That was the beginning of my time in Hy Brasil. Nadua took me through the palace to a room filled with books. There, she watched me as I read book after book. She insisted that I read aloud. I soon learned that there was no night in Hy Brasil. I simply read until I fell asleep, and even then Nadua would wake me and demand that I continue. There was no break in the monotony. I wasn't even given a bed, I just slept with my head on my desk. Nadua would bring me bowls of tasteless gruel at irregular intervals. Sometimes I would suffer from hunger and ask for more. Then, Nadua would ask me questions about what I had read, and keep asking until I got a question wrong, which I often did. Thanks to my remaining learning points, I could absorb all the information in a book instantly. I tried this with one tome call “The Path of the Broken Ladder”. It worked, and I learned dozens of spells and curses instantly, even though it burned three of my points. Nadua did not believe me, though. I challenged her to ask me any question about the book's contents, but she would hear none of it. When I argued, she called some spriggans in drag me into the courtyard and whip me. I was in so much pain afterward that I couldn't bear to read, but Nadua made me do it anyway. She told me I would get no food until I read the entire book to her cover to cover. Since I had, in effect, already read it, it just made what could otherwise have been an interesting book into an exercise in futility.

I later regretted wasting those points. I was next ordered to learn High Fae. This was the incredibly elaborate language that the Fae nobility used for formal and diplomatic purposes. When Nadua spoke to me in this language, a prompt shot up.

You have encountered a language you are unfamiliar with. You have 2 Learning points unspent. Do you wish to learn the language “High Fae”?

Yes No

What level of language skill do you wish to acquire?

Simple: 2 Learning points

Fluent: 3 Learning points

Familiar: 4 Learning points

Eloquent: 5 Learning points

Mastery: 6 Learning points

There went the last of freebies. From here on out, I would have to learn things for real. Based on my experience with Grandma and her limited grasp of Light Fae, I knew that Simple was not going to cut it. It was hard enough to learn enough High Fae to express the simplest concepts. I knew just enough of the ridiculously labor-intensive grammar to know that I would sound like a complete idiot speaking even a simple sentence. I could barely make myself understood, let alone master the language to the point where I could use it in the formal settings it was intended for. Nadua was not impressed with my progress, despite the fact that I had basically cheated. She berated me whenever I made a mistake. I had to draw a four-dimensional grid just to remember all the possible conjugations of one verb, and the language had just enough consistent rules to trip you up on all the silly exceptions.

School had always been easy for me. My grades had generally been a function of how much time I felt like spending. I could study for real and get A's, or go through the motions and get B's. I got a lot of B's. Now, with my back covered in cuts, the question of how much effort I was willing to put in was a moot point. I had never suspected that I could try as hard as I could to learn something and still fail. Nadua was cruel and excessively demanding, sure, but as I read the same damn words again and again, and they utterly refused to stay in my head where I put them, I began to wonder if I was really such a smart guy as I had always thought. That, along with everything else, made me furious.

This was supposed to be a game. It was supposed to be the story of me crushing my enemies, grabbing everything I desired from the world, and reigning over all like a demigod. Instead, I was a slave. Being whipped had driven that point home for me. I was a slave, and that horrible bitch of a Queen was my owner. It was possible to think of her that way, when she wasn't physically there. I knew that the second I laid eyes on her, though, I would be head over heels for her again and eager to do whatever she wanted, and that thought really made me sick to my stomach.

When the last of Learning points were gone, I missed them. Not just because they were useful, and not just because now that I had pissed them all away I wouldn't be able to learn any non-Fae languages of this world. It was the simple fact that they had been a reminder that this was all just a simulation. Hy Brasil was soul-crushingly beautiful, and felt absolutely real in spite of all its wonders. Without text messages popping into my vision, I was forced to confront the fact that this was my reality now, and if I couldn't find a way to escape, it could be my reality for the rest of my life.

I cried a lot in those first few weeks. Nadua would laugh at me and call me a crybaby whenever I did. She never seemed to miss an opportunity to make me miserable. Once, she had me dragged out and whipped because I had allowed a tear to fall in one the massive books I was being forced to read. I didn't care. Even being whipped wasn't as bad as the loneliness. Despite watching me every waking moment, Nadua barely spoke to me except to order me around or taunt me. I missed my Mom and Dad, and my Grandma. I even would have been happy to see Elizabeth again. In Hy Brasil, I had no friends, no one who cared about me in the slightest, no one I could talk to. I had never imagined how that would feel. I hadn't been aware of how much I needed those things.

Although it was taking a long time, I was actually learning things. Once my High Fae vocabulary had reached a satisfactory level, Nadua started me on math texts. I had always been under the impression that I was really good at math. Nothing I had done in school prepared me for doing it all day, every day. Nadua lead me forcefully through algebra, then geometry. I was absorbing the lessons, but there were days when I felt like my brains were going to start leaking out my ears. These were subjects you were supposed to learn in high school. I had no idea why they thought I would need math to be a wizard. Every time I asked Nadua about it, she would just accuse me of being lazy and start quizzing me all the harder.

Compared to the dry stuff in my math and language texts, the magic texts were a lot more interesting. Some of the books even had illustrations of people suffering under horrible curses, or anatomical drawings of undead monsters and giant alien deities. There wasn't any nice magic in the curriculum. My talent for curses had been recognized, and Nadua, or maybe the Queen, wanted me to learn all the dark, twisted magical lore I could choke down. I read about how to use blood and body parts of sacrificed animals and humans in rituals, the various ways to summon demons and other things from other realms, how to inscribe the sigils of the Ten Unspeakable Ones into a circle of phosphorescent fire, stuff like that . The information was mostly theory, however. I was never allowed to actually learn magic by doing it. The spells I was learning mostly required special objects and ingredients that I had no way of getting. I was pretty sure that if I could get my hands on ten drams of the blood of a black ram collected under the light of a harvest moon, plus a candle made from the left pinky of a murderer and a few ounces of red jade, I could create a curse that would make Nadua grow hair in her mouth and teeth on head. Without all that, however, I could barely improve on my headache spell.

I realized that the only chance I had to escape from this place was to learn everything I could. In fact, I would have to learn more than they intended to teach me. I had to turn myself into something that even they wouldn't be able to control.

After a long period ( I had no notion of how long), Nadua and I were called to the throne room so that the Queen could check on my progress. I had hoped that the pain I had been through would make it possible for me to hate the Queen, even in her presence. I was wrong. The instant my eyes fell on her, the scars on my back and the burns on my chin faded into total irrelevance, and I was once again ready to lay down my life just to make her smile.

The Queen spoke to me in High Fae. She was able to use the language with the grace and elegance that it was made for, but of course when I tried to answer her I tripped through the words and ohed and uhed until I wanted to melt into the floor. It really wasn't my fault. You can't learn any language in such a short time (I wish I knew how long it had really been), especially not a language like High Fae, and especially not when you haven't had a square meal or a good night's sleep in what felt like a month. Nadua stared daggers at me as I conjugated verbs incorrectly or put the subject word at the start of the sentence (in High Fae it goes at the end, or is just left out altogether). The Queen asked me mathematical questions next, and I didn't do any better. I didn't get all, or even most, of the questions wrong, but I could tell by the look of disappointment in the Queen's eyes that she wasn't pleased.

I did better when she started asking me about curses. I gave a detailed account of the basic theory of the curse, and then presented several examples from memory. She seemed happy about this, which filled me with joy and relief. Being in the Queen's presence seemed to blow my free will out of the water. I wasn't so much experiencing emotions and drowning in them.

“Tell me, Kyle Porter, how do you feel about Nadua's tutelage? Has she succeeded in training you and caring for you as I commanded her to?”

I was caught off guard by the question. It was the first time the Queen had shown the slightest interest in my personal feelings. I stood quiet for a while, wondering what I could possibly say that wouldn't get me whipped.

“You wouldn't lie to me, would you Kyle Porter?” she asked.

That much was true. I couldn't even think about it. “No, your majesty. I think...that I might be able to study better if I had time to rest and more food to eat.”

I immediately knew I had made a mistake. The tension in the air tightened around me. I knew something horrible was going to happen.

“That is a sensible suggestion, Kyle Porter. Clearly, you are a hard-working, intelligent boy. A different manner of instruction might well suit you better.”

I could do nothing. My misgivings had transformed into panic. The other shoe was on the way.

“Nadua is dismissed as your instructor, Kyle Porter. I command you to punish Nadua for her incompetence. Demonstrate your skill with dark magic.”

I turned and stared at Nadua. The look in her eyes crushed me. She wasn't angry at me, or even disappointed. Her eyes held nothing but despair and resignation. She was just another of the Queen's slaves, forced to serve the Queen's cruel whims. I had been trained to hate her, just for this moment. For just a moment, I wanted to be better than what the Queen was turning me into.

But I wasn't. I did hate Nadua. I did want her to suffer as much as I had. No, more.

In a flash, I knew exactly what I had to do. The fancy ingredients and rituals made things much easier, but magic was all about intention. I had a pool of black hatred in my heart for Nadua, and that was the only ingredient I needed. I stuck my thumb in my mouth and bit down on the tip until I tasted blood. The pain was worse than I expected, but with the warm glow of my Queen's presence around me I didn't care. With the tip of my thumb I trace a circle of blasphemous signs into the the palm of my left hand. Then I began forming the seals with my hands, calling on the dark forces that made their home in my very soul: pain, loneliness, hunger, rage. As I formed the seals one after another, I poured my memories of the last month into my spell. When it was ready, I hurled it at Nadua.

A curse isn't just a spell. It's almost a living thing, like an intangible, mindless monster, a hatred golem. When it finally flew from heart and my hands, I felt a sense of relief at being rid of it.

Nadua fell to the ground. She began screaming at the top of her lungs. Her tiny body began swelling and writhing. Her legs spasmed and twisted around. I heard the sound of joints being torn and tiny bones snapping over the sound of her constant scream. In that moment, I wanted to take the curse back, but I couldn't. I had created it, and it wouldn't stop until its work was done. Her skin boiled and began to fall off her muscles. Her left eye squeezed out of its socket and dangled on her cheek. I felt sick. I knew that what I had just done could never be undone. That horror, that pain I had caused, would be part of me now, forever. When the screaming and writhing finally stopped, my eyes were already full of tears. The Queen was clapping and cheering as Nadua finally died. Even though I felt worse now than I had since I arrived in this world, the Queen's praise still felt good.

“Well done, Kyle Porter. I can see that you have a great future here in my court. From now on, you will have the status and comfort befitting a servant of your talents. Fanquee!”

An ugly little dwarf appeared behind me. He had a gray beard and a set of glasses that made his eyes look huge.

“Find Kyle Porter an appropriate set of quarters. You will be responsible for furthering his education from now on.”

As I left to follow the little man to whatever was waiting for me, I glanced back at the throne room. The Queen had picked up the mutilated corpse of Nadua and was admiring it like a trophy. I felt like I needed to throw up, but I couldn't do it here.

Fanquee led to me to another room in the wooden part of the palace.

“You must be tired after that spell you cast in there, so I'll let you rest before we begin. A housekeeper will be in soon with your dinner. Sleep well, Kyle Porter.”

I stared at the room. It looked like a bedroom in a palace ought to look. There were tapestries covering the walls. I had a four-poster bed with two dragons carved into the headboard. I had a polished mahogany dresser with brass knobs. I even had a private bathroom. There was no plumbing, of course, just a pitcher and basin for a sink, a stool for a toilet, and a mirror.

I stared at the mirror. A murderer stared back at me.