Page 2

Chapter two

Rainwater ran in rivulets along the mottled body.

“Necromancer?” The disheveled man shifted the weight in his arms, his voice breathless with hope.

“The one and only.” She beckoned him in. Death sure is a greedy beast this evening.

Through the kitchen, Lux lit a lamp in an adjoining room. A room where the dead kept her company and the living were only allowed for the time it took to deposit their coin. The flickering light danced off the body’s unfortunate pallor before discovering the shelves. Spreading out like a scarce sunburst, the shelves slanted away from a single window, their angle just enough to notice but not so severe as to render them useless.

Arranged with an assortment of decanters sloshing with liquid, pots of powders both fine and coarse, and jars of talons, teeth, and wings, the display was unique to her profession and hers alone. A necromancer, just as a full glimpse of sunlight in Ghadra, was very, very rare. It remained one of the few things Lux was proud of.

The burnt smell rising from the snuffed match twined through the air. Below the window, several creeping plants shrank away from its path. Overly sensitive, their tendrils tentatively ventured toward the window from the worn countertop again once it dissipated. All these years spent in this apartment and she still hadn’t found a use for them, but she kept them anyway.

Lux patted the bare table engulfing the room, dark wood gleaming after being thoroughly cleaned from the previous occupant. The man sniffed loudly, laying the body as if it were a newborn babe on the hard surface. He swiped at his nose, stepping back.

“Payment first, if you would.” She kindly relayed the sum.

The man balked, eyes bulging. “So much?” When Lux only blinked like an expectant owl, he gave in, fishing within his dripping, long coat.

He made to drop the gold coins into her hand, but Lux shook her head, inclining it toward the stone jar perched on the counter. With several loud pings, the payment was made. She cracked her neck with the push of her palm.

“How long has he been—”

“Five, maybe six hours,” he rushed in, interrupting her, giving Lux the feeling that hearing the word ‘dead’ would have been his undoing.

She stilled, her hands retracting to her sides. “Which is it? The timeframe is very important here.”

His eyes darted around the dim room as he thought, fingers counting silently. “Six. Six.”

She nodded. Good . Anything less and all her efforts would have been wasted. A handful more and—she twitched. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, think about it.

Undressing the body to the skin, she handed the items to the anxiously awaiting partner—for that’s whom she’d decided he was—and shooed him into her living room. She didn’t like people watching her work. In fact, she didn’t like people looking at her at all. Invisibility, when she could manage it, had become her armor over the years.

As she covered the dead man with a thin white cloth, Lux scanned up his length. No obvious signs of trauma. He still appeared a healthy weight. “Bad heart, maybe.” She shrugged. She wasn’t a physician, merely guessing, as the cause of death outside of old age mattered little, after all.

Lux peeled back eyelids to reveal fixed pupils embedded within cerulean irises. “Pretty.” The man’s head remained positioned at an awkward angle, but it couldn’t be helped now. Rigor mortis had thoroughly set in—as it must be. Languid bodies meant death was recent. Soft bodies meant warm, red blood.

Lux huffed through her nose.

Turning from the table, she quickly surveyed the assorted ingredients dotting the shelves. Six hours meant she didn’t need the howler’s teeth. Thank fate .

With a step stool, she pulled down two decanters, a jar, and several small pots before stepping down to haul a mortar and pestle to the forefront. Swatting at the weaving, green vines brushing against her in greeting, she set to work.

“You’re lucky I don’t toss you out,” she told them. But just as with half the contents of the alcove, while they may be useless, they were precious to her. It was the sentimental ridiculousness of it all that ensured she would never follow through on her threats.

Grinding a wyvern claw took nearly as much effort as the dratted teeth, and soon Lux’s body flushed with it. Down to a fine powder now, she added mashed marsh snapper eyes, a spoonful of snake venom, shredding the batwing into thin strings. A few more bits and pieces, liquids and powders, and the entire concoction was complete.

It looked like marsh mud, and it smelled even worse. Years had gone by, and Lux still hadn’t gotten used to it. She crushed a sprig of mint beneath her nose. “Your man better not have been wrong about you,” she told the body at her back. “These aren’t any old healer’s ingredients; I have to buy them special.”

Carrying the paste, she placed it beside the man’s fixed eyes. Dipping her fingers into the bowl, she painted in thick strokes beneath the lashes, swiping up into their corners. Pulling back the cloth covering, she drew the required array of intricate whorls from the center of the body’s chest down to the navel. Symbols that were ingrained into her mind’s eye and crucial to define. A final flourish embellished each hip.

She used it all as it didn’t work to skimp. She’d tried that before.

The Rise enchantment, as it was so named, was intense. It sapped so much of her strength every time. Yet, she’d perfected it years ago, memorized it even before then. Still, she laid out the leather-bound book, the one that smelled of musty parchment and herbs, and ran an unsoiled finger over the words. Their familiarity always eased the twinge of nerves that threatened before she began.

Confidence had never been counted among her strengths.

She cupped the man’s face gently with both hands, pressing her thumbs to his open eyes. She closed her own. “ Back from Death we beckon. ” With the very first turn of phrase, Lux felt the congealed silver loosen, and with the second, begin to churn.

Lifeblood.

She’d seen it once. Confined to a vial deep within the town’s Dark Market, the silver liquid shimmered even in the darkness. She didn’t know how it was taken, didn’t know why. But she did know it was blasphemy.

If the lifeblood were removed, there would never be any coming back.

Her woven will within the incantation’s uttered words penetrated the body now, delving into the space once occupied by the departed soul, dragging the silvery substance with it. It called to the soul, urged it back from the Beyond. Feeding on the thick potion smeared on the man’s face and body, the whorls flared bright as starlight before absorbing into his skin, glimmering as it grew in strength, and drained Lux’s own. The final words:

“ From untimely death, we bid you Rise.”

Lux opened her eyes and one at a time, removed her fingers from the man’s face. The grey skin flushed, again and again, molten waves of heat crashing and receding, only to crash once more. Until, finally, it didn’t depart. The bloom remained in his skin, soft and warm.

Lux always felt there was such beauty to be found in the greys and blues of death, but she’d yet to find a person who felt likewise. The blush of life was all that anyone desired. Luckily for this man, it was his to claim once more.

The muscles of the body’s neck released, and his head lolled to one side. Several heartbeats of Lux’s own and the one beneath started to beat as well; weak at first, but quickly rising in tempo, until it bounded with such vigor, Lux heard the echo within her ears.

And finally—the gasping breath of revival.

“Where am I?”

“Don’t move.” Lux stepped into his vision, and the man recoiled, eyes wide. “I’ll get your companion.”

She strode to the doorway, calling out, and was nearly toppled by the man in his haste to reach his partner. Falling to the table’s side, he sobbed heaving gulps into his chest. The resurrected man, in contrast, stayed silent. Lux might have wondered after it if it weren’t for how he held him: vice-like beneath blanched fingers.

She backed away. These moments brought her a twinge of relief, but it mingled too heavily with sorrow. Nose wrinkling, she spun from the reunion and out of the room.

In his haste, the man had scattered clothing across the scuffed wooden floor, so she scooped them up with a lengthy sigh. They weren’t high quality, she realized, taking in the patched trousers and frayed neckline. This family did not possess much.

The familiar stab of guilt met her insides, and the sensation continued to build as she passed the clothing to brown, work-worn hands shaking with gratitude. This gift of life wouldn’t be long-lasting, she was fairly sure, and it soured her stomach.

Ruptured insides, broken bones, gaping wounds, a sweeping infection—those were easily remedied once Death inevitably called. But if the vessel, if a person’s very makeup was irrevocably altered from birth, that Lux couldn’t change.

She had an inkling this one fell into the latter category. Lux could stave it off for a time, but his insides would fail again. They were never meant to last this long. Another few years history would be sure to repeat itself.

She only hoped his husband would be able to procure funds a second time. If not, his beloved was destined for a lumbering wagon ride across the bridge, and into the twisted forest beyond.

The dead were forever silent there.