“I found a body in the cellarage.” Yorick paused. “I… I recognize him from yesterday.”
Nezael dressed as quickly as he could with Yorick’s help to fashion the golden spine against his back for his magic armor. Its warmth fluttered across him, making him feel light, and they hurried down to the cellarage.
Full of dusty cobwebs, items which had long since lost their purpose, and food canned and preserved alongside Carrow’s casks of wine was indeed a body. A young man. The wards had gotten him, leaving his body there preserved for their taking, but still very dead. Bright blue eyes without the luster of life behind them. Thick blonde hair tumbled to one side and his pale skin was covered in freckles. He was slender, all soft angles, and reminded Nezael of himself. He wore a simple traveling tunic which hid glistening knives within. Breeches held nothing more than a bag of what he’d already managed to grab. He had no shoes to speak of, but Nezael wondered if he’d taken them off to sneak around without them.
Regardless, he’d made it here. Inside. Through the exterior wards only to be trounced by the internal ones.
“He was the young man who followed us out of town,” Yorick whispered.
Oh. Nezael’s skin washed cold with the realization. It didn’t quite answer the how, but Nezael hated himself all the more. If he’d let Yorick scare the man away, or even confronted him on his own, he could have stopped a senseless death. Nezael squeezed his eyes shut to push back the headache threatening to claw across his scalp. How many deaths was he up to now? It did him no good to count, yet he tried and quickly lost the number.
Yorick was kneeling beside him, skeletal hand pressed to the small of his back to keep him balanced. He needed it. So he could think. Decide what he wanted to do with the man. A proper burial? Or take him into their fold? What would he have wanted? What did Nezael even want?
Too many questions. Nezael wanted to go back to a dark room and shut it all out.
Until he heard footsteps echoing down the stairs. Yorick’s arm slid away and he stood, acting like the bodyguard he should have been and not the friend he was. Carrow came down with Bellamy at his heels and they slowed upon seeing Nezael kneeling on the floor. His expression lifted into delight once he sighted the dead young man.
“Oh,” he said. “I see Bellamy is correct. We’ve a new friend.”
“I don’t know how he got so far,” Nezael said.
The delight melted into concern, stopping Carrow in his tracks. He hummed thoughtfully before stepping beside Nezael. “I suppose you will simply have to replace all our wards. Your distraction this winter made them woefully weak, my blossom.” One hand gently reached out and drew itself through Nezael’s hair.
“Yes, my lord,” Nezael whispered, knowing any other response would dig his lord’s fingers into his scalp.
“But, for now, we have a new friend.” Carrow attempted to swoop down to gather the young man, but Nezael blocked him with an arm. Anger flashed in Carrow’s eyes, but Nezael didn’t draw back.
“He is not yours,” Nezael said slowly. “He’s mine.”
Without even looking, Nezael felt Yorick stiffen behind him. The subtle click of his bones and the softest gasp. Carrow raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, is he, my blossom?” He slid his gaze to Yorick, a mean smirk jutting across his lips, and once more, he drew his fingers through Nezael’s hair. Softer this time. “What makes you so sure?”
“Our skeletons of late have had more of my magic than yours,” Nezael said quietly. Carrow’s eyes narrowed. Nezael had noticed it from the first one after Yorick, but he’d been unsure about asking why. “Yet you always have control over them. If I am to be your necromancer, I feel I should have more of my own. I can do this myself. All of it. Let me prove it.”
Genuine surprise crossed his lord’s face before it settled into a haughty smile. He fully expected Nezael to fail. Maybe he would. “Raising someone you hardly even know is quite different. And this one, you don’t even have the pleasure of fucking beforehand.” His fingers drew downward along Nezael’s jaw before he tipped Nezael’s chin upward to look at him. “But, if you truly seek to ravage yourself attempting the feat on your own, he’s all yours.”
Before Carrow stood, he pressed his lips to Nezael’s. He knew what he was doing. He knew Yorick was there watching him. The kiss lingered longer than Nezael wanted it to and then all at once, Carrow had drawn himself to his full height and left. Bellamy lingered, words there in his skeletal visage until Carrow sharply called his name from above. He left as well, leaving Nezael alone with Yorick and the poor dead man.
A burning sensation raced through Nezael’s body knowing how intently Yorick was watching him.
“Nezael…”
The spell to make objects float was simple. Bodies were decidedly less simple than objects, but Nezael drew the magic threads around the body the same anyway. They became soft glimmers weaved together as a kind of burial shroud. Once Nezael was sure it’d be steady, he drew the threads upward with him as he stood. The body floated off the ground, suspended on magic alone.
“Nezael: look at me,” Yorick said louder.
And Nezael couldn’t. Not until Yorick gripped his chin and forced him to. There was nothing to see there. A skull stared back at him, but Nezael felt the heat of his glare regardless.
“You can’t be serious,” he whispered. “You’ll trap him here with you for the misfortune of following us? Just to prove you can? Does he truly deserve that fate?”
Had Yorick truly deserved his fate was the question Nezael asked every day. The one hidden behind this one now as the regret pulled Yorick’s voice taut.
“Better me than our lord,” Nezael said, words heavy on his tongue. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you? Truly?” The anger lashed out and Nezael flinched. “Forcing him—”
“I did not force you,” Nezael growled and Yorick stilled. “I gave you the only choice I could give. Die or stay with me. I will give him the same. If you now think you can do better elsewhere, then go. My magic is not so weak you’ll fall apart without me.”
Nezael wanted to take back the words as soon as he’d said them. They were unfair. Yorick would be struck down by would-be heroes without a thought, no matter how kind he might have been. Beyond that, the words dredged up thoughts and feelings he’d buried over the spring to make this work. Once more, Carrow’s machinations attempted to push them apart. Except this time, it was evident the hurt was still there. Bleeding over. Festering unseen for the both of them.
“You can come with me,” Yorick tried, his voice so small and quiet.
“There’s nothing out there for a necromancer such as me,” Nezael whispered and looked away. What would Carrow do if he tried to run now? What would happen to the skeletons here he’d come to adore as though they were his own? Even the town would not be spared should Nezael attempt escape. Carrow knew how soft Nezael was and he’d willingly use it against him. Like he already had. “I am Lord Carrow’s apprentice and that is all I’ll ever be.”
It hurt to say it so succinctly, but Nezael wouldn’t have anywhere to go. As soon as someone learned he was a necromancer, he’d be executed on the spot and he wasn’t quite quick enough with magic like Carrow to avoid death completely.
Yorick stared at him, finally silent, and walked away.
It was deserved. All the regret. The anger. The sadness. It burned inside Nezael through the entire trek back to the ritual room and threatened to overrun every time he had to catch the body, his attention too frayed to keep the spell tight like it should have been. Once inside the ritual room, Nezael buried the feelings the best he could so he could be the necromancer his lord wished him to be.
The clothes came off with a spell as Nezael gathered the instruments from Carrow’s workshop (and Carrow’s magic gleefully showed him which tools to use). Isabella helped him gather the correct herbs from her stores, but she gave him no advice. No soft words. Nezael didn’t want them. Not anymore.
Before the first incision, before Nezael took anything hidden beneath the skin, he paused and stared at the freckled young man lying there on the plinth. An undeserved fate befalling him for nothing more than being curious.
“Hello,” Nezael whispered, drawing his fingers softly along his cold cheek. “I know not if you can hear me as you are, but… what do you want?” He felt silly asking it aloud, but he owed the young man that much.
After a silent moment, the ghost of a touch fluttered across his hands in response. Acknowledgement something was there. Nezael smiled softly.
