Page 14 of Rose and Shadows
“You don’t feel it, do you?” Remnant asked me. “You were engrossed in our conversation as we approached, so you weren’t focused on it. But focus now. There’s nothing, yes? No buzzing through your veins, no acrid taste? You only spat out that taste when we arrived here. And only once after Morien infected you. Not a single time since.”
Was he saying what I thought?
Was Ambrose also reading the same thing from me?
“I’m not infected anymore?” I asked. Making assumptions where this was concerned was dangerous. And I was an expert in necromancy, not black magic, so I needed to defer to somebody who was incredibly learned in that area to be sure.
Ambrose told me, his eyes shining with incredulity. “You’re not. There’s no trace of black magic, no trace of that fool’s corrupted magic in your system at all. Your body has expelled it, your magic has rejected it.” He lowered his palms. “I’m no longer the only one who can’t be corrupted by black magic. Now there’s you. Almighty Necromancer indeed.”
I fought to reconcile his words, the weight to them, the utter shock of them.
“You don’t need to fear it now,” Remnant told me. “Or to allow that fear to determine how you engage Morien in combat.”
“You already suspected. You just brought me here for confirmation—for my own peace of mind? You weren’t actually worried about it yourself?”
“It’s one of your greatest fears. If I, a new ally with mixed motives, had simply told you I knew you weren’t corrupted, thatMorien had misjudged the situation greatly, you wouldn’t have believed me.” He gestured at Ambrose. “So I brought you to a respected black magic authority, one I knew you’d dealt with and trusted in before.”
“Impressive.” His approach undoubtedly had my respect.
“Morien doesn’t know what he’s truly dealing with,” Ambrose stated. “This changes things. Considerably.”
“It certainly does,” Remnant said.
I smiled, eyeing Remnant. “Well, then. It seems we have a great deal to discuss.”
Despite everything, the pain, the complications, the dire threats we faced, a rush of excitement thrummed through me.
“It’s time,” Remnant announced.
“Time?”
“For you to be immersed in the true Underground.”
“Lead the way.”
4
~Lazriel~
It was strange being back here at Wraeven Academy.
For a while now, the world had come calling and I’d answered. I’d been out there interacting and experiencing.
Beforehand, it had been the opposite.
Hiding myself away from my pack because of all the shit that had gone down when I was a kid, then spending the last three years basically locked down here at the Academy by choice and only leaving to attend Crossborn meetings or to visit my mom.
I mean, I’d thought it had been my choice to live like that.
But now I knew better.
I’d been cutting myself off from so much due to fear—previous persecution and rejection, and the way parts of the world were toward hybrids.
So it was kind of amazing that being back here and doing what I’d done for so long now felt weird. And, yeah, maybe a little stifling.
I mean, some of that was compounded by Sylas not being here with us. He’d texted us from a private number, one of my dad’s provided highly-secure phones. But that wasn’t the same. He was sending a lot of GIFs and emoticons, whichweren’t exactly his thing, and it seemed like it was his guilt and uncomfortableness coming through at having to keep things quiet—yet again. Being down there with The Shadowed, secrecy was imperative, but it had become clear that Sylas wasn’t happy about having to be that way with us.
Him thinking that way now was a major deal for him. So I was trying to focus on that aspect.
