Chapter 5

Reive

At first, Reive didn’t understand what had happened. A black stain appeared on Angelina’s chest, encircling her lungs with long sticky tentacles. She was suffocating.

The necromancer frowned in puzzlement. His sharp eyes were used to noticing changes in any situation, and they moved from the burdock where the meat lay, to the branches where the girl was shivering, and then all along the walls of the cave. Reive tried to grasp the reason for her seizure.

He could find no reason. There wasn’t any poison in the food. The dry brushwood didn’t emit any black magic. And the shelter itself was an ordinary lair.

It could mean only one thing: Angelina was ill. Regrettably, Reive wasn’t a doctor. He was a necromancer. If she kicked the bucket right now, the best thing he could do would be to make her into a nice clever undead girl. Say, a stryga. Or a lich. Though he didn’t even have enough magic for that right now.

The girl started shaking. Her eyes rolled up, and she began to froth at the mouth.

“It’s all so lousy, little one,” he said gloomily. Then he decided to attempt the single desperate measure that might help her.

He laid his hands on the dark shape in the center of the girl’s chest and ordered the Dark to obey. He absorbed it through his skin, tried to feel the source of the curse if it was a curse at all. He made this unknown curse change its object and deflected it to himself.

A very thoughtless act – to expose himself to attack for the sake of a girl he’d only met a couple of hours ago. He had wanted to use her as an energy charge. Like emergency rations for a dark day. However, Reive shook his head, tossing back a lock of hair from his face while driving away foolish thoughts. What was one weak curse to the Undead King? He had coped with worse than that.

Unfortunately, the trick didn’t work. It wasn’t a curse. And it didn’t disappear. But the fit suddenly went away.

The man bent his head, his neck bones crunching. A nasty wave of burning ran down his back. Yet the lion’s share of bad energy was channeled into his body.

“Hmm... I’ve never had to cure seriously ill people. I’d only kill out of mercy. But cure...”

Reive’s lips pursed in a gloomy semblance of a smile.

But at least, the girl felt better. The black tentacles disappeared, as if they had never been.

Angelina still hadn’t come to her senses and was breathing heavily. Her long lashes were trembling. Her pale face broke out in a cold sweat.

“Seems like you also have problems, little one,” Reive said quietly, laying on his back and clasping his hands behind his head. “Like me.”

Some time passed, during which his new acquaintance was breathing easier and more freely. All this while the necromancer was immersed in his own thoughts.

That morning, Angelina had read an invocation on his gravestone and decided that she had woken the Undead King.

Reive looked at the faint blush on the girl’s cheeks, and the memory almost made him smile. The girl wasn’t in danger anymore, so he could relax.

But how naïve he was to suppose that some little girl, almost a teenager, could break a spell that he hadn’t been able to break for seven hundred years!

Nonsense. Ulfricus Iris, may he have constant hiccups in the afterlife, did a great job. Moreover, those who had then sealed up the Undead King in his grave, didn’t fail either. They buried him so deep that it was impossible to find the gravestone with its inscription.

It was a long time ago. The burial ground had risen closer to the surface after it rained. The gravestone itself had appeared above the surface, and the necromancer himself had been able to replenish his anarel thanks to those chance victims passing by. Reive had long been shaking the bars of his prison, destroying the chains of the curse. And the bold girl had only helped him a little. She had broken the glass that already had too many cracks in it.

Although he had to admit that the girl had perfect pronunciation in Ashgenrian. She had read the invocation correctly. Most necromancers would read it in such a way that they would only seal the trap more firmly. This was Ulfricus’s unbelievably cunning secret. Only a very old and wise mage could reconstruct the correct pronunciation. And this mage had turned out to be the young girl graduate.

Reive gave a snort of contempt. He didn’t think much of Ulfricus’s intellectual abilities.

Now, he was free. The only thing he had to do was to restore himself to his previous level. Of course, to replenish his source, he might have to kill hundreds of people. However, had that ever been a problem for him? At one time, Reive had been on the point of conquering the world with an army of the dead. Therefore, no one would be any the worse from the desolation of a couple of villages.

However, he needed to get the lie of the land. To understand what changes there had been in his absence. Angelina would help him with this.

The necromancer turned to the girl. He flattered himself thinking he’d helped her only because of this mercenary reason. Because he still needed this bold brazen girl. But in fact, there were other, much deeper reasons that he didn’t even plan to think about.

Reive narrowed his eyes, dropping his gaze to the girl’s bare legs. After her seizure, her dress had ridden up shamelessly. Although it hadn’t covered much before. The grey-blue skirt rose so high that the shapely milk-white thighs suddenly made the man breathe more deeply.

“What did she say?” he muttered. “She had taken her final exam? In these clothes?”

He was eager to stroke her leg and feel how hot her skin was. To reach up to the area that was still covered with rather tasteless frills.

He turned away and frowned.

“I’d be surprised if she’d passed the exam,” he said gloomily, reluctantly looking up at the stone roof.

At that moment, his chance companion finally opened her eyes.

“Absolutely déjà-vu, upon the Twilight!” he smiled. “Glad to see you, little one.”

“What... What’s happened? The girl passed a shaking hand through her hair and threw a scared and guilty look at the man. “Ah, yeah... Sorry.”

“So, you know what the problem is?” the necromancer guessed.

The girl nodded, “But I’m surprised I’m still alive. I have epilepsy. I get rare but very strong... fits. When I have them, I choke. Only larnica powder that I must take in advance helps. And, unfortunately, I’ve run out of it recently. I was going to buy it right after I passed the exam and entered graduate school. But I failed. If everything had gone as it should I’d have been given a grant...”

The girl pulled a face and rubbed her eyes, getting up from the branches and taking a seat at the man’s side, “Sorry, I don’t want to bore you.”

“Never mind,” Reive answered, feeling strange. “I’d be happy to know how you got this disease. I’ve just never had to deal with a situation like this before. And I’ve seen many things, trust me.”

“You might not like it if I tell you the truth,” she said suddenly, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them.

“Try me...” Reive said. He was surprised himself when his voice sank, waiting for the answer.

Angelina ran her eyes reflectively over him, as if she was wondering one last time if it was worth telling him everything. Then, she sighed and began, “I’m defective.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?” the man frowned.