It was a silent night in Strafford's Harbour. It always was. Luna lay in her alcove, hewn into the wall of the family home. Above her was the sloping clay ceiling of the alcove, and beneath her was the soft and padded material of her bedding. It had been her elder brother's before he left for the military, and she had been gifted it in turn. Feris now had the opposite spot to himself, and Luna was damn glad of it.

  Having to share it had been a nightmare. Peasant life, she noted as she lay awake and stared at the ceiling, was a grim nightmare. Such tedious monotony, where each day included a new reminder of their poverty. For someone who had near-infinite wealth, and an army of sycophantic servants to tend their every need, the contrast was still infuriating.

  And it was a grim reminder for the squalor she'd been born into in her past life. A life she never wanted to think about.

  Helsen's meditation had been beneficial for refining her reserves of qi, and restoring the energy she had used ip earlier, but it did little to quell the indignation constantly burning in the back of her mind. There was no doubt Tulpa had deliberately reincarnated Luna into a life she'd hate. A misguided sense of 'karma' from a small-minded being masquerading as a deity.

  And on nights like tonight, where sleep continued to evade her, she couldn't help but think of her empire. What had happened to it, in her absence? She had no doubt that news of her passing would lead to much backstabbing among her generals and ministers.

  Luna, who had expected to reign eternally and immortality, had no heir to her crown. An abundance of splinter kingdoms had likely fractured from the empire. To say nothing for that bumpkin and his coalition of rebels, and their ragtag kingdoms.

  What a mess it all was to consider, even years after her passing. She had no doubt chaos and war would still be rife by now. And so many people were likely crying out for their true emperor to return, to restore law and order.

  They'd need to wait a while longer. Soon enough, she told herself, she'd be able to join the Elthremian army. And, once she had access to their resources, she could expend her magical knowledge. And from there, keep growing until she found a way to return home.

  It was as these thoughts swirled in her head that a scream cut through the serenity of the silent night. Luna moved quickly, throwing her blankets off and moving to stand. She brushed the creases from her pyjamas, just as her parents hastily woke.

  "What in the world?" her father groaned, bleary blinking in the darkness. His calloused hand groped and fumbled through the dark as more screams filled the air. He found a pouch by the floor and fished a citrine quartz from it, filling the room with a faint orange glow. He regarded his family, paying particular to Luna as he said "everyone, stay put." He fetched a knife from a nearby rack and made for the door.

  Undaunted, Luna tapped into her mana sense and felt the familiar burn race through her body. Her attention was immediately drawn to the coast, where she could sense two human figures sprinting up the shoreline. Pursued by several more presences. Unlike most living people Luna had sensed before, they were shrouded in umbral darkness.

  Figures like that, coming from the sea. Luna grinned. Drowned men.

  "The village is under attack," she said, knowledgeably.

  "W-what?" Feris called from the shrouded darkness of his alcove.

  Marrah moved from the alcove she and her husband shared. "We need to... we need to move. Can't afford to get trapped in our house... Just... just have to keep our distance until the militia deal with them. Or Master Helsen."

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  "I'm going to take a look," said Luna.

  "You most certainly are not!" her father retorted, holding the door open and glaring at her. He clutched his knife tightly. He was a big man, strong as an ox from what Luna had seen. Yet that blade trembled in his grasp. He'd seen what drowned men could do.

  The family made their way inside, and caught sight of figures racing through the darkness with luminous quartz lanterns hitched to their belts. The local militia men were not well equipped, perhaps to be expected from a backwater coastal village where nearly nothing ever happened. Rust-flecked pikes, and surcoats that had likely been handed down from several generations. It must have been years since anything from the Mire washed ashore here.

  Luna's eyes returned to the shore. The moon, partially obscured by clouds, sent only faint beams of light toward lapping waves of jet black water. And there, shambling against that backdrop, Luna could see shambling silhouettes of rotten corpses making their way up toward the village.

  Master Helsen emerged from the shadows between two houses, his hands tucked into the confines of his coat. "Can't remember the last time we had a bunch of drowned heading our way," he murmured. "And somehow, this feels like... an omen."

  "Y-you're going to kill the monsters, right Master Helsen?" Feris asked, gripping his mother's skirt.

  "Nothing I can't handle. But this is something that needs to be reported." He raised a hand, his aura rising into a luminous white halo that bit into the darkness. A flare of magic shot from his hand, shooting dozens upon dozens of meters into the air in the blink of an eye. It exploded into a great red haze, like a miniature star being birthed above the village. The glow lit the darkness, illuminating their surroundings in an ominous garnet haze.

  Now the approaching corpses were much easier to see. Decomposing men with waterlogged skin, rendered grey and black by their decay. Some were unarmed, while others carried rusty cutlasses and bayonets that they'd managed to keep a grip on even in the throes of a drowning death. Their eye sockets, otherwise empty, emitted a silver glow.

  What Luna knew of the drowned men was what she had gathered from ghost stories told around a campfire. As such she treated it all with several massive pinches of salt.

  Supposedly, in the oceans to the far west lurked the Mire. And anything dead that was in those black waters would rise again, an undead thrall of the Mire's influence. Necromancy as a phenomenon, rather than the actions of an individual. It sounded preposterous, something that would never happen in Luna's old world. But already she knew things were quite different here.

  Luna, follow me. I want you to watch, but not get involved." Helsen took off in a sprint, a blur of superhuman quickness.

  A chance to fight, a chance to get stronger and test her abilities? The ashen-haired girl grinned.

  Her mother gawked, raising a hand. "Luna, don't-"

  "I'm just gonna watch!" she lied. And, with qi burning in her muscles, she took off before her parents could catch her.

  Helsen whistled ahead of her, striking one drowned man in the neck with a seeping chop. Blackened flesh split asunder against the flat of his hand, decapitating the risen corpse in a fluid stroke. The corpse stumbled around, headless and clawing blindly in Helsen's general direction. A palm strike knocked it toward the sea.

  In her old world, magic could be used to augment physical abilities. But Luna had done so sparingly, displeased by getting her hands dirty. And she'd been behind so many magical barriers that she rarely needed to augment her speed to dodge anything. Save for powerful magic, or equally powerful antimagic, nothing forced her to expel physical effort.

  But here, in the strange confines of Elthreme, it seemed the norm for arcanists to rely on physical combat and occasionally throwing destructive spells into the mix. And until Luna had strengthened her waifish body to handle the spells she had a prior mastery of, she'd simply have to do as the locals did.

  She watched as a sweep from a drowned man knocked two militia men aside, just as one of his fellows was smashed apart by an exploding palm strike from Helsen. The militia men struggled to their feet, the air filled with a horrid gurgling sound coming from his flooded lungs. His chest, adorned in rags, swelled outward like a croaking toad before he vomited out a slew of bilious black water that smoked in the air.

  The pikeman dodged just a fraction of a second too late to fully get out of the way. It struck his hand, melting his gauntlet and the flesh beneath into a smoking stump in the span of seconds. He screamed and thrashed about, his cohorts frozen in horror at the sight.

  Luna smirked, lifting her right hand. She needed something simple to start with, just to test the durability of this creature. Pale frosty fog glittered around her fingertips, shaping swiftly into something long and sharp. She flicked her wrist forward, launching an icicle the length of her forearm toward the drowned man. The sharpened tip punched a hole through the corpse's neck, who stumbled from the impact.

  The ice spread out further at Luna’s command, protruding like tree branches, until the drowned man’s torso had been totally rent asunder, the risen corpse collapsed into a pile of sopping flesh.

  The eyes of several dead men turned toward her, while more frozen fog flickered at her fingertips. Luna grinned, eyes alight with malice. She was going to make their deaths permanent this time.

  “Well,” Luna said in a low voice. “How lucky you fools are, to be killed by the likes of me.”