Necromancer Revealed: Book 3

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  Sparkling green leaves and red berries burst out of Jon’s. Mine stayed dead. Echo’s and the rest of the class’s, however... Well, their vines came alive all right. After unwinding slowly, their dead vines struck like snakes. They attacked their necks, looped around, and squeezed.

  “Echo!” I shouted as her vine yanked her up out of her seat. She and my other classmates, too, except Jon and me.

  It all happened so fast. Their legs kicked fiercely as they clawed at the vines strangling them, their faces starting to turn red. Up and up they went as the other ends of their vines swung around the crossbeams on the ceiling.

  Professor Lipskin surged to his feet, spread his hands out, and yelled, “Plantabis illos in.”

  The vines released them and they dropped fast.

  “Tarda!”

  They sank slowly back into their seats. Echo rubbed her neck and nodded at us that she was okay. The dead vines swung overhead in the same mocking rhythm. Mine lay like a pile of failure in front of me, but it was better than being hanged. Besides, it was hard to care about much of anything since I’d blown my chance at attacking the skin-walker.

  Jon started to gather his live one into his lap as if to hide it, but I shot out my arm and stopped him.

  “Own the awesome,” I whispered. “If anyone deserves it, you do.”

  He grinned and left his vine on the table.

  “Well.” The professor blew out a breath that spiked his single tuft of white hair straight up. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  The class laughed nervously and eyed the swinging vines over our heads.

  “Enough!” He slammed his fist down on his desk. "I hate things that amuse you. That sound you just made is like a demon screeching in my ears, and I hate demons."

  The classroom immediately went silent except for the scratches of Jon's quill on his parchment.

  He raised his hand, and without stopping his note-taking or looking up, he blurted, "Professor, is there anything you do like?"

  Jon's question sounded so innocent, but I detected its barbs that could probe underneath the professor's skin and help peel it back. Like Professor Wadluck and Professor Woolery, was Professor Lipskin also keeping secrets?

  With his head angled, he peered at Jon with one eye. "Anything I like?"

  "I'm just wondering when we'll get to that part of the course and if those items will be on the year-end exam." Jon dipped his quill into the ink pot, still gazing expectantly at the professor. "Anything? I mean, you must like something other than Undead Botany. Right?"

  "Terror."

  "Um..." Jon shrugged and wrote that down.

  "Desperation.” He stared hard at Jon, and the purple vein in his forehead throbbed. “Those are things I like. The kind that drives you toward something so outside the box of what's considered normal, that you'll never, ever return to who you were."

  It sure sounded like he'd love me, then.

  "The kind of terror and desperation that Ryze must have felt before he separated himself into the six Stones of Amaria."

  The room fell dead silent. I squirmed in my seat, my stomach turning. This wasn't how I suspected his thought process would go.

  "He was terrified of the people of Amaria because he knew his reign was coming to an end. He would've never admitted it, but he was. Why else would he do something so desperate as to split his soul so he could come back eventually? That's what I like. For people who truly deserve it to feel terror and desperation. That's what he will feel again. We have to make sure of it so magic, so life, returns to normal for us all." His voice shook with emotion as he stared out at the class, his hands balled into fists at his sides. "And we'll end him for good this time."

  "How?" I demanded, my voice hard.

  The whole class turned to look at me, their stares like needles, but I ignored them. My attention remained riveted to the professor.

  "It will take a lot of very brave people,” he said. “Ryze will have to be killed so his soul passes through the spirit door, and the stones and his body will need to be destroyed so that his soul and body can never merge again."

  Jon leaned forward and hunched over the table, a green tinge to his face. The onyx couldn't be destroyed if Seph still held it and wouldn't let go. If someone tried, they could hurt Seph or themselves. I could hear his whole thought process because I'd had the same one again and again.

  "Breathe," I muttered and squeezed his shoulder.

  He nodded and drew in deep breath.

  "But there are other stones," a guy in the back row piped up. "Even if the six stones are destroyed, he could use six others, right?"

  "Technically yes,” the professor said, nodding. “And it doesn't have to be valuable stones either. You can split the six parts of a soul into anything. But because he's done it before, that changes things. According to the Book of Black Shadows, a spellbook filled with the darkest, blackest magic, splitting a soul changes the stones, or whatever is used to contain the soul. They almost take on a life of their own while a part of a soul is trapped inside. Some say the onyx whispered to them, made them...do things."

  A low murmur rolled through the classroom. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to relive this part when it still haunted me day and night.

  "Like Sepharalotta?" a girl right behind me asked. "Is that why she—"

  I shoved to my feet, the backs of my knees slamming into my chair and making it screech across the stone floor. "How did it change the stones?" That's what I wanted to ask, but I couldn't be sure I had since my whole body quaked and crashed my blood between my ears.

  Once again, everyone stared. Some even drew back and flinched. Had I shouted the question? Or was my face revealing exactly how I felt—raw, damaged, and mad with the need for vengeance? Possibly all of that.

  On either side of me, Jon and Echo tugged at my hands, and I blinked down at Jon.

  "Breathe," he mouthed.

  I forced a breath and sat, grateful I wasn’t alone in this. Because I had been when I first arrived here, and it had been Seph who'd shown me I didn't have to be.

  The professor flicked his hard gaze to me, a flicker of understanding in their depths. "Ryze's soul is already tethered to the stones. If Ryze decides to split his soul again, it will be much, much harder to resist those tethers and direct the six parts to another six objects. The spell is already hard enough as it is."

  "But if you destroy the stone, wouldn't you destroy the tether?" Echo asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  "So destroying the stones will ensure he has nowhere to go except through the spirit door,” I said. “Once he dies, anyway."

  Professor Lipskin nodded. "That’s the way of it, yes."

  Jon gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white. "And if the onyx is in the hand of the most beautiful princess in existence? How do you destroy that stone without hurting her?"

  The pain in his voice threatened to rip me apart, piece by slow, excruciating piece.

  "I don't know." The professor bowed his head, and the tuft of white hair wilted to his forehead again. "I really don't know."

  Chapter Nine

  I SNAPPED AWAKE, AND my stiff neck instantly regretted it. I'd fallen asleep on my room’s floor with my back against the side of my bed and with my head bowed over The Book of Black Shadows spread open on my lap. I'd been reading about the soul-splitting spell, big, powerfully dark magic that knocked many into mage's oblivion if they even tried it. Plus, if done on another person, it could split the spell-caster’s soul apart too.

  The Book also said the six parts of a soul were named Ipsam, Ka, Ib, Ba, Sheut, and Magicae. Ipsam was the part that contained one’s name, Ka is one’s essence, Ib is the heart, Ba is one’s motivation, Sheut is a person’s shadow, and Magicae is the part that can hold magic. I didn’t know which part of Ryze’s soul the onyx had held, but I guessed the Ib, or his heart, since it was the darkest. Splitting a soul like this was the only way someone could come fully back from the de
ad, and it had to be done before their soul crossed through the spirit door, usually within five minutes after death. Necromancy without combining the soul with the body resulted in violent, mindless killers like what had chased Ramsey and me through the catacombs. The stones, or whatever held the individual parts of the soul, had to be activated first by a pure soul before reunited with the body though.

  A pure soul like Seph. Like Leo.

  A tapping sound came from outside the door. Was that what had woken me? Normally when someone wanted in, they barged right on in to scare me or watch me sleep. Not tonight.

  I tried to stand but realized I was attached to a furry gray mass that slept next to my feet. One of Nebbles's murder claws had hooked into my sock and poked my pinky toe. My heart melted at the sight. This was strangely touching—and strange touching—that she wanted to sleep close to me in order to stab me. Progress!

  Gently so I wouldn’t wake her, I unhooked myself and then crossed to the door. On the other side stood a raven with a roll of parchment in its beak. After retrieving and unrolling it, I found two scrawled words: IT'S TIME.

  Um, time for what?

  Another raven breezed through the closed stairway door at the end of the hall, another roll of parchment in its beak, and it landed in front of a door near the bathrooms at the very end. After a moment of its tapping, Echo answered with half-closed eyes, sleep lines crisscrossing her face, and her blonde hair a mess. Our blood bond scented the air with her peppermint-scented magical signature.

  After she read from her parchment, she looked up. "Time for what?"

  "No...idea." Oh. I did know.

  Echo must've realized at the same time because her eyes popped wide. "The lilywort flower," we said at the same time.

  Five minutes later, dressed in our boots and cloaks, we strode down the hallway together.

  "It's after the dark hour,” Echo whispered, smoothing back her hair. “You can shadow-walk. I'll—"

  "Not without you," I said, my tone leaving zero room for argument.

  She smiled as she cracked open the hallway door and peered out. "You suppose Jon's already out there?"

  "Let’s head in that direction and see. We can get out through the kitchen."

  "Sounds like you've done your fair share of sneaking."

  "Only to meet Ramsey," I said, shrugging.

  She turned and grinned. "You two don't just sneak around."

  My whole body blushed at the insinuation. "How would you know what we do?"

  "Because I know." She opened the door wider as a sad, faraway expression curved her mouth, and then she disappeared through.

  Because she'd had a mutual connection, too, and lost it. My heart went out to her.

  We tiptoed down the stairs, my senses tingling. At the bottom of the steps, we crouched and peered around into the entryway. Only a few wall torches flickered, their shadows crawling monstrous shapes across the stone floor.

  "We have to go through the Gathering Room and up onto the stage," I whispered.

  "If we see anyone, turn into a shadow and go on without me, okay? I trust you can pick a flower by yourself, even a lilywort."

  "I doubt it will be as simple as that. It never is."

  She nodded, and I led the way through the swirling, pulsing shadows between us and the large arched door. One of them could be a shadow-walker since I'd passed out a free dead man's hand, but my spine wasn't rattling with the force of someone else's eyes on me.

  I cracked open the Gathering Room door, and once I felt sure no one lurked inside, we slipped through. The stage area, hallway, and kitchen were empty, too, except for the flour-dusted tables with rising dough on them that made me salivate uncontrollably.

  When we stepped out into the night, charged with electrical bolts streaking across the treetops, a footstep sounded from deep within the darkness ahead of us. I grabbed Echo's elbow instinctively, my fingers slick with sweat, and stopped.

  "Jon?" she whispered.

  "No," a rough voice said. A tall, lean shadow stepped from the shadows, and I feared we'd been caught.

  My hands shaking, I snapped my gray magic into my palm. Twin thunderstorms reflected back, narrowed in a glare, surrounded in an intensely handsome face. Lightning flashed over him, and I realized why I hadn’t sensed him through our blood bond. It was because everything smelled like rain.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You’re jealous you didn’t get a raven too?"

  "Blood bonding, remember?” he growled. “I can tell where you three are and where you absolutely shouldn't be."

  More footsteps cracked through the trees along the side of the building, and before Jon appeared, his dirt and flower-scented magical signature carried toward us. “We ready?”

  Echo flitted her gaze between Ramsey and me. “Born ready.” She hurried toward Jon, muttered something that sounded like “They’re going to be a while”, and they started off into the woods.

  Ramsey stood as a silent, immovable wall between me and them.

  Sighing, I started around him in the direction Quiet was. Or was supposed to be. "No one's keeping you here."

  "Wrong,” he said, matching my pace through the trees. “Someone is most definitely keeping me here."

  “You’re not stopping me.”

  “Would it matter if I tried?”

  “No.”

  He went silent, our footsteps crackling over the dead tree roots the only sound, followed shortly by the plink-plink of rain.

  “Then I suppose I’m helping you,” he finally said.

  “The more the merrier.” My hand brushed his, streaking energy to every other part of me.

  "If you want to hold my hand, just do it." Despite his hard tone, I could feel his smile.

  "It was an accident."

  "Was it?"

  Maybe...? I groaned through gritted teeth and took his hand. His skin against mine jumped my heart faster and lit up my body. He chuckled, the sound stirring even more heat to my already warm cheeks.

  "You're confusing," I admitted, a little breathless.

  "Well, now you know how I feel."

  "So you're not mad I’m doing the memory grenade, or you are?"

  "I'm...resigned. You're going to do what you want anyway, no matter what I say."

  "I have to know who killed Leo, but it's more than that,” I said, steering around a large root. “I need to erase your face from my memory so I can..." I closed my mouth, not sure exactly what I was trying to say.

  "So you can what?" he asked softly.

  I took a deep breath and let it out, considering. "So it won't be as confusing. For me anyway. For you, it will probably always be strange to be with someone who tried to kill you."

  He snorted. "I'm coping just fine."

  "But?"

  "No but."

  "Then why are you confused?" I asked, stopping.

  "I'm not confused about you. I'm confused about what's in here." He tapped his chest. "Everything in there, everything I'm feeling... It's powerful."

  "And that confuses you?"

  "Sort of." He sighed as he took my shoulders, his gaze roaming my lips as if that was where he'd find what he was struggling to say. “It's so powerful, it feels like I'm missing you even when you're standing right in front of me." He smiled as he met my eyes. "Confusing, right?"

  "No." I understood completely because I felt the same way. It should've been impossible, but there it was, something undeniable that had carved us into each other's hearts and minds. We seemed to absorb each other’s pain while we drove each other crazy, in a good way. To show him how much I understood, I rose up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his, pouring into my kiss what I couldn't yet form into words.

  I must’ve got the message across because my back hit the trunk of a tree. My breath whooshed out and into him, and he gave it back to me with a low rumble in the back of his throat. My nerves pulsed with his nearness, at every point we touched, and especially some we didn't. His hands glided up my face as he
tilted my head back to kiss me deeper. His tongue sought mine, and suddenly I didn't need air or steady legs to stand on, because I had his kiss.

  "Ramsey. Dawn,” Echo whispered from close by. “Jon says we need to get moving. It’s time."

  Ramsey pulled away, and I didn't need to see him to be able to tell he was grinning so wide his dimples showed. My cheeks hurt because I was also smiling, and my blood sang through my veins with an addicting beat.

  He released a shaky breath. "Aren't you glad you invited me tonight?"

  "I didn't." Chuckling, I took his hand again, and we started forward past the signs warning us to turn back.

  "Not with words, but your face did when you came outside."

  Shaking my head, I snapped my magic back into my palm to light my face. "What is my face telling you now?"

  "That you haven't thought about killing me for days. Maybe even weeks. That's progress."

  "And if I had?"

  "Then I would keep pestering you until you fell for me."

  "You did pester me, didn’t you?" I said.

  "But you liked it."

  “I did.” I squeezed his hand, smiling at him. "I liked being proved wrong about you."

  We shared a lingering look that blushed my skin, and then Jon shushed us. Ahead, Quiet was back. Its spell blanketed everything except my thudding heart with silence. Jon and Echo stood on either side of the pond’s sign with their fingers pressed to their lips as if we needed the reminder. Beyond, Quiet's surface reflected the gnarled, twisted trees over it in mirror-like detail, making them all look like monstrous jaws mid snap.

  The rain fell in earnest now, but because we stood in Quiet’s magical bubble, it kept silent. It soaked through my cloak, and none of it made a single ripple over Quiet’s surface.

  At the bottom corner of the bridge, the lilywort grew wide open to drink in the rain, and thorns grew around the perimeter of its orange petals like sharpened teeth. A stone skipped down into my stomach and crashed there with heavy doubt. I couldn't guarantee I could do this without making a sound, and without losing body parts, but if I did...

  I squared my shoulders and firmed my lips against any noise that might escape. I could do this. I had to.