Chapter 27 #3
I remember that moment with painful clarity.
The limp weight of Noxie’s body when I picked him up off my den’s floor, his fur still carrying the warmth of life even as death’s stiffness crept through his limbs.
How my mother used to scratch behind his ears while she read to me, her laugh mixing with his purrs.
Now both were gone. My legs had felt like lead as I stepped outside and grabbed one of our shovels, dragging it behind me through the grass like a morbid trail marker.
The sound it made, a whispered scrape against the earth, seemed to mock my loss.
When I fell to my knees in the meadow, the desperate need to stop losing everything I loved, to bring Noxie back, had consumed me, eating through my chest like a brush fire.
“You saw that?” I ask Falcen.
Falcen nods. “I couldn’t look away. The way your hands glowed, the magick that poured out of you and into that creature’s grave until it popped out of the dirt, eyes open and standing up, alive and whole, as if it had never been dead at all.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in all my years as a Soulren. ”
I tuck my injured hand against my ribs. Falcen witnessed the moment that changed everything for me, the awe and terror of doing something extraordinary and abhorrent in the same breath.
Which means he also saw me siphon and then kill Edon. And didn’t intervene to save him.
Falcen starts toward me. His demeanor warps so suddenly that I back into the side of the bed and nearly topple onto the mattress. “Do you understand what that means? Do you have any idea how impossible that is?”
“I’m a late-awakener,” I start reciting. “Rare, but not unheard of. My magick is stronger than when most come into theirs, and very unpredictable. I’m here to hopefully get all of that under control—”
“Necromancy. The ability to manipulate life and death. It’s a forbidden art, one that’s been lost to Soulren since we lost all our mages during the first Voidspawn invasion. We can’t raise the dead, Verily.”
“But I didn’t—he was only alive for a few seconds!”
Falcen’s mouth twists into a humorless smile.
“Soulren can only siphon from living souls. This is why the Void grows stronger. Because we’re consuming more energy than we’re creating.
You saw the Blightwood when the drake crashed into it.
We’re losing resources because we cannot bring back what has already passed into the afterlife.
That power belongs to the gods alone. Or it was supposed to. ”
He reaches out, his fingers grazing the sensitive skin of my inner wrist resting just below my breast, tracing the crimson veins. A pleasurable sigh escapes me before I recoil, not from his touch, but from everything that he’s saying.
Forbidden magick, my ember whispers through her quiet laughter. He might think you are important to the realm, but I am an abomination. Therefore, so are you.
“The art of necromancy was wiped from our records, our teachings, our very history. To even mention it is to invite suspicion, accusation, and worse. Yet here you are. A remnant from a remote village, untrained and unaware, with the power to raise the dead.”
“I didn’t even know what I was doing!” I say, my voice rising. “I just couldn’t bear the thought of losing Noxie. He was all I had left of my mother.”
Mother’s gentle hands braiding my hair, Noxie curled at our feet, the last moment of peace before the fever took her. “When he died, something inside me just snapped.”
“I know.” Falcen smooths his expression. “I saw the grief on your face, the heartbreak. That kind of emotion is so foreign to me, and you were so captivating, beautiful, that it’s the only reason I stayed instead of continuing. It’s the reason I was there long enough to witness the resurrection.”
Falcen’s admission, beautiful, echoes in my mind. A term of endearment is so odd coming from his usually stern lips.
“So what you’re saying is that I’m not just a late-awakener with strong, unpredictable powers. I’m a necromancer. A wielder of forbidden magick that could get me killed or worse if anyone finds out.”
My voice sounds distant to my own ears.
“I spotted you long before you were cornered by a Void hound,” Falcen repeats, and this time, the timbre of his voice is different. “If I could find you, another Soulren could, too. At least with me, you have a chance.”
Any warmth in his expression, as minute as it was, dissipates.
His hand comes to grip under my jaw, tilting my face up to his.
“Do you have any idea what the academy would do if they discovered the full extent of your abilities? They would tear you apart, piece by piece, until nothing but a husk was left. They would study you, experiment on you, push you beyond your limits in their quest for control.”
I try to pull away, but his hold is unyielding.
“And you wouldn’t do the same?” I challenge, my voice trembling despite the costume of bravery I’m wearing.
Falcen arches a single brow. “Oh, I will study you, Verily. I will push you to your very limits.”
I glare at him through his hold on my neck.
His thumb shifts against my pulse. When he speaks again, his voice is so low I almost miss it.
“I just haven’t decided what I’ll do when I’m finished.”
He releases me and exits my chambers without looking back.
The ember stirs behind my ribs, not with her usual indignation, but with a low, satisfied hum.
As if she and Falcen have just agreed on terms I wasn’t invited to negotiate.