Chapter 9: The Mistress of Bones

The skeleton tilted his skull at me, mandible wobbling until it clattered free again. With an almost comical patience, he bent, scooped it up, and snapped it back into place like he’d done it a thousand times.

“Is something troubling you, Mistress?” he asked politely, as though he weren’t a rotting sack of bones leading an undead legion in a cavern made of corpses.

Neither Serine nor I managed a single word. We just stared like idiots, mouths open, trying to process the impossible.

“Oh, of course, how discourteous of me, Mistress,” he went on, with the kind of pompous formality you’d expect from a drunk noble at court. He gave a stiff, knightly bow, vertebrae creaking with the effort. “Not to introduce myself before addressing my Mistress—what a disgrace. My name is Arkanthos Veylarion of the Three Suns, Grand Custodian of the Empire of Eryndralith.” He paused, almost sheepish. “Although it is possible you have never heard of us. After all, I died… oh, four thousand, perhaps five thousand years ago. My memory is not what it once was.”

He gave a dry chuckle that rattled from somewhere inside his chest cavity, like dice in a cup. The sound was disturbingly friendly… and yet grotesque enough to make Serine’s face twist like she was about to faint.

Something in me finally snapped back into place. Maybe it was courage. Maybe it was pure stupidity. Either way, I opened my mouth.

“Alright, you filthy pile of bones,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “I don’t know what the hell just happened, but I guess we owe you one for smashing that oversized spider. So… thanks. Very impressive. Bravo.” I clapped my hands once, slow and mocking, the sound echoing around the chamber. “But now we’ll be going, if you don’t mind. We were just passing through, promise we won’t disturb your little bone party.”

I hauled Serine to her feet—she was still trembling so hard she could barely stand—and tried to usher her toward the nearest exit.

“Wait, please, Mistress,” the skeleton said.

Of course. Because why would anything in my life ever be simple?

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Fine. Out with it, bony. What do you want?”

“Want?” Arkanthos tilted his skull as the crowd of undead shifted behind him, all gathering in eerie unison. “I want only to serve you, Mistress. In fact, I speak for all of us when I say—we all wish to serve you.”

My jaw dropped. “…Excuse me, what the fuck do you mean by ‘serve me’?”

He straightened, one hand pressed dramatically to his ribcage. “You have given us life, Mistress, when it was so cruelly torn from us. And so we desire nothing more than to spend this second life in your service.”

That was when Serine finally found her voice, though it came out cracked and horrified:

“Wait—are you saying… Rissa’s powers are necromancy?”

Oh, wonderful. Exactly what I needed.

The word hit me like a hammer. Necromancy. The blackest of all magics. Outlawed everywhere. Punishable by death on sight. If that’s what this was, I was fucked six ways to the afterlife.

But before I could panic properly, Arkanthos reeled back in shock. Then—he laughed. Not a chuckle this time, but a full-on fit of hysterical, bone-rattling laughter. The sound spread like wildfire until the entire cavern of skeletons was roaring with laughter, ribcages shaking, jaws snapping open and shut in grotesque amusement.

When it finally died down, he pointed one skeletal finger at Serine.

“Oh, what a joke! What a marvelous jest, young lady. Truly, you are most amusing.” He wiped at his eye socket as if brushing away tears. “Necromancer, she says! As if our Mistress could be compared to those pathetic puppeteers.”

His tone hardened, becoming almost reverent.

“Necromancy is a crude parlor trick, nothing more. Children playing with corpses, forcing them to dance with borrowed strings of magic. But once the necromancer dies, or his strength wanes, the corpses are nothing again—rotting meat. They have no will, no soul. Just puppets.”

He spread his arms wide, voice echoing through the chamber.

“But us? We live. We think. We fight of our own will. Our souls, long denied rest, have been bound to your power. Some of us even remember who we were before. We are no marionettes, young lady—we are reborn. Fused with the great and boundless soul of our Mistress… the great Rissa.”

And with that, Arkanthos dropped to one knee.

The entire army of skeletons followed.

Thousands of bones clattering in unison, every skull lowered in grotesque devotion, their hollow voices whispering one word that made my skin crawl:

“Mistress.”

“Alright,

Arkanthos-Veylarion-the-Third-of-the-Three-Suns-or-whatever-the-hell-your-ridiculous-name-was,” I finally snapped, my voice dripping with fake cheer. “Honestly, you must’ve spent more time naming yourself than practicing spells. I’ll just call you Bony. Nice and simple. So, listen, if you’re so desperate to serve me, why don’t you make yourself useful and guide us out of these Mist Caves? Maybe murder a monster or two along the way so I don’t have to break a nail. Sound good?”

Arkanthos—Bony—bowed with all the elegance of a rusted door hinge. “As you command, Mistress.”

And that was that.

The entire chamber erupted into motion as thousands of skeletons marched out with us. The sound of rattling bones was so loud it made my teeth itch. Serine looked pale enough to pass for one of them, and honestly, I wasn’t far behind. But I wasn’t about to startle them by suggesting they go back. No, my genius plan was simple: let them play bodyguards until we were out, then dump them like an unwanted litter of kittens.

Hours passed as we trudged through twisting tunnels. I gave up trying to figure out where the hell we were going; visibility was zero thanks to the delightful fog of death rolling off my new entourage. The only upside was the efficiency: whenever a beast jumped out, the skeletons ripped it apart in seconds, without so much as a glance in my direction. No orders, no hesitation, just pure slaughter. Easy. Creepy, but easy.

Eventually, a draft of fresh air reached us, and a faint glow ahead widened into daylight. We stepped out above the clouds, high in the Meridional Range, on the northern side of the continent. From the cliff’s edge, a valley sprawled below, with a little black-roofed village tucked inside. Cinabar, if my luck hadn’t completely abandoned me.

I stretched my arms wide, gulping down fresh air like I hadn’t breathed in years. “Finally. Gods, I thought we were going to die down there choking on skeleton fumes. Alright, Bony, thanks for the escort service. Very professional, five stars. Now, do me a favor and… I don’t know… vanish, explode into dust, do a spooky disappearing act, whatever it is you skeletons do when the job’s done.”

“Eh?” Arkanthos tilted his head. “Mistress, you are mistaken. We cannot simply vanish. We are undead in the truest sense. We will follow you wherever you go.”

“…Come again?”

Serine finally snapped, her voice sharp. “Absolutely not! That would be a disaster! If we walk into the first village with an army of skeletons, we’ll be hanged in the square before nightfall!”

Arkanthos’s sockets flared faintly, and a wave of pressure swept over us. “We would never allow harm to come to Mistress or her companions. Any who threatened her would be exterminated without hesitation.”

The air itself seemed to groan under the weight of his power, and Serine squeaked in terror.

I, on the other hand, pinched my nose and sighed. “Okay, okay, everyone calm down. Look, Bonebag, Serine’s right. We can’t exactly go sightseeing with ten thousand skeletons clattering behind us. Maybe in your time it was fashionable, but nowadays it’s a bit of a faux pas. People get twitchy about the undead. Heretics, gallows, public executions, you get the idea. Not exactly low profile. So no, you can’t come.”

The disappointment on all those empty skulls was almost… pitiful. Almost.

I rubbed my temples, then inspiration struck. “Alright, listen. You want to serve me? Fine. Here’s your task: stay in the Mist Caves. Kill monsters, protect adventurers, keep the roads clear. Make sure no one suffers the way you did. You want purpose? Congratulations, you’ve got one. You’re welcome.”

A collective gasp of excitement swept through the skeletal horde. In eerie unison, most of them turned and began marching back into the mist, rattling with almost childlike enthusiasm.

Serine and I let out twin sighs of relief.

“You are truly a great Mistress,” Arkanthos said, his voice solemn. “You have given us meaning once more. We shall honor you for eternity.”

“Yeah, yeah, bones-for-brains, don’t get sentimental on me. Eternity sounds exhausting. We’re leaving.”

We barely made it three steps before his voice called again.

“Mistress!”

I froze. “…What now?”

“If the problem is attracting attention,” Arkanthos said, “I have a solution.”

And then, with a horrific cracking noise, he twisted his neck, lifted his own skull clean off his spine, and let his body collapse into a heap of bones at our feet. His severed skull turned toward me, jaw clattering, and spoke like this was the most brilliant idea in the world:

“Mistress, take me with you in your bag! I shall advise and aid you wherever you go!”

Serine shrieked, clutching at her chest like she’d been stabbed. The poor girl looked ready to faint.

Me? I just stared at the talking skull in my path, my brain teetering between disgust, hysteria, and—gods help me—a bit of fondness. Because of course, of course, this was my life now.

“Fine, skull-boy,” I muttered, snatching him up by the cranium. “You can ride in my bag. But if you so much as whisper while there are people around, I swear I’ll toss you to the nearest stray dog and let him bury you in his favorite latrine. Got it?”

Arkanthos beamed—well, as much as a skull could beam. “Yes, Mistress!”

“Fantastic,” I grumbled, shoving him into my pack. “Mistress of Bones. Exactly the career path I dreamed of as a little girl.”