Curse of the Mirror: Fracture of the Fairytale, #1

By TP Hogan

After cursing Abaglen 17 years ago and taking over his throne, the queen has a new plan...murger Winter, Abaglen's daughter.

He'll do anything in his power to stop her. Only, he doesn't have any power. He's trapped in a mirror.

Winter has tried to free her father for years. Now time has run out. She has a powerful secret of her how. Will it be enough to thwart the queen, free her father and take back the throne?

 

***Short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TP Hogan
• Release date: Jul 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922655004

Book preview

Blurb

After cursing Abaglen 17 years ago and taking over his throne, the queen has a new plan…murder Winter, Abaglen’s daughter.

He’ll do anything in his power to stop her. Only, he doesn’t have any power. He’s trapped in a mirror.

Winter has tried to free her father for years. Now time has run out. She has a powerful secret of her own. Will it be enough to thwart the queen, free her father and take back the throne?

Authors Note

This story is set in Australia with Australian characters. The spelling and grammar is Australian English.

Chapter One

And now, I have an oracle who will work for me. What fun.

Catalina’s voice swirled around him as Abaglen fell into the sensation of a void. It sucked at him with cold emptiness, and he couldn’t fight it. He no longer had a physical form. He could think, and he could hear, but that was the limit of his senses. There was no other sensation in the void but the sound of her voice. Before complete panic set in, he felt a tug of magics where he imagined the base of his skull might be, if he had one.

Suddenly, sight.

He could see Catalina. The angle and motion of her in his limited vision confirmed his horrified thoughts.

His wife had enacted a curse to trap him in the mirror.

Stay safe in there, won’t you? She tapped the glass, then spun the mirror, tilting it at crazy angles until it was engulfed in darkness.

He could see what he surmised were folds in fabric and concluded she had placed the mirror in a bag. After a few moments, the image of the bag faded from his mind and all was silent. He might no longer have his body, but he had his mind. He would find a solution to this. He couldn’t leave Winter in the clutches of Catalina. Not after what Catalina had done to Rosie. He wasn’t an oracle without knowing more about magics than the average mage. There had to be a way to nullify this spell and free himself from this prison.

Focusing his anger towards reason and logic, he tested the magics of the mirror world via trial and error. It took him time. But time was a resource he had in abundance. With a thought, he could see anywhere in the land, even underwater and into the distant sky. He couldn’t interact physically with the world, but he could see. He could hear. It was a happy day when he found that, with some people who were attuned to specific magics, he could converse.

Joyously, one such person… was Winter.

She was nearly four years old when she saw him in the mirror and could hear him. It was heartbreaking to see her cry when she couldn’t touch him. She described his form as a floating head. He presented with no body. Thankfully, she did not fear the sight. He could talk to his daughter again. The confounding issue was when he spoke, it verbalised as rhyme, and he had no control over it unless he spoke a single word. The riddle magics of the mirror were strong and well woven.

Catalina was far from pleased when Winter began to adamantly tell anyone who would listen that Abaglen was not dead and her stepmother had cursed him. It was easy for Catalina to shush it up as the ramblings of a distraught toddler, who she then hid away.

Together, he and Winter began working on trying to break the curse and set him free. Seasons came and went, and he watched them flow over the land, wondering what plans Catalina held for him. From the mirror, he kept a careful watch on her activities, keeping abreast of her contacts, conversations, and doings. What he saw made him furious, but there was nothing he could do. Her rule was hard and strict; taxes and tensions were high. She had a firm control of Command magics and used it well. They weren’t the only ruling family in the world, but she acted as if she were. When he was freed, there would be work to do to re-establish good relationships with their neighbours.

He did not know what her plans for him would be, and much as he appreciated not being used for fun, absence only made the inevitable dangle, an axe held aloft overtop an executioner’s block. The summons did not come. He could only surmise Catalina had trapped him, to keep him out of the way.  He didn’t waste his time; he spoke to those he could and worked on obtaining any information about the spell that trapped him. Still, he couldn’t find a way to break the curse, and years passed.

Chapter Two

Pulling at the magics within the mirror, he opened the sight to a small room, barely a stable loft, and the young woman who lay on a peat mattress, hugging an open book to herself in her sleep. For seventeen years, he’d watched her grow from a babe in arms to the pretty young woman she was now.

Wake up, sleepyhead, he spoke into the room. The sun is high and out of bed.

She jerked awake, looking around with a startled glance. Oh, morning, Mirror Man. Am I late?

He smiled at the term of endearment she used for him. What time do you need it to be? Let me know and we will see.

I don’t want to be late for chores. It’s not worth the carry on. She stretched with a yawn and stood. I was only able to read through this halfway last night. I haven’t found anything, yet.

Gratitude.

Don’t thank me until we’ve found a way to break this curse of my stepmother’s.

Upon the title, I now look. I do not think that is Catalina’s book.

It’s not. Do you remember my friend Derick? He lives in the manor house across the lake. This is from his library.

He did not resist your request to assist?

Not at all. She hid the book behind the wall panel. Now run along so I can change.

If he could smile as he withdrew, he would have. He’d visited the young Derick a few times, once the man had shown interest in the ebony-haired Winter. For all he could see, the would-be suitor was kind, mature, responsible, and considerate. Abaglen supposed losing one’s parents at