Chapter 17: the necromancer

“He… he really just moved!?” shouted Aldah, throwing herself at Vix.

“Incredible,” murmured Vix, calming Aldah down. “You smashed marauders’ heads without flinching, so why are you trembling now?” he added.

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Yeah, right.”

Could it be that she’s the one who summoned those marauders?

Vix was now looking at Lara with interest.

The beast starts smiling.

She’s a necromancer. I felt it when she healed you. That pain you felt—it was me breaking your ribs.

What!?

A regular healer would’ve used their magical element to create fake bones and then cast a spell to prevent rejection while your real bones regenerated. Two of them, at least. But what she did was reattach your actual bones, restore them to their original shape, even revive your dead cells—and all without pain. An operation like that, done raw, would have killed you.

Ryo was dumbfounded.

And if she hadn’t been able to do it?

We’d have gotten you healed somewhere else.

Idiot.

“Well said,” Lara cut in, making the undead sit down. “Now tell us—who sent you, and why?”

The undead slowly lifted his head, the faint creak of dry joints echoing in the silence. His hollow eyes, clouded with a dull, bluish glow, swept across the group before fixing on Lara. When he finally spoke, his voice was coarse and uneven, as though dragged out of a throat not made for speech.

I was nothing more than a petty thief,” the undead confessed, his voice trembling between shame and bitterness. “An ordinary man scraping for coin in the gutters. Then he came—an employer cloaked in secrets—promising us gold if we brought back a certain creature. An Arachne.”

He shuddered, as if the memory itself gnawed at what was left of his soul.

“But we underestimated her. That Arachne devoured part of our band with her swarm of spiders. To the rest of us, she offered a cruel bargain: our lives spared… if we swore to follow her. And so we did. Since that day, we’ve been her shadows—pillaging caravans, slitting throats of couriers, stealing what we could. Survival in exchange for blood.”

His eyes flickered with something close to despair.

“Yet lately, she has grown restless. The raids no longer amuse her. She speaks of a boy—one who carries a beast inside him. She says he fascinates her… and that soon, we will all know why.

Vix narrowed his eyes, arms crossed. “A boy with a beast inside him… Sounds like the kind of nonsense thieves whisper before they lose their heads. You expect us to believe this?”

The undead’s jaw twitched, but his dull gaze held firm. “Believe it or not, her words are chains to us.

Lara leaned forward, her golden eyes gleaming with suspicion. “And this employer of yours—the one who sent you after Arachne. Who was he?”

The undead hesitated, a faint rattle escaping his chest. “I never saw his face. He spoke through others, always hidden. But… he knew of her.

Lara’s expression darkened. “And instead of binding her, you handed yourselves over.”

Vix snorted. “Brilliant. You traded your lives for spider food.”

The undead’s lips curled into something like a smile, eerie and broken. “Better spider food than worm food. At least… until now.”

Lara snapped her fingers, and the corpse grew cold once more.

“And here I was thinking, he was looking for me,” thought Lara as she gazed up at the sky.

“A boy with a beast... I must find him”. Perhaps it's my brother, said Aldah as her fingers brushed against her dangling earring.

Ara ...

---

The heavy oak doors groaned as Vix pushed them open. The manor smelled faintly of lavender and old parchment, the air damp with the ever-present mist conjured by his family’s water spells. Portraits of stern-faced ancestors lined the hall, every one of them holding the same silver chalice—symbol of their legacy as healers of the Azurevein Dynasty.

He stepped into the great chamber where his kin were gathered around a rippling basin of enchanted water.

“You’ve bonded with a courier?” his mother’s voice sliced through the silence. Her eyes—pale blue like polished ice—flashed with anger. “Do you have any idea what disgrace you’ve brought to this house?”

His uncle slammed his hand against the basin, water rippling violently. “Our bloodline has healed kings, emperors, and entire armies! We are Azurevein, wielders of the sacred waters. And you—” his lip curled “—you tie yourself to some… delivery girl?”

Vix shrugged, leaning casually against a marble pillar. “Exactly.”

“You dare mock us?” his mother hissed.

“It’s not mockery,” Vix replied, cold as ever. “It’s rebellion. You wanted me to carry on the dynasty, to heal noble brats who cry over a scraped knee. I’d rather irritate you to death. And nothing irritates you more than me bonding with a courier.”

Gasps rippled through the chamber. A cousin muttered, “Blasphemy…” while another whispered, “He’s tainting the waterline.”

But Vix only smirked. “Face it—you wanted a dutiful heir. What you got is me. And now? I’m going to drag our pristine name through the mud of the streets… and enjoy every second of it.”

The enchanted basin roared, water surging as though the very dynasty itself rejected his words. His family’s faces twisted in outrage, but Vix felt oddly calm. This was his choice, his rebellion—and for once, he was the one pulling the strings.