Probably because I had to get the Staff of Sullivan. “Never been better. Gotta go. Bye."
We bustled out of there fast, and as soon as Jon shut the door behind us, it popped open again.
"Wait," Mom breathed, her eyes wide, and then looked over her shoulder. "She moved again."
We hurried back in to see. Sure enough, the hand resting on her stomach reached out, fingers splayed, almost like a "Don't go!" gesture. A tinge of hope lit up inside me. My heart rattled around my chest as I rushed toward her and then gently slipped my hand into hers.
"What is it, Seph? We're here. What do you need?" I choked out.
Jon stepped up next to me, and with a heartbreakingly gentle sweep of his fingers, he cradled her cheek. "Come back."
Echo stood tensed next to me, her eyes sweeping over Seph. We stood there for however long, waiting and watching and holding our breaths. But nothing else happened.
"Do we need to leave again?" I whispered.
"I don't know," Mom sighed. "Try it."
"This is good." Dad caught my eye over Seph and nodded, a hopeful smile on his face. "Any movement, any change, is a good sign. Especially after all these months."
"Gods, I hope so," Jon muttered and rubbed his forehead.
"Why now though?" I asked, backing toward the door once again. "Does she know something we don't? Is it because the stones are being destroyed one by one? Is she afraid? Is she..." I swallowed, too excited and nervous and terrified to know what I wanted answers to first.
Jon and Echo crossed toward me, and Jon squeezed my arm. "Breathe, Dawn. Let's leave and see if she does it again."
My parents nodded, their healing charms they wore as jewelry clinking together in a special song.
I forced my feet to move the last few steps, and then Echo closed the door behind us. We waited...and waited. My shoulders sagged, but I gripped that sliver of hope tightly and held it close to my heart. Seph’s moving was progress.
Heaving a defeated-sounding sigh, Echo jerked her head for us to follow her. We strode down the hall to the crowded entryway, and as we rounded the corner to the girls' wing stairs, the front doors of the academy burst open.
"The Ministry of Law Enforcement has sent a raven!" an old mage with silver eyebrows shouted.
Everyone who happened to be in the entryway stopped and stared.
"The fifth stone has been destroyed!" he announced.
An anxious murmur rolled over the crowd.
My stomach twisted violently. One more stone was left. Unless we figured out a way to destroy it first, Ryze would come to take it for safe-keeping, whether it was attached to Seph or not. But with five stones out of six destroyed, he'd be even weaker. Weak enough for us to beat?
We raced up the stairs and didn't say a word until Jon slammed the door to my room behind him.
"He's coming here next," he hissed, raking his hands through his hair. “He’s coming for Seph.”
"And he'll bring reinforcements." Echo blew the hair from her face. "How long do you think we have before he gets here?"
"Days. Maybe weeks. Who knows?" I sank down onto my bed, the pressure too great to hold up my knees. "We have the staff, but we don't know what it does or why it's important to Ryze. What if we don't have time to find out?"
Jon began to pace. "Maybe we don't have to. Maybe we can kill him before he gets his hands on the onyx."
"That's not a guarantee though," I said.
Echo caught my eye. "Nothing is, but that's never kept you from trying before."
"I tried to get in and out of Ryze’s castle. Without you two, I would’ve failed. I owe you my life. Thank you.” I looked to them both, trying to convey just how much I meant it.
“You don’t have to do anything alone, Dawn, though I know why you did it,” Echo murmured.
“Because I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” I nodded and sighed. “How did you do it anyway?”
Echo smirked. “We snuck in through the kitchen where we added a sleeping potion to the food. For our hair, we took a cue from you and rubbed blueberries into it rather than coal.”
“After we broke the blood bond,” Jon said. “We didn’t want you sensing we were there and then freaking out.”
“I freaked out all on my own,” I admitted, managing a weak smile. “With Seph’s life and yours, too much is riding on what happens when Ryze gets here."
“And your life,” Echo added. “Don’t forget it. We’re in this together.”
I nodded, the backs of my eyes prickling. They’d risked everything for me, just as I would do for them, and I didn’t need the blood bond for that.
"If Professor Lipskin would just let us help him and join forces with the other mages..." He threw up his hands. "That would be a start."
Despite meaning well, Professor Lipskin in his unofficial headmaster role seemed opposed to letting students have anything to do with this war. I understood but I didn’t agree, if that made any sense.
Echo pressed her mouth into a firm line. "This isn't the time for division. We need to work together."
"I'm sure the professor knows we need to be ready,” Jon said, “because if we aren't and Ryze shows up, every dead body buried here could be under his control. More to add to his army. Yeah, we smelled the dead going into Keptra."
I curled my hands into fists. "So we beat Ryze to it. We necromance every dead body."
Echo arched her eyebrows as she plopped down on Seph’s bed across from me. "Every body?"
"Every body, including the six million buried in the catacombs and the giant the catacombs are in. Ryze will bring an army with him, but we'll have a bigger one."
"Mage's oblivion." Echo leaned forward and propped her elbows on her knees, eyeing me critically. "Perhaps you've heard of it?"
"She's right,” Jon said. “There's no way anyone can bring back six million people in whatever time we have."
"And with magic going wonky anyway, a necromancy spell will probably work even less accurately. But"—Echo nodded—"I can see from your face that you're sick of my excuses, so I'll shut up. Just know that I'm on board, but I want you to look at this from all sides."
"I am. I'm trying to," I corrected. "Thanks."
“You’re welcome.” She grinned, warm and sincere.
Urgent tapping sounded from outside the door.
Jon turned to answer it, and a raven flew at his face with a roll of parchment in its beak.
"Whoa!" Jon threw up his arms to block. "Whoa!"
Echo came to his rescue first and retrieved the parchment. The raven squawked at me and then flew away.
"What in seven hells?" Jon demanded, clutching his cheek.
"Are you all right?" I asked, searching his face for injuries. A long red scratch blazed across his cheek.
"Oh no." Echo has already unrolled the parchment and turned it to face us.
HE was all it said, written in bloody letters.
My stomach clenched, and a cold sweat beaded my skin. HE. Ryze. Did this mean he was here right now? But...we weren't ready. Not even close.
Jon reached out with a trembling hand and traced two more letters in the blank space next to HE. LP. HELP. That changed nothing and everything all at once.
The color drained from Jon as he sucked in a breath. "Seph!"
He shot out of the room with Echo on his heels. For half a second, I stood frozen with fear. My muscles had seized as if trying to deny anything was wrong. I'd seen too many important people in my life die lately, and I'd crack in half if I saw any more. With great effort, I willed my body to move, fast, and my legs jerked me out the door.
If it wasn't Seph who'd awakened and needed our help, then who?
Halfway down the stairs, shouts echoed from the infirmary wing.
I groaned as I poured on speed to catch Jon and Echo, who were already racing in that direction. Tears blinded me, but I ignored them and grabbed for my dagger in my boot. I would fight for Seph with my last breath, and then I'd come back from
death and fight some more.
Once inside the infirmary wing, the three of us shrank back at the sight outside Seph's door. The mages who'd guarded her room minutes ago lay in twisted piles on the floor. Like Vickie, only worse. Some were bent in half like she'd been but broken even more so body parts existed next to other parts that they had no business being next to. Their blank stares chilled me to the bone.
"Oh gods." Echo covered her mouth.
Jon sprinted forward and leaped over the dead for the door. Banging and crashing sounded from inside. When Jon tried the door but it wouldn’t open, he kicked the whole thing down.
Inside... Inside was chaos.
Professor Lipskin had his hands wrapped around Seph's neck in a death grip, the blanket covering her hovering form blocking everything except his blank expression. His eyes looked glazed over like he was sleepwalking, like someone else was pulling his strings. Dad was hauling himself up off the ground, his bottom lip cracked and bleeding and his left eye bruised. Mom lay slumped in the corner with a pile of parchment on the ground underneath a bloodied finger. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn't moving.
I tried to process it all in a single second, and then I was moving, rage fueling my adrenaline. But Jon leaped in front of me and tore across the room toward the professor with a war cry.
He shot out his hands as the professor curled his fingers around his princess's throat tighter. "Et demetam posteriora tua."
The away-with-you spell hit the professor head-on in a powerful, off-white streak of magic. The professor flew backward into the wall. A small crater formed where he hit, and bits of stone hailed down on top of him as he dropped to the floor in an unconscious heap.
I turned to Dad, my jaw dropped open.
"See to your mom," he rasped and then spit blood. “I'll look after your friend."
Even though he needed healing, too, I didn't argue. A proper healer always took care of the patient first before worrying about anyone else, and my dad was definitely a proper healer.
A sob welled in my throat as I rushed toward Mom. My heart squeezed as panic flooded my veins, and my fingers trembled as I searched for a pulse. My brain flashed me back to that night I'd found Leo, the feeling of utter helplessness while I knelt over a loved one. Gods, if mom were dead, too, I'd—
No. Focus, Dawn.
But I couldn't find a pulse as I tracked my fingertips over her impossibly soft skin, not with my hands shaking so badly.
Wait. There. There it was, faint yet steady.
"Bind thee in health, Protect mind and soul too, Boost vigor and happiness, Make it all renew."
My black magic crawled a web over her face, and then I pinched it between two fingers and pulled it away. She sucked in a long breath, her eyes fluttering open. She sat there blinking for a long moment, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the other three staring. Dad turned his head, not quite hiding the relieved tears in his eyes, as he slipped his hand out from underneath Seph's wrist. Jon smoothed his hand over Seph's forehead, and Echo sneered down at Professor Lipskin like she was daring him to get up.
"She's okay," Dad assured me, his voice cracking a little, and I wasn't quite sure who he meant—Mom or Seph.
"Hey." A soft, familiar warmth took my hand and squeezed, filling my eyes with tears. When I turned back to Mom, they overflowed, and she reached up and brushed them away, always more concerned about me than she was herself.
"You're all right?" I squeaked.
"A powerful healer just did wonders on me." She winced a little as she pulled away from the wall, some of her blonde hair sticking to a bloody spot on the wall. "But your magic feels so cold."
I bowed my head, unable to look her in the eye, and said nothing.
“Why did your professor do that?” she asked. “His sole focus was to get to Seph.”
“He was sleep-walking,” Jon answered.
“Professor Wadluck, one of Ryze’s minions, knows how to control people who are asleep,” I added. “He did the same thing to Seph.”
Mom flicked her gaze over my shoulder at Dad. “I thought he was in jail?”
The room grew silent. Ryze might have been waiting for us to feel a sense of victory after the destruction of the fifth stone before he sprang the professor from jail to work his special kind of magic and catch us unaware. He’d nearly succeeded.
“What do we do now?” Echo asked.
I stood. “Ryze is weakened with five stones gone, so we’ll have to be ready.”
We were woefully unprepared to defeat Ryze, whether I'd stolen the Staff of Sullivan or not. But—I sank my hand into my pocket and touched the twin's eye—with a little help, we could be ready.
Chapter Five
Acting as if I'd just arrived, I burst through the doors of Necromancer Academy. Heads turned. Jaws dropped. I'd struck everyone speechless. Well, not me exactly...
"Headmistress Millington!" An elderly mage in a black cloak and cloudy eyes rushed forward to take my hands. "Where have you been all these months? While you were gone, a student and a professor both d—"
"I know," I said louder than I needed to so the others gathering around could hear. "I had to be away for a matter of great importance. I was doing a secret mission to help defeat Ryze."
A collective gasp and then excited chatter rumbled through the entryway. I kept my spine straight, chin angled confidently, while inside I seethed. I'd just thrown a heroic spotlight onto the headmistress, the very opposite of making her suffer and die. This was the only way I knew how to make anyone listen though. As Dawn, I was a nineteen-year-old who hadn't even finished her freshman year and had failed against Ryze twice. As the headmistress, I could give the orders since I knew what needed to be done, and people would listen. I hoped.
"I need everyone in the Gathering Room right now. Tell everyone to hurry." I sidestepped the old mage and tried to appear like I was floating like the real headmistress did when she walked.
Thankfully, the crowd dispersed, still buzzing with anticipation.
Once everyone had sat at the tables in the Gathering Room, I strode confidently from the backstage area, my appearance enough to silence everyone at once. I kept my expression kind and calm like she did. I tried to anyway.
"As I'm sure you're all aware, the onyx stone is the only one left to be destroyed,” I started, the Gathering Room’s magic amplifying my voice. “Ryze is surely coming to take the stone from us. We can't let that happen. We need to not only be ready to fight, but ready to fight to the death. So now you must choose. Are you ready, or are you not? If you're not, I ask you to leave now for your own safety. If you are ready, then I ask you to contact people you know and trust to come here to fight. Ryze will likely be bringing an army with him, so we need to be ready. So here's my proposal. We do what this academy is all about and use necromancy to our advantage to build our own army before Ryze uses the bodies here for his own. That means all the bodies behind the bookshelves in the library, all the graveyards scattered around the academy grounds, and the catacombs are ours. When—if—our reliving fall, they will be brought back to join our side in the fight."
One female mage dressed in leathers blinked up at me with her jaw in her lap. "There are six million bodies in the cata—"
"I know how many bodies there are. I'm not asking you to bring back all of them, just as many as you can without falling into mage's oblivions. You’ll need your rest for this war, but I ask that you sleep in shifts and in pairs so the other can watch you. Ryze and his minions used sleep as a weapon. Between performing necromancy and refilling your magic reserves with sleep and rest, you can research how to get the onyx away from Sepharalotta safely."
Another male mage piped up. "But...Ryze is supposedly an expert necromancer. Even if we do this, what's to keep him from summoning all the relivers on our side to his side?"
Luckily, I'd already considered that while researching uprising against leaders and not attending classes for the remainder of the school year. "We use Eerie Is
land's landscape to our advantage. We'll need to warn the village people and get them out of here, as well as make magic accessible all across the island. If Ryze starts to win, or if his army gets too large, steer the fight toward the cliffs or the ocean and let the currents deal with the reliving. Or steer them toward Quiet."
It had taken a while, but I'd developed a fondness for that crazy pond.
The mages nodded, their eyebrows raised as if impressed.
"I'll be making a list of those who should not be brought back from the dead to fight our war. If you'd like to add to it, let me know."
Echo closed her eyes and smiled a little, her relief surging from her. I didn’t need a blood bond to feel it. Her Craig, my Ramsey, the dark, caged mages buried outside, and the Diabolicals who'd died protecting the stone were at the top of the list.
"If they accept, I'm putting Professor Pain, Mrs. Tentorville, Professor Blumgart, and Professor Lipskin in charge." Four older mages to put everyone at ease since we wouldn't want any teens leading an uprising, would we?
They all nodded solemnly, even Professor Lipskin whose eyes were bloodshot. He’d been crushed when he’d regained consciousness and had discovered what he’d tried to do while sleepwalking. I wasn’t so sure he’d ever sleep again.
“You’ll all update one of them on your progress every eight hours, after which they'll update me,” I continued. “Until then, let's save Amaria."
Jon bolted from his seat and pumped his fist into the air. "Let's save Amaria!"
"Let's save Amaria!" several echoed, and a loud cheer erupted throughout the Gathering Room.
The hope written on their faces nearly made me smile. If not for the unease rooting down deep inside me, I probably would have. Plans were great when they worked, but when people's lives balanced on the edge like this... The pressure scorched my nerves. We had one shot at succeeding, and if we didn’t, Ryze would continue to rule and there would be no saving Amaria.
"HE'S HERE."
The words filtered from my lips, but I had no idea why, or how, they’d slipped out. My surroundings blurred around me, too warped to see clearly no matter how many times I blinked. What was happening? Last I knew, I'd been in my dorm room, tucked safely in my bed with Nebbles at my feet, about to fall asleep.
Necromancer Uprising: Book 4 Page 4
