Page 148 of Deadly Maiden

I flick my attention to Ruelle—the threat I need to counter now that Rorsyd is almost released and Kroll is twitching and taking his last breaths. Cautiously, she steps toward my soulmate, circling one way while Madlin deftly unsheathes his sword and slowly circles him.

With a fearsome roar, Rorsyd tears the spear from his guts and kicks Kroll’s body into the king, sending him staggering backward then falling. He flings the spear at Ruelle, who dodges it.

Four or five or ten seconds have spun past, and I need a weapon. The spear? Wary, I step closer to the fight.

Ruelle raises her hands, surely about to use those terrible scimitars on my soulmate. He’s healing the spear wound but is tottering, his face contorted. Then Madlin sweeps his blade at his feet. I gasp. And Rorsyd deftly dodges it.

“Open the door, Sister Paloma! The door!” The king is panicking. I like this.

Me, I’mstillweaponless. My sword is elsewhere, in the middle of the fight. Plan meet dumbass undead hero.Asher.Tears fill my eyes, but I have no time for those.

So, I try to do the impossible by concentrating on the mind of a woman who died long ago.

The book stressed that they must recently dead to do what I intend to do.

I reach, tentatively, and crawl my thoughts into the stilled mind of King Madlin’s daughter. I feel…something in there, a stirring, a tiny mouse-feet creeping, a whisp of a presence. I flinch and pull away. If that is real, the freezing must have helped. I reach again, and this time, I also reach for her ghost, and I draw gheist inside her frozen skull space while I strain and dedicate every ounce of my power to this task…

Jennae. Jennae!There is a prickling in my mind, an echoing whisper that leaks into my head without my ears detecting anything.

Yessss.Jennae’s corpse sighs.

I have her. I have her. My teeth feel the chill that is trapped inside her. My fingers crack as her long-unused joints move, and she grasps the edge of the casket.

And I raise her from death and watch as her corpse bends at the waist, and slowly climbs from that casket.

Learn as you go. Yet, I cannot,will not,use her to kill her own parents. The distaste I feel even considering doing that—just no.

It’s taken me seconds… Wisps of black mist snake from my raised hand and disperse.

Ruelle cries out and spins, her scimitars drooping as her mouth drops open. “Jennae? Is it you?”

Madlin has recovered and has stood, and he turns and sees her. He freezes and pales. One hand rises toward his undead daughter. “Jennae?”

I shouldn’t do this. No. I fucking should not.But Asher is expiring, his last moments as a real almost, living person, going, going… My face twists in unreasonable grief.

Though he swipes his face with his arm and has his eyes closed, Rorsyd has recovered the sword Asher was wielding. It will not be enough against those blood-wielder scimitars.

Yet, I cannot make a daughter do this. Asher was aware of who he was, and so might Jennae know her parents. That would be a grievous act of evil.

The alternative—to fail and die here?

Jennae growls, a sound no one can mistake for that of the living.

“Gods! That is not her!” Madlin scrambles backward. “Sister! Open the door!” He’s afraid of his daughter. Rightly so.

“No. But. No. It has to be her! Back away, you!” Ruelle faces Rorsyd and spits at him—an unhinged mother defending her daughter.

Sister Paloma remains still, silent, and hooded beside the door, her arms folded. Her expression obscured.

Muscles bulging, spear wound healing over, Rorsyd crackles with fire blazing in his eyes. He heaves out a breath, a cloud where embers swirl and heat blurs the air.

Seeing her last chance of victory fading, Ruelle strikes at him while Madlin slashes from the other side. Though he deflects Madlin’s strike then Ruelle’s, Rorsyd’s sword crumbles as blood magic consumes the steel.

Damn this.

They’re ignoring me, the weak, useless necromancer with no weapon in her pockets. Tucked deep in a pocket I do have a tiny ball of darkthing matter, but it is not a weapon. Ironic that I could not dispose of it.

Rorsyd backs from them, aiming for where the spear lies.

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