Magic is a strange thing. On one hand, I find it beautiful; I've seen some of the amazing and wonderful things that magic can be used for. It's revived a wilting forest, mended broken bones, and brought peace to those with internal struggles. On the other hand, I've seen first hand how it can be used to do the opposite. Allow me to tell you the story of how magic became banned in my kingdom.

I was born with a brother. We were twins, I being slightly older; it always seemed to matter that I was older. We seemed very alike at first, but as we grew older together, it became clear that we were very different.

While I developed a passion for sword fighting and proper royal etiquette, my brother developed a passion for the opposite. He was crass, brackish, and had a certain disregard for keeping up our royal appearance. He didn't care what people thought of him. He did what he wanted without a care for what the punishment would be afterwards. I always somewhat admired his confidence, but I should have seen then that it would be his downfall.

It wasn't until our teenage years that my parents and I realized that he was a warlock. It wasn't a problem at the time, considering magic hadn't been banned yet. It wasn't common in our kingdom though and we didn't have anyone to hire to be his teacher.

Nonetheless, my brother was determined to learn how to use his powers. For the first time in years, I saw him reading in the library and taking notes like a proper student. I was amazed by his level of commitment. I thought it was good for him to find something constructive to add to his skill set. I encouraged him, even allowing him to show me the magic he'd been learning.

It started out fine. He learned how to revive plants or heal cuts. I thought that he'd finally found something he was passionate about using to help others; that's a royal's role in society, to help that society be better.

I was too late when I realized I was wrong.

My parents had also been watching his progress with his magic, encouraging him to continue it. Unfortunately, he took their encouragements the wrong way. They had mean they wanted him to get better and better with his magic, but he'd thought they wanted him to learn more powerful forms of it.

We were seventeen when it happened. My brother locked himself away in his chambers and refused to come out. On the rare occasion that I saw him, his skin had grown sickly green and his eyes developed unnaturally deep purple circles around them. He wasn't shaving and a bit of his hair had somehow turned white. He looked nothing like the brother I knew, and I had a feeling in my gut that something was very, very wrong.

I went to his wing one evening and entered despite not receiving any permission. He had a study in his wing that had a green glow coming from underneath the door. As I neared it, a nauseating smell reached my nose. I recognized it as rotting, as the stench of death.

I entered the study without knocking, finding my brother performing some kind of magical experiment on a rat. It was as I looked around that I noticed there were many of them, all dead, scattered across the ground. I remember wanting to vomit, but choking it down as I focused on my brother.

Whatever magic he was using was evil, I could feel it. The rat was squirming in midair and squealing in pain. I watched in horror as it's flesh began to disintegrate as though it was being eaten by acid. It's bones clattered to ground.

"YES! Finally!" my brother exclaimed in triumph.

I looked at him in astonishment. "What are you doing?!" I yelled, voice high in pitch and shaking a bit.

He turned around to face me and I noticed the book in his hand. It wasn't one of the books I'd seen him practicing with before. It had a symbol on the cover I didn't recognize, but I knew I saw a skull on it. His eyes were crazed as they met mine.

"I'm growing stronger, Roman. Isn't that what you all wanted? For me to be stronger? Better?" he asked, grinning joylessly. A laugh came from his throat that sounded unnatural. "Well, I've learned how to become stronger. I can take all the power I want from others to feed myself."

"Remus, you're playing with dark magic that will destroy you," I told him. "This is not what our mother and father want to see you become. It's not what I want to see you become."

The boy who was no longer my brother looked at me, eyes widening as though he had just been told a fantastic idea. "Oh! Oh, that's brilliant! I can take his strength, that's smart," he said, seemingly talking to himself. He raised his hand toward me, eyes beginning to glow hauntingly green. "This time I'll be the stronger of us, brother."

I don't remember the fight, only what happened afterwards. I remember him trying to murder me, but the details of our attacks were a blur. I do remember my sword striking him in the shoulder and hearing him howl before he fell unconscious. I remember the tears running down my cheeks as my parents ran into the room. The guards dragged him away to the dungeons. He was still alive at that point but we all knew he was going to bleed to death from his wounds. There was no witches or warlocks that could heal him in close enough proximity to our kingdom to save him.

After my wounds were seen to, I went to go say goodbye to the boy who used to by my brother. I remember my footsteps echoing as I descended into the dungeon. I also remember the way my heart seemed to drop into my stomach when I realized he was missing from his cell.

My brother has never been seen again and my father decreed the practice of magic within his borders to be illegal. I haven't seen a warlock or witch in our kingdom since.

That was until I ran into a young man in a black cloak in the woods.