Chapter 1
The problem with being under a centuries-old intergenerational bad luck curse, Caleb Tanner reflected as he steered his sputtering car to the side of the road, was that you never knew when it was going to strike.
Well, that was aside from the other thing that was a problem about being under a centuries-old intergenerational bad luck curse. Which was that he experienced a lot of bad luck.
A lotof bad luck.
It wasn’t that nothing ever went right for him – things could almost seem pretty normal for long stretches, sometimes even weeks at a time. But then, bam! Just when he least expected it, the curse would strike again, and then, there he’d be: covered in dairy product after a mysterious yogurt avalanche at a supermarket. Getting absolutely soaked to the bone with rain the moment he stepped outside without an umbrella, even though it was the middle of summer and the weather forecast had said nothing but sunny skies for days. Finding, suddenly, that he had absolutely no matching socks in his drawer, even though he could have sworn he paired them all up the last time he did his laundry.
And that was just the things on the mild inconvenience end of the spectrum.
There’d been far worse: falling machinery smashing into sidewalks from building sites, missing him by inches. Traffic lights that had suddenly changed as he’d been halfway through an intersection, sending cars and trucks surging toward him. The scorpion that had manifested in his shoe, even though he’d been living in the middle of the city at the time. All his food going off moments after he’d bought it, wriggling with maggots and flies as soon as it touched his hands. Caleb assumed the only reason the front of his house hadn’t fallen on him or a piano hadn’t launched itself out of a skyscraper at him yet was because that would just be too cliché, even for a bad luck curse.
Caleb sighed as his car finally coasted to a stop, steam billowing out from under its hood, on the side of the road. At least after the bang and then the rattle of the engine apparently exploding, he’d been able to steer it off the middle of the road.
As far as bad luck went, he supposed this wasn’t too bad. It might have been better if it hadn’t happened on a winding mountain path, with more hairpin turns than he really cared to think about too closely. Caleb guessed he really ought to be thanking his lucky stars the curse hadn’t sent him careening over the edge of the road and into whatever heavily forested ravine lay beyond – but then, killing him had never been the goal of the curse to begin with.
No – the curse simply wanted to torment him.
At least, that was how his mother had described it to him when he’d been younger, when they’d realized that out of his family, he was the one who’d bear the curse: no one, as far as they knew, had ever been killed by the curse. It just made life very, very difficult. Nothing would ever work out for the cursebearer. They’d never get anything they wanted. It was pointless to have hopes, dreams, ambitions: no matter what, they’d all come to nothing in the end. Even if things seemed to be going well for a while – a job, a relationship, a car, apparently – eventually it’d all end up as a raging trashfire.
And no one even remembered why the curse had been put on their family in the first place.
But that was the problem, Caleb thought, with being part of a dragon clan. In the past, dragon clans had always been at war with each other – the idea that it might be possible for them to actually get along was a relatively recent one, since they’d decided that dragons had to join the modern era at last, and stop putting hexes on each other and trying to steal each other’s hoards and territory. Stop organizing fire-breathing dragon duels in the mountains. Stop behaving like children, in other words, and sort their issues out with sensible negotiations rather than with smoky-breathed, roaring, furious tantrums.
Which was nice, Caleb had to admit – his grandfather had lost an eye in the last dragon duel he’d fought, and Caleb was certainly grateful he probably wouldn’t be getting challenged to one anytime soon (though with his luck, he supposed, anything was possible).
But it didn’t really solve his problem. Even if all the dragon clans were getting along now, lifting a curse wasn’t a simple matter. It wasn’t a case of just saying a few magic words and reversing the original spell. Not even the dragon clan whose ancestor had originally placed it on Caleb’s ancestor could lift it just like that – it was lost magic, they said – they couldn’t do anything about it, even if they wanted to.
No, thought Caleb grimly, it always has to be a little more complicated than that.
Whoever had done it, though, had had a fine sense of irony: dragons were supposed to be lucky. That was part of their powers. They attracted gold, wealth, status – all because of their uncanny powers of luck. If they made a bet on a sports team, that team would undoubtedly win. If they started a business, it would inevitably thrive. Many a dragon clan had made their fortune in the stock market without even really trying – whatever they bought would rise in value, and they’d always sell at just the right time. Everything a dragon touched turned to gold – unless, of course, they’d had a curse put on them that negated all of that, for some reason that no one could even remember anymore.
It was envy,Caleb’s dragon said, from where it lay coiled deep inside him. It was because of our ancient lineage and vast powers.
Well, that’s fine,Caleb told it, staring in mute frustration at the steam belching from his car – he hoped that was steam, anyway. Could it be smoke?! But can our ancient lineage and vast powers fix my car?
The dragon was a prideful, demanding beast, but even it had to admit that it was no mechanic.
Rather than say that, however, it simply harumphed and coiled back around itself, closing its bright yellow eyes and feigning sleep.
Well, you’re no help,Caleb told it, not that he thought it was listening to him anymore. Sighing, he sat back in his seat, staring at the steam drifting from the car’s hood which was, at least, finally starting to thin out. He wasn’t brave enough to try starting the car again – it was not a good idea to tempt fate when you were already under a bad luck curse.
He felt like he’d already pushed his luck – such as it was – far enough.
There might have been no simple way to break the curse – but there was a way. And thankfully, some members of the dragon clan who had placed the curse felt bad enough about it now, all these centuries later, to want to give him a hand.
Sighing, Caleb opened the car door, hoping that he was pulled over far enough from the road that no one would sideswipe him if they came around the corner too fast. Taking out his phone, he checked what he already knew he’d see: Yep – of course. Dead zone. No signal whatsoever.
So calling a mechanic was out of the question right now. He’d have to walk the rest of the way into Girdwood Springs, and hope he’d be able to call a tow service from there.
Since that’s where I’ve gotta go if I want to break this curse.
Girdwood Springs Forest, to be exact – the ancient parchment he’d been shown with instructions for how to break his curse had been pretty specific about the location, though of course it hadn’t been called Girdwood Springs Forest back when the curse had been placed. It had taken him a lot of research to match up the ancient name to the modern name, but he’d finally done it.
Unfortunately, that was the only thing the parchment was still specific about: Caleb didn’t know if it was just normal or whether it was the curse at work again, but there hadn’t been much left of the page that detailed the actual method of breaking the curse. Time, weevils, lack of care and apparently a small fire had seen to that. The only thing that was left of the curse-breaking instructions was a handful of words:
Find ----- ome of the Aurum Lacu---------