Nec-romance

Light as a bird

The church was cold and damp. Its stone walls were slick with moss. A few candles burned low on the ruined altar, their light barely reaching the prisoners tied against the pillars. Shadows pooled in the corners, and the air smelled of wet stone and old wax.

Birdie sobbed, her voice too weak now to carry. Hours had passed since they'd been left in that chamber.

A door creaked somewhere above, and her fawn eyes twitched toward the sound, quick and trembling.

- Everything will be alright, don't worry. - Isolde whispered to her. - We'll think of something.

The other girl, the one with the scar, was quiet. After hours of panicking, it seemed, she had finally accepted whatever she thought was about to happen. Her chin dropped to her chest in complete defeat of spirit.

Luka, on the other hand, was as calm as he was when he arrived.

- That's a curious thing to carry around on your belt. - he said, looking at the skull on Isolde's belt. - Were you trying to get caught?

- What? No, it belonged to my grandmother, she told me to... Never mind, it's... a long story...

- Ah, it's your Memento Mortem. - he said, visibly amused.

- My what?

- Your Memento Mortem. You are new to this, I see.

- New to what? I'm sorry, you're losing me.

Luka shifted his shoulders and chest, wriggling until a chain slipped free from beneath his shirt. On it hung a single phalanx bone.

- Memento Mortem is a relic bound to a necromancer's soul, their past and it stabilizes their link with the world of the dead.

- That would explain why she would want me to have it...

- The purpose of Mementos goes beyond their magical properties. They serve as a symbol of your social status. Famous necromancer ancestors may get you far at the Ebon Sanctum.

- Ebon Sanctum?

Luka's eyebrows arched in surprise.

- How is it that you don't know anything about all of this, yet you had a grandmother who was a necromancer?

Isolde's eyes met Birdie's in discomfort, which Luka had definitely noticed.

- My parents were followers of Nyrr... - she said. - They wouldn't have me know anything so... blasphemous.

- ''Were''? Are they deceased?

The door shrieked, startling them. Their captors had brought two more girls, twins. Their screaming and kicking made Birdie cry again, and even the girl with the scar was reminded to panic.

The twins thrashed in terror, panting and clawing at the floor were they fell. The men dragged them by their hair to the remaining pillars and tied them up.

- What will happen to us? - Isolde asked them.

Their leader, the old man that captured her and Birdie, grinned and approached her, crouching down to look her in the eyes. She immediately regretted asking anything.

- That is up to the Inquisition to decide, my dear. But rest assured, it won't be pretty.

His hand moved to push the hair off her face, tucking it behind her ears.

- Say, do we know each other? You seem familiar. I've been thinking about it since our lovely meeting in the forest.

- I don't know. - she said through her teeth. - Rats look all the same to me.

Birdie shook her head, trying to gesture to Isolde to stop provoking him. But he didn't seem to care about anything that she had said. His fingers kept rushing across her face, as if he would remember from where he knew her by touching her.

- You are from Palaworn.

Her eyes widened at him. She felt her heart pounding.

- No, I am not.

He stood up and took a step back. His expression went from shocked to pleasantly surprised.

- It's you, isn't it? The girl whose entire family was poisoned, along with the priests of Nyrr. This b***h killed her entire family!

All heads turned to her. Luka stared in surprise, but said nothing. The girl with the scar looked disgusted.

- Laman, we should go. - said one of the old man's men. - We don't want to be here when the Inquisitors arrive. Those sick bastards won't make a difference between us and this scum.

Isolde could almost feel the old man's gaze on her. He didn't look like someone who would be grossed out by a m*********r. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. In a strange way, it felt like a relief to have the crime out in the open, and to be judged for it.

While looking down, she could see his boots moving towards her again. He pulled out a small blade from his belt and lifted a lock of her hair.

- A souvenir, if I may?

With one swift move, he cut off the lock and moved his nose over it.

- Too bad we didn't have more time to get to know each other. But it turns out, we are not so different, are we?

- I'm nothing like you.

He grinned again.

- I knew your father. He would agree with you, but you proved him wrong.

His men were leaving. They seemed eager to disappear as fast as possible. The old man paused at the door and looked at Isolde one more time:

- I hope she starts with you, my pretty. I would hate to think you'd have to watch what's about to happen.

The door closed. Its echo rang through the chamber for a while. Then, silence.

The twins were talking between themselves and crying. Luka was still examining Isolde, with curiosity, rather than judgment. Her head was bowed to avoid any contact with others.

- Why are they doing this? - Birdie asked quietly.

- They do this every year. - Luka said. - Mercenaries, paid by the Inquisition, patrol each route that leads to the initiation site for young necromancers.

- But I'm not a necromancer! - shouted the girl with the scar.

- It's not like they'll take your word for it, Relna. That's why we're here.

- Surely they'll let me go once they figure it out!?

The sound of many footsteps marching down the hall made the floor tremble. Isolde could hear Birdie panting uncontrollably.

The door shattered open, and a red tide of robes flooded in. Their boots struck the stone in perfect rhythm. Crimson vestments and golden masks, they moved in one breath, like a single entity.

The chamber was suddenly full, yet more kept coming, until the last ones brought in a coffin. Black, ancient, carved with gold leaf, worn to a dull gleam. The weight of it made the stone floor groan as they set it down.

- Let me go! - said Relna. - I'm not one of them!

The inquisitors gave no answers. They only unsealed the lid.

Inside, a corpse lay whole, with leathery skin stretched tight over its bones. Robes were still immaculate after centuries. A golden halo was nailed to its skull.

Relna shook her head, breathing out a quiet ''No...'' that nobody could hear. Terror crawled down her spine like a cold snake, making her neck hair stand sharp.

They placed the coffin facing the prisoners. Several flies rose up from it and scattered around the room. The air became heavy.

The Inquisitors then marched out in silence, closing the door behind them. Bolts slid into place, one after another. Metal on stone, sealing them with the dead.

Once again, silence followed. Only this time, it was undisturbed. No distant doors creaking, no more footsteps. The cathedral was back to being a ruin. A forgotten tomb of the past.

Everyone stared blankly at the opened coffin before them. For a while, nobody uttered a word. They were sure their captors would return and finish the work. That all of this was just a strange part of it. But nobody was coming.

It was so quiet, Birdie was certain the others could hear her heart beating. But Isolde's hearing was trying to catch a different sound, like another set of footsteps. It made no sense to her, the way they were just left in there. Without torture, without the implied execution. She expected that, in any moment, the Inquisitors would return.

- What do you think they're doing? - she asked.

Luka shrugged.

- Maybe they are sharpening their knives.

Birdie burst into tears again.

- I was kidding!

- It's hardly a moment for that, Luka! - Isolde said. - Birdie, we'll be okay! I promise.

- It's the Saint Aurelia... - said Relna, quietly.

Only then did everyone notice that she was looking at the coffin and quivering uncontrollably.

- Who is Saint Aurelia? - asked Luka.

Relna's eyes were locked to the coffin in such fear that she didn't even blink since the lid was opened.

- Relna?

- She was the Inquisition's blade... - her voice was trembling. - In life, she bled more people in search of necromancers than anyone before or since. They... say she could taste their dark gifts in their blood. That's why they called her the Tongue of God.

Her words clung to the air like incense. Birdie's sobs faltered, feeling her breath caught in her throat.

- So why was she brought here...? - Isolde asked.

Luka was examining the corpse with great interest.

- And how is she so well-preserved?

- Who cares?! - said one of the twins. - How do we get out of here while we can?!

He did not pay attention to her. His head was slightly tilted, as he was examining the runes inside the coffin.

- The hypocrisy of the Inquisition... - he said. - They used necromancy to preserve her corpse.

- They are fighting fire with fire... - said Relna, still staring like hypnotized. - You necromancers deserve everything that happens to you.

- Yet here you are. Witnessing the ''justice'' of your kind. Perhaps we should leave you to it when we escape.

He closed his eyes, focusing on the bone on his necklace.

- Luka?

- Shush. I'm not trained as a Bonewright. I need to focus.

They watched as the little phalanx dangling from his neck began to twitch on its chain, as though something inside it still remembered life. It leaped into the air several times, until it dropped on the ground, where it rolled and jerked like a living thing. Then, before their eyes, the bone stretched, vertebrae bloomed at its end. First a splinter, then a fang, then a full blade of bone that gleamed in the weak light of the candles.

- An axe! - said Isolde, visibly impressed. - That was amazing!

- Tell that to my parents.

- Quickly, free us!

- That's the hardest part...

He closed his eyes again, now focusing on the axe. It was rattling on the stone, then slowly tipped upright, balancing on its haft as if some invisible hand steadied it. Sweat streaked down his temples. His jaw clenched. With a sharp tilt of his head, the weapon suddenly shrieked through the air and buried itself in the pillar, an inch from his skull. Stone dust covered his shoulder.

- Well, - he muttered, forcing a shaky grin. - that was close...

- Try again!

- Izzy... - Birdie cried.

- Not now.

- Izzy, she's gone...

Slowly, their faces turned toward the coffin in front of them. It lay hollow, and its velvet lining was pressed into the shape of a body that was no longer there.

A quiet dread washed over them. Gasps died on their lips, not daring to disturb the sudden hush.

They whipped their heads about, searching the corners, the ceiling, anywhere a body could hide, but the chamber was empty.

- What is that smell? - asked Isolde, still looking around.

Birdie sniffed the air.

- It smells like incense...

Relna dragged herself upright onto her knees, hands trembling in prayer.

- Oh, Nyrr, save me... Nyrr save me... Nyrr, save me... Do not abandon me...

- Calm down... - said Luka.

- No, no, no... She has risen... She walks among the living... That's why they locked her with us...

Sweat and tears washed her pale face. The others froze, caught between disbelief and the raw urgency in her cry. For a heartbeat, the room felt smaller, darker, and impossibly heavy.

- Luka, keep trying. - Isolde said.

The bone axe twitched up and down, setting itself free from the tight cut it made in the pillar. It flew past Luka's ear, scratching it.

The candles flickered, making the enlarged shadow of the coffin move as if alive. The dancing flames swayed light and dark across the chamber, and all eyes followed, expecting something to leap from the darkness at any moment.

Luka's axe suddenly struck his chains with a sharp bang. Everyone jumped as it shattered, sending jagged shards of bone skittering across the floor.

- Damn it. - his voice was low, almost bored. - The chains are enchanted. Of course, they knew we would attempt to free ourselves.

The light of the candles was dying out, dwindling into a suffocating gloom. The smell of incense thickened. It was impossible to breathe without tasting it.

Birdie's sudden silence was unsettling, even to herself. But there was something in the air she was afraid would direct its attention to her if she made a sound.

- Breathe. - Isolde said to her. - We have to stay calm. Think you can do that for me?

The girl nodded, seeking comfort in Isolde's self-assurance that once again, like many times before, she would save her.

Every one of them was waiting for something, unsure what exactly. The twins, being chained in the poorly illuminated part of the chamber, were constantly looking over their shoulders.

Time blurred. A minute, maybe more. Nothing moved.

The only sound was the faint sputter of candles. Birdie's sobs had quieted to hiccups. She sat small and trembling, and Isolde's whispered comfort still hung in the air like a fragile thread keeping her from breaking.

Then Luka leaned towards Isolde, as much as his chains allowed him, and whispered:

- I don't want to alarm your friend, but there's something crouching behind her.

She turned. Birdie's face was buried in her hands. She never noticed the shape crouched beside her, with pale, white circles for eyes, fixed on her left arm.

Isolde froze. If she cried out, Birdie would see it, panic and maybe that thing would strike. With all the strength left in her, she poised herself, as the betraying droplets of sweat rolled down her face. Do something.

She tore against her chains and raised her voice until it cracked through the chamber.

- Come get me! I'm ready, you b***h!

Every head jerked toward her.

- What is she doing?

- Come on! I'm a necromancer! Taste my blood first!

Birdie's wide, childlike eyes blinked in confusion, watching her.

- What's going on, Izzy?

The shadow lunged. Teeth like razors sank into Birdie's arm with a wet snap. A piercing scream tore itself ragged from her chest.

- Birdie!

She collapsed onto her back, thrashing, shrieking. The walls vibrated with her voice. The tiny arm fell to ground beside her, painting the stone red.

Isolde cried her name, but it was drowned in Birdie's agony. The others could only watch and listen, frozen in horror, as her cries broke into raw, mangled sounds. She screamed and screamed, with voice shredding into incoherent shapes. Maybe she tried to call for Isolde, but the sound was only pain, cutting out through her throat without pause.

Isolde pulled against the chains until her wrists burned, desperate to reach her friend. Each twitch, each broken scream tore her apart. She wanted to cover her, to hold her, anything but sit and watch.

Blood pooled around the poor girl and she could not save her. Her own helpless sobs were drowned beneath Birdie's torment. No one would have believed such a guttural, bestial howl could tear its way out of a girl as small as her.

The cries then thinned to broken sounds and, finally, to nothing. The body twitched once more, before it went slack. The silence that came after was worse than screams, and Isolde kept pulling on to her chains, refusing to believe what the stillness meant.

- Birdie! Birdie get up! Please!

- She will kill us all! - cried Relna.

- Shut up! Birdie, please, open your eyes!

Another cry rose from the other side of the chamber. One of the twins was lifted into the air. Her chains were jangling while she kicked and clawed at nothing. She hung there, as if an invisible noose was keeping her suspended.

- Lori! - her sister shouted.

The hanging girl was hurled back down, her skull striking the pillar she was bound to. The sound rang sharp, final.

Isolde's eyes snapped at Luka.

- Do something! - she hissed, aware she was asking the impossible. - You have to!

His face was pale, but steady.

- I can't fight shadows. - he said.

Relna's prayer grew louder, desperate. She pressed her forehead to the floor.

- Saint Aurelia, have mercy on this faithful soul! Take them, not me! I am clean, devoted!

Her voice rang above the silence, raw and trembling. The links on her chains rattled, not from struggle, but because she was being drawn upward. Slowly, as though unseen hands lifted her, she rose from the floor. Her face shone with awe, her body beginning to glow with a faint light that incinerated all the shadows in the chamber.

Something leaned close to her ear, unseen, and she smiled through her tears, whispering: ''I am forgiven.''

For one heartbeat, it looked like deliverance.

Then the glow flared white and hot. Fire burst from her skin. Her prayer broke into a scream, as her body writhed in midair, burning like a torch. The flames consumed her and the light guttered out, dropping her body back into the dark. The smell of burnt flesh was mixed with the smell of incense, forcing everyone to cough. Heavy, black smoke was slow to clear out, eventually revealing a scorched skeleton on the ground.

''I don't want to die...'' uttered the remaining twin sister in her corner. The candles were almost completely out. Isolde squinted through the semi - darkness, looking for Birdie.

- Birdie?! Can you hear me?!

When her eyes finally adjusted, she spotted her friend's petite body, slightly turned over.

- She's alive...

- How do you know? - asked Luka.

- She moved.

One more time, Isolde started pulling. She pulled against the iron until the skin of her wrists snapped, and the hot sting of blood rushed out to mix with centuries of rust. The chain drank it and quenched its old thirst, until the links blackened. Iron flaked to powder, falling from her wrists to the ground with a burning hiss. Luka watched in wonder, trying to recall a text from dusty old tomes that spoke something about this type of magic.

The blackness kept eating up the rest of the chain, letting Isolde drop to her knees after she pushed too hard. She then quickly jumped to her feet and ran to Birdie. The girl was pale, almost gray, her lips bruised blue.

- Birdie! I'm here, sweetie! Please...

- Isolde. - called Luka.

She pulled Birdie into her lap, pressing her against herself, shaking her gently yet urgently, whispering and calling her name over and over.

- Isolde. - Luka called again. - She had lost a lot of blood. I can help her.

Like waking up from a fever dream, she looked down at her bleeding wrists and only just realized that she was free. After gently lowering Birdie's head back on the ground, she got up to free Luka.

But before she could move, the chamber chilled. A shadow thickened, and the saint stepped from it, towering close, faceless, except for the glowing white eyes.

Isolde barely drew breath before she was lifted from the ground. Cold fingers clamped around her throat, then closed. Her vision darkened as the saint bent closer.

Then a bone - spear burst through the saint's skull, sharp as ivory lightning. Holy Aurelia staggered, dropped Isolde, then collapsed onto the ground with a dull thud.

- Quickly! She's not done yet! - Luka shouted, straining against the chains. His hand was still trembling from the strike.

Isolde stumbled forward and dropped over the fallen saint, pressing the wound above the still mouth. Her voice shook, but she forced the words out:

- Here... I heard you have a taste for necromancer blood.

The saint jerked when the first drop touched her lips. Her body arched and smoke rose from her mouth, then flame, until her whole frame convulsed, burning from the inside out.

She clawed herself upright one last time, casting Isolde off herself. Her jaw hung open in a soundless cry, and she raised a bony finger, pointing straight at Isolde. Her voice broke through the chamber, layered with echoes not her own:

- Chosen... of Nyrr.

Before the flame could swallow her, she reached into her own chest, tearing through it.

- What is she doing? - asked Isolde, backing away.

From within Aurelia's hollow chest spilled a swarm of pale maggots, gnawing on her skin. They devoured as they spread, flesh and bone.

- She's making sure there's nothing left of her for necromancers... - Luka whispered. - A fanatic until the very end.

There was no cry. She watched Isolde, with her finger still pointing at her while being devoured.

Isolde got up and ran up to Luka.

- I don't know how to set you free, I don't remember what I did before...

- Your blood. - he said. - Try dropping some onto my chain.

She brushed her bloody wrist against the links, and they immediately absorbed every drop that turned them black, until they crumbled into fine powder.

- Thank you. Quickly now.

They rushed back to Birdie.

- Hey, what about me?! - the twin called.

A metal clank against the ground startled them. The saint's golden halo was rocking in place, freshly dropped. Around it, the crawling mass of maggots began to loosen, scattering across the floor in every direction. They moved with dreadful purpose, seeping into cracks and vanishing into shadow.

Luka crouched next to Birdie and examined what remained of her arm. Most of it was just a bone.

- Can you save her?

- I am no Keeper but I'll do what I can with my own talents.

His face was set like stone, while a storm inside him sought to anchor itself with focus. He pressed his palm near Birdie's stump and closed his eyes. A shiver ran through Birdie's body as her bone began to stir. He could see it like it was right before him: a sea of marrow, moving against its own current.

White splinters pushed outward, knitting across the torn flesh and growing like roots desperate for earth. The sound was faint, unheard by anyone except Luka. It was a dry crackling, with jagged edges that curved and sealed, forming a tight, pale cage over the wound. The bleeding slowed, then stopped, though her arm ended in a grotesque, bone - grown knot.

- There... This is the best I could do... - he said, pulling himself away.

Isolde picked her up again.

- Come on... Open your eyes.

Birdie didn't move, but a soft sigh from her lips made Isolde cry with relief.

- She cannot stay here. - Luka said. - And neither can we.

He waved his hand and the bone spear flew back to him, slowly taking its original phalanx form.

- Thank you, Luka... - said Isolde. - If you weren't here, we...

- Thank me when we're out of here. Do you think your blood could do something about that locked door too?

Isolde shrugged.

- It worked on the chain...

She lowered Birdie's head onto Luka's coat that he placed for her on the ground, then went to the door. Dipping her finger into her blood like it was ink, she drew a circle on the cold metal, until it began to carve itself in, eating up the door.

- It's working... - she said. - Why is this happening now? I've been bleeding before.

- I wish I knew. I've read many tomes, and I've been surrounded by necromancy since birth. But this? I have never seen or heard of anything like it. That magic doesn't come from the union of knowledge and soul. It looks... untamed and primordial, straight from the blood.

- While at it, can you free me already?! - called out twin again.

Isolde helped her out of the chains, then picked up Birdie.

- As extraordinary as your blood may be, you've lost quite a bit of it yourself. - Luka said. - Are you sure you can carry her?

- I'll be fine. She's as light as a bird.

The door was entirely gone, including the hinges that held it. After finding their way through the ruined cathedral, they stepped into a cold sunrise.

- Come. - said Luka and started walking.

- Where?

- The initiation for the Ebon Sanctum is tonight.

Isolde wasn't sure about any unknown destination yet. With Birdie in her arms, she turned around, as if other choices would open before her.

- My grandmother told me to go east. I think I should stay on that course.

- Isolde, that's where the initiation will take place. She was a necromancer. You're one as well. Where do you think she wanted you to go? And, as far as I understand, running from something. There is a safe place for you. Ebon Sanctum is a home, and a place where she can get some proper help. The Keepers are excellent healers. When they want to be.

She looked down at Birdie.

- Can I come too? - the twin asked.

- Are you a necromancer?

- I'm not. At least I don't think I am.

- Well, maybe you could convince them to take you in as a cook or something.

The grey sky was promising rain. A wind came from the south, pushing Isolde from behind, as if to tell her to move.

- Alright. - she said. - What choice do I have, right?

- You always have a choice, Isolde.

They moved against the wind, towards the future at midnight.