“Instead of taking the hit, I absorbed your power, using my own as both a shield and a conduit to allow it by drawing on the death essence thread between us. Once it was held stably, I then deployed it alongside my own.”
“You’re saying you were firing with the power of my eleven necromancers’ worth of magic and whatever yours is—beyond that, I’m guessing? More than twenty, then? The power of more than twenty fucking necromancers?”
“Something like that.” He held up the finger of his free hand. “Now, keep in mind that the absorption can’t be held for long or it can cause… disintegration.”
“That’s still… this is… it opens up a hell of a lot of possibilities.”
His eyes burned into mine. “Especially with what we’re up against currently.”
“Ruxnoth having the protection of twenty necromancers.”
“Right.”
“How did you even come up with this?”
“Warlow has been known to siphon the magic of others in battle into powering his own shield. Ryker has also siphoned Celestial power before and absorbed it for a while. It stood to reason that necromancer to necromancer on a grander scale would be doable. Or even death essence to death essence. Now, before you ask, yes, Morien did absorb my power before, butthat was done in a twisted and compromising way for us both. This is not the same. I borrowed that portion of your power that you sent my way when it was separated from you, so it didn’t pull on you, nor drain you. And I also wanted to show you how to turn the violence of an attack into an opportunity.” His eyes darkened. “Into your enemy’s grave mistake.”
I finished absorbing my power and stepped back, and he dropped his hand.
“Jeez, Dad.”
He chuckled. “Ready to continue?”
“You know damn well you have me all psyched now.”
“Well, I’m glad you finally see there is fun and discovery to be found in learning more about your necromantic side. Not just death, despair, and burden, after all, is it?”
“Clearly not with you being the trainer.”
“Because I walk the line between awesomeness and insanity like a true master?”
“Your ego is staggering.”
“Please. You know this is me toning it down. A great deal.”
“So I’m not intimidated?”
“No. So you’re not scared.” He laid his hand on my shoulder. “You can’t be intimidated when you’re doing so incredibly well.”
I smiled out at him. “Thank you, Dad.”
He patted my shoulder, then rubbed his hands together. “So, ready to continue?”
“Yes. But, not Desiccation Curse. Or Risen Reckoning.”
“It’s not time for the latter yet. But I do need to teach it to you properly. Especially when I now know you’re already aware of the mechanics. If you ever invoked it, let’s say, in what you deemed an emergency situation, the consequences without proper training would be catastrophic. Theoretical understanding isn’t enough. That spell to any non-necromantic being out there is considered the most dangerous of all, as ithas the means to kill every single one of them if it’s abused, especially if it’s warped and not used as intended—on Animated Fleshwork only.”
“You mean, used on the living, like Morien did, warping it with black magic to make it possible.”
“Yes. One of your chief fears. So we’ll approach it very carefully. And, as I said, not quite yet. You’re finally growing more comfortable with Necromancy, high-level acts, let’s not undo that.”
“Wait. How do you know I’ve seen the actual spellwork for Risen Reckoning?”
“The night your loves stayed at our home, Vaxan made me aware that he’d provided you with certain pages of a necromancer’s grimoire. Those pages were intended for you to use a re-engineered version of Death Sense spellwork—and, yes, it was my spell that was copied—to track that fucking Ruxnoth infection. But because I’m aware of whose grimoire it actually was, I also happen to know that Risen Reckoning was scrawled on the back of those pages.” He rolled his eyes. “That egomaniac never did organize his spells accordingly. It should have been located at the far back—or removed from the grimoire entirely.”
Yeah, I knew Dad didn’t keep a written record of all his spells, especially not the higher-level ones—those he considereddangerously detrimentalif they ever fell into the wrong hands.
“Vax was worried about how I’d be when I woke up after the kidnapping, I guess.”
