Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet
(originally titled Haven) is a web serial novel by Derin Edala about magical teenagers uncovering conspiracies and trying to survive their mage training. It's been described as "Harry Potter if it were a political intrigue". It was published from 2019–2023.
Kayden is a boy with a curse in his heart. He's successfully kept it a secret for years, preventing it from hurting anyone, but when he's pushed too far and lashes out at a bully, he finds himself up on charges of magical assault. A teacher from a magical school he's never heard of shows up and offers to get him the best lawyers possible to make the whole problem go away, at a cost... Kayden must attend his hidden magical school for six months. An obvious trap, sure, but when Kayden hears that the school can teach him to control the curse so it never hurts anyone again, he feels he has no choice to accept.
Immediately, Kayden is flung into a world of magic, politics, terrible school administration and frustratingly designed enchanted bedrooms. Oh, and he might have to find out who keeps trying to murder a famous mage on campus. If he can convince anyone that there's a murderer at all.
Curse Words contains examples of:
- Batman Gambit: Kayden's plan to prove who blew up Alania's lab.
- The Chosen One: A prophecy calls Kayden the "chosen one", but after it refuses to provide any details, he concludes that it's making stuff up to manipulate him.
- Dramatic Wind: Talbot's magic manifests as a gust of wind that blows around him. He poses in it with his long hair and coat as often as possible.
- Geometric Magic: Runecrafting is used to create the enchanted objects and magical systems that keep the school running, including the massive runic circle that the whole school is designed around to harvest the magic of students.
- I Know You Know I Know: Any time the mage kids try their hand at politics, it quickly devolves into this.
- Instant Awesome Just Add Dragons!: Alania's spell manifests as a tiny invisible dragon, for no obvious reason.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!!: Simon offers to buy Kayden a clean criminal record and clean reputation if Kayden stops investigating him for attacking Alania Miratova.
- Words Can Break My Bones: Volatile spells are often trained to respond to specific words and phrases with specific effects. Alania casts her temperature spells this way.
