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The letter opener came out again, and I pricked the middle finger of my right hand as a final "fuck you" and pressed it with unnecessary pressure on the scroll until the blood leaked through the parchment. It didn't make a difference how much blood was offered to the spell, but I figured since the Gilamorst Necromancy Guild was not above breaking the backs of its more talented members to gain a profit, they wouldn't mind the extra contribution to their stupid scroll. Nebold must be beyond desperate to give the royal family some kind of measurable result to be reaching out to me for an audience. We hadn't clashed since my entrance ceremony to the guild five years ago. And I may have raised the entire mausoleum beneath the guild hall to prove a woman could be a skilled necromancer, after he made a back-handed comment about hoping the guild could help me achieve my dreams to be a passable necromancer. The thoughtless statement completely invalidated the rigorous practical and written examinations I passed to even set foot through the doors, much less several more rounds of interviews and presentations to validate my skills.

The spell activated, a pale green fire sprung from the rune circle and quickly spread across the parchment, twisting and changing form to that of a small, shadowy bird hovering in front of my face and leaving a small pile of ash behind. It hovered for a moment before turning to sail straight through the wall, as if responding to a call. I leaned back in the simple wooden chair until the front two feet lifted off the floor, holding one elbow in the palm of the other hand as I watched the small wound on my fingertip stitch itself back together and absorb ruby-red droplets back beneath my skin.

"Let's dance, Guildmaster."

For it being the first days of the Chilled season, the nights were hardly cool enough to warrant a coat. Nonetheless, I donned a light one to avoid the strange side glances as I made my way down the cobbled roads to the Gilamorst Cemetery. Tucked under my arm was a vibrant bouquet of wiranblood flowers, completing the look of a mourner going to visit a loved one’s burial site.

Iwasgoing to visit someone, just not in the traditional sense.

Trisne’s unmarked grave was one of the furthest back from the main gate, like someone had tried to tuck her away out of sight. The Pid mausoleum was prominently placed in the front of the burial grounds for everyone to admire its intricate architecture, like every other noble family. Not many families, the rich included, could afford the amount of gold-cast decorations andstained-glass windows as that obnoxious creation. It sickened me to think of all the things those people wasted drummons on. It sickened me even more when I learned Jinon didn’t even have Trisne listed on the plaque mounted to the front of the mausoleum, or any indication of her ever existing as part of the family.

Her plot remained untouched from my last visit. From how far back it was hidden in the burial grounds, that was not much of a surprise. The haronhock and weeping jurlans had taken over the entire area with their thorny vines, spreading unchecked to creep over nearby gravestones long left untended. Truly, it was a beautiful display of nature overtaking this little corner of a grim piece of land.

“Hello again, Lady Trisne.” I bowed at the foot of her plot. “I hope you are amenable to helping me with terrorizing some entitled old men. What do you say?”

A light breeze teased the overgrown bushes, making it seem like they shuddered with excitement. I took that as a yes.

“Excellent.”

Gently, I laid the wiranblood flowers at my feet. Against the dark soil they looked like their namesake, as if Wira herself had cut her wrist over this poor girl’s grave. It was a moonless night—no sight of the double Wiran moons ideal for necromancy—so I had to bring along some tools of my trade to help with my ceremony. From my satchel I pulled a silver chalice, haronhock oil, dew collected over a moon phase, a simple dagger in a hardened leather sheath, and a red woven throw to lay everything out on.

Because of my… condition, the temperature of the ground as I knelt was almost negligible. Most temperatures, hot or cold, were difficult to feel. I sat back on my ankles and reached for the chalice and haronhock oil to begin the ritual. With my teeth I pulled the glove of my right hand off to drip oil along theinside walls of the heavy cup and spread it with my fingers. The analgesic properties set my fingertips tingling.

“Dark Goddess Wira,” my voice was heavy and low in the night. “I beseech you, please grant me your blessing.” I set the chalice down at the foot of Trisne’s grave and lifted the dagger. The drag of its blade against the sheath as it was pulled out was the only sound that dared be heard. Everything else had fallen silent, like the goddess was walking among the tombstones. “Let me borrow your strength and temper it with your immeasurable wisdom. Let me borrow the body this soul once belonged to, and I will lend you my soul in return.”

The wicked-sharp blade barely touched my skin to split it open. Dark red blood dribbled slowly down my wrist to land in the anointed chalice. Every drop that touched the oiled metal sizzled as if feeding a fire, magic sparking in bursts of indigo and burgundy as the spell was fed. Runes of the Old Language lit along the outside of the chalice and cast a silvery glow across the dark soil and dead grass. I flexed my hand a few times to keep the sluggish blood pumping enough to give the spell its fill. It didn’t take long, the spark fizzled out to signal it had received enough. I didn’t bother with compressing the cut, it would stop bleeding on its own soon, and brought over the dew in its thin bottle.

“Quench your thirst, Lady of the Dead. I welcome you to the mortal world.”

At the first touch of dew dripping into the chalice, a blast of air blew my hair back and threatened to topple me straight onto my ass. An unhinged grin pulled my lips back as wild magic poured through my veins, sending my blood to boiling and lighting me up from the inside. It was exhilarating, like riding a kisteral without a bridle or jumping from the tallest tower in Respar. It was partly terrifying and partly freeing, a feeling that would never get old no matter how many times I invoked Wira’s help.

The chalice emptied, blood sloshing around the sides as a small vortex formed in its center, like something was sucking the liquid down from the bottom. And in exchange, a surge of magic filled me like water breaking a dam, filling the bone-dry creek bed of my soul. I had to act quickly, though. Wira did not take kindly to necromancers who wasted her time.

I held my hand, still bloodied from the ritual, over the grave of the girl so horribly wronged. At first, the tremors were almost unnoticeable, barely shifting the loose soil lying atop her resting place. But soon the earth bowed up, bending the bars of the cage surrounding her coffin until the metal screamed and tore apart. A single hand, flesh barely clinging to the bone, punched up from the small mound and clawed at the surrounding ground to pull the rest out of the grave. Pale pink silk appeared next, stained with ichor and rotten flesh where it cinched tight at the wrist with tiny gold buttons. It was not the customary black of a burial shroud.

Trisne had been buried in whatever she was wearing at the last event she attended. Even that small detail filled me with a rage I almost choked on. I didn’t know her very well—we obviously didn’t run in the same noble circles—but I had been introduced to her by other clients and the times we did speak were pleasant. She had been a passionate girl with a thirst for knowledge, and when she found out I was a necromancer, spent the rest of that evening pelting me with questions about the profession. Trisne had grand plans of moving to the City of Scholars to train under a researcher, with an interest in aeromancy.

She was such a bright flame, snuffed out much too soon. But I was determined to find the water that doused her. I rose to my feet and waited for the rest of her corpse to join me above ground.

It hadn’t been long since she was buried, so she was still recognizable by the caramel ringlets once pulled up in an eleganthairstyle with a sprig of haronhock flowers pinned in, now dried up and crumbling onto her scalp. The light pink dress was absolutely destroyed, hanging in tatters from the waist down to expose her whole upper body and the horrible evidence of her death. Scattered among the discoloration of old bruises and the natural pooling of blood in a corpse, there were several strategic cuts over every major organ. Given that the whole torso was not cut open, it gave the impression each part was harvested while she was being kept unnaturally alive. Bits and pieces of this poor girl had been cut away, and she had likely suffered through every second of it until she was released from that torture when she died.

It was a violent death, but it was also deviously meticulous. I could imagine either a highly skilled necromancer like myself would have been able to sustain her like that… or a moderately skilled hydromancer forcing her blood to circulate under those horrendous conditions.

Trisne stood before me now, and all I could feel was rage.

It was no secret that women were seen as lesser than in Respar. The country was just over a hundred years old, it didn’t have the benefit of centuries of knowledge like Julra or Golath. The City of Scholars to the north technically sat inside its borders, but it claimed immunity to the influence of the ruling family under the effort of neutrality. When the land was only split by Julra and Golath, the City of Scholars was a space unto itself unbothered by the nomadic tribes that wandered the unclaimed land. The Covenant Library was probably the only self-sustained entity that employed equal parts men and women, rewarded for their prowess in research and document preservation instead of magic capabilities.

Trisne had shown an interest in being one of those library researchers. Once she realized her chances of marrying Prince Irin were slim, she was vocal in admitting her wish to leavefor the Covenant Library. I had only met her on a few occasions, mostly events co-organized by the guilds to mingle with potential clients, but Trisne Pid had struck me as a practical and sincere person. Whoever did this to her did it for their own selfish motives, not out of revenge or anger toward her.

“Lady Trisne,” I fought to keep my voice smooth, “who did this to you? Who killed you?”

At first, she just stood there still as the statues scattered through the burial grounds. There were no eyes to speak of. Only gaping, ragged holes remained in their place from being brutally ripped from her head. She had no way of showing recognition or confusion, and her mouth hung loose on her jaw from the deteriorating muscle showing through tattered skin. There was no brain activity to speak of—I relied on the imprint of her last moments of life and the barest minimum of nerve activity to loosen her body enough to move.

Finally, a low moan rattled from Trisne’s open mouth. It sounded mournful and lost, like she was about to cry. “H… He… She…” she began. The words were obviously hard to get out. “He… search…ing… tome…” The rest was garbled sounds and hacking as the rest of her response lodged in a collapsing throat.

Searching? Tome? The message didn’t make sense. I could perform an additional spell to try finding the whole answer, but from what organs had been taken from her body, I gathered there was some kind of dark magic that was interfering with my own. Also, since her eyes had been gouged out, there was little chance she could give physical descriptions. The body was only able to tell what it could gather from the five senses. Since she didn’t start with what they looked like, I doubted she actually saw her attackers before she was disfigured so horribly. Multiple people were involved in her capture, that much I was sure of.

“After you, my lady.” Together we picked our way back through the still night, avoiding the most direct path throughthe tombstones in favor of the flat paved walkways for her shambling body. At the gate I cloaked us in a cloaking spell, and we left to carry out just a bit of the revenge owed to Trisne Pid.