Page 39 of Necromance
“That letter could have been from Serena,” he argued coldly. “Your opinion of me is wholly incorrect.”
“How do you know?” I snapped. “You have no memory.”
He stepped closer and I fought the urge to move away. His fingers slid down my cheek, coming to rest under my chin. He lifted it, forcing me to look at him.
“Oh Mia,” he said, his voice low and calculating. “You sound jealous.”
My teeth clenched. I wasnotjealous.
Was I?
I shoved the thought as deep down as possible, seething at the notion. “I’m simply observing,your grace, not envying”
His hand fell to his side as he stepped back. It was clear I’d wounded him, but it was for the best. Physically, we were both stuck here together, but emotionally, I needed to keep my wits. I needed to find out why my grandmother had cursed him… I needed to know whether the man I was irrevocably drawn to had done something so cruel as to deserve being cursed or whether my grandmother had betrayed me, because either way, one thing was clear… I was going to leave Ravenspire with a broken heart.
Without another word, Lucien vanished.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I sat curled up in the armchair near the hearth the following evening. The flames in the grate had long since died, but I hadn't noticed until the cold crept into my bones. My grandmother’s book lay open across my lap, its pages brittle beneath my fingers. The sigils inked in her precise, looping handwriting felt more like wounds than words. Every line I read pulled me deeper into a darkness that I didn’t want to name.
Necromancy was supposed to be a gift. A sacred art that tethered life and death, that soothed the dead and guided the lost… At least that’s what my grandmother had taught me. But, now I was staring at the very real possibility that she had lied to me, that she had used that same art to condemn a man—trap Lucien in a fate worse than death.
I clenched my jaw, turning another page. There had to be a reason. She must’ve had one. Maybe she’d been manipulated by Serena or maybe she’d been trying to protect someone.
Maybe Lucienhaddone something… something terrible…
I closed my eyes and took a shaky breath. Deep down, I knew the truth. Lucien hadn't done anything. That was the problem. I had seen the goodness in him far too clearly.
Still…
Still, I needed to believe that maybe, just maybe, he had deserved to be cursed. Because if he didn’t, then the woman who had raised me, the woman who had instilled values and morals into me, had used her magic to hurt an innocent man.
And what did that make me?
A legacy of evil?
A puppet of a curse that I was never meant to undo?
I pressed my forehead into my hands, tears stinging behind my eyes. I hated this war inside of me. I hated how I wanted to believe in the man who had become something to me, but I also hated that I was even considering that my grandmother wasn’t who I thought she was.
That every single time she had held me while I cried for my parents and the tragedy that had occurred between them, she had secretly been using the same horrible magic that took their lives.
I wiped my eyesfuriously, slamming the book closed.
I couldn’t bring myself to summon Lucien. I leaned back in my chair, letting out a slow sigh. He deserved an apology, but I wasn’t ready to give him one yet… Not until I knew the truth… But I needed to find his body.
The castle sighed around me, a slow exhale through its rotting bones as if mocking my feelings.
I stood, moving to my bag. My fingers curled around brittle remains. The bones were smooth with age, a remnant of something long dead, yet still clinging to the echoes of magic. I turned them over in my hand, speaking an old incantation under my breath before slipping them into my pocket. The touch of them against my thigh was oddly comforting, even if I wasn’t entirely sure how much protection they could offer.
I couldn’t stay locked in my room all night. I had to search for clues.
With or without Lucien.
The thought tightened something in my chest, though I refused to dwell on it. His absence gnawed at me in a way I couldn’t quite explain. It left me restless. Unsettled. And perhaps, though I’d never admit it, just a little bit lonely.
But I couldn’t afford to dwell on it. There were answers in this castle—clues hidden in its decaying walls, and I was going to find them.
