your weeds. Now, take your coppers and go. You're blocking the counter."
Calem stared at the scroll, utterly stunned by the brittle and ancient thing. "But an empty scroll, Master Fenwick? What could I do with one? I can't even write."
His eyes widened at the glare Fenwick was giving him and so he shut his mouth immediately, grabbed the pouch of coins and the scroll, then headed out of the apothecary.
When he got back to the cottage, Harven wasn't home so he kept the coins safe for him and hurried to a chair to inspect his new belonging.
He unrolled it, and indeed, there was nothing written at all on the old parchment. At the very end, he noticed something odd— tucked within the rollers was a thin, pointed quill, attached to a tiny ink sack.
"…Strange," Calem murmured.
He hadn't practiced writing in a long time. His fingers never cooperated. So maybe, he could use this chance to exercise his fingers. To learn to write all over again.
Gripping the quill awkwardly between twisted fingers, he pressed it to the parchment and drew a shaky line.
He managed a single slash before the quill dropped lazily. Calem picked it up, but when he tried to write again, he caught the slash he'd written earlier vanish into the paper.
"What the…?"
He blinked. The ink was gone.
Suddenly, a bright red light emanated from the edges of the scroll, almost blinding against his face. Then, more ink bloomed across the page, moving by itself in graceful, curling strokes.
Soon, a sentence was formed in the center of the otherwise blank scroll. A sentence that left Calem utterly speechless;
The Forbidden Scroll Has Identified Its New Master.