Deus Necros

Her robe moved like water over an even bed of stones. The tiara’s blossoms were not cut; small roots gripped a woven band of living reed, and a faint dew lay on their petals. Her presence filled the hall without effort, a gravity that eased the edges of everyone’s attention toward her.

“The pleasure is all mine,” Ludwig said. He inclined his head a fraction, enough to mark respect without giving away the habit of keeping eyes level. The fairies who had treated him as a perch quieted in the wake of that exchange, the hush that follows a bell.

Lorina coughed, and the fairies disappeared. The cough was not reproach, simply a reminder that play has a place. Tiny bodies whisked to alcoves and rafters. Lipsi alone remained where she was, secured by entitlement and the soft immunity of old acquaintance.

Lorina came down toward Ludwig, reaching barely to his chin in height, but there was a glow to her green eyes that felt like intrigue and interest at once.

“It’s been a while, and you look like you’ve grown, a lot.” She said and looked at the maid, “Can you prepare us some tea, Cathia. We’ll be sitting at the western porch.” Her glance toward the porch carried memory. Cathia answered with a nod already halfway to a bow and vanished down a side corridor with the hush of drilled steps.

She turned and gestured for Ludwig to follow her. The corridor to the porch opened onto light and air and the layered whisper of leaves far below. The path’s railing had been grown to a height that suggested safety without ever promising it, a choice, not an oversight. He traced the flow of the grain with his eyes and let it measure his breath back to an even pace.

Soon Ludwig and Lorina were both seated at a porch that overlooked the whole kingdom, all the way to the fractured horizon. The city moved below them like a great creature at rest, each part breathing at its own rate, yet all of it part of one body. The false horizon trembled faintly where light bent around the edges of their refuge and let the far-away exist without ever arriving.

A wafting sweet smell from the elven tea presented to Ludwig filled the air, as they sat on a table overlooking the whole scene from above. The cups were thin as shells and warm against his fingertips. The steam rose in a pale ribbon that curled and wrote faint patterns in the air before thinning into nothing. A plate of small leaf-cakes sat untouched, their glossy tops catching a piece of sun.

Ludwig took a sip. The first taste was clean like mountain water. The next carried a soft bitterness that opened his chest and reached into the tight places between his shoulders. The heat traveled down and found the deep fatigue he had worn so long he had almost forgotten it was there.

[Your Stamina Regeneration has increased by 10% for the next 24 hours]

“Hmm, good tea,” Ludwig said as he placed the cup down. He did not trust his face not to show too much approval, so he let the understatement sit.

“Good? I was told this is the best tea in the Empire.” Her smile widened by a degree that left room for teasing and the prickliness of pride both. The wind lifted a strand of hair across her cheek, and she tucked it back without thinking.

“It is good, but I had better,” Ludwig said. He watched the horizon when he said it, not her expression, and let the cup find the table as if the conversation weighed nothing.

“My pride is hurt, who could have presented you with tea better than elven tea?” The question wore the light armor of humor yet carried a thin blade of genuine curiosity.

Ludwig looked up as he answered, “Someone you should know well, the Witch of the Mare.” The name settled between them like a coin placed on velvet, neither loud nor hidden.

Her brows rose up, “And how did you come to that conclusion?” she tilted her head. Her gaze left his face and climbed the line of the great bough above, as if looking at the right part of the tree would allow her to follow his thought.

“The first clue was the fractured special lock. On this place, not many can cast magic this powerful especially on such a wide range.” He traced the tremor across the boundary again with his eyes and tasted in it the particular strain of sustained work, like a musician holding a perfect note a heartbeat too long.

“That’s a decent deduction but not enough, there are plenty of powerful mages in the world. Her fingers tapped once against the cup, then stilled, listening.

“Yes, I realized that too, but there was another thing,” Ludwig looked up at the tree of life and its hanging branches “I can sense it, the same disease she was suffering from, its all over this tree. It’s something that is stopping it from… existing.” The word existed came out quieter than the rest, not for reverence but for accuracy. The thing at work touched presence itself, the way a smothering hand does not only silence the voice, but convinces the throat it was never meant to speak.

Lorina smiled. “Yes.” She said, as her expression turned solemn. “And it’s the reason for both our misery, mine, my mothers, and her friend, as you called her the Witch of the Mare.” The porch seemed to tilt inward around that confession. Below, a wind curled and passed, ruffling the tops of banners that did not feel it.

“I suppose you also want me to deal with the Envious Death.” He did not put weight into the sentence beyond the shape the words demanded. Names held their own gravity. He spoke this one as if setting it on the table beside the cups, not at the edge where a sudden move could knock it over.

“I wouldn’t be so arrogant to ask you to do it for free. But… I need to show you something.”