- Book IV, Performance, Prologue -

  The ground shook under Raygen’s feet. A painting fell from the wall, the frame splitting into pieces as it impacted the floor. She clutched at the stone wall to keep herself from tumbling over. It was the third quake in the last hour. And the worst of them yet. But like all the others, it still passed in time.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Everything was okay. Except…it likely wasn’t. Edgeland’s quakes almost always signified a breach in the World Dungeon. An incursion meant horrible creatures emerging from below.

  “Ray?” Her little brother peaked his head out from under a table. “Is it over?”

  “Yes, Aiden. It’s safe now, you can come out.”

  He stayed under the table. “Will there be another?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “But you should go to Jill’s room. If something happens, she’ll need your protection.”

  “You…you think something will happen?” He sounded near tears. That was not how she had expected him to take her words. She had been trying to comfort and give him courage. In an act of desperation, she tried distracting her brother. She clapped her hands together, as she slowly separated them, she channeled magic. A rainbow arched between her palms, glistening in the light. It was a difficult trick that she’d dedicated far too much time to master. It wasn’t an illusion, but rather a complex use of elemental magic. With her skill in that discipline lacking, it was no minor feat to create.

  Aiden stared at it for a dozen seconds and Raygen felt rather smug at her accomplishment. Then the boy shook his head and stormed off without another word.

  She let her spell dissipate. Specks of water glistered as they fell to the ground. Her heart felt heavy.

  Too much time at the academy, not enough time at home. She barely knew her siblings anymore. A part of her thought it might be better if she stayed home with them. Before last semester she never would have even considered staying home from the academy. Her parents had received her admittance as a boon after saving the life of a local lord in the last plague. She’d sworn to become medics just like them. But recently that dream had crumbled into dust.

  “If he’d been Tainted I would have just sawed the limb off,” she muttered to herself as she went upstairs in search of her parents. “It would have regrown good as new in a few weeks. Why do humans have to be so useless and fragile?”

  She knew how to set a limb. But with Edgar there, she’d been hasty and not thinking properly. Her ex had been looking for an excuse to complain about her to Professor Kateshi. And then she’d stupidly supplied the reason. Now Kateshi had publicly kicked her from the medical club and nobody wanted to speak to her anymore. She was a social pariah. These had been the worst months of her life. And to make matters worse, the boy she’d made her small mistake on, Kaga Kizu, hadn’t even cared. Never once did he even look twice in her direction. It was as if the rest of the school was angry on his behalf. She suspected the perfect girl, Emilia, to be the one responsible for her shunning. Never one confronting her directly, but always pulling the strings in the background.

  None of that was important now. It was a stewing bit of drama, always gnawing at the back of her mind. She’d gone over everything that had happened these last few months a thousand times in her mind. But she’d yet to voice her thoughts out loud to her family. If her parents learned she’d been kicked off the medical club…well, her face burned in embarrassment at just the thought of them knowing. They’d sacrificed their boon to get her there.

  But not all was lost. Not yet. There was a sliver of hope. Rumor had it as they were all leaving the academy that Professor Kateshi had stepped down as a professor of Shinzou Academy. Something about a Warlord of Hon. That meant Raygen still had a chance of reclaiming her spot in the club. So long as the new professor was reasonable. And as long as Edgar didn’t interfere again. She just needed to be smart about how she approached the professor. The first years would be joining clubs this semester as well, so her rejoining might be overlooked among all the new club members.

  Things were looking up for her. Luck finally turning for her. At least, until these quakes started up a few days back.

  “Mum? You in here? Aiden is crying again.” She opened the door to her parents’ bedroom. Every surface from the floor to the walls to the ceiling was covered in drawing and images of Tainted anatomical structures. Everything from close ups of different blood flow circulations to the digestive systems. Different images showed different close ups with labels of age groups and physical size differences. A pile of bleached bones was piled in the corner, a skull grinning at her as she entered the room. More than one idiot had accused her dad of being a necromancer after seeing that there, but he refused to remove it from his space.

  “Raygen,” her dad greeted her, not looking up from a sheet of anatomical diagrams on his desk. “Unfortunately, I can’t help right now. And your mum went with a scouting party to investigate the newest incursion. Hollycrest stopped responding to our divinations an hour ago.”

  Hollycrest was…close. Only a score of kilometers out of town. And the most recent of a string of disappearing settlements.

  “Any refugees from the other villages?”

  That was what her dad had been preparing for these last few days. Their larger and more fortified town was usually swarmed by survivors whenever an incursion destroyed a town.

  Her dad sighed and finally set down his papers. He gave her an exhausted smile before his eyes slid to the window. They stayed there, locked on the outside world.

  “Not yet.”

  Raygen followed his gaze to the town’s cobblestone streets. Townsfolk rushed through the streets on errands. Nobody stopped to chat like they might usually and the outdoor stalls were all shuttered and closed down. Most people trusted the town walls to hold. The last time they’d failed had been nearly a century ago. But nobody wanted to take the chance of being caught out if something did happen. A century was a long time, and some thought that simply meant they were overdue for a tragedy.

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  The wretched weather didn’t help the town’s mood. The seasonal gray clouds of spring drizzled down on them. Spring in Edgeland was usually pretty miserable but it also should flood the entrances into the World Dungeon. It was meant to be the safest time of year. A respite from the incursions across the continent. Instead, they had the worst of both. Terrible weather and the fear of death looming around the corner.

  Raygen opened her mouth to comment on the weather when another quake jolted her from her feet. She fell on her ass and rolled herself under her dad’s desk. Her head slammed into the bottom of the desk and she cried out in surprise which then resulted in her biting her tongue. The quake continued for over a minute. She clung to the desk’s leg while she carefully cast a rejuvenation spell on her tongue and spat a glob of blood and spit. In some ways, tongues were easy to fix since they naturally healed so quickly, but a mistake could mess up her taste buds.

  “It’s happening,” her dad said quietly. Unlike her, he was on his feet, now gripping the windowsill as he gazed out at their town.

  “What?” she asked, finishing up her spell.

  “Raygen, get downstairs. Keep your brothers and sisters safe.”

  “Dad? Are you going somewhere?”

  “My duty is to help those suffering. To protect them from death’s clutches. That responsibility beckons me forward.”

  Before Raygen could get another questioning word out, her dad had cast open the window and thrust himself out onto the streets below.

  Raygen scrambled up to the window and saw her father heal the injury incurred from his fall with a simple shake of his leg. Then he was off. In the direction of smoke. While other villagers fought their way from the chaos, he dived into it.

  “Protect the kids,” she muttered. She smothered her fear with the responsibility given to her. She returned downstairs to find the sitting room now in complete disarray. The couch overturned, a shelf collapsed with its contents scattered on the ground, an enchanted clock’s hand ticked between the five and six. She reached down and brushed a flower off of a soaked book, mindful not to cut herself on a shard of broken vase.

  “Aiden?” she called out.

  No response. She tried a few other sibling names but got the same result each time. They were probably already all hiding down in the cellar.

  She exited the back door and had to step over a new foot-sized crack in the ground of their garden to get over to the cellar.

  “And where do you think you might be going?”

  Raygen whirled around to face the husky speaker. Her heart skipped a beat.

  The man was roughly shaped like a humanoid but instead of skin, he was covered in a thick layer of deep violet scales. His left eye glowed a vibrant shade of red while his right looked to be a normal blue. He smiled, showing sharpened teeth. Gray smoke curled off of him in wisps. He wore only a pair of ragged shorts, but his scales shielded him from nudity. It was…alluring in some ways. But she forced her mind not to go there.

  “I-I…” she stuttered out. She tore her eyes away from him to glance over to the cellar entrance.

  “Running away to safety? Disgraceful. Stand and fight or forfeit your life to me.”

  “F-fight?” She took a step back, away from him.

  “Fight!”

  His body shot forward, propelled by black flames. His claws lashed out in a blur and a fraction of a moment later Raygen spun and fell to the mud. She stared in dumbfound horror as her arm flopped to the ground beside her.

  Blood drenched the side of her shirt. Her arm. It was gone. Removed. But…that was fine. She could regrow it. She’d never done it herself before, but she knew it was possible for Tainted.

  “Weak! All you humans are so pathetic! How dare you claim this land for yourself!”

  “I’m not human,” she said almost dreamily.

  “Don’t you dare,” he snarled. “You trash don’t deserve the gifts you stole from my ancestors. You’re nothing but humans wrapped up in fancy skin.” To punctuate the statement, he flicked his hand at her, spraying her face with the blood on his claws.

  Raygen touched the stump on her arm. It was still bleeding. It could regrow, but not if she died of blood loss first. She knew how to do this. Staunch the bleeding. She channeled. The blood loss from her spell paired along with the gaping wound caused her vision to swirl, but she closed her eyes and focused entirely on clotting up the blood. She was a medic. Like her parents. She could do this.

  When she opened her eyes, she felt queasy, but her stump of an arm was now entirely scabbed over. She let out a shaky breath. She’d done it.

  Then she was off the ground. The scarlet eye glared at her as her feet dangled. He held her by the throat, his claws digging into her skin.

  “I am the Harbinger. You think you have the right to stand on my land? Send your worst to fight me. Try to kill me. My time hiding away is over. I will not scurry away like a rat. I shattered the seal myself. I am the Harbinger of Dragons!”

  He was mad. Raygen’s thoughts came to her dimly. They’d learned about madness last year in Rejuvenation and Restoration A. It was nearly impossible to heal unless a mind mage got involved. And the only ones of those that existed would be more likely to have caused the madness than heal it.

  “Please,” she got out.

  “Please? You beg me? For what? Your land? It’s mine. Your life? Also mine. Both I can burn as I please.”

  As emphasis, she felt his clawed hand heat up, searing itself into the flesh of her throat. She tried to scream but he clamped his grip harder, only a wheeze escaped.

  Overhead, the rain stopped drizzling. A shape descended on them. It was a blur of shadow but the weather suddenly shifted to a gale storm. Raygen’s hair whipped around into her face. She dangled loosely from the Harbinger’s grip.

  He smiled and looked up. “My mother is here. Your pathetic life is at an end. Enjoy death, you filthy piece of trash.”

  The claw of his thumb pierced through her jugular. The little bit of air that had been leaking into her lungs despite his grip was now clogged with her blood. She gurgled and a bubble of blood popped from her lips.

  He dropped her in the mud. But, instead of leaving her, he reached down and plucked up her severed arm. She watched through hazy vision as he dug his teeth into her flesh and pulled back, like eating a raw chicken leg. He chewed and swallowed.

  “At least your kind do taste better than the average humans,” he commented. He took the arm with him as he walked forward. Towards the cellar. Every footstep sizzled.

  Raygen tried to heal her throat. She channeled everything remaining into fixing the patch of flesh pierced by the Harbinger’s claw. But everything dimmed as she spent that bit of blood for her spell. She had nothing left to clean out her lungs of blood. She let out one final gurgle.

  The last thing she saw were the flames as they curled out of the cellar. Harsh laughter echoed over the screams as her body descended into a state of nothing.

  Twelve Blood Curse Academia chapters (6 weeks) ahead of Royal Road on Patreon!