The Curse of the Blessed

Chapter One

The first time I summoned the deathbirds, it was a complete accident. I was seven—maybe eight—and Bran Rayden had just stolen my favorite headband, pulled it right off my head, even though I'd already told him twice to leave me alone. He was dancing right in front of me, dangling the headband just above my fingers. Even then, he was taller than me.

"Give it back!" I shouted. He just laughed and aimed a kick at my shins.

Anger burned through me in a flash, like a lightning strike. It radiated out of me in waves. And something responded.

I felt it before I saw it—a consciousness swooping down to answer my call. It brushed up against my mind, sending a message of comfort, asking if I was okay. Bran shrieked as it snatched the headband from his fingers and returned it to me, one jet-black wing skimming his jet-black hair in the process. He ran off to his mother, and I couldn't help the wide smile that spread across my face as I saw her shaking her head in disbelief. I had won.

I turned to my bird and looked at it; it tilted its head and stared back with a similar interest in its eyes. It took me a moment to realize what it was. But then I saw the shiny black body, the blood-red eyes, the head with feathers as white as bone—skull-like. A deathbird. They were scavengers. Sometimes, when a villager was very sick, the deathbirds would gather on their roof like a living blanket of feathers and wings. The family inside would know their time with their loved one was short.

Slowly, I reached out a hand to touch the deathbird's feathers. My fingertips barely skimmed the soft surface, and then, with a squawk and a flap of wings, the deathbird flew away.

What had just happened? I didn't know. I wasn't yet old enough to understand what it meant—what it doomed me to. I didn't yet know I was Blessed. But I would.

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