Page 28 of Antiletum
Abandoning my clothing on the floor, I make the final trek into the adjunct holding cell.
Rot is thick and cloying, like something alive and creeping, wanting to slide in your mouth and close off your throat. Bodies are always promptly disposed of, but blood takes root in the porous floor. It’s caked thick and sours as badly as a corpse. A maggot crunches under my replaced boot.
Couldn’t quite bring myself to go barefoot in this chamber of decay.
A frail body lies splayed, limbs twisted at awkward angles, and I smile. What a perfect way to start, raising him from the dead in such a painful position. Ideas flash through my mind, a glorious montage of violence and blood. It has been so very long. The urge to torture, kill, and raise him again for hours is incredibly tempting.
My smile slips away. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to savor his pain tonight. And who knows how the Heartstone and Elldenclocks may protest that magnitude of using magic outside of my bond. None of the clocks have strained since Delaney tried to reach Rainah, but they’re about to now.
No, Parliament has us very well trained.
Hurrying along, my wife will be wondering where I am soon, and I am more anxious to return to her than I am to satisfy my bloodlust.
It’s quick work, straightening the corpse’s arms and legs to be lying in a more comfortable position when he rises. He might not even scream.
Crouching next to the body, the particles of death that cling to life scratch at me. It’s not even a thought to collect the invisible dust, to call it to my hands and condense it within myself into something absolutely vital.Thriving.It’s instinct. Natural.
Already, I can feel the resistance of my bound magic, tugging at my cells and trying to eat away at my flesh like a parasite as payment. But theantiletumstops it, calms it back into submission. Necrosis is soothed away into its void hole to wait for another chance to claim me.
A hand sweeps over the cadaver’s chest, commanding those particles back into his body, telling his heart to beat, his lungs to breathe, his blood to flow like a raging river once more.
With a gasp, his eyes shoot open, the inside corners cobwebbed with bloody red.
He gurgles, trying to speak, his voice broken from where he slit his throat. Clearly his knife went deep enough to damage his vocal chords.
Not as obtuse and unprepared as I thought.
Before I can even begin to formulate a plan for yes or no questions, his cheeks bulge, a deformed bladder inflating. Whatever is inside rolls around, like a baby within the womb, while his terrified eyes stream.
“What the fuck?” My whisper is barely audible.
Something pokes between his cracked lips: a small foot.
With an ear shattering death rattle, his jaw cranks open wide—far wider than is humanly possible.
From his open mouth, a red eyed lemming appears. Possessed. A sickening crack echoes around the cellar, making my stomach churn. His jaw falls with a clatter to the floor, teeth breaking loose and scattering against stone. A nice, friendly game of dice.
He falls dead, whatever was placed inside eviscerating him from within, working beyond even my necromancy that demanded he stay alive until I say he can die.
Not a spy or assassin at all, but a messenger. Someone who shouldn’t have has learned my secret.
I can’t decide if I’m humored or offended by the lemming.
It isn’t much of a physical threat, it’s the symbolism behind it that matters. Possibilities run through me of who might have sent it. Roarke and his father would certainly have reason to want to topple me from where I stand. But whose magic could have made this particular message possible? What else might they know?
No matter where it came from, it has to be disposed of. A demon rodent scuttling through the halls of The Citadel would certainly raise questions. The lemming scurries up the wall, across the ceiling, casting horrifyingly long shadows of itself in the thin gas lamp light.
With a sigh, I go to the lamp control, turning it all the way down.
Black swallows the cellar whole, a comforting absence of color. Night has always been my friend. Its steadfast companionship wraps around me like a hug.
With wide open eyes, I hone in on my senses, dissecting the darkness for my prey.
A single, breathy gasp is all it takes to fully reinvigorate my elation after such an unfortunate derailment.
Very little convincing was needed for my wife to sneak away from the cavernous ballroom, dazzling with garlands of flowers and decorative lights hanging from the ribbed vaulted ceilings. She was quietly intrigued when I mentioned plans for us at breakfast.
Her eyes had gone glassy and her face slightly pink during the time I was gone, her elaborate hair style becoming loose from dancing and laughing, the feathers decorating the curls skewed. Beautiful. I found Delaney and Selise tipsy and giggling uncontrollably about Mallin being a terrible dancer.
