I have been terrified of the idea of accidental plagiarism since I was rather young. The thought of mistakenly writing something already written by one of the greats -- cribbing off of Tolkien or Le Guin or Salvatore, creating such a faux paus in the fantasy world that it completely invalidates any attempt I'm making at creating a statement -- scares me straight to my core. I am already a very tired person, and I'm not much of a reader, mostly out of habit rather than circumstance. I have plenty of time to sit down and read books, especially now that I'm older and more patient and more invested in the world of literature writ large, but I have very little need to do so beyond the attempt at ensuring I'm not plagiarizing content. In fact, the Earthsea novels have a location known as the Eastern Reaches, which was the original name for the area east of the Wilderlands within this very novel. Reading is very good: it helps us know when our ideas are trite instead of erudite, confers us greater aptitude with regards to our own written work, and creates inspiration that can spawn any number of novels from the smallest seed or kernel of language available. That being said, I write significantly more than I read, and both I and my potential readers are worse off for it. This is one of the bigger detriments to my work as a whole, and I think most people with a keen and discerning eye would be capable of noticing the holes within the tapestry I've woven with little effort. Nevertheless, I hope it is entertaining to somebody.
This book is based loosely on a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I ran for friends throughout the early 2020s, set in a location I referred to as The Emerald Chain; a vibrant green group of isles somewhere in the equatorial regions in Lunus, the fantasy world that I had created for the campaign, though I had barely scratched the surface on what truly populated it. I imagined icy peaks, massive volcanoes, beautiful jungles and rivers, crags and valleys deep within the earth, giant crystal structures that dotted the ocean landscape, and a beautiful mountain range filled to the brim with everflowing waterfalls. I wanted to tap as many possible locations as I could to give my players some breathing room -- and to follow an old game design adage about biome generation a la Mario or Zelda -- and to avoid keeping them locked in uninteresting, unappealing locations that had little in the way of recognizable landmarks. Once I decided what the places were and what they were called, then came the daunting task of populating them with real, fleshed out towns, hamlets, cities, keeps ,castles -- forests, wastelands, snow-capped mountains -- and finally, characters, who would bring the world to life. I had very little issue accomplishing my first and my second task, but I languished upon my third, finding it nearly impossible to make varied and interesting people whose stories would be meaningful within the context of a biweekly board game session. This problem carried on extensively until the sessions ended in the winter, then began again in the spring; and ever since, I've dedicated myself to learning more about the characters than the setting itself.
I had run a partial campaign with my roommate and a friend from high school before taking a break, then ran another set of sessions in the same setting around a year later, having much more thoroughly defined what the parameters of the world were. The point of the campaign was originally to provide an archipelagic adventure -- set on the high seas, with pirates and swashbuckling and privateering and treasure -- but it never really materialized that way, because no one in the campaign was all that interested in being a pirate. Here, as in the campaign, piracy is a bit more of an afterthought; there are pirates in the Chain, and they do represent the majority of the ships that trawl its waters, but they are not the primary focus of the story. Instead, I decided to use what I had failed to use adequately in my creative writing classes from ten years prior -- a young woman by the name of Ice, whose body is that of a reanimated skeleton -- and work this into the setting in a way that would hold more meaning for me as an individual. I attached her story to the Wilderlands, turned the clock back fifteen years, and got to work. I created her family, created the idea of what her family would do in mourning; I created her antagonists, which were suddenly everywhere due to the nature of her curse; and I created her friends and allies, a group of ragtag adventurers who would go on to become the primary antagonists in the Chain, devoting themselves to the worship of a near-deity in exchange for secrets and untold power. The resulting novel is one of swords and sorcery, though it is not one of sex and swords, as most popular high fantasy is today, for a couple of important reasons.
I am a college dropout and I failed my creative writing classes in college. About half a decade after I dropped out, I found preliminary work as a writer for an app company in San Jose, which I worked as a contractor with for around 20 months before being promoted to full time work. The only content there was romance -- how well our sex scenes sold was essentially the sole determinant in how successful we were as employees -- it was grueling, lifeless work. I was essentially being paid a lower middle class salary to do fan fiction on an official basis, and there's no shortage of companies that require writers to do this; it's a good way to get a foothold in the industry, and it's a great way to start working on script writing and adaptations, since they like to buy up popular intellectual property from the Amazon best sellers list and adapt them to games to help drive their advertising revenue. The job had insurance, which was a necessity for me until I started petitioning companies directly for medicine, to which they were willing to grant me a year or two's worth of free medication once I proved how little money I had. It, too, was grueling, lifeless work. This is, in part, why I don't write very much romance into my books, or have little grasp on how to write deep, compelling romances -- I did it in a superficial capacity for such a long time that my two main modes are sex full and sexless. Though thinking back on my college days, I am reminded of a time when a dungeon master -- the name for the person who runs a game session of Dungeons & Dragons -- essentially held me and two other people hostage in a sex scene against our will, and it soured me on the whole experience of a sex filled campaign. Since then I've found it awkward and uncomfortable to write about sex in a sword and board style fantasy novel or novella, which is part of the reason my books and my campaigns within the game world were always so sexless. Ice is a skeleton, so it's not like she's going to be doing much in her own right, and I doubt anyone wants me to write in depth descriptions of a mid forties couple going at it (I am well aware many people want this, I am just not the person to deliver it).
A large part of my problem comes from the fact that I have spent most of my life scared, and while part of me is still terrified at the idea of getting feedback from others about my terrible opinions and beliefs, I'm a hell of a lot more afraid of staying silent. That's why I write, and it's why I put my opinions out into the world -- not for some pipedream of effusive praise and millions of dollars, but because I'd much rather have made a statement than made nothing at all.
That's why there's little to say about the period of time in between: the time I spent after college not writing was nearly five entire years, during which I dedicated myself to becoming a more coherent musician, and made some wonderful strides in music I never released to the public. I was, of course, deathly afraid of plagiarizing people there, too, though it's much harder to tell who's ripping off of whom, especially with some of the pop musicians running around the industry these days. I was a deeply unconfident person, having believed that my inability to receive a college diploma was a measure of my own self worth as an individual, and it took years of writing -- nearly another half decade -- before I overcame this and put words into the novel format, as I've done here and with my science fiction Nobodies trilogy of books (Empire of Nobodies, Venusian Stranglehold, and Like Masts of Fallen Giants). Those books were a labor of love, and they were genuinely entertaining to work on. I finally found fulfillment in this line of work, and all it took was half a decade of hating the craft, half a decade of treating it like an unbearable slog, and another year or two of trying to twist words into a form that suited me. It's never too late to live out your dreams.
—-
Within the confines of the Emerald Chain, the vibrant green archipelago that stretches far north and west from the Easternlands, there lies a special kind of magic that pervades throughout the isles and inlets and bays. The Undercurrent allows the tides to ebb and flow, though its true power lies in the people it instills with its arcane essence. Throughout the Chain, the undead have begun to rise from their graves, suffused with energy from the current -- some of them fully aware of their past lives, some of them thralls to long forgotten kings -- they terrorize the countryside, leadng the many villages and villagers to burn their dead along with their possessions. They now call this the Curse of Cartlan, the name of the old discarded kingdom that once ruled the waters with an iron fist, slowly and surely taking control of its islands, now back with a vengeance as the ancient aristocracy is instilled with undeath.
Under the painful, harsh rays of the sun, in the midst of the unforgiving windswept sands, a young woman in an Elvish cloak falls repeatedly, her legs giving way under her own weight. She wears a tight leather jerkin with an undershirt, the sleeves covering every bit of her arms; she looks down at her gloves, caked in sand, as she tries to wipe away the excess from her thighs. She lifts her boots carefully with each step, gathering her strength as she tries to move forward. From under a green cloth mask, she lets out a heavy sigh as she pulls off her left glove. The bone underneath is stark white -- she looks down, slowly bending one osseus finger towards her palm before stretching it back out -- she shakes some sand from the glove before replacing it, then looks towards the horizon. In the distance, red colored mountains stand high above the land beneath; between her and her destination, the plants and insects and animals of the relentless landscape stretch out in every direction. She passes by dozens of flowering cactuses, their shapes and sizes differing between each mountainous dune. She nearly steps on a rather large scorpion, moving her boot out of the way at just the last second; it moves into a nearby hole as a snake rattles past not ten feet behind her. She spends hours like this, crossing paths with all manner of creatures, her mind wandering as she passes through what some people would call an arid wasteland. The surrounding brush grows in sporadic patches, occasionally blocking the way between rock and sand.
"I've no right to be here." She puts her hand on a nearby rock as she crests the next dune, a small outcropping standing near the apex of the sand. "The desert sands are no place for the dead."
She makes camp that night, finding a nice alcove to sit away from the elements, underneath a rocky outcropping that stretches a little over with a lip of land near the tip, surrounding a small rounded area of sand. She starts up a campfire, thinking to herself about how unusual it is for a skeleton to feel cold. She shudders a bit as the wind picks up and the sun falls away, leaving the last tepid desert air to blow around her, leaving phantom sensations on her skin underneath her clothing. She gathers enough tinder to start a small fire in the alcove, sitting close against it as the night begins to march on, settling the desert sands in a hush broken only by the scouring winds. She remembers the life she had before, the name she used to carry, and the people she used to meet in her village in Sixvalley. The daughter of a dragon slayer, meant to follow in her footsteps, cut down before her prime.
As she warms her hands on the fire, she notices a tarantula walking up to the campfire. It's flanked on the opposite side by a scorpion that does the same -- both of them sit there quietly for an uncomfortably long time before the spider moves towards the young woman, who barely moves her hands away from the fire. The spider crawls onto her boot, sinking its fangs into the leather once before darting away; the scorpion does the same, stabbing the other boot with its stinger twice before she shoos it away with one hand, her bony protrusion being stung in the process.
"I can feel cold, but I can't feel poison, little one." She brushes it away, watching as it takes a defensive posture; it sits that way for a long time, fully rigid and angry before backing away from the fire and sitting on the opposite edge, its multifaceted eyes glaring at her from across the wooden pile.
Some might be curious about the nature of this young woman's absolution. There is, within the confines of the Chain, a word for undead that can think and feel and breathe and walk amongst the living without them ever knowing the difference: Abominations. These creatures have within them a powerful energy that is harnessed from the magical energy of the Undercurrent, which suffuses them with essence and returns them to life. Without this essence, abominations would not move; it is also this essence that allows them to think and feel as they once did in their past lives, and many of them retain the same worldly attachments that they did in life now in undeath. The earliest recorded abominations came from somewhere to the east, created by rituals unknown to the Chain, by shamans and shamanistic practices that allow the undead to thrive in some Spectral Soil that exists far outside this realm. This lady is one such abomination, fully recognizant of her past life, fully aware of her surroundings, fully capable of feeling and experiencing them like any human. The only known difference is the lack of heat, and their susceptibility to cold. No researcher has thus yet found the reason why these are different, as studying abominations has long since been outlawed by the Queens.
In the next day, the young lady sets out once again on her journey across the sweeping desert sands. She comes across an oasis -- not the one she's looking for -- and makes sure to fill her canteen to the brim, just in case. She doesn't experience thirst, but she does enjoy the sensation of drinking, even if the water seems to vanish before it makes it anywhere inside her body. With her waterskin filled to the brim, she walks past a couple of palm trees to head for the center of the desert ready to cross dune after dune and watch the road vanish before her eyes as the sun climbs steadily overhead.
On the far side of the oasis, a coyote carefully eyes her before taking a long drink from the water at its feet. A moment later, it comes over happily, sniffing and curious about what it's looking at, almost as if it doesn't regard her as human. She stands perfectly still, letting it take stock of its surroundings for a few seconds before it approaches her directly. Most coyotes in the Vermilion Sands are wary of travelers, and stay far from the main roads, but this one seems downright amicable. She reaches out a hand, gently touching its head with her fingers, watching as it almost leans into the pet.
"You're a friendly little guy, aren't you?" She would smile to herself, but she has no muscles with which to smile.
A moment later, the coyote bites her hand, attempting to rip one of her fingers out of its socket.
"Hey!" She snaps and swats at him with her glove, watching as the coyote turns tail and runs. It looks back at her from a distance as she draws her weapon,using it to make a small line in the sand as she backs away slowly. The coyote loses interest and walks off, leaving her alone once again to finish filling up her canteen before heading out for parts unknown.
She looks over one of the dunes as she reaches the crest to find a group of travelers at the bottom of the sand below. She slides down the dune, finding the group strewn about their caravan, sitting and lying in the shade proffered by their wagon's canopy as they sit there panting, all apparently dying of thirst. A dead horse sits at the front of the wagon, no doubt from dehydration and overwork. She removes her waterskin from her side and hands it to one of the men, who reaches out a shaky hand to grab it and slowly pours the water into his open mouth.
"Are you alright? It looks as if you haven't had anything to drink in days."
"We'll be fine. Thank you, traveler... our water rations... they ran low, and..." The other men clamber to their feet, trading the waterskin to each other to satiate their thirst.
"There's an oasis in this direction. I can show you the way, if you can get back on your feet." One of the men clears his throat, now much clearer since he's no longer parched.
"No, that won't be necessary. Just point us in the direction and we'll be able to find our way."
As she reaches out her hand to point towards the oasis, her glove falls off, revealing the stark white bone underneath. Her breath catches in her throat as she turns to face the men, who are all aghast at her affliction.
"Abomination!" The man holding the waterskin tosses it to the ground. "The water was cursed!"
They scatter, clambering away from the wagon as they abandon it and run for the nearest dune. As they slide back down the hill, they look over their shoulder in panic, but she stands there motionless as they manage to reach the tip of the dune. They leap over it, no doubt falling over themselves as they crest the hill, and disappear from sight. She takes stock of her surroundings: this is the bottom of what appears to be an antlion nest, but whatever creature is dwelling here is either asleep or uninterested in what the wagon has to offer. She rummages a bit through some of the supplies, finding a nice silvered dagger that she pockets, but finds little else of value. She reaches down to the ground and picks her glove back up, placing it on her hand as her bony protrusions make a popping sound.
"Every time..." She gives her head a morose shake. "Unless they stumble on another oasis, they'll be dead by tomorrow afternoon..." She lets out a sigh as she gathers herself and her composure and walks carefully up another dune, heading for who knows where as she crosses the desert on foot.
Early the following morning, she sets back out on her quest to scour the desert sands. She comes across her destination -- a small oasis tucked away in a rocky patch hidden amongst the dunes -- she slowly makes her way down the hill, nearly tripping half a dozen times, as she walks towards a small grassy hut attached to one of the larger rocks. It looks somewhat dilapidated; the roof is caving in somewhere around the middle, while the sticks that maintain the exterior of the building appear to barely be in tact. A thin layer of grass covers the doorway, hanging from a branch that creates the makeshift door, but it makes no motion even in the light wind that breezes past. She stands there for an uncomfortably long time, examining the make of the hut, and decides to call out.
"Wizard? Are you here?"
"No! Go away!"
"Well, you responded to the word wizard. This must be the place."
"This is no place, traveler. Are you deaf? No visitors! Leave me be!"
"Please. I've fought my way through the Vermilion Sands to find you. Surely you must--"
An old man makes his way out of the entrance, brushing away the grass hanging in his face, as he tightly grips a large oak staff in one hand. His beard trails down to his stomach; his bald head, covered in spots, reflects no sunlight, unlike the rather large spectacles that cover his eyes. He grumbles as the young woman approaches him.
"Leave me be, wench. I've no interest in entertaining another adventurer this month -- or any month, for that matter! -- so leave the way you came."
"I seek guidance, wizard. I'll leave as soon as I get some answers." Her hand trails to her side, a small sheath concealing a short sword. He waves his hand aggressively, clearly unimpressed by the threat.
"Who said anything about being a wizard? A dumb little title, if you ask me. Wizard. Never diviner or soothsayer or arcanist, no, just plain wizardry done by wizards." He turns away from her for a moment before turning back. "You're still here? Get lost!"
"You're carrying a staff and you live in a hut in the desert."
"So? Lots of people have staves, and lots of people live in the Vermilion Sands!" The woman stands there for an uncomfortable period of time, but she moves her hand away from her sword. The old man lets out a long sigh. "Bah. Won't take no for an answer, will you? Come inside: and don't you go touching anything! The last one of you idiots nearly broke half my precious orbs. You have any idea how few orbs end up in the desert? How long it took me to take them out here? Orbs are as precious as-- as diamonds!" But no-one in the Chain values diamonds over orbs. He continues rambling as he walks back inside. She follows after him, her steps methodical and careful as she brushes the grass away from her face and steps into the forlorn hut.
The interior is well maintained, much larger than it was on the outside, and clearly no worse for wear; shelves adorn the walls, clearly of a stronger make than they appear on the exterior, and are covered with all manner of arcane knick knacks and doodads appropriate for wizardry. Overhead, a single arcane light flickers and swings; some manner of crystal, shining with a power unbeknownst to her, illuminates the room and casts shadows on everything from its panoptical view. The floor is made of real wood, clearly created through some powerful magick, as they let out what feels like creaking and humming with every step. Her eyes wander to an empty birdcage with intricate golden patterns that seem to swirl and move upon being seen...
"Well? What is it you want? I may not look busy, but that doesn't mean I'm not busy." The man sits in a small chair across from a pedestal with one small orb sitting in the center. He stamps his staff in frustration. "Honestly, the last three men who came here kept trying to ask me for prices. Prices! Like I need their pittance. What do I look like, a common alchemist?" He points his staff, gesturing at the empty chair on the other side before giving it another stamp on the floor. She sits down, landing on the wooden seat with a small thud. "Make it quick. And don't offer me any money! I've no use for the stuff."
"Like I said... I need answers." She removes her hood, the fabric slowly resting on her shoulders as she pulls the cloth mask from her head. Beneath a grassy thatched roof, illuminated by crystals, she reveals her horrific visage. Her skull, pristine and white, shines lightly as she removes her gloves. She raises one hand, turning it over to reveal its skeletal nature; her eye sockets sit empty and waiting, her misaligned teeth and overbite sit still on top of each other, and the vertebrae from her neck creak slightly as she leans forward. She looks at her own hands, letting out a soft breath, clearly still overwhelmed by her own experience. Though the bones are stark and clean, they have a more weathered appearance; untouched by the ravages of time, they sit and stand as if freshly extracted and clean'd from some human muscle once living, once unprepared for the precipice of unlife.
"Ah. Curse of Cartlan." The old man nods. "Yes, yes, very interesting, creature, I'm sure you're not just another shapechanger come to trick me out of my gold." He rolls his eyes sarcastically.
"Shapechanger?" The young woman leans back in her seat. The old man lets out a long sigh.
"Yes, shapechanger. Pretending to be a merchant, or a soldier, or a dying man in the desert, or a young woman; anything to swindle me--"
She interrupts him, waving her hands defensively. "I don't-- I'm sorry, I don't want to intrude, I just... You called it the curse." The woman clutches the table. "You're the first person who could even tell me what it was. So you've heard of this?" The old man nods again, this time taking a careful look at the young woman as he relaxes his grip on his stick. He lets out a tepid sigh as he inspects her features more carefully from top to bottom, letting out a little tisk every so often, as if her posture or her clothing are somehow amiss. "What is it? What can you tell me?"
"Yes, I suppose you could say I've heard of the curse... Bah. I've seen hundreds of your kind. Not so many in the desert, mind you, but the curse is hardly new. I haven't seen a new specimen in some time -- I'm assuming you died recently, judging by your appearance -- most of you lose your focus and start turning within a few months."
"I've been awake for four." The old man looks taken aback for a moment before nodding to himself; he was surprised, but he's trying not to show it, worried that the woman might end up even more interested if he doesn't feign disinterest.
"Well, that's... not unheard of, I suppose. Don't usually hear of edge cases like that, but it's not unheard of." He stands up, moving into a room in the back that stretches deep into the edifice of the rock. He comes back a moment later with a battered tome, some relic of antiquity. He snaps his fingers -- the orb soars into the air before depositing itself on a nearby shelf with a dozen other nearly identical orbs -- and slams the tome down on the small table in front of him. He opens it up to somewhere around the middle back of the book, his old (though not nearly as bony) fingers trailing to some indexed position. "Ah." He finds the spot, tapping it with his fingers before spinning it to face the skeleton before him.
"The curse was originally placed on one of the old kings of Cartlan. You've been to Cartlan?" The woman shakes her head. "Urzdurash?" She shakes her head again. "The Summerset? The Aetherlit? Work with me, child. Where were you from?"
"The Wilderlands. In... in the Southfold. Sixvalley?" She clutches her cloak tightly, pulling it to herself, clearly uncomfortable with her past. He nods as he taps the book again.
"Well, that tracks quite well. Cartlan is the old name for the Yefian royal seat of power." He pulls a small map out of the book, placing it on the table and pointing to an island of some kind on one half of the parchment. He points to a river that splits it into thirds, tapping it twice. "The Strait of Cartlan -- where the kings of old used to reside -- there was another castle, Castle Hypis, that's since fallen. Old and dilapidated, much like the city itself." He draws little circles with his finger on the parchment, letting out a dry chuckle. "Should have moved the castle sooner, I think. All fish men now. You ever eat a fishman?" The young woman shakes her head. He thinks to himself as he sits back in his chair, slowly moving until he lands in it with a plop. "The old monarchists are gone, of course; there's a few who still behave like cults, worshiping the return of the true kings of Cartlan." He raises his right hand and points to his left. "All the old kings used to be left handed, you see, but the curse started when the first right handed king was appointed. Been going ever since."
"And how long ago was that?"
"Started when I was a lad. Couldn't tell you the number of years. Wouldn't do you any good, anyhow." He knows the number, but he's pretending not to.
"So what should I do?"
"Eat people? I don't know, what do your kind like to do? You seem capable enough. I don't taste good, though." He lets out a humorless chuckle, laughing at his own joke. The young lady sits there with a face of stone.
"I don't want to eat anyone. I don't even get hungry."
"Mmh. Yes." He looks her over for a moment. "You can see me. What's your color acuity like?"
"Normal? I don't know. Your beard is gray and your liverspots are... well, a lot of different colors."
"Okay, okay, no need to be rude, young lady." He studies her features slowly, methodically. When he makes an observation, he points. "And you've no ears, but you seem perfectly capable of having a conversation."
"I can hear you just fine, yes. I don't need to eat, but I seem to be able to eat without digesting anything."
"I see." He snaps his fingers again and a small rod juts out from one of the shelves. It flies to his fingers within a couple of seconds, wedging itself free from some amount of clutter sitting on top of it.
"No tongue?" She shakes her head. "Tried eating normal food?" She nods. "And...?"
"I expected it to fall out, but it vanished once I swallowed."
"You can swallow?" She nods in response. "Well. I suppose abominations have more muscles than I thought." The young woman winces at the word abomination, her body reacting in a way known and unknown to the wizard. "Oh, calm down, you're in a wizard house. Nothing can hurt you here. Well, actually, that's not true -- lots of things can hurt you -- almost everything but there's no people -- ah, well, I suppose--"
With the book in hand, he cuts himself off, setting his staff up against the wall behind him before sliding his chair backwards towards "Just a moment." He waves it in her face before standing up; he starts to wave it all across her body, waiting for it to make some kind of arcane hum before moving it to a different spot. After a couple of minutes, he sits back down, nodding to himself appropriately. "It's as I thought. This is the same energy signature Ella told me about."
"Ella?"
"No one you would know. Mage at the lyceum. Rather studious one, new professor, keeps in touch by scrying stone." He clicks his tongue. "Did you try the lyceum? Did they tell you to come here?"
"I... don't actually know what that word means, sir. I was told a powerful mage lived out in a hut by one of the oases. I've been wandering for weeks."
"Tch. What are you, then, some kind of brigand? An acrobat who fell on hard times, murdered by a rival group? Or perhaps you've made up this whole story, concocted a lie so you could turn me into one of you abominations."
"Oh, go easy on the lass, Tenebras!" One of the orbs on the shelf lights up. Half a dozen other voices come from the other orbs as they light up in tandem, the low dull murmur of a crowd of onlookers suddenly chiming in. The voice of an older woman shines through the drudgery. "Is this how you treat desperate young women when they arrive on your doorstep? Accusing them of adultery and lies? It's unbecoming, even for an old hermit!"
"I resent that," says another voice, this one deeper and nearly as old as the mage in the room. "I'm an old hermit myself and I've never once slandered the name of a young woman at my door." The old man snaps his fingers, this time much louder than before, his staff flying to his hands as he stamps it on the floor.
"Oh, piss off! Nobody asked the lot of you to chime in or listen to this very private conversation." The orbs wink out, the lights and sounds dying on them one by one. He sighs as he looks the skeletal woman over.
"What's your name, young lady?"
"Ice Atanya." She gives him a light nod. He smirks in response.
"There's nothing much I can do to help you, miss Atanya. I have some answers for you, at least," He takes a step back, clutching his staff tight. "The Curse of Cartlan is a rather well documented, uh... open secret among mages here in the Chain. Chances are good it affected you by accident, considering what we know of the magic and how it functions. As for your abilities, they border much more on the supernatural than the arcane. In all my decades studying the curse, I've only once seen a specimen so complete."
"Really? So there's someone else like me?"
"No, child. Not like you in the slightest." He sighs as he looks her over, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. "We've been killing him for centuries."