Page 117 of Deadly Maiden

“Same here, my princess.” Princess? I smile and give it a pass. It’s better than my sweet necromancer. Gently, he circles the small of my back until I break the hug.

I should call him my lizard prince and see what happens.

“Now, I am ready.” The three of us advance, with Kyvin dragging the bag of provisions.

The etchings on the silver door resolve into something unexpected: a complex floral motif that unrolls across the surface. Here is another keyhole inside a raised silver rose. Beside the keyhole is a handle shaped like a rope made of twisting silver vines.

For a necromancer fortress made by my parents, I expected skulls and bones, if there was any prettiness at all. Maybe they were not who I imagined them? I look more closely at the multitude of etched flowers. There is a skull at the center of every flower. I grin at the discovery.Gotcha.

This place is where I may truly find out who my parents were. With Father newly dead, this day holds too many shocks.

I flourish the key with a shaking hand. “This key again? Maybe.”It cannot hurt…can it?

“Try it.” He places his hand around mine. Together, we insert it and the lock clicks. When I push on the handle, the door opens.

After a small entrance foyer, there’s a cross corridor to left and right and a long corridor that runs before us, higher than light can reach in a skinny rectangle shape that seems to stretch into forever. A few darker blotches to left and right hint at doorways to rooms. My first lungful of air reeks of dust, ancient mold, and of hundreds of dead.

Hundreds. Maybe thousands.

When I strain and concentrate down, sifting through the particles, I see that all of them actually utterly dead. And mostly they are insect corpses. And a few rats. My necromancer skills are flourishing in these surroundings.

Does this mean I might be able to, one day, raise undead spiders? I picture a horde of creepy crawlies overrunning a troop of enforcers, eating their eyes, sneaking into their ears, and worse. I shudder. I draw a line through that idea. Too far. Besides, I’d need big ones to do a thorough job.

There’s another idea. Breed some huge spiders.

I need to slap myself.

“We need light,” Rorsyd says. “Though my night vision is good, in here is darker than normal.” He turns to rummage in the bag Kyvin carries, searching. He pulls out a long cylinder with a quartz-like rectangle at the end. When he twists the cylinder, there is asnickand the quartz rectangle glows. The light is bright enough to make exploration possible.

“An etharum torch.” I shake my head. “Andacc is too organized.”

“That’s a good trait in a war leader. He also left a note in there. We should read it before I go. That is, if you still want me to go?”

Do I look dubious? Concerned? “I said you should. Could you hold my hand while we walk? Not that I’m scared.”

“Really?” His eyebrows lift. “I think I’d like you to havesomeweaknesses. After raising those guys, as you call them.”

I recall that he hates ghosts, and I smile, lace my fingers between his. “I have those. I think it’s that Slaedorth belonged to my parents.” I tilt back my head, following the drift of dust motes, and still I fail to find the ceiling. My hand, when I trail it along the wall, feels the rough gray stone. “I’m afraid of learning something and I don’t even know what it is. But I do want to learn.”

“Conflicted then.” He walks, pulls me with him, moving along the main corridor. “I’ll explore with you and kiss you better when needed. I can’t leave for hours anyway?”

It must be almost sunset. We will be camping in here. “How long does the torch last?”

“A day? And you will be able to recharge it.”

Of course I can.

We open doors as we go. The first is a closet. Then a kitchen. Then a large room with six tables, each with matching chairs. It’s all so ordinary, and I came here, I remind myself, to discover more about necromancy. Landos died yesterday, and my parents fought against the king who had him killed.

Maybe I’m as scared of not finding anything that can help in this coming war as much as I am afraid of finding out who Sabre and Aislinn really were when they weren’t fighting battles?

“A room full of desks and chairs?” Rorsyd closes the door. “Was that a schoolroom?”

“I think so.” I point to the sign above the door:STUDY ROOM.

The next room is a dormitory with eight beds, but none of them have mattresses, and the dust is thick. Spiders and their webs are rare in here, probably due to how the fortress has been sealed.

“It looks as if there was a school here. Do you think my parents lived here for long? Or was it just a myth, a?—”

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