I still barely remember doing it. And even if the guards who brought me here made it clear it happened, I have no ideahowI did it. Something shone at the brink of death. A thread I couldn’t help pulling.
King Malachi nods, as if he is considering my answer. “I believe you. Are you aware that resurrection is punishable by death? That any magic that tampers with the dead is forbidden?”
My head shakes, but my voice says, “Yes.”
Something compels the truth when I was about to tell a lie.
I am aware that a select few magics are forbidden to the Fae, one of them being necromancy. Any Fae found to have the ability is executed on sight, which, now that I think about what I’ve done, begs the question as to why I’m still breathing.
“I’m not a necromancer,” I say, not knowing if that’s true after what I did, but hoping it is.
I’ve been around many corpses in my life, tended to more dead than I can count. Never have I brought one back. Which is why I’d like to think that what I did isn’t that.
“No, you aren’t a necromancer,” King Malachi agrees, surprising me.
“Then what am I?”
“That is the more complicated question.” He paces back to his throne, looking up to the stained glass that hangs behind it. Etched in the glass is a depiction of the four gods creating our constellation of realms. “Raising the dead and raising life are not one and the same. Necromancers raise corpses that are mindless and easily manipulated. They have no will of their own. A necromancer creates animation, not life. But you…” He turns to face me, but his eyes move to Callum. “Are you certain the human guards did not lie? The prisoner was lucid?”
“Yes. His soul was intact,” Callum answers, still at his knees like the rest of the room.
King Malachi twists the orb between his fingers. “Everyone, leave us. I’d like to speak with Elorie alone.”
“Is that a good idea?” One of the guards shoots to his feet.
“Are you worried your king cannot handle a half-human?”
The guard’s posture is stiff, but he doesn’t dare question King Malachi. “Of course not, Your Majesty.”
“Then leave us.” There’s bite to the king’s voice now, emptying the room.
Callum is the last to leave. He hesitates for a moment, eyeing where I stand at the center before obeying the order himself. As the door closes behind them, I realize how large the room is. The ceiling is taller than I’ve ever seen one. Sounds echo so high they never find their way back down.
The king scans me from head to toe. “You don’t know what you did in that prison—who you woke. But there is a reason you are here, Elorie. You could be very useful should you choose to be.”
“You always have a choice.”The prisoner’s words echo again.
“Lyrichia is dying,” the king says plainly.
“From the Collision?”
King Malachi nods once, his stare focused out the tall windows. When I follow his gaze, it occurs to me that there’s nothing to see beyond the light streaming through them. Something masks the view so it’s little more than a reflection of the golden flickers shining within the thick glass.
“Lyrichia was a peaceful and plentiful realm for millennia. We had trade agreements with neighboring realms in the constellation, Vaelier included. Even the Mortal Realm had agreements with our kingdom. They would send humans to Alyssium to help us with the prison, and we would provide food and metals that don’t grow in their realm. But then the stars shifted and so did the realms.” He circles the room until he pauses at a painting I hadn’t noticed on the far wall.
It's a depiction of the realms.
Lyrichia and Vaelier are the primary focus at the center, painted as swirling orbs. Intricate lettering labels the different territories in each of the two realms. To the west of the Ley Court, across the sea, is a bit of land withAlyssiumscribbled on it.
Where Lyrichia and Vaelier collide, there’s a splash of black paint, depicting the Well—the crack that formed from the Collision. The paint is layered, as if someone has been adding to it over the centuries as the Well continues to grow, consuming pieces of both realms.
Callum said the Well is not land or sea or place. That even if it is what connects the realms, it is not a physical thing, but a void. I shiver at how large it’s grown.
The round orbs depicting Lyrichia and Vaelier take up the majority of the painting, with many other realms set at a distance. They’re depicted as specks in a night sky, with dark branches binding them together like the threads of fate connect us all within the canopy woven by the Luminess, a creature that is not god or Fae, but a being of fate itself.
Only a few realms are labeled, with the focus set on Lyrichiaand Vaelier. One in particular catches my attention where it hangs to the right.The Mortal Realm. My fingers itch to reach out to it. To graze my fingers over the paint as if it would bring me closer to the humans’ home. It feels so close here, when I know that with the Arches dying, that’s not the case.
In the forefront of the painting is another orb labeledSarrow. It is set upon a ladder of branches. I don’t know what to make of Sarrow being drawn as its own realm, when I’ve always understood it to be more of an Arch than a place. The lore talks about the seven strata of Sarrow, the levels in which souls are judged, sorted, and passed through to the After. In those stories, Sarrow sounded more like a spiritual scale than physical levels. But here Sarrow sits, painted as if it is a realm of its own.
