“What? You’re serious?”
“Yeah. There’s a really good chance.”
“Why would you even think about that with all the rest of this going on? I’m no one to you. And I told you I only helped you because we need you.”
“I don’t think that’s the only reason. But, either way, if we have the power, isn’t it our responsibility to help anyone we can, to take away the suffering of others when we have the means to do that? It’s cruelty otherwise.”
“That’s… incredibly noble.”
“You just told me you’d give up your mind for the greater good.”
“Yeah, for the glory of all that. A war is coming now Ruxnoth has done this. I want to be remembered as a hero, not the guywith the fractured mind who helped a tyrant. The time to change that is now.”
I smiled as I stared out at him and registered how he'd just rattled off all that as though it was a script he’d been practicing for himself.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s okay for people to see that you care.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Down here?”
“Not just that. It’s what got my wife killed.”
Wife?“The Shadowmancer?”
He nodded.
But before I could ask more, he gestured at the door. “I’ve gotta get you to your space now. He wants you healing. If he comes out and sees us standing around talking it won’t exactly go over well.”
“Okay,” I said, letting him lead me out of what was clearly Ruxnoth’s chamber.
A lot of information had been conveyed. A lot to digest before more was gathered.
I sucked in a breath.
I was free from those binds.
I’d heal and recover.
I’d found an ally here.
I now also knew not all the necromancers here were true enemies.
I’d sent that shard off—and that would be a hell of a thing once it was opened and they discovered what else I’d buried inside.
Things were shifting.
I was taking back control.
More than that—I was readying myself.
Because the truth was, it would take an abomination to destroy an abomination.
6
~Velra Nox~
