Page 81 of Death Raiser

Mom raised me to follow five rules to necromancy: Never use your own blood, never meet the Lord of the Veil, never run into a barghest, never reveal your lineage, and never take more than you need.

Did my talons and changing eye colour have something to do with why Mom made us promise never to reveal our lineage? But what did that even mean? She’d never elaborated on Rule Number Four.

As both my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandfather were reportedly strong necromancers, and Dad, too, I’d never questioned why I was so much more powerful than the average death raiser—I descended from three lines, after all. But what if Mom had lied? Or misled? Or didn’t know something about our bloodline?

I’d always suspected her rule had something to do with her side of the family because we weren’t allowed to tell anyone her father had also been a necromancer. According to Mom, he kept his birth surname a secret and I always figured that meant he was hiding from someone…or something.

Dad’s side descended from a strong line of necromancers from Wales, but anyone who knew the origin of my last name could figure out I was a descendent of Morcant. It wasn’t a secret. But was there more to Dad’s side of the family than I originally suspected? Something Mom wanted to keep hidden? My paternal grandfather had worked for Gregor, just as I did now. Maybe there was more to that than Gregor let on.

And maybe I was looking at the wrong grandparents altogether. I knew very little about my paternal grandmother and had assumed she was a drab because no one talked about her having magic. But now I wasn’t so sure. What if she wasn’t a drab at all?

I had so many swirling thoughts. If I survived this ordeal, I planned to sit Mom down and ask some very pointed questions and hopefully, I’d get at least a few answers.

I leaned closer to the mirror, my nose almost pressed to the surface. Something glinting off to the side under the glowing orbs caught my attention. I pulled away from the mirror and squatted down. Now face to face with the gargoyle statue, I reached forward and ran my hands along the tiled floor around its base. My fingers snagged on metal, and I pulled out a chain.

My breath caught.

I held up the chain to better catch the light and illuminate the surface of the solitary pendant hanging off the gold links.

My scalp prickled, and my hands shook. I’d recognize this pendant anywhere. I had the same one. My brother had one, too, shoved in a drawer somewhere.

And my dad had also had one.

I held the pendant up to the light while my gut twisted in a knot.

Engraved in the centre of the circular pendant was a griffin holding a skull in its beak.

The symbol of Morcant.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Too restless to read or sleep, I found myself wandering the hallways of Levi’s castle. My brain was probably one more discovery away from complete meltdown.

When I found the pendant in the bathroom, my hand instantly flew to my chest, but of course, I wasn’t wearing my own necklace. A memory of the chain snagging and clattering to the floor while I fought with Steve in my apartment surfaced. Either he’d left it where it fell after he rendered me unconscious or he’d taken it as a trophy like the psychopath he was.

But there was no mistaking the pendant I’d found and now wore in place of my own. Who had it belonged to? My father? Had he visited and subsequently perished in this castle? But why would he come to the veil without an anchor?

Or did the pendant belong to my grandfather? Had he come here on his own or on Gregor’s orders?

Or was I thinking too deeply on this? Maybe this pendant belonged to an ancestor farther up the family tree, an ancestor I had no emotional connection with.

The only thing I knew for sure was this was the pendant of Morcant. It even had the family name engraved on the other side of the pendant just like mine.

I kept running through possibilities as I moved around the eerily quiet castle. Walking around at night, shrouded in shadows, set my teeth on edge, but also provided a sense of relief at the same time. I planned to return to the library to find something a little smuttier to read when voices stopped me. A hushed conversation echoed off the stone walls. Hudson and Levi.

Why would they bother meeting secretly at night? There wasn’t exactly a crowd of people or a threat of spies during the day.

Just me.

Which meant whatever they discussed involved me or they didn’t want me to know the information.

“Are you sure?” Levi growled.

“Yes,” Hudson answered. “See here? This clearly means you need the blood of a powerful necromancer, but this word right here? The one right before? It means the necromancer. If you scan back, it refers to the blood of Morcant.”

“I need the blood of a necromancer who is a descendent of Morcant.”

“Exactly,” Hudson said.

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