Book One: Rise of the Demonborn
Chapter 3: Dead Things Speak
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Kael didn't blink as Vaarkos—the obsidian beast—followed silently behind him. His gait was smooth. Calculated. The pain he once carried in his body had faded, replaced by a quiet cold.
He no longer smiled.
He didn't laugh.
Emotion was a tool. Not a weakness to wear openly.
As they walked, the forest cleared before them. Even the trees seemed to *move*, revealing paths once hidden. Whispers filled the silence—but Kael had stopped listening to fear.
Only one thing guided him now: *purpose*.
Vaarkos paused. "We near the old graves. The soil here remembers blood."
Kael stepped forward.
The earth was soft. The stench of death hung like fog. Dozens of half-buried bones poked through the dirt—some animal, others not.
Kael knelt and touched the soil.
It pulsed.
Images slammed into his mind—flashes of warriors butchered in ritual, an old battlefield hidden from time. Their bones were cursed, sealed by fear.
Perfect.
Kael pressed both palms to the earth and whispered a single word in a tongue not taught, but *inherited*:
*"Rise."*
The wind howled.The ground split. Bones cracked, twisted, and pulled together. Arms reformed. Skulls aligned. Empty eye sockets began to glow with a pale blue light.
Twelve skeletons stood before him, weapons fused to their hands. Their movements were unnatural—jerky but strong.
Kael's face remained blank.
Vaarkos stepped forward. "You speak the language of the forgotten. Necromancy is forbidden by mortal law."
"I'm not mortal," Kael said flatly.
He looked at the dead.
"Serve."
The undead fell into formation.
Kael didn't rejoice. He simply turned north, toward the world that had exiled him.
"Therrow will remember me," he said. "And they will kneel before the very dead they once buried."
Vaarkos grinned with jagged teeth.
"Then let their graves be dug early."