“It’s because of me, what I am?”
“It has been triggered through the culprit reaching out to you. What it means to achieve threatens to break the fabric of our reality here on the mortal plane and even across realms.”
“It? So, is it a thing or a person?”
“Calling it a person would be humanizing what is truly monstrous. Technically, however, he is a severely corrupted True Celestial, one who used the Severance as a smokescreen to—”
Ambrose choked and staggered back.
“Ambrose!” I cried, starting forward, only to be pulled up short as the magical ground we were standing on shook violently.
The blackness swirling around us shuddered, the magic petering in and out.
An eerie voice whispered through the magical construction.
“Transmortalis. Transmortalis. Transmortalis.”
Ambrose snapped his palms down, his black flames and tendrils raging, as he gritted his teeth and called out, “Be gone, heathen!”
That voice sounded again.
“The progeny is mine, dark sorcerer!”
Ambrose doubled over, and as I went to him and supported his weight, his glowing ivory eyes flickered unstably, and he rasped, “Do not heed his words. Do not internalize his rhetoric.He is a millennia-old puppet master. He will exploit your vulnerabilities, your deepest dreads about what you are until they ring as truth, until his designs for you read as inevitable.” He clutched my arm. “You were not born to bring forth destruction, little necromancer. I swear it to you. You are—”
He roared and lurched as an explosion of midnight-blue power tore into his magical construction, decimating it, and blowing us apart.
The entire thing imploded and the reality outside came rushing back as I landed with a hefty thud on my back on the dark sands beach.
Groaning, I forced myself to roll to my side, then staggered back to my feet.
I saw Ambrose about fifty feet from me curled in the fetal position on the sand, unmoving.
Fuck. No!
I called my necromantic power, my amber magic flaming on my palms as I started toward him while scanning the immediate area for any sign of the source behind the attack.
There was nothing.
No one.
I couldn’t feel a thing.
And then it hit me in a sudden rush.
That same awful unsettling sensation I’d felt before.
I came to a grinding halt as that midnight-blue light from moments ago erupted right in front of me.
And then a figure materialized.
His presence demanded attention with his powerhouse physique.
His hair was jet-black, long strands streaming behind him in dark ribbons. It framed a face of harsh lines. His red eyes burned with a brutal predatory edge as he looked upon me. He wore a long, opulent floor-length coat with gold and midnight-bluebaroque patterns. It was open, flaring outward and framing his bare torso.
“Who are you? What’s going on?” I demanded.
He studied me curiously, cocking his head to the side.
