Chapter Twenty Six

Cinna had waited until the last possible moment hoping she could avoid this confrontation. If either bridge had been intact she would have been free to find an excuse to keep Lilia close and continue building a rapport with her. Even after seeing the throng of undead attempting to force their way across the Stryk Cinna had wondered if there might be a way past them that wouldn’t require asking Lilia about her abilities directly.

But in the end that hope had gone unanswered. It would have been too risky. Better to take a longer but safer route than to risk catching the attention of numerous liches while trying to cross the river. The only problem was that making this route safer required Lilia’s secret skills. Of course, if Cinna proved to be particularly lucky then Lilia might have some way of making the crossing safely instead, but either way she hadn’t wanted to talk it over within sight of an undead army.

“I’m telling the truth! What’s a necromancer? Never heard of them!” Lilia denied once more. Cinna saw the way her eyes swam around as if in search of a lifeline, though, and she heard the tremor in the girl’s voice.

“Lilia, please. I understand why you’re afraid of being found out, but I’m on your side. I deeply regret the loss of life that occurred a year ago and my failure to protect Selkarc’s necromancers. Let me help you,” Cinna pleaded.

“Loss of…? What are you talking about?” Lilia questioned. Cinna inhaled sharply. Back when Lilia had asked about the Day of Revelation Cinna had only told her a partial truth. She’d told her about the message handed down by the gods but decided addressing the witch hunt that followed was unnecessary. Either Lilia knew of it already, in which case telling her was pointless, or she didn’t, in which case there was no way of predicting how she’d react.

Now, though, there could be no avoiding it.

“One year ago, on the Day of Revelation, the gods handed down a message to their oracles informing them that Barkolt slew the god of death, Mortos, and then abandoned this world in fear. I told you this part already. What I left out is that in the wake of this announcement came a mass lynching of necromancers that rendered practitioners nearly extinct,” Cinna explained slowly, watching Lilia’s expression carefully. “As one of Selkarc’s generals and a member of the royal family I attempted to intervene, but…by the time I knew it was already too late.”

Lilia appeared to be considering the implications of that information for several seconds. Then her expression morphed into a mask of horror.

“No…but then…that means that Master…” Lilia muttered, gaze falling to the ground. She took several unsteady steps backwards.

“Your master…is most likely dead. I suspect he noticed danger closing in and took steps to protect you at the expense of his own life,” Cinna confirmed softly. “I’m sorry you had to learn this way.”

“He can’t be. He said he would come back for me. He’s just busy, that’s all. He knew he might be late; that’s why he told me I could leave on my own if he took so long,” Lilia argued desperately.

Considering the short amount of time Lilia had known the man for, Cinna didn’t think her state of denial stemmed from her closeness to him. It was more likely a result of her long period of isolation with only her master’s promise to return keeping her grounded. Undead familiars were no substitute for other people. Spending an entire year without seeing or hearing a single other person would drive anyone to madness.

“Lilia—”

“Don’t come any closer!” Lilia yelled the moment Cinna took a step towards her. The princess froze, wary of upsetting the distraught necromancer any further. That proved to be the right call; a skeletal bear and a bobcat with half its face missing appeared from behind some nearby rocks and rushed to Lilia’s rescue, interposing themselves between Lilia and Cinna. Even if they were undead they were only animals. Cinna had more than enough time to retrieve her weapons and strike them down, but she held herself still.

“Lilia, it’s alright. We’ve been travelling together for weeks and I’ve known the entire time. If I wanted to hurt you I could have by now. And if you wanted to hurt me, you had every opportunity to do so,” Cinna assured her companion. She waved her empty hands for emphasis, reminding Lilia again that she’d voluntarily disarmed herself as a show of good faith.

“But…Master said not to tell anyone. It was the last thing he told me. I can’t tell anyone. I’m a good girl and good girls do what they’re told,” Lilia insisted, as if she were quoting a phrase she’d been told a thousand times.

“How old are you?” Cinna questioned, catching the girl off guard with the apparent non-sequitur. She blinked several times in confusion before answering.

“Seventeen…or eighteen, now, I guess,” she replied. Cinna nodded.

“Then you’re not a girl anymore. You’re a woman. And women can make their own decisions,” Cinna pointed out. “It doesn’t sound like your master told you what to do if someone else guessed your identity, anyway. You have no orders and you’re old enough to be your own person. What do you want to do?”

Seconds ticked by while Lilia mulled the question over. She looked to her familiars as if hoping they might give her a hint. Then she looked at Cinna questioningly, begging her to tell her what to do. Cinna kept silent, though. Lilia seemed to be close to a breakthrough. If Cinna gave her an order right now Lilia would likely obey just to avoid making a decision on her own, but that wasn’t what Cinna wanted.

She needed Lilia to choose to cooperate. To break free of her subservient mindset. In the short term mere obedience might be enough, but having her freeze up the moment she ran into a situation she didn’t have instructions for might prove catastrophic down the road. What Cinna wanted wasn’t a mindless servant but an intelligent and capable necromancer that could help her bring Selkarc back from the brink of destruction.

“I…don’t know,” Lilia admitted in a small voice. “I just wanted to get back to my parents so they could tell me what to do next. But now I don’t even know where they are.”

Cinna opted not to point out that they might well be dead as well. The poor woman had had enough shocks to her system for one day and making her think about that just seemed cruel at this point.

“Then finding them can be your goal. Not to ask them what you should do, but to see them again,” Cinna said instead. “To do that we’re going to need every tool at your disposal. And that means no more hiding what you are.”

“Okay.” Lilia took a deep breath. Then she seemed to notice for the first time that her familiars had revealed themselves in order to protect her. “I…guess there’s nothing left to hide now though.”

“You should say it anyway. In your own words,” Cinna pressed gently.

“Right. Yeah. Um…well, I’m a necromancer. Nice to meet you?” Lilia stated as if introducing herself.

“And who are these two?” Cinna asked.

“Oh! This is Cyclops, and that’s Mr. Bearbones,” Lilia introduced, growing more excited.

Cinna looked at the bird that had returned to Lilia’s shoulder at some point and then back to the bear.

“I’m beginning to see a pattern here. Pardon me for asking, but did you name this one barebones because his bones are bare?”

“Yes, I named him Mr. Bearbones because he’s a bear’s bones,” Lilia replied obliviously. “You musn’t forget the “Mr.” That’s part of his name.”

“Of course it is.” Cinna sighed and shook her head. “Well, that’s introductions out of the way. I’d like to get a better idea of what you can do, if you don’t mind. Let’s have a seat and talk.”

After collecting her weapons Cinna took a seat across from Lilia. The spot she’d picked for this conversation was already a good enough place to hide from any wandering undead so she didn’t feel the need to search for a better one. Lilia sat with her back against Mr. Bearbones’ ribcage and with Cyclops on her lap, purring away.

“I’ll be honest here. I don’t know very much about necromancers or what they can do. Most of our institutional knowledge of the art has been lost along with its practitioners. Few texts survive and our closest thing to a living necromancer is a knight whose father and sister were necromancers themselves. So you’ll have to excuse my ignorance if this is a question with an obvious answer, but could you get us across the Stryk River or do anything about the army attacking the fortress on the other side?” Cinna began.

“Probably not…? I ran into one of those liches before meeting you and it wouldn’t listen to me. Even the draugr only listen if my orders don’t go against whatever they’re already being told to do,” Lilia explained.

“Someone is giving them orders?” Cinna asked sharply, leaning forward. If true, that confirmed a suspicion of hers that she’d had no hard proof of before now.

“I think so. I never learned how to attach spells to souls, but I can still see them. Usually the ones that are patrolling have orders. The ones that are just standing around or still reviving don’t though,” Lilia answered. Cyclops rolled over in her lap and batted at her chin until Lilia started petting him with both hands.

“Reviving. Could you explain what you mean by that?” It was Lilia’s phrasing that had caught Cinna’s attention. Not “being revived,” but “reviving.” As if it wasn’t being done to them but something they were doing on their own. To her understanding undead didn’t simply come into existence on their own. If Lilia had proof otherwise…

It would answer quite a few questions, to say the least.

“Mmmm…can you see souls? Mom and dad always said most people can’t. So did Master. But it’s kind of hard to explain if you can’t….” Lilia screwed her face up in consternation as she searched for an explanation.

“No. That’s a technique unique to necromancers, I believe. I’ve never heard any other mages mention it, at any rate.”

“Well…um, normally souls just kind of fly away when something dies, right? They stopped doing that at some point. Now they sort of sit there. They come loose but stay connected enough for mana to keep coming through. I’ve been calling them not-dead because they never really died, they just stopped moving until their soul crystals form,” Lilia said slowly, grasping for the words.

Lilia’s words called to mind the crystal Leo had brought back from his assignment. All this time Cinna had suspected that strange object to be connected to the rogue undead problem plaguing Selkarc and now she had confirmation. Already Lilia had provided her with vital intelligence that could change the way Selkarc fought the undead army.

“…would you be willing to answer some more questions?”

“I’d love to!”