Chapter 19
Marigold
KEANE’S PORTAL OPENED INTO COLD stone and wrongness.
The compound’s lower levels smelled like death—not the natural cycle my necromancy recognized but stagnant ending. Corruption so thick it pressed against my skin like oil.
Four minutes, Keane whispered, his voice tight with concentration. Starting now.
Cyrus moved ahead immediately, Ember’s flames providing sharp light that cut through shadow.
I followed, Scout chittering soft warnings on my shoulder. My necromancy reached out, sensing through stone and corruption to track Raven’s signature somewhere below us.
There. Faint. Wrong. But still her.
Elio and Keane flanked us in tight formation. Echo’s tail curled firmly around Elio’s shoulder, her scales locked in battle-green. Wisp phased ahead, scouting through walls.
We moved fast and quiet down the corridor, red-black corruption threading through the ancient stone walls like infected veins.
The first illusion trap triggered thirty seconds in.
Elio… I started.
Already compensating. His voice was calm, professional. His illusions shimmered, revealing the trap’s true structure before it could fully manifest. Keep moving.
Cyrus burned away the corruption reaching for us, blue-edged flames precise and controlled.
The dungeon door wasn’t locked.
Inside, cells lined both walls. Most sat empty, but in the back corner…
Raven.
She hung suspended in red-black chains, her head slumped forward and eyes closed. Boris barely flickered on the floor beneath her, his beetle carapace dim and corrupted.
But she was breathing. Still alive.
Two minutes thirty, Keane said quietly. His portal anchors were already showing strain, the silver edges flickering. Wards are pushing back harder than models predicted.
I was already moving forward, my necromancy reaching out.
The moment my magic touched the corruption around Raven, pressure slammed into my mind.
You think you can save her?
The master’s consciousness touched mine through the corruption network.
She’s mine now. This body. This mind. Every thought filtered through my will.
I pushed deeper, ignoring the voice. My necromancy traced through layers of red-black death magic, searching for Raven’s core consciousness underneath.
The corruption pushed back. Hard.
Pain spiked through my temples. My vision blurred at the edges. The master’s presence was everywhere—in the chains, in the walls, in the very air.
Let me show you what you’re trying to save.
Images flooded my mind. Raven screaming. Raven corrupted. Raven’s consciousness fracturing under pressure she couldn’t resist. Months of targeted corruption, methodical and brutal.
Marigold. Cyrus’s voice cut through the assault, close and grounding. Stay with me.
I couldn’t answer. I felt too open, too vulnerable. My necromancy diving deep left me exposed to everything the master wanted me to feel.
The corruption suddenly surged toward me through the connection.
Fire exploded across my awareness, but Cyrus burned the tendril before it could latch on. However, the flames had to go through my necromantic link to reach it.
Pain hit, sharp and immediate, like being burned from the inside. I gasped, nearly losing my grip on the contact.
Stay with me, Cyrus said again. Not to me—to his fire. Controlling it. Keeping it precise even as more corruption tried to jump the connection.
He burned it again, through me, necessary and protective.
It hurt, but I held on.
One minute forty-five, Keane’s voice was strained. Portal’s destabilizing. Whatever you’re doing, do it faster.
I pushed deeper through the layers of corruption, past the master’s interference, searching for Raven’s consciousness.
There.
Faint. Fragile. But present.
I pulled out the token pin. I held it in my necromantic awareness, letting the memory echo through the connection.
First semester. The garden. Finding this together. Laughing about the on-the-nose symbolism.
For a moment, nothing.
Just corruption pulsing and the master’s pressure crushing down.
Then…
Your familiar should be named Edgar, Raven’s voice whispered through the connection. The exact phrase, perfect memory. After Poe.
Her consciousness surfaced, pushing against the corruption, still trapped and poisoned, but there.
She’s reachable, I gasped. She gave the phrase…
Corruption spiked violently. The master knew what I was doing.
Marigold! Elio’s warning came sharp. He’s manifesting…
Reality warped. The silver-haired witch materialized in the corridor outside, the same one we’d seen in Wickem’s auditorium, her hands already raised.
One minute, Keane said, portal edges flickering wildly now. That’s all I can hold.
I grabbed onto Raven’s consciousness through the necromantic link. Not pulling—that would fracture her. Just anchoring. Giving her something solid to hold on to while my magic worked through the corruption.
Death returned to the cycle instead of staying stagnant.
The chains shattered, and Raven collapsed. Cyrus caught her before she hit the ground, his fire burning away corruption trying to cling to her skin.
Go! Keane’s portal ripped wider. Now!
Shadow magic flooded the corridor as corrupted vampires appeared from nowhere. The silver-haired witch’s power was warping reality itself.
Elio grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the portal. Cyrus had Raven. Keane was already moving.
The portal shuddered and collapsed halfway.
Shit… Keane’s hands moved frantically, rebuilding the dimensional framework even as the wards crushed down on it. Blood dripped from his nose. Go, go, go…
I dove through first, pulling Elio with me. Cyrus came through with Raven, his fire blazing behind him to hold off pursuit.
Keane tumbled through last.
The portal sealed behind us with a sound like breaking glass.
For a moment, everything was silver edges and impossible geometry as the dimensional space collapsed.
Then… Wickem medical center—the predesignated extraction point where medical staff waited on standby, just as we’d planned.
I hit the floor hard, gasping, and Scout tumbled from my shoulder.
Raven wasn’t moving.
Medical staff swarmed immediately. Dr. Phillips took charge, her diagnostic spells lighting up around Raven’s unconscious form.
She’s alive, Phillips said after a tense moment. But barely. Corruption is still embedded. We can stabilize her, but full recovery… She shook her head. Unknown.
I looked at the others.
Keane was leaning against the wall, blood still trickling from his nose and his hands shaking from portal strain. Wisp pressed against his leg.
Cyrus had a burn across his forearm—corruption backlash from containing so much poisoned magic. His fire had burned it, but not before it lashed back at him. He wasn’t looking at it, just standing there with Ember flickering weakly on his shoulder.
Elio’s illusions had gone completely transparent. Echo’s scales were dull gray. Magic exhaustion was written across both of them.
And Raven was unconscious on the medical bed, corruption still threaded through her aura like poison we couldn’t fully extract.
We’d gotten her out.
But the cost was real.
Hours later, after medical cleared us and stabilized Raven, the four of us stood in the healing ward observation room.
Raven lay unconscious behind the glass. Lucas sat beside her, holding her hand, his face drawn with worry. His bird familiar perched on the chair behind him.
She gave you the phrase, Keane said quietly. Her core self is intact.
She’s still corrupted, I said. Still broken.
But alive, Cyrus corrected. We got her out. That’s what matters.
Elio studied the corruption monitors tracking poison we couldn’t fully remove. He knew we were coming. Learned exactly how we operate under pressure. But we got her anyway.
At a cost, I said.
Yeah, Cyrus agreed. It hurt. But we’re all still here.
Raven’s fingers twitched on the bed. Lucas leaned forward hopefully, but she didn’t wake.
Recovery will take weeks, Keane said. Maybe months.
Three weeks to prepare for the real fight.
We were all standing.
That would have to be enough.