He made his peace with it, in the abstract way a person makes peace with their own death. The way you accept the idea of it without ever truly believing it will happen to you, because if you believed it, you'd never get out of bed.
But even after fourteen years, he'd hoped for a little more time.
The Templar is exactly what August expects: tall, broad-shouldered, radiating the kind of controlled power that comes from centuries of disciplined training. His sword is massive enough to require two hands and it blazes with holy light that, even at this distance, makes August's skin prickle like he's standing too close to an open flame. The death magic clinging to him like a second skin wavers in the face of it, uncertain whether to retreat or detonate. The red mark on the man's coat identifies him as a full Templar, not an initiate, which tracks. The Order wouldn't send anything less than their best for the kind of damage someone's been doing to this city.
What takes August aback is that he didn't expect the best to be so handsome.
Every nightmare he's ever had about this moment featured the grizzled face of a seasoned veteran bearing down on him, scarred, grey-haired, old enough to have been appointed to the Order's high clergy. August has never met them, but he's familiar with the faces of the Order's ranking members. Severe men with hard features who look like they've been alive since the crusades and enjoyed none of it.
This man doesn't look more than thirty. Strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, dark hair that falls just past his collar in casual defiance of what August imagines are strict military regulations. His eyes are warm brown, amber in the reflected light of his own blade, and even set with determination, they're striking. There's a grace in his movements that belies his size, all controlled power and quiet lethality, like watching something dangerous pretend to be at ease. He holds that enormous sword in one hand like it weighs nothing. His other hand glows faintly with a blessing that makes August's stomach turn.
August's traitorous mind notes that the Templar is exactly his type, which is possibly the most inappropriate thought he's ever had while staring down his own death. His timing has always been impeccable in the worst possible way.
"You're under arrest," the Templar says. But he doesn't look like a man preparing to clap someone in irons. He looks like a man bracing for a fight.
If he's hunting the necromancer who's been tearing open rifts across the city and unleashing the dead, then the expectation of violence makes sense. For the record, August is not that necromancer. He's been losing sleep trying to find the person who is.
But he's not going peacefully, either.
He lowers his hands slowly, keeping his posture unthreatening for whatever good that will do him. "I'm not who you're looking for."
"You're a necromancer practicing illegal magic in direct violation of the Accords." The sword doesn't waver. "That's exactly who I'm looking for."
"No." August keeps his voice level even though his heart is slamming against his ribs and the black veins beneath his skin are starting to burn. They always burn when he's stressed, when his body decides to remind him, with all the subtlety of a housefire, what he's doing to it. "I'm not the one opening rifts. I'm not raising the dead. I've been trying to stop—"
"Save it." The Templar takes a step forward. August takes one back. Despite the man's disarming face, August has no desire to get any closer to him. The holy light radiating off that blade feels like standing downwind of a bonfire. "I've heard every excuse you can think of. I've been hunting necromancers for three centuries. You all think you're special. You all think you've got a good reason."
Three centuries.Gods.
August has been alive for twenty-six years. Fourteen of those have been spent slowly poisoning himself with death magic. Most necromancers don't even begin practicing until their forties, and given the life-draining nature of it, many don't see sixty. August is practically an elder as far as necromancy is concerned, and this Templar has been killing people like him since before August's great-grandparents were born.
They really did send the best they had. He supposes he should be flattered, in a gallows humor sort of way.
"I help spirits pass on." He doesn't hate how it sounds. He means every word, and if this is the last time he gets to say it, he wants it said clearly. He knows there's no reasoning with the Order, but he can't stop himself from trying. He's always believed, foolishly, stubbornly, with the kind of unshakable optimism that has survived fourteen years of evidence to the contrary, that if he could just get one of them to listen, he could make them understand. He isn't corrupting the dead. He isn't desecrating corpses. He is just talking to them, and they are talking back, and sometimes that is enough to set them free. "That's all I'm doing. The woman buried here died six months ago, and her family never said goodbye. She's been trapped. Confused. In pain. I helped her rest."
The Templar's voice is flat as a blade. "By dragging her back from death."
"By giving herpeace." August's hands curl at his sides, not into fists but close. "There's a difference."
"The law doesn't see one."
August exhales something that might have been a laugh in another life. "The law doesn't care if spirits suffer. The law doesn't care that there are ghosts all over this city, trapped, terrified, because no one will help them. The law just wants death magic buried and forgotten, and to hell with the consequences."
Maybe arguing isn't going to win him any favors. But this is the thing August has poured the last fourteen years of his life into. Talking to spirits, easing the dead into whatever comes after, sitting with the ones who are afraid and staying until they aren't anymore. It's the only thing that has ever made the poison in his veins feel worth it. Not justified. Worth it. There's a difference there, too, and the Order has never cared to learn it. The fact that they would rather let those souls rot in agony than allow someone like him to grant them peace makes him angry in a way nothing else does, a quiet anger, the kind that doesn't burn hot but never goes out.
He'd hoped this Templar might be different from the stories. Something in those amber eyes had made him wonder. A flicker of hesitation when the ghost had faded, a half-second where the resolve had wavered and something more human had shown through.
But the resolve is back now, unyielding. The man isn't going to budge.
The Templar's jaw tightens. "Seven people have died in the past week because someone is opening rifts to the underworld and raising armies of the undead. The law against death magic exists for a reason."
"And I'm telling you that wasn't me." August retreats another step, skirting the gravestone behind him, measuring the distance to the cemetery gate with the practiced awareness of someone who has always kept track of his exits. "I've been tracking whoever's responsible for weeks. They're using old magic, ritual sites that predate the Order. They're building toward something, and if you arrest me, you'll never find them."
"You think I can't find them without you?" Contempt drips from the Templar's voice, though August wonders if it's entirely earned or if the man just wears it like armor. "I've been hunting necromancers since before you were born, kid. You can make all the speeches you want about noble purposes and being misunderstood, but I know the truth about your kind. The Order exists to keep monsters like you in check."
It's nothing August hasn't heard before. Nothing he hasn't seen in the eyes of every person who discovers what he is.Monster. Abomination. Death-touched.He stopped trying to convince people otherwise years ago, when the words kept falling on deaf ears and the trying started to hurt more than the names themselves. He doesn't know why he's trying now, with this man who looks at him like he's filth.
That's not true. He knows exactly why. Because there are people dying, and spirits suffering, and a necromancer out there building something terrible, and August cannot do this alone. He's been trying. He's been running himself into the ground trying. And he is running out of time in every sense of the phrase.
