Page 47 of When Ashes Fall

Briar

My hands shook as I lowered the page to my lap. What did I just read? What did it all mean? And what was a necromancer?

Once, when I was younger, I snuck out of my room and crept down the stairs to the balcony overlooking the ballroom in my mother’s castle. She was throwing a gala for the most powerful and revered night casters in our kingdom.

All the attendees wore masks and costumes that revealed more of their bodies than they hid. Musicians played with little more than tassels and strips of cloth covering their privates.

Servants milled about, carrying trays of food through the crowd. Their sheer black clothes left nothing to the imagination.

Those in masks dined on appetizers, grabbed drinks from passing trays, and laughed as they milled about. When the music suddenly changed, my mother clapped her hands and declared that everyone must leave the dance floor.

As they did so, a group of five men and five women ran out from one of the hallways. Completely nude, they flipped and bounced across the floor.

Entranced by their movements, I gripped the railings while I watched. They used each other to build pyramids, tossed each other in the air, and bent their bodies in ways I’d never known a body could move.

They brought out ropes and threw them across the beams to perform aerial feats that would shatter bones if they hit the ground. Mesmerized, I couldn’t look away as they flipped, twirled, and flew through the air.

When the acrobats finished, the celebrants clapped loudly, and the tumblers mingled with the crowd. A crowd that soon swallowed them as they touched and fawned over the athletes.

Sizzling tension built as the sounds changed. They no longer laughed as hunger palpitated the air, and not all the sounds that came from below were of pleasure as the casters forced the acrobats to contort their bodies in different ways.

Frightened by what was happening, I retreated to my room, but I couldn’t shut out the moans and cries of agony coming from below. I tried to block them out by recalling the way the gymnasts performed such amazing feats; it didn’t work.

Now, those acrobats had taken up residence in my stomach and were flipping wildly about. My heart beat so fast I was sure it bruised my ribs, and my brain couldn’t form a coherent thought as questions pummeled it.

Why couldn’t this power be allowed to exist? Had someone possessed it in the past, or was it a made-up power someone slipped between the pages? But it wasn’t made up if I possessed it. How was it possible I had the ability?

And who wrote this?

They were all very good questions, and unfortunately, I didn’t have answers to any of them.

Gathering myself enough to move, I returned the page to the book, leaving it a little exposed at the top to save my place, before flipping back to the beginning. I searched the book’s opening pages for its publication date, but found nothing.

A date didn’t really matter, as this page was handwritten and placed between two powers that had nothing to do with it. I returned to the paper and the ugly words blazing out at me.

If necromancers shouldn’t exist, then why mention this power? Did whoever write this fear there were others out there? Are there others out there?

After reading this, the possibility both excited and terrified me. I really didn’t want to meet someone who was controlling a bunch of corpses, but I would give anything for some answers!

How did I become a necromancer? Was I a necromancer or something else entirely?

It sure sounded like I was, but maybe I had some variation of it that wasn’t considered forbidden. It wasn’t something casters possessed, but maybe I wasn’t a full-blooded caster.

I still didn’t like the possibility of that, but right now I’d take any explanation. None of this made any sense; instead of gaining answers, all I’d accomplished was a million more questions.

How did I get this ability? I racked my brain for a solution, but couldn’t come up with one.

If my father were a demigod who was also a necromancer, wouldn’t I have had the ability since birth, as all demigods did? Or would it take longer to manifest because I wasn’t a full demigod?

There were rumors that some demigods survived the war and were in hiding. If that was true, and the ability was theirs to begin with, then maybe some of their offspring possessed it.

Does that include me?

I hadn’t found necromancy in any of the books on demigods, but maybe someone removed it. Whoever wrote this had hidden it here, and their shaky letters indicated it scared them to put it to paper. This whole thing was so messed up and confusing.

I needed to talk to my mother, but she was the last eternal in all the kingdoms I wanted to see. Besides, it wouldn’t do me any good to speak with her; she’d never give me the answers I sought.

In fact, she’d enjoy withholding them from me. If she knew anything about this and that I somehow possessed this power, she’d happily eliminate me.