21. Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Evengi

" Y ou fool!" Natasya's father howls in my ears. I grimace rubbing my ear against my shoulder. "You had every opportunity to let her die and yet you sacrificed yourself for her? Your blood will join a streaming river of red she leaves in her wake."

"At least it will allow me to find some peace away from you," I grumble as I stretch my fingers, trying to bring some circulation to my fingers.

I only just recently regained consciousness after the apparent thrashing Brom's decapitated body gave me. I try not to take the defeat too hard. It's difficult to defeat the dead, no killing blow would stop them. No, the only way to stop the undead is by completely destroying them.

Incineration is the course that most choose when dealing with fighting the dead.

Unfortunately, I don't happen to have any fire on hand, and I was never a very good magicker. As proven by the fact that I nearly got myself killed with a flame spell of my own back at the academy.

"Do you really think you will find peace if you are killed by a necromancer?" Natasya's father continues. "You know surprisingly little for being a ghost hunter."

I roll my eyes as I shift my weight slightly grimacing at the pounding in my head. Not all of it is because of the ghost, just most of it. The rest is likely the result of whatever blow I received to render me unconscious.

I turn my head to see that we are underground. Torches flicker because apparently not even the dead can see in the dark. Or more likely, the firelight has to do with whatever ritual they would like to perform. Perhaps the flames are meant to consume Natasya as they rip out her heart.

From the arrangement of the stones, I'd wager that I'm in one of the burial mounds. A central one given its size.

All around the mound are shambling corpses of the reanimated necromancers. I can make out the spirits floating above them flickering in and out of existence as a constant murmur drowns at my ears.

I start counting the decaying bodies gathered around but then give up. If it isn't the full one hundred necromancers, then it's pretty close.

I'm tied up and appear to have been stuffed into one of the slabs where they kept the dead before the bodies got up and wandered off.

I swallow down my panic at the thought of being this far underground and the racing thoughts wondering if Natasya got away.

I don't even allow my mind to ponder over what the dead could possibly be planning with me. They kept me alive for a reason and I'm not entirely sure if I want to know what that reason is.

Suddenly the dead part to the side, like a stream parting around a river and to my utter shock they reveal Natasya standing there. She looks resplendent, her red hair a flaming halo around her and her purple dress clings to her frame. Beautiful and very much alive, but for how much longer?

She strides forward like she has nothing to fear. Even though she is entering a room full of dead bodies that fully intend to rip her still beating heart from her chest.

I strain my neck as I stare at her with horror. She is holding a vial up near her mouth, I'm not sure what the contents are, but whatever it is, it seems to have upset the ghosts. They begin hissing and snarling.

"All right, I'm here," she calls out loudly. "Where is Evengi?"

My heart sinks with realization. She is here for me. Out of everything that I considered every possibility of how this would turn out, Natasya having a crisis of conscience and coming back for me was not even on the list. I counted on her sense of self-preservation. Her selfishness. The fact that she doesn't let moral scruples stop her.

I counted on her to act like a necromancer.

But here she is, standing there surrounded by dead things so vibrant and alive. And ready to throw that all away for me?

Before I can fully work through the crushing weight of disappointment over her actually doing something heroic, rough hands reach onto the shelf and yank me out.

I find myself staring into the empty space above Brom's collar as he swings the sword out. I flinch but they simply cut through the ropes holding me in place. I stretch my arms as I turn to Natasya.

"What are you doing here?" I demand, but her eyes are focused on something in the middle of the floor. I look down, realizing that it's a skull, cracked with half the side of it collapsed in on itself.

"Papa," Natasya breathes as she stares at it. Even from across the crypt I can see the tears shining in her eyes. Her eyes flick up as fury floods her face. "You killed my papa."

"We will send you to join him," one of the ghosts says with a dry chuckle as two of the dead grasp Natasya's arms. They wrest the potion vial away from her and throw it to the side. It cracks and there is an exploding sound as flames erupt. They aren't huge flames, but they are so hot that I can feel them from here. They leap up to one of the corpses, and it lets out a hollow screech as the flames climb up it, consuming the dried flesh and burial rags.

One of the necromancer ghosts screams. "My body! My form!"

In the moment of chaos, I feel something bump my now free hand.

I look down to see the grinning teeth of a rotting smile and the hollow eyeless stare of one of the undead. It holds something out to me, a worn brown leather book.