The continent of Valdaren was a land ruled by laws both arcane and divine. Magic was not rare—it was regulated. Every caster, every spell, every school of sorcery was cataloged, sanctioned, and monitored by the Arcane Council, a cold and ancient body of scholars who believed in control above all else.
Necromancy, however, was different.
It wasn't just forbidden. It was erased.
Once practiced by a revered caste known as the Veilbinders, necromancy had been deemed too volatile, too tied to chaos and the spirit realms. The Council rewrote history, turning once-respected necromancers into villains, branding them as cultists and heretics. Now, the practice was punishable by death, its texts destroyed, its knowledge buried.
That was the world I grew up in.
I was born in Ravencross, a city of scholars and towers, where magic was measured in scrolls and equations. My parents were librarians, quiet people who never mentioned our bloodline's past. I was raised in the marble halls of the Ravencross Academy, surrounded by spellbooks and arrogance. I excelled, of course—but I never felt like I belonged.
Until the tome found me.
I didn't steal it. I didn't seek it out. It chose me.
Bound in obsidian leather, etched with bone ink, the tome spoke to something inside me that had been silent my entire life. And when I opened it…
The world changed.
Not just around me. Within me.
I wasn't just reading spells—I was remembering them.
---
I stood in the middle of the forest, deep beyond the reach of civilization, where even the birds refused to sing.
The tome hung from my side, humming softly against my hip. Its voice had grown quiet since that first night, as if it were watching now, waiting to see what I would do.
I raised a hand and exhaled.
"Rise."
The ground shuddered.
Bones cracked beneath the soil, trembling toward the surface like seeds clawing for sunlight. Fingers of splintered bone erupted through the earth, followed by skulls crowned in moss and dirt. One after another, they rose—soldiers, knights, children, forgotten souls from nameless graves. Dozens. Then hundreds.
And I hadn't even tried.
The dead stood before me in rows. Silent. Obedient. Awaiting command.
It was... effortless. Beautiful. Terrifying.
I took a step forward, and they moved with me, one synchronized mass of decay and loyalty. My heartbeat slowed as the realization settled over me:
I could command an army.
Not metaphorically. Not in time. Now.
A cold wind passed through the trees, and with it came doubt.
What would I do with such power?
It was one thing to raise the dead. Another entirely to use them.
I dismissed the army with a thought, and the corpses collapsed into the earth once more. The forest consumed them like they had never been. Silence returned.
But the silence felt heavier now.
I turned and found the raven perched on a low branch, staring.
"You disapprove?" I muttered.
It tilted its head, as if amused. Judging.
I walked until the trees thinned and I came upon a village—small, quiet, smoke trailing gently from crooked chimneys. Farmers tending to fields. Children laughing in the distance.
They had no idea what walked among them.
My fingers twitched.
I could control them. I could command every shadow in this place, bend the roots beneath their feet, pull their ancestors from their graves to stand by my side. I could burn it all down and rebuild it with necrotic hands.
And yet…
I didn't.
I passed through the village like a ghost, invisible in plain sight. The raven followed.
When I reached the edge of the valley, I stopped and stared back at the peaceful scene.
I wasn't afraid of what I could do.
I was afraid of how easy it would be to do it.
And that—that—was the weight.
The power wasn't a burden.
The temptation was.
---
I climbed to the edge of an abandoned fortress nestled in the northern cliffs—half-collapsed, half-buried beneath centuries of snow and silence. It was the perfect place. No witnesses. No rules.
Just me and the dead.
I stepped through the crumbling archway and entered what remained of the great hall. Icicles hung like spears from the ceiling. Long-dead warriors still lay scattered across the stone, their armor rusted into brittle husks, their swords frozen in place mid-swing.
I placed a hand on the frostbitten floor and whispered, "Return."
The runes on my ring blazed.
A wave of heat pulsed through my palm and into the stone. The fortress groaned. The air thickened with death.
And then—they rose.
Not like the villagers' bones I'd summoned before. These were different.
Their souls came with them.
Ghostfire surged in their sockets. Armor reforged itself from memory. These warriors had died with purpose, and now I had rekindled that fire. They knelt before me, a hundred revenants of war, their loyalty imprinted by the necromantic command thrumming in my blood.
"Fight," I said.
They didn't hesitate.
Steel clashed, magic detonated against crumbling stone. Blades scraped bone, ancient spells scorched the frost from the walls. I stood at the center of it all, directing the chaos with flicks of my wrist and unspoken commands. I was a conductor. This was my orchestra.
And yet, for all the display—something gnawed at me.
Every spell I cast was flawless. Every order absolute. I was testing my limits, but I hadn't found them yet.
I wasn't even close.
I ascended to the top of the tower, the revenants continuing their duel below, and looked to the horizon. The stars had begun to fade. Dawn again.
I stretched out both hands.
This time, I didn't call the dead—I tore the boundary between worlds.
The sky split.
For a moment, the air howled with voices not meant for mortal ears. From the void, a creature began to crawl—serpentine, skeletal, with wings made of shadow and flame. Its eyes locked on mine, and it smiled.
I smiled back.
This… this was what I was searching for.
But as the beast bowed its head to me, a wave of nausea passed through me—so sudden, so alien, it staggered me.
Not fear. Not fatigue.
Guilt.
Because in that moment, I realized something horrifying.
This power? It wasn't just mine to wield.
It was changing me.
Not because I couldn't control it… but because I no longer wanted to.
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