The power that flows through my veins isn’t just fey magic amplified beyond normal limits. It’s something darker, more primal. Something that touches the boundary between life and death and delves into the depths of forbidden knowledge.
I am not just powerful. I am a necromancer.
Moving with calm deliberation, I kneel beside Cai’s body. Harlen looks up at me with desperate hope, as if he senses that I might have answers they don’t.
“What are you doing?” Kirby whispers, his voice hoarse from crying.
I don’t answer. Instead, I place my hands on Cai’s chest, feeling for the echo of what he used to be. Death is not always final, sometimes it’s merely a doorway that can be reopened if you know the right way to knock.
I reach out with senses that most people don’t possess, searching for the trail of his departed soul. And as I suspected, I find it hasn’t gone very far. Death came too quickly, too suddenly. He’s hovering nearby, confused and unmoored but not yet fully departed. Love is anchoring him to this realm.
The necromancy flows through me like dark honey, sweet and terrible and absolutely forbidden. I grasp Cai’s soul with metaphysical hands and pull it back toward its abandoned vessel.
“Come back,” I whisper, pouring power into the command. “You’re needed here. They need you.”
For a moment, nothing happens. Then Cai’s chest hitches with a sudden, gasping breath. His eyes fly open, wide and startled and beautifully, wonderfully alive.
Kirby gasps, but he doesn’t falter. He knows what needs to be done. Magic flows from him as he heals his husband’s awful wound.
Cai sits up abruptly, one hand flying to his forehead where the bullet hole is already sealing over with new flesh. The blood remains, but the wound itself knits closed as if it never existed.
“What…” he starts, then stops as Harlen and Kirby throw themselves at him in a tangle of desperate embraces.
“You were dead,” Kirby sobs into his neck. “You were dead and I thought…”
“I’m here,” Cai soothes, his arms coming around both his husbands. “I’m here. It’s alright.”
I stand up slowly, my legs unsteady from the magical exertion. Resurrection takes more out of me than most spells, touching as it does the fundamental forces that govern existence.
Jack is looking at me with an expression I can’t quite read. It doesn’t look like the horror I deserve. It looks like something closer to awe, mixed with a pride that makes my chest tight.
Quick footsteps announce Silas’s return. He emerges from the maze of storefronts covered in blood, pushinggore-matted hair out of his eyes with the back of one crimson-stained hand. The blood clearly isn’t his, he is moving with his usual fluid grace, unmarked by injury.
He takes in the scene before him. Cai alive and embracing his husbands, me standing nearby with residual magic still crackling around my hands and telling the story of what happened.
“Nice work,” he grins, seeming not at all surprised that I am also a necromancer. Perhaps he recognised the signs, or perhaps he simply expected no less from a half-unseelie prince.
The dragon riders look up from their reunion, faces streaked with tears but glowing with gratitude.
“Thank you,” Harlen says, his voice thick with emotion. “Thank you for bringing him back to us.”
Kirby nods emphatically. “Thank you.”
These people know how dangerous it is to thank a fey. They understand that I can twist their words into powerful weavings. Yet still they thank me. Freely and without reserve.
Jack steps closer, tears still drying on his face, but smiling. That warm, proud smile that makes me feel like I can conquer worlds. He takes my hand and squeezes it, his touch steady and accepting and completely without fear.
“Well done, Love,” he murmurs, and the simple words nearly undo me completely.
I am astonished. I must be hallucinating. I cannot believe I have revealed my necromancy powers and they don’t all hate me. Don’t fear me. They aren’t looking at me like I’m something unnatural and wrong.
My lungs stutter as I try to process this impossible acceptance. It is too much. Too overwhelming. Far more shocking than the sudden destruction of a sniper’s bullet.
Dimly, I’m aware my body is trembling like an autumn leaf. My muscles suddenly weaker than a newborn fawn’s. Is it magic exertion or emotions that are causing this malady? I have no idea.
Jack pulls me into his embrace. He wraps his strong arms around me and holds me. He keeps me upright. He lends me his body heat and his strength.
I sink into his hug. I feel better already. He always has this effect on me. Whatever the problem, Jack is the cure. And that is something I could very much get used to.
