DEVIATION

I am a monstrosity. A corruption. A stain on the peerless reputation of Astar Magikal Academy. A deviation the illustrious House Astaroth could not bear to remain on its ancestral tapestry a moment longer. And so I was snuffed out. Erased. Cast into the gutter like fish guts and wastewater.

I was disowned by all I had called kin or even friend, not because of what I did. But because of what was done to me. 

But I really shouldn’t be surprised. I was never really wanted in the first place. I was just a bad fix for an unhappy situation. If I’m being perfectly honest, my parents’ marriage was never great to begin with. Why they thought they could improve things by having a fourth child is beyond me. If anything it just made things worse. 

Which was why when I was four the three of us youngest sons got sent to visit our grandsire while our parents went on summer holiday without us. And as I would learn much later, separate from each other.

However being ten and twelve years older than me, my brothers Desmond and Darius were right pissed about being stuck summering with me the baby. So let’s just say they were…less than patient with me. Especially that morning when I couldn’t keep up with them as we made our way across the busy train platform. Which was how we got separated. So while I ended up boarding a train in one direction, they ended up boarding one in an entirely different direction.

It probably says a lot about our sibling dynamics that the bastards didn’t even notice I was missing for hours. They just assumed I had wandered off to explore the train and left me to my own devices. 

These paragons of privilege didn’t actually start worrying in the slightest until the hospitality maid came ‘round to deliver supper and my afternoon meal was still sitting there untouched. And honestly, they were only legitimately concerned about the fact they’d managed to lose me across half of Britannia. 

Meanwhile, I’d gotten off the other train at its last stop in a small rural village. And having never left our family estate at that point in my life (I was four mind you) I had no earthly
clue where I was let alone how to get back home. Or even where home was. I probably would have starved to death—or worse—if it hadn’t been for the Fitzpatricks. 

They were the nicest people in the world. And I ended up living with them for a month never knowing the whole of the Greater Londaria Metropolitan area was searching for me. Or that the authorities assumed I’d been kidnapped! Why you might ask? Because that’s what my brothers told the constables when they arrived without me.

Which is how the sweetest elderly couple in the whole world were jailed for a crime they never committed. Because absolutely no one at all would listen to a word I had to say about any of it. 

And the Fitzpatricks are still rotting in jail now because they “stole” something that was once precious and is now worth nothing at all. 

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“Deviation” ExSpelled © 2024 by Kat Vancil