Ash and bone.
The curse escaped Evander's lips before he could stop it, his grandmother's words emerging unbidden as he felt the death energy surge through his system like infection spreading through healthy tissue.
He had been practicing the binding techniques for six days. Six days of careful work, measured progress, incremental improvement in his ability to contain and direct spiritual forces. Gregor had praised his dedication, noted his aptitude, begun preparing more advanced lessons.
And now, in a single moment of carelessness, everything was at risk.
The child's spirit had been restless. Lila Cors, the drowned girl whose body Evander had preserved and returned to her mother two days ago. Her soul should have moved on, should have found whatever peace awaited the innocent dead. Instead, it had lingered, growing more agitated with each passing hour, until tonight it had begun screaming with a terror that Evander could feel from across the city.
He had tried to calm her, to soothe the trauma that kept her bound to the mortal plane. But the spirit had been too distressed, too confused for any comfort to reach her.
So he had released her.
The ritual should have been simple. A gentle severing of the ties that kept the ghost anchored, followed by a quiet dispersal into the natural flow of spiritual energy. Evander had performed similar releases dozens of times, always with perfect control.
This time, something had gone wrong.
The severing had triggered a resonance he hadn't anticipated. Lila's spirit had been touched by something, influenced by forces beyond normal comprehension. When Evander cut the bonds holding her to the mortal plane, he had also cut something else, something that had been growing in the shadows of the city for weeks, waiting for exactly this moment.
Death energy erupted from the release point like blood from a severed artery. Not Evander's energy, not power he controlled or understood. Something older, carrying the signature of forces that had been imprisoned for three centuries.
The Death Gods.
They had been cultivating the child's spirit, using her trauma and confusion as a connection point between their prison and the mortal world. Evander's release ritual hadn't freed Lila. It had activated a trap that the Lords had been constructing since before he knew she existed.
And the energy that flowed from that trap was enough to light up every detector in the city.
Evander scrambled to contain the damage. His hands moved through binding patterns while his will pressed against the cascade of dark power, his voice speaking words that should have sealed breaches and closed connections. Nothing worked. The energy continued to flow, painting a beacon of death magic across the city's spiritual fabric that anyone with the sight could track directly to his location.
"Bones!"
The skeleton appeared at his side, having abandoned whatever activity had occupied him moments before. His skull took in the situation with a single glance, and his posture shifted into something that might have been alarm if skeletons could feel alarm.
"I know. I know." Evander's voice cracked with strain as he fought the cascade. "Get Gregor. Tell him the worst has happened. Tell him to initiate whatever contingency plans he has for exactly this situation."
Bones nodded and vanished, moving with speed that ignored the limitations of his form.
Evander was left alone with the energy spike, still flowing, still broadcasting his location. Minutes passed like hours as he worked, trying technique after technique, throwing everything he had learned at a problem that seemed designed to resist solution.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was probably only ten minutes, the cascade began to slow. The connection weakened. The beacon faded from blinding intensity to merely bright.
But the damage was done.
Evander felt them coming. Multiple groups, converging from different directions, tracking the death energy spike that had just announced his existence to half of Valdris. The Silent Watch, certainly. Possibly other factions as well, drawn by power that none of them could ignore.
He had minutes before they arrived. Maybe less.
"The Masked are in position." Gregor's voice materialized from thin air, transmitted through channels that only necromancers could use. "They can buy you time, create diversions, but they can't stop what's coming. The spike was too strong. Too many people felt it."
"I know."
"You need to run, Evander. Leave the domain, leave the city if you can. I can arrange transport to the eastern provinces, set you up with contacts who owe me favors."
"And abandon everyone I've sworn to protect? The patients who depend on me? The practitioners in hiding who think I can help them?"
"Better to abandon them temporarily than to die for them permanently." Gregor's voice carried the weight of centuries. "The Silent Watch aren't the only hunters in the city now. The death spike attracted attention from factions that don't answer to the Church. Factions that would find your abilities very useful."
"The vessels."
"Among others. The Death Gods have been building their network for years. The trap you triggered wasn't just designed to expose you. It was designed to create chaos, to bring all the hunting parties into contact with each other, to start conflicts that the Lords can exploit."
Evander felt his jaw clench. The trap had been elegant, he had to admit. Use an innocent child's suffering to create a connection point. Wait until a necromancer attempted a mercy release. Then trigger a cascade that would destabilize the city's entire supernatural power structure.
Chaos served the Death Gods. They fed on conflict, on the energy that violence produced. If the hunters turned on each other, if Valdris became a battleground between competing factions, the Lords would grow stronger. Eventually, strong enough to break their chains.
"I'm not running," Evander said.
"Then you're dying."
"Maybe. But not tonight, and not without a fight."
He could feel Gregor's frustration through the magical connection, the exasperation of a mentor watching his student make choices that seemed calculated to ensure disaster. But beneath the frustration, there was something else. Something that might have been pride.
"What do you need?"
"A distraction. Something big enough to draw the hunters away from my actual location, give me time to relocate to secondary territory."
"I can provide that. But Evander, the distraction will have costs. People will be hurt. People will die."
"I know." The words tasted like ash in his mouth. "Make the choices necessary. I trust your judgment."
"You shouldn't. My judgment is old and questionable. But I'll do what I can."
The connection faded, leaving Evander alone in his domain.
He could feel the hunters approaching. Three groups, converging from different vectors. The Silent Watch from the north. Something else from the east, something that felt wrong in ways he couldn't identify. And from the west, individuals whose signatures he recognized.
Mira Vance.
The Purifier had come.
Evander felt a chill that had nothing to do with his magic. Mira Vance was the Church's most effective weapon against practitioners, a hunter whose success rate was legendary. She had tracked necromancers across three kingdoms and purified threats that other Inquisitors couldn't even detect. Her name was synonymous with death for anyone who wielded forbidden power.
And now she was coming for him.
He had perhaps two minutes before she arrived. Two minutes to secure his domain, conceal the evidence of his true activities, and prepare for a confrontation that he couldn't afford to have.
Evander moved.
The hidden chambers sealed themselves at his command, the passages vanishing into apparently solid walls. The bound spirits dispersed, scattering into the city to avoid detection. The Masked abandoned their positions, fading into the crowds of the Warren where their preserved bodies would be indistinguishable from ordinary citizens.
By the time the first hunters breached his outer wards, Dr. Evander Ashcroft's residence appeared to be exactly what it claimed to be: the home of a healer who practiced a few minor magics, nothing more remarkable than a thousand other hedge practitioners throughout the Empire.
But Evander knew it wouldn't be enough.
The death spike had been too strong. Whatever he had accidentally released, whatever trap the Death Gods had constructed, it had produced energy that couldn't be explained by minor magics. Anyone who investigated thoroughly would find inconsistencies, traces, evidence that something far more significant had occurred here.
He needed to be somewhere else when they found it.
Evander slipped out through the window of his upper residence, dropping into the narrow alley between buildings. His medical bag hung at his side, stuffed with instruments and supplies that any physician might carry. His clothing was unremarkable, his posture that of a tired doctor making late-night house calls.
He moved through the Warren, using routes he had memorized years ago, paths that would take him to secondary safe houses while avoiding the main thoroughfares where hunters would be searching.
Behind him, his home filled with Inquisition officers.
Ahead, the unknown loomed. Somewhere in the city, Gregor was preparing a distraction that would cost lives to save his student.
Evander pushed away the guilt. There would be time for that later, assuming he survived the night. For now, survival was all that mattered.
He slipped deeper into the Warren's maze of alleys, just another shadow among many. But shadows could be tracked, and the hunters weren't going to stop.
---
Mira Vance stood in the healer's residence, her gray eyes taking in every detail with the patient thoroughness that had made her reputation.
The house was empty. The occupant had fled, probably minutes before they arrived. The trail was still warm, still traceable, and she had hunters spreading through the Warren even now, following scent and signature and the residual death energy that clung to everything the necromancer touched.
"He's good," she said to the officer beside her. "Better than I expected."
"Better than the reports suggested?"
"The reports suggested a minor practitioner with healing talents. What I'm sensing here is something else entirely." She moved to the bookshelf, running her fingers along spines that looked innocent but felt wrong to her enhanced perception. "This man has been operating under our noses for years. Building power, establishing networks, killing targets without leaving evidence we could detect."
"Bishop Marcos?"
"Almost certainly. And others, probably. Practitioners with this level of skill don't restrict themselves to single victims." Mira pulled a book from the shelf, flipped through pages that revealed nothing unusual, and set it aside with a frown. "He's smart. Careful. He knew we were coming and he had escape routes prepared."
"We'll find him."
"Eventually. But not tonight. He's gone to ground, and he knows this city better than we do." Mira turned from the bookshelf, her scarred arms crossed over her chest. "Call off the street pursuit. It's a waste of resources. Instead, I want surveillance on every patient he's treated in the past month. Every contact, every person in this district who might offer him shelter."
"That's thousands of people."
"Then we'd better get started." Her smile was cold, professional. "This practitioner made a mistake tonight. That death spike revealed more about his capabilities than years of careful investigation could have uncovered. He's powerful, yes. But power alone isn't enough. Not when you've just told your enemies exactly where you are."
"And the spike itself? What caused it?"
Mira considered the question, her gray eyes distant as she processed what she had sensed.
"That's what concerns me. The energy signature wasn't pure necromancy. It carried harmonics that I've only encountered once before, in texts describing the original sealing." She paused. "Whatever this practitioner is doing, he's connected to something larger than petty revenge or personal power. Something that threatens the foundations of everything the Church was built to protect."
"The Death Gods?"
"Perhaps. Or something related to them. Something that makes finding this Dr. Ashcroft not just a matter of justice, but a matter of survival."
Mira Vance turned from the healer's residence and stepped into the night.
Somewhere in Valdris, her quarry was hiding. The hunt had only just begun.
