Chapter 11: A Dirge Unfinished

  Pinned and Pressing

  he hallway was narrow. Cracked stone. Smoke curling in from a lit brazier in the chamber ahead. The Mirror of Shadows stood large and in the center of the room - swirling with energy, rippling like tar stirred by unseen hands. Staring directly at them a necromancer, black robes fraying with movement, arms raised, chanting. Beside him, two cultists flanked the mirror like twisted sentries, already lifting their staffs.

  “Kaeric, we need covering fire until Berf can find another way in” Magnus barked.

  Twin necrotic bolts shrieked through the archway. Magnus and Kaeric ducked as the blasts collided against the jagged stone — one bolt slamming inches from Magnus’s shoulder.

  They pressed against the edge of the corridor.

  Kaeric steadied his aim, exhaled, and loosed.

  Thwunk.

  The arrow sank into the necromancer’s chest — not fatal, but enough to make him stagger.

  Magnus gritted his teeth and and he leaned in, as another bold hit above his head.

  “There was a unit. Down in the Valley of Flame. Six soldiers, cornered for days. No food. No light. Just the sound of enemy boots pounding above them. But they held the line — because each one believed that the others could still rise.”

  Another missile exploded into the bark-covered pillar beside him — a shard of wood clipped his ear.

  “—Not that we’re exactly the picture of military excellence right now,” he added, ducking. “Kaeric, try not to get us all killed.”

  And then — the second shade returned - larger than the other, a giant axe gripped between its enormous hands as it lumbered towards the party taking shelter in the hallway. It made eyes with Magnus axe raised and bellowing as it closed the distance in two gigantic steps toward him.Magnus’s eyes went wide as he raised his dagger knowing it would do nothing to stop the overhead cleave of the axe that was incoming.

  Sylvi burst through slamming her sickle up in a crossguard, intercepting the descending blow just as it came for Magnus’s head. Sparks flew as she felt her forearms trying to resist the force of the weapon as it came down. The hallway filled with the reek of shadow and sweat.

  The necromancer’s chanting deepened. Light began to pour from the mirror, and from his body.

  The shade slashed back at Sylvi, missing by inches.

  Both cultists raised their hands — necrotic energy spiraling from their palms, hurling toward Kaeric and Magnus.

  The mirror’s swirling accelerated — a low, bass thrum vibrating through the floor.

  With a final word, the necromancer raised both arms — and three duplicates burst outward from his form, whirling around him in a cyclone of illusory motion.

  Kaeric loosed another arrow. It pierced one duplicate — the figure dissolved into smoke.

  The necromancer laughed, his voice deep and gravely.

  “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  Ashen, his voice barely audible above the chaos, whispered a prayer to his patron.

  A hex burned into the air around the necromancer like ink catching fire.

  Ashen stepped forward, his arm raised — the other behind his head like a pitcher winding up.

  “Burn.”

  The eldritch blast exploded outward like a torrent — a geyser of purple light, searing across the chamber.

  It struck center-mass.

  The necromancer screamed — the sound sharp and wrong.

  His chest caved, lungs vaporized in an instant. He stumbled, looked down in slow motion.

  Blood. Yes. That was the word.

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  But not just that — his skin peeled, white tissue sliding off his frame like damp paper.

  He turned to the cultist beside him, reaching out, confused —

  His hair turned grey, his cheeks hollowed, nails yellowed and cracked — years of life devoured in seconds.

  He raised a hand for one last spell —

  And watched his own fingers curl into clawlike bone before he collapsed, a husk.

  The room fell silent.

  The cultists froze, staring.

  One recovered, lifting his staff — a dull crystal at its tip.

  “Don’t move.”

  Ashen felt it first. A weight in his chest. Then the haze.

  He tried to raise his arms — but they felt like were stone. His vision blurred.

  The second cultist rushed him, staff raised.

  Kaeric shoved in front of him — but the orc shade’s axe swung wide and slammed down into Sylvi’s shoulder, dropping her.

  “Sylvi!” Magnus shouted.

  “SYLVI!” Berf roared — bursting in the central room from another hallway,. His axe arced overhead, slicing down into the back of the spellcaster attacking Ashen. The sound of the spine snapping was loud over the sound of crashing metal.

  He didn’t pause — already charging the shade.

  Magnus turned back just as something moved in the mirror.

  A claw. Then a second.

  Black, slick with sheen, tar-thick and too long. They pulled against the frame as something clawed its way through.

  A shadow beast, eyes empty, mouth filled with too many teeth. It shrieked — a horrible, wet, grating howl like rusted chains dragged through oil — and lunged at Kaeric.

  It sank claws into his leg.

  Magnus’s dagger flew — embedded in its throat.

  “Kaeric — protect Sylvi!”

  He sheathed the dagger and turned, swinging his staff at the orc shade. It missed — the weapon skidding against stone.

  Kaeric dropped beside Sylvi, shaking her, calling her name again. Her face was pale. Her eyes fluttered.

  Not again.Not. Again. The second time he’d seen her almost gone.

  He pressed her wound. His own hands were shaking now.

  “Come on. Come back.Sylvi”

  The Stillness

  Everything was distant now.

  The sounds of the battle were muffled, as if she were beneath the surface of a pond. No—the pond. The one in the glade near Vesper’s grove. Where the trees hung like guardians, and the lilies floated like stars on velvet.

  The pain in her shoulder dulled.

  She was sinking again.

  It was dark, but it didn’t frighten her.Not like before.

  She floated in silence — the cold pressing in around her limbs, but not cruelly. Not harsh. Welcoming. The kind of cold that held you. Cradled you. Her hair drifted around her face, a curtain of shadow.

  No blood. No screaming.

  Just the stillness of the deep.

  Let go, something whispered.

  She thought of Vesper — of his laughter when it echoed through the golden thickets, of the way they ran through the glimmersilk leaves, of the way her fingers trembled when they kissed for the first time beside the crystal spring.

  Sylvi remembered the last time she saw him, eyes shining with panic as Sylvi was pulled, tumbling, through a thinning of the veil.

  And then—

  She had tried to return.

  Again and again. Pressing, realling, pounding against a place in space that resisted her entry

  Each time the portal was colder. More closed. Until it simply didn’t answer. Her hand passed through and the portal was no longer there.

  She had screamed. She had begged.

  She had fallen to her knees in the hollow of a tree, where the shimmer had once been.

  And she had not sung since.

  In the dark now, in the water that wasn’t real but felt truer than anything else, Sylvi turned her face upward. Maybe this is it, she thought. Maybe I can stay this time. Maybe I can drift down and feel nothing. Her body ached. Her soul felt torn.

  The surface was so far above her.

  And it was so easy to let it all slip away.

  But—

  There was a pressure.

  A warmth.

  Something… someone… calling her name.

  Kaeric?

  Vesper?

  She couldn’t tell. Sylvi clenched her fists as her eyes blinked open blood cooling on the stone.

  No One to Save Her

  Every inch of her body pulsed with pain — shoulder slick, head heavy. She didn’t move. The sounds around her blurred — the rush of breath, distant voices, claws against tile, the crackle of unstable magic.

  A sound. Not near. Magnus. Groaning. Still fighting. Then Kaeric’s voice — hoarse, calling her name and she gritted her teeth. Her hand twitched, finding stone. Fingers curled against it.

  The floor felt real. Anchored. Cold.

  She pressed her palm down. Muscle screamed. The gash in her shoulder throbbed with each heartbeat. Her breath came ragged, but she pulled herself to her knees. Waited for the vertigo to settle. Then rose slowly.

  She stood peeling back the weight of drowning for consciousness.

  The orcish shade turned, lifting its axe again over Magnus as he raised his arm in a desperate attempt to block and Sylvi’s eyes narrowed coldly. No. Her mind screamed. No.

  Sylvi raised her hand. Green light bloomed in her palm as the first blast hit its side — a crunch of ribs. She didn’t blink, stepping forward another step as another blast fired from her hand and hit him lower, breaking it’s stance. It drew back two steps and looked directly at her. No. She set her jaw as the third blast fired from her hand hitting the shade in the throat.

  It stumbled, fell to one knee, and then unraveled into vapor, shadows sucked back into nothing with a sighing hiss.

  She didn’t watch it fade, turning on one the heal of her boot letting her sickle begin a wide arc as she spun. The shadow beast at the edge of the mirror snarled and lunged — a mass of black sinew and slick muscle, claws gouging the tile with each stride. The blade cleaved through it’s body shoulder to hip sending black blood spraying across the floor as it collapsed to the floor..

  Sylvi stood above it, and took a long breath.

  Across the room, Berf leaned heavily on his axe, eyes wide.

  Kaeric blinked, coughing once, still on the floor. Magnus stirred near the mirror, looking at her like he didn’t know whether to speak.

  Only Berf managed it:

  “Welcome back.”

  She considered this for a moment but she didn’t answer. Her eyes shifted down. She didn’t answer.

  Magnus stood, slowly. Blood on his face. He watched her. Quiet. His lips parted, then closed again. Magnus had nothing to say.

  Kaeric pushed himself to one knee. “Sylvi…” That was all he got out.

  She blinked, holding something back and turned back toward the mirror — watching its surface ripple again.