Tower of Memories

I'd thought that maybe being hundreds of miles from Massachusetts meant that I would be free of this particular mess. Or perhaps the gods felt like exercising their singular ounce of mercy, and decided I was dealing with enough bullshit to not do this to me.

I was wrong.

"Serafina? Are you all right?" Angelina was asking as she followed me to the girl's bathroom in Pixie Tower.

Stupid spontaneous nosebleeds.

"I'm fine, this happens sometimes." My voice sounded very wrong on account of my holding my nose to try and prevent me from making a mess on the way.

"Who gets random nosebleeds in the middle of the night?"

"I do. It happens like once a month. It's probably the weather. It's fine."

"You're bleeding!" She sounded so distressed.

"Angelina, this is far from the most amount of blood I've lost." It wasn't even the most I had bled in Pixie Tower. This was nothing compared the amount of blood loss I had during my period.

She did not look happy about me pointing that out.

"And it's already slowing down."

She was frowning. "I'm getting Professor Dellik."

"That's really not necessary." I reached out to stop her with my left hand; my right was too busy holding a tissue to my face.

That's when something very unexpected happened.

My fingers started to glow.

Angelina gasped, "Serafina!"

Pink.

I knew that shade. It was my pink.

Magic.

What?

Then it stopped as a sharp pain came from the mark. It was uncovered and flashed dark green.

Angelina's gasp this time was of horror.

I retracted my hand. I looked away from her and back to the bathroom mirror. The bleeding had stopped. I threw the tissue into the bin and sighed.

I saw Angelina still in the mirror while I washed my face from the residual blood.

"That mark…it's stopping you from casting?"

I didn't look up. "Yep."

"It's…" I knew that kind of pause, the kind where you're scrambling for an appropriate word out of fear of saying the wrong thing.

"It's a curse. Sealie knows. I'm getting it looked at on Saturday."

"Who…Why…."

I shrugged as I looked up, "I have no idea. All I know is that as long as it's there I'm a walking magical nullification zone. Nothing goes in or out."

"With exceptions," she mumbled.

I turned to look at her properly. "That day in Dragon Tower, when my eyes started glowing, and for whatever reason right now."

"Do those things have anything in common?" Angelina asked out loud. I'm fairly sure it was a rhetorical question, but it was one worth asking.

Was there?

I looked down at the traces of my own blood on my hands.

There was.

"Blood," I said out loud.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Oh. Oh no.

"It weakens when you're bleeding?" Angelina voiced my thoughts for me.

"I'll have to add that to list of things to bring up with the Curse Breaker on Saturday."

"That's terrifying."

I stared at the curse mark and nodded. "A little. But it beats having to deal with teen drama. Anyway, now that that's over I am going to go get ready for the day. See you later."

(*********)

I had brought my essay with me to History that day. I didn't want to be called, but the gods had made it very clear that what I wanted was not a factor in anything that happened here.

And to my lack of surprise, despite not raising my hand, I was called on by Professor Dellik. Because the gods hate me.

Today was just not going to be my day, was it?

I carried my paper up to the front and glanced up to see an unenthusiastic thumbs up from Russel and a well-meaning smile from Angelina.

I sighed heavily. "So, I got Dragon Tower. Shocking, I know."

Somebody chuckled. Probably Russel. Mostly crickets. Yeah, I didn't want to do this either.

"My paper is titled 'What Makes a Dragon?'." I started. "When building the Towers of Nine School of Magic Study and Practice the founders had specific traits in mind for the students of each Tower. While the specifics of each one has been in debate for some time, I wish to propose my own answer to this question in regards to the most elusive Tower of all. Dragon Tower.

"When asked about Dragon Tower, back when it still went by its previous title of the Tower of Memories, founder Jantres made a comment about the students, saying they would have to be, 'tough as dragonhide'. My question then becomes, what does that mean? In a purely practical sense."

My heart was pounding in my chest. Unsteady and fluttering fast. Breathe Serafina. You can get through this.

"While documentation of the post-graduation lives of Dragons was there were accounts from the Tenation of the Towers, the once-a-year event where each Tower sends students to compete against each other. I complied the data and averaged out the placement of Dragon Tower when it was still open and competing."

"Okay, so the next like page and a half is just me doing the numbers, so I am going to spare all of us that and skip to the results. I got an average placement of two point five, and three was the most frequent number in the data. In conclusion that meant Dragon Tower, when competing in the Tenation of the Towers, most often lands in the top three.

I swallowed and took another deep breath. Just a little more Serafina. It was almost over.

"What the data seems to indicate is that there is something to Dragon students. A sturdiness or perhaps tenacity would be the better word here. Jantres had said he wanted the students of the Tower of Memories to be 'tough as Dragonhide'. Though I won't speculate why it is highly likely that he got his wish."

And I was done. Thank the heavens.

I grabbed my paper and while I didn't run back to my desk towards the back of the room, it certainly wasn't a slow walk.

At least my curse didn't take offense at me being embarrassed.

(*********)

"I suspect when I say the word 'Dragon' most of you have the image of a large lizard with elemental breath, large claws, massive wings, and teeth sharper than shards of glass."

There was an affirmative rumble amongst the sea of pink, brown and green.

I noticed Fethris' eyes flicker over to the statue that was curled up on the roof of Dragon Tower almost like it was sleeping or something.

It certainly fit the bill of what she was describing.

"However there is more than one type of dragon and whether you are looking at a wyvern or a hornback, there are some things you'll need to be aware of," the professor continued. "Dragons of all types and species are very protective of their nests. While not all exhibit the infamous hording behavior, getting too close to wherever they call home is a good way to end up as their lunch."

Who was dumb enough to walk into a dragon's nest?

"Dragon also has very good memories, and if by the grace of the gods you do get away, it will remember you and in some very, very rare cases dragons have been known to hunt down people. Usually it happened back with the dragon egg trade was at its height."

Because apparently owning a baby dragon was worth risking the lives of everyone in the near vicinity. Judging by the statue, the hatchlings couldn't have been that cute.

"They even developed a little saying, 'A dragon never forgets'."

Hmmm.

Never forgets huh?

(*********)

"How many drakes would you bet that's why they chose a dragon for our mascot?" Fethris joked as we made our way to the library.

"A lot. I would bet a lot that there are no accidents in any of that."

I tried to not look at the still there burn mark on the side of the Tower. I couldn't tell if it was massive and noticeable or just me being hyperaware of how it got there.

Fethris noticed my staring.

"What do you think did that?" He gestured up towards the mark with his head.

I looked around. Without saying a word I held up my left wrist. The cursed one. The scars and mark were covered by the glove, but the widening of Fethris' eyes told me he got the hint.

"Are you okay?" he whispered. "Is that why you ran out of the library yesterday?"

I nodded. "Kind of. A guy was being a jerk and then it started hurting really bad and I didn't know what to do so I got out of there. Next thing I knew I was out here and then…" I let out a shaking breath, "that."

"I hope that Curse Breaker can do something. Because it sounds like it's getting worse."

"It could be, for all anyone seems to know about it. I don't know how dangerous this thing is, but I can't imagine it's good for me to have that much foreign mana in my system. And I know for a fact that it doesn't play nice."

Something that causes that much pain and capable of shooting that much energy on its own couldn't possibly be harmless. And I wanted it out of my body.

I gripped the area tightly.

"You think they'll find out who did it?"

"I hope so. Because I have a score to settle with them."

"I'll help," he promised.