The first thing I did after leaving her shop was find food.
This wasn’t because I was avoiding thinking about the fact that the beautiful silver-haired necromancer we’d just met wanted samples of my blood, hair, saliva, tissue, and apparently every other fluid my new body was capable of producing.
It was because I was fucking starving.
The merchant settlement wasn’t large enough to deserve the word city, but the central road had enough stalls packed along both sides to make my stomach immediately start making demands.
Smoke rolled from iron grills beneath patched awnings while merchants shouted over one another and travelers squeezed between wagons. The air smelled like roasted meat, fried dough, unfamiliar spices, sweat, and several things I wasn’t brave enough to identify.
I stopped in front of a stall where a broad-shouldered demon woman was turning skewers over a charcoal grill. The meat had been cut into little round chunks, glazed in something dark and sweet, then sprinkled with green herbs.
It looked suspiciously like someone had tried making takoyaki without knowing what an octopus was.
"Two of those." I pointed toward the skewers while reaching for my coin pouch.
The woman glanced up, but her attention never made it to my money. Her eyes caught on my horns first before slowly traveling downward, lingering shamelessly on my chest and hips before eventually climbing back to my face.
"Succubus?" she asked, and the sudden interest in her expression made me reconsider whether I was about to purchase lunch or become it.
"Unfortunately." Seraphina rolled her eyes and turned her face away, but the twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed her.
The stall owner leaned forward against the counter, apparently forgetting about the meat sizzling behind her. "I’ll give you one gold."
My hand stopped halfway into my coin pouch.
"For the food?"
Her grin widened. "For you. One night."
I stared at her.
Then I stared at the pouch in my hand.
My brain immediately performed several calculations as dignity was about to go out the window.
One gold, for one night.
Twelve gold repaired the Spatial Satchel, and the equipment we’d taken from the Sacred Dawn was currently serving as the foundation of Ashfall’s almost nonexistent economy.
One fucking gold was actually a lot of money.
"No." Seraphina’s voice cracked through my calculations sharply enough that both the stall owner and I turned toward her.
Her cheeks were bright red, but her expression had settled into the particular scowl I’d learned usually preceded either an insult or violence. The demon woman merely raised one eyebrow.
"I wasn’t asking you."
"I know exactly who you were asking." Seraphina stepped forward and grabbed my wrist before I could decide whether I should be offended that she apparently believed one gold was enough to purchase me. "And she’s not interested."
"Hold on." I resisted just enough to make Seraphina stop and glare at me. "Nobody said I wasn’t interested. I’m still gathering information."
"Kira."
"What?" I gestured toward the stall owner with my free hand. "One gold is a significant amount of money. Does that include dinner?"
The woman burst out laughing.
Seraphina didn’t.
Her grip tightened around my wrist before she dragged me away from the stall.
"I’m establishing market value!" I protested, twisting around long enough to snatch one of the finished skewers and toss several copper pieces onto the counter. "This is important economic research!"
"You’re considering prostituting yourself for one gold."
"I’m a succubus. I feel like there’s some professional overlap."
Seraphina nearly stumbled.
The red spreading across her face reached the tips of her ears as she hauled me through the crowd. Several passing merchants took one look at her expression and wisely moved out of our path.
I bit into the skewer.
Sweet sauce flooded my mouth, followed by something salty and surprisingly tender.
’Holy shit.’
It actually tasted like takoyaki.
If takoyaki had been made from some unidentified Demon Frontier animal that probably possessed six legs, venom glands, and the ability to breathe fire.
I took another bite. It was worth the risk, trust me.
Seraphina finally released my wrist once we’d traveled halfway down the street, only to spin around and jab one finger against my chest. "You actually considered it."
"One gold is a lot of money," I reminded her around another mouthful.
Her eyes narrowed. "You were considering selling yourself to a complete stranger."
"Technically, I was considering renting myself."
Seraphina stared at me with such complete disbelief that I couldn’t stop the grin spreading across my face.
"Besides," I continued, deliberately leaning a little closer, "I thought you hated me. Why do you care who I sleep with?"
"I don’t." Her response came immediately, but her eyes shifted away from mine as she folded her arms beneath her chest. "You can do whatever stupid thing you want with your body."
"Good." I turned around and began to take my first step. "I’ll go back."
I managed exactly one step before Seraphina caught the back of my dress and yanked me to a stop.
I laughed hard enough that I nearly dropped my food.
"You’re an asshole," she muttered, releasing my shirt with considerably more force than necessary.
"And you’re jealous."
Seraphina resumed walking without looking at me. "I’m reconsidering whether stopping the Guardian from killing you was actually worth the effort."
I continued grinning as I fell into step beside her. Interestingly, she remained considerably closer to me for the rest of our walk.
We hadn’t traveled another hundred feet when a crowd gathered around a large wooden notice board caught my attention.
Most of the postings were exactly what I’d expect from a frontier settlement. Caravan escorts. Missing livestock. Monster extermination requests. Merchant advertisements.
The enormous black-and-gold notice occupying the center was something else entirely.
[THE QUARTERLY CHALLENGE OF MARQUIS DRAEVEN]
[Four Days Until Commencement.]
[All challengers welcome.]
[Survive the Marquis’s Challenge and claim one reward of your choosing, provided it lies within the Marquis’s authority to grant.]
My chewing slowed.
’Oh.’
I’d written this.
A pair of merchants standing near the board were arguing about whether anyone would survive this quarter. Another man claimed three adventurers had already registered, while an older Beastkin woman laughed and told him the Marquis would own three new slaves before sunset.
Every three months.
A public spectacle for nobles, merchants, adventurers, and anyone else wealthy or stupid enough to attend.
And eventually, Roland.
He infiltrated the Marquis’s estate during one of these Challenges. I remembered disguises, slaves, several Chapters of sneaking around, and Roland eventually walking away with a reward that became important considerably later.
Apparently, this was that Challenge.
In four fucking days.
"You’re doing that thing again."
Seraphina’s voice pulled me from my memories. She’d stopped a few steps ahead of me and was studying my face rather than the notice.
"What thing?"
"The thing where you stare at something like it personally offended you." She followed my gaze toward the black-and-gold sign. "Do you know what that is?"
I swallowed the last piece of meat before tossing the empty skewer into a nearby bin.
"Unfortunately."
Seraphina waited for me to elaborate.
I knew what happened here in the original story, but I also knew what happened every time I shoved my hand into canon and started rearranging things.
"Is it something we need to worry about?" she finally asked.
"Not currently." I stepped away from the board and gestured for her to follow. "Which means I’m going to enjoy the incredibly rare experience of seeing something dangerous and minding my own fucking business."
Seraphina gave me a skeptical look.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Why did you say it like that?"
She walked past me. "No reason."
Fucking tsundere.
An hour later, something black came flying directly at my face.
I caught it on instinct..
"Your Spatial Satchel."
She stood several feet away with one hand still extended from the throw, looking entirely unconcerned about nearly introducing my nose to the object she’d repaired.
I looked down at the black leather bag.
The tear along its side was gone. So were the damaged silver runes. Thin lines of pale mana now traveled through the leather like veins before disappearing beneath the clasp.
[REPAIRED SPATIAL SATCHEL]
[Grade: Rare]
[Capacity: 100 Unique Items]
[Identical items may be stored in stacks where applicable.]
[Currency does not occupy storage capacity.]
My eyebrows climbed.
"One hundred?"
"The internal formation was more intact than I initially believed." She adjusted one of the clasps on the case hanging from her hip before walking toward us. "The previous repair was incompetent, so I removed it and reconstructed the damaged sections."
I turned the Satchel over in my hands, examining the leather that had looked completely ruined an hour earlier. "You repaired something that’s been broken for centuries in an hour."
"Fifty-three minutes," She corrected without the slightest hint of humor.
I slowly looked at Seraphina.
She shrugged.
Two skeletal servants waited behind the necromancer carrying equipment, including a narrow black case, several leather rolls, and enough polished metal instruments to make me increasingly concerned about what she intended to do to the Guardian.
Seraphina studied the pair before looking toward her. "You only brought two?"
For the first time since she’d approached us, her expression tightened slightly. She glanced at the skeletons before adjusting the strap over her shoulder.
"Two will be sufficient."
Something about the response felt oddly final.
Before I could question it, She stepped past us and looked toward the road leading away from the settlement.
"Now take me to the corpse."
By late afternoon, the Aurelian Sepulcher rose from the dead forest ahead of us.
The Necromancer had stopped walking.
For the first time since I’d met her, the necromancer looked genuinely stunned.
Her gray-blue eyes traveled slowly across the ancient structure, lingering on the shattered holy carvings, weathered pillars, and entrance Seraphina and I had nearly died escaping through.
"You weren’t exaggerating."
I pressed one hand dramatically against my chest. "I’m offended you thought I was."
She approached the entrance and ran her fingertips across one of the ancient inscriptions. Her entire demeanor changed as she examined it.
The merchant disappeared almost immediately, replaced by something sharper and considerably more intense.
"Residual sanctification remains inside the stone." Her fingers followed one of the weathered symbols before she leaned closer to inspect another. "After this long..."
Then she walked inside without waiting for either of us.
Seraphina watched her disappear into the darkness before giving me a sideways glance. "Your new business partner is strange."
"You tried to murder me the day we met."
"That was reasonable."
The Guardian remained exactly where we’d left it, and she froze several feet away.
Her lips parted. "Oh."
She slowly approached the corpse, gray-blue eyes moving over every ruined section of armor and exposed piece of desiccated flesh.
Then her expression softened into something dangerously close to affection.
"Oh, you’re beautiful."
I looked at Seraphina.
Seraphina looked at me.
We both slowly turned back toward the merchant.
The necromancer was already kneeling beside the Guardian and opening her case.
"You know that’s a corpse, right?" I asked.
She paused with a silver instrument between her fingers and looked up at me as though I’d asked whether water was wet.
"Obviously."
"Just checking."
She dismissed me immediately and slid the instrument beneath a damaged section of armor. Metal scraped against metal as she carefully separated the plate from the blackened tissue beneath it.
Her eyes sharpened.
"Fascinating."
Seraphina stepped closer despite herself, curiosity overcoming her obvious discomfort. "What did you find?"
She didn’t answer immediately. She peeled away another section of armor, exposing a web of shriveled flesh beneath the Guardian’s ribs.
"The sanctification penetrated beyond the armor."
Seraphina frowned. "Of course it did. It was a Martyred Guardian."
"No." She finally looked up, and the intensity in her expression made Seraphina’s frown deepen. "You misunderstand what I’m saying."
Without hesitation, She pushed two fingers directly into the Guardian’s chest.
I stared at her hand.
Seraphina stared at her hand.
She continued talking like she wasn’t currently wrist-deep inside a centuries-old corpse.
"The divine mana wasn’t merely sustaining it. Look at the discoloration around the channel walls." She shifted her fingers before pulling apart a section of dead tissue. "The tissue itself adapted to the divine mana."
Seraphina crouched beside her, although she made absolutely no attempt to touch anything. "That’s impossible. Undead cannot naturally retain divine mana after death."
Sable tilted her head slightly. "According to whom?"
"The Church."
She held Seraphina’s gaze for several seconds before returning her attention to the corpse. There was no mockery or arrogance in her expression.
Just absolute certainty.
"Then your Church is wrong."
The muscles in Seraphina’s jaw tightened.
I wisely stayed out of that one.
She extracted a shriveled strand of tissue threaded with faint golden discoloration and raised it toward the remaining light filtering through the ruined ceiling.
"The original mana channels remain partially intact. More than partially, actually." Her speech accelerated as she reached blindly toward her case for another instrument. "The necromantic structure formed around them rather than replacing them."
I watched her work.
The precision.
The fascination.
The complete disregard for the fact that she was dismantling something that had nearly killed two people several days earlier.
Something tugged at my memory.
A battlefield covered in corpses.
Black banners hanging above ruined cities.
An army that became larger every time the enemy killed one of its soldiers.
A woman sitting upon a throne while thousands of dead creatures knelt beneath her.
My amusement disappeared.
’No fucking way.’
I focused on her.
The System answered immediately.
[AUTHOR’S INSIGHT ACTIVATED.]
[Sable Laurent]
[Race: Undead]
[Age: 27]
[Class: Necromancer]
[Level: 21]
[Current Potential: D]
[True Potential: SSS]
[Dormant Bloodline: Death Empress — 0%]
[Canonical Identity: Necromancer Empress]
I stopped breathing as my eyes went wide from what I was seeing.
’What is this psychotic bitch doing here?!’