“Here’s your room,” the dormitory warden announced solemnly as she handed me the key.
She didn’t even glance my way, too busy scribbling something in a massive ledger that looked bigger than she was. Perhaps it was her petite stature that made it seem so. I suspected she had ancestors from the mountain folk—known for their diligence and meticulousness, they were often chosen for such roles, even without a magical gift. The esteemed Mrs. Crokeng was equipped with artifacts and amulets, the purposes of which I couldn’t immediately discern. You’d need a seasoned artificer to fully appraise the extent of our warden’s capabilities.
“My room?” I asked, just to be sure, peering into the dreary, gray space where I was expected to live for the next five years. Not exactly an inspiring prospect.
“The best one. And you’ll be living alone,” Mrs. Crokeng added with a hint of pride.
A strange privilege, considering the room was in the basement, with tiny windows that looked more like prison slits—high up near the ceiling and barred with iron grates. It made my stomach churn with unease.
“Why the basement?” I pressed, seizing the opportunity to ask while still hovering at the threshold.
My question seemed to genuinely surprise the elderly woman. Her emotions were so transparent and vivid that she didn’t even need to speak for me to guess what she’d say next.
“What do you mean, ‘why’?” she clucked, more like a hen than a dormitory warden. “You’re a necromancer, aren’t you?”
I hesitated, still not fully grasping that my fate was sealed and I’d never become a battle mage. It stung. This had been my childhood dream, then my teenage aspiration, and now, almost an adult, it was still my deepest wish. Letting go of a dream always leaves a bitter taste.
While I stood silent, Mrs. Crokeng pulled out a small pair of pince-nez and peered at the entries in her enormous ledger once more.
“First year. Adel Black?” she asked nervously, as if confirming. I figured that, like many of her people, she took her duties incredibly seriously and saw any mistake as a personal tragedy.
“Uh-huh,” I sighed.
“Necromancer. Don’t confuse me,” she muttered irritably. “All necromancers live in the basement. It’s this year’s directive from the rector, at the request of your faculty advisor.”
Just wonderful. I glanced into the room again, couldn’t help but grimace, and asked, “And before this, did our advisor ever make such odd requests?”
“How should I know?” Mrs. Crokeng shrugged. “He only transferred here this year.” At that moment, a spark of eager gossip lit up her eyes, the kind that bursts to be shared with anyone just to avoid exploding. A big secret, of course. “Rumor has it he had a personal falling-out with the king. And the king, naturally, wouldn’t tolerate such insolence, so he banished him here. To teach necromancy and battle magic at our academy.”
“I haven’t heard anything about that,” I mumbled thoughtfully, rubbing my chin.
Truth be told, I hadn’t kept up with high society gossip lately. The headlines in the tabloids always seemed to remind me of my breakup with Ryan. Eventually, I decided to stop reading them altogether to avoid reopening old wounds. Maybe that was a mistake.
“And you wouldn’t have. I was told in confidence. A relative from the capital visited recently. She sometimes cooks at the palace and overheard the news there.”
Ah, well, that’s a different story. The most reliable source of information, what can I say?
“Incredible!” I said, lips pressed into a skeptical line, hiding a smirk.
But Mrs. Crokeng misinterpreted my expression. With a look of horror, her pince-nez slipped off and dangled sadly on its chain, her eyes widening to the size of dessert plates.
“Don’t tell anyone! I don’t want trouble.”
“Are you afraid of our advisor?” I teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“Who isn’t? Necromancers are all… well, you know…” She stopped herself, realizing she was speaking to a necromancer of sorts, albeit an untrained one, and decided not to dig herself deeper. “I’ve got to go. So much work to do.”
And off she scurried with the agility of a mountain goat, surprising for her build and age. She’d stirred up a mystery and then bolted. I had to admit, though, the identity of our new advisor intrigued me. Embarrassingly, I knew almost nothing about necromancers. My parents’ social circle was mostly my father’s comrades—battle mages like him—and my mother’s friends, seers who were more gossipmongers than prophets.
I should ask around about this mysterious advisor, supposedly exiled to this remote academy by the king himself.
Watching the warden disappear with a thoughtful gaze, I decided that the advisor wasn’t an urgent concern. My living conditions, on the other hand… I needed to focus on my new home.
Of course, my room was quite the sight. Gloomy, gray, half-dark. Even sunlight couldn’t penetrate those narrow windows. At least it didn’t smell of mold, which was a small mercy. I hadn’t expected much more than a bed, a wardrobe, and a desk anyway. Oh, and a bathroom. But the bathroom and shower were communal for the entire basement, which housed four rooms. And considering I was the only girl among necromancers on this floor… Damn. One piece of bad news after another. I’d have to figure something out about this.
I stepped inside the room, closed the door behind me, and took a moment to catch my breath, trying to come to terms with my new reality.
“Well, Adel Black, welcome to your new home!” I said aloud to myself, flopping onto the bed, hands behind my head, staring at the cracked, gray ceiling.
So… What should a typical student at a magical academy be thinking about? And what if it’s the Faculty of Necromancy? What if I never even intended to join this program, let alone live in a basement?
Good questions, but my thoughts were far from the injustices of the present. Instead… instead, my memory kept dragging me back to the past. Probably because of Ryan’s sudden reappearance and his ridiculous declarations.
Still… Memory is a cruel thing.
I truly loved Ryan. It was my first love, my first stolen kisses, my first confessions, and shy dreams of a future together. In those dreams, we were both battle mages serving the king, a happy couple, simply in love…
It’s bitter to even think about now. My chest still aches knowing it was real only for me, while for him, it was just a mission. Nothing more than a task.
Love blinds you, softens you, makes you vulnerable. Sometimes, I’d say, it makes you downright foolish.
That’s how it was with me.
Ryan proposed to me during a visit to the royal palace for a ball celebrating Princess Diana’s sixteenth birthday. It was summer, just before the Festival of the Young, a time when almost anyone who wished could marry, even without parental consent or regard for status or eligibility. A season of the wildest mismatches and the most reckless decisions.
According to his plan, I suppose, lovesick little Adel was meant to agree to a secret wedding in a tiny chapel with a bribed chaplain, jumping for joy without a second thought. But… he didn’t account for the fact that I had my own plans for my life.
It all came down to promises I’d made—first and foremost to my late father, a loyal warrior of the crown and a trusted confidant of the king. He’d trained me to become a fire battle mage. Rigorous training, strict discipline, a structured life. Above all, he instilled in me a clear sense of the goals I wanted to achieve. Even with my mind clouded by first love, a voice inside screamed that marriage—especially a secret one—didn’t fit into my life’s plan.
That voice was right.
So, cautiously promising to think it over and weigh everything, I simply ran from the need to explain such obvious truths. I delayed the final decision for a while. Of course, there was some temptation. I even wavered a bit. After all, it was marriage, not imprisonment.
But fate must have been protecting me. That very evening, as I hid from the world in a small gazebo to be alone with my thoughts and consider everything, I accidentally overheard a conversation that still leaves a bitter taste of betrayal and disappointment whenever I recall it.
It was a discussion between an unknown man in black and Ryan’s father, the king’s first advisor, Tiberius Corn. The mysterious figure speaking with my would-be father-in-law didn’t catch my attention at the time—listening to what the advisor said was far too painful. Later, I berated myself and wished I could go back to find out who that man was, but it was too late.
Still, the advisor’s words are etched in my memory.
“We need to do something about this girl,” he hissed like an angry cobra. “If anyone knows anything, it’s Adel. Black doted on his younger daughter and must have entrusted her with more than just an inheritance. My son is carrying out our plans as we speak. But… if she doesn’t agree to the marriage and Ryan doesn’t uncover everything we need, we’ll have to handle this more decisively. We need Black’s records. Everything he discovered.”
The response was a quiet, indistinct hiss, from which I couldn’t make out a single word.
“Yes, I also think we should start with Vilheru,” the advisor nodded, then, as if recalling something important, quickly added, “It’s time for the king’s games, it seems.”
For a while, I sat in silence, listening to the sounds, footsteps, and voices. My heart was breaking, my eyes burned with tears, and an inner voice kept repeating, “You’re a blind fool, Adel!” It was hard to disagree. Love… sure. I’d kept wondering why me? Why would a fire mage, who had girls falling at his feet, pay attention to me?
The answer shattered me completely. He needed whatever my father had uncovered before he died.
And I might have handed over everything out of loyalty to the crown if I even knew what they were talking about. My father never kept papers at home, never mixed family with work, and certainly never shared classified information with me. I had nothing to offer. But the cold, steely tone of the advisor, secretly discussing critical matters in the royal garden’s rose arbor, made it clear—no one would believe me. I was left with an alternative that wasn’t really a choice: become Ryan’s wife or… the advisor’s prisoner.
Well, you can guess that my life plans didn’t include anything of the sort.
All my decisions were made on impulse, on the road. They seemed to line up on their own as I rattled along in a carriage, cursing my naivety and trust. The best idea I could come up with was to head to the Black estate that very evening, inform my mother of my intention to enroll in the Academy of Magical Arts and Prophecies in Vilheru, and start packing.
My mother was always a peculiar woman, very composed and unemotional. So, she didn’t object to my announcement right away. Casting runes onto the table and staring intently at the twisted symbols for a long time, she pressed her lips into a stern line and delivered her verdict:
“This cannot be avoided.”
She said it so tragically that it made me uneasy. Yes, I understood perfectly well that nothing good awaited me in the future if the first advisor’s gaze had already fallen on me. But… now I was curious about those papers. And could they have been the reason for my father’s death? If so… my soul craved justice!
“Am I going to die there or something?” I asked, leaning over the rune stones as if I understood anything about them.
“No, but you’ll walk side by side with death itself. Death will become your companion. And perhaps… more than that.”
“Could you predict something positive for once?” I grimaced. But I quickly smiled, gave her a tight hug, and said sincerely, “I’ll miss you all.”
“Oh, you won’t have time to miss us, that’s for sure,” she replied with a kiss on my forehead and a smile, personally ordering my things to be packed for the journey.
The real shock came the next morning with a tabloid article claiming that Ryan and I had married that night. Such audacity struck my mother to the core—she cared less about our reputation and more about justice and truth in all things. That same day, she penned a lengthy letter detailing exactly where Adel Black had told Ryan Corn to go. A very emotional act. Too emotional, I’d say. For the week before my departure, both acquaintances and strangers—mostly girls—kept showing up to ask for the juicy details.
Oddly, Ryan himself never came. His pride likely prevented him from visiting the girl he’d proposed to, to demand an explanation for her behavior.
Which makes his grand gesture of enrolling at Vilheru Academy all the more absurd to me. At least he didn’t join the Faculty of Necromancy. That would’ve been a laugh. I still can’t come to terms with my own placement.
My mother must have predicted my fate accurately after all.
Back then, her prophecy seemed like nonsense. Now, not so much. I suppose by “death,” she meant my assignment to the Faculty of Necromancy.
Goblin’s… toe. Me and necromancy! I still can’t believe it. No, scratch that. I still don’t know what to do with it.
Just like I don’t know what to do with Ryan’s reappearance. A few weeks ago, I might have melted at such a grand gesture. But not now.
Gods, explaining anything to him would be dangerous. Maybe… I need to play this off as if I got scared and ran away from him like a silly girl. I desperately need time to figure myself out. And to pray. Pray that no one suspects anything while I try to uncover something about those papers.
I sighed, tried to get up, and that’s when my gaze fell on something small, black, furry, and toothy, with spindly legs and a look of desperation in its eyes. It was peeking out from under the wardrobe, baring its teeth at me.
I froze for a moment. Then, as if the little monster could answer me, I asked:
“And what on earth are you?”