Lira led me through twisted groves and silent ruins, saying little. The further we walked, the more I felt it—that familiar thrum in my bones, the pull of something old, something mine. The land here wasn't dead. It was dormant, waiting for someone with the blood to wake it.
Waiting for me.
We reached a forgotten temple swallowed by moss and time. Obsidian pillars jutted from the earth like the spines of a buried beast. I felt the magic in the stones—dark, ancient, protective. It was necromancy, yes… but purer. Wilder. Untamed.
Lira turned to me at the threshold. "This place was once a sanctuary. For your kind."
I raised an eyebrow. "My kind?"
"Necromancers. Real ones. Not the power-hungry fools the world remembers, but the ones who were born to balance the cycle. The keepers of death's will."
I stepped past her and into the temple.
The air grew heavy with memories not my own. Images flared behind my eyes—figures in black robes, rituals carved into stone, bones arranged in sacred patterns. I walked to the altar at the center and placed my palm on its surface.
It flared to life beneath my touch.
Runes exploded with violet fire. The earth shuddered. And suddenly—I remembered.
Not everything.
But enough.
My father, standing in a circle of flame, hands outstretched as spirits spiraled around him. My mother, her voice sharp with command, weaving souls into blades. My bloodline wasn't just linked to necromancy.
It was built from it.
I stumbled back, breath shallow. "They were like me."
"They were more than like you," Lira said, her voice quiet. "They were legend. And they died because they refused to serve the council. Because they believed necromancy wasn't evil—just misunderstood."
The council.
Of course.
The same group who now debated what to do about me.
"They killed them?" I asked, my voice low.
"No," Lira said. "Your parents died protecting this place. They hid you before the final battle. The tome found its way to you when the seal broke… when the world was ready again."
I stared at the altar.
Suddenly, my power made sense. My instincts. My effortless control. It wasn't an accident.
It was inheritance.
And it came with a legacy drenched in blood.
"So what now?" I asked. "What do I do with this?"
Lira stepped closer, placing a hand on the stone beside mine.
"Finish what they started."
Outside, thunder rolled over the horizon.
Something was coming.
And I was no longer just a powerful necromancer.
I was the heir of a forgotten dynasty.
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