Necromancy for the Chronologically Challenge

Chapter 8

The bone-white blade hummed against Eron’s sternum, the vibration rattling his ribs. Varek Tolin looked down at him with the kind of pity usually reserved for a dog with a broken leg.

"Seriously?" Eron choked out, his voice a jagged rasp in the frozen air. "You’re going to kill me while I’m not even wearing a shirt? That’s low, Varek. Even for an Exorcist."

Varek’s smile didn't reach his glowing amber eyes. "The universe doesn't care about your wardrobe, Eron. It cares about the fact that your existence is a cancer on the timeline. Every breath you take is a second stolen from a billion other souls."

"Is that the 'Pre-killer' pitch?" Eron spat, trying to summon a spark of violet mana, but the bone-blade seemed to suck the energy right out of his skin. "Kill the kid before he grows up to be the monster? It’s a bit cliché, don't you think?"

"It’s not a pitch, Eron. It’s math," Varek replied calmly. "In ninety-four percent of the futures we’ve calculated, your 'Great Catalyst' event ends with the sky turning into glass and the oceans boiling. You aren't a hero. You’re the match that lights the world on fire. I’m just the one who has to blow it out."

"Varek... stop," a voice whispered.

The temporal stasis didn't shatter; it bled away. Saphira sat up on the cot, the blanket slipping just enough to show the angry red marks Eron’s teeth had left on her shoulder only minutes before. Her eyes were wide, brimming with a mixture of betrayal and raw, unadulterated fury.

"Oh, Saphira," Varek sighed, not moving the blade an inch. "I told you that your heart would be your undoing. You’ve spent the night rutting with the end of the world. Do you have any idea how much paperwork I’m going to have to forge to keep you out of the Silenced Cells?"

"I don't care about the cells!" Saphira roared, lunging off the bed. She didn't have her armor, but her white-light aura erupted from her skin like a physical shockwave. "You’re a murderer, Varek! You’re talking about killing a boy for something he hasn't even done yet!"

"He’s done it a thousand times in a thousand other lives!" Varek shouted back, his voice finally losing its clinical edge. "Why do you think I have a blade made from his own future bones, Saphira? Because I’ve stood over his corpse before! I’ve been the one to save the world while you were too busy falling in love with the tragedy!"

"Hey! I'm right here!" Eron yelled, finding a sudden burst of strength as the stasis fully failed. He slammed his palm against the side of the blade. "And for the record, I’m not a tragedy! I’m a person! A person who really, really wants you to get that bone away from my chest!"

"Look at you," Varek sneered, glancing at Eron’s bare chest. "The Great Catalyst. You can barely keep your own hands from shaking, yet you’ve managed to corrupt the Bureau’s finest officer. It’s impressive, in a disgusting sort of way."

"Corrupt?" Saphira scoffed, stepping between them. She was naked save for the sheets she’d wrapped around her waist, but she looked more terrifying than she ever had in full plate. "He didn't corrupt me, Varek. He woke me up. I’m done being your scalpel."

"Then you’re an obstruction," Varek said.

He didn't swing the blade. He simply snapped his fingers.

The floor of the cabin didn't just break; it vanished.

"Whoa—!" Eron shrieked as the wood beneath him dissolved into a swirling vortex of grey sand.

"Eron!" Saphira screamed, reaching for him.

"Master!" Della’s voice rang out as she manifested in mid-air, her silken dress fluttering wildly. "Ishan! Catch him! Or at least make sure he lands on something soft!"

"On it, darling!" Ishan’s voice echoed through the chaos. "Eron, try to aim for the piles of old laundry! It’s the only thing in this house that doesn't smell like doom!"

Eron plummeted into the dark, the sound of Saphira and Varek’s battle becoming a muffled roar of white and gold light above him. He hit something hard, then something soft, then something that definitely felt like a pile of damp coal.

"Ugh... my spine," Eron groaned, rolling onto his back. "Della? Ishan? Where am I?"

"In a basement that hasn't seen a vacuum in at least three decades," Ishan said, appearing next to him and fastidiously dusting off his ghostly velvet coat. "Honestly, Eron, your family’s taste in secret lairs is abysmal. The dampness is doing terrible things to my hair."

"Shut up, Ishan," Della snapped, her silver eyes glowing in the dark. She was looking toward the far corner of the room, her expression uncharacteristically pale. "Eron. Get up. Now."

"Why? Is there another guy with a bone-sword?" Eron asked, scrambling to his feet and shivering in the damp chill.

"No," Della whispered. "Something worse."

Eron turned. In the center of the basement, sitting in a high-backed wooden chair that looked like it was made of woven human hair, was a woman. She was clad in a dress of tattered grey lace, her skin so pale it was almost translucent. She looked like a doll that had been left in a cellar to rot.

But she wasn't a skeleton. She was... preserved.

"Is she... a summon?" Eron whispered, his heart hammering.

"No," Ishan said, his voice dropping all pretense of humor. "She’s a corpse, Eron. But her soul... it’s not in the veil. It’s still in the meat. She’s been waiting."

Eron stepped forward, his bare feet clicking against the stone floor. He reached out a trembling hand toward the woman’s face. "Who are you?"

The woman’s eyes snapped open. They weren't silver like Della’s or amber like Varek’s. They were a deep, dark violet—exactly like Eron’s mana.

"You're late, my son," she said, her voice a low, melodic rasp that felt like a caress against his mind.

Eron froze, his hand inches from her cheek. "My... son?"

"Mariel Sorn," Ishan whispered, his eyes wide. "The Lost Matriarch of the Valther line. She was supposed to have been purged fifty years ago."

"They tried," Mariel said, her fingers—cold and thin as bird bones—reaching out to latch onto Eron’s wrist. Her grip was terrifyingly strong. "But time is a circle, Eron. They kill you in the future, so I wait for you in the past. They hide the truth in the light, so I keep it in the dark."

"What truth?" Eron gasped, trying to pull away, but the violet mana began to flow between them, a bridge of searing heat. "What are you talking about?"

"You aren't the Catalyst because of what you do," Mariel said, a faint, ghostly smile touching her lips. "You’re the Catalyst because of who you are. You’re the bridge between the versions of us they tried to erase. And now, the circle is closing."

Above them, the ceiling buckled. A massive explosion of white light tore through the floorboards, and Saphira came crashing down, her body slamming into the stone a few feet away. She was covered in blood, her face bruised, her breathing a series of ragged, wet gasps.

"Saphira!" Eron screamed, finally breaking Mariel’s grip and lunging toward her.

Varek drifted down through the hole in the floor, his bone-blade glowing with a blinding, golden radiance. He looked down at the scene—at the ancient woman in the chair and the half-naked boy cradling the dying Exorcist—and his face twisted into a mask of pure, righteous hatred.

"So, you found the witch," Varek said, his voice echoing like a death knell. "Good. It saves me the trouble of hunting her down later. The timeline requires a clean slate."

"You... you bastard," Saphira wheezed, her eyes fluttering as she looked up at Eron. She reached out, her fingers ghosting over his cheek, leaving a smear of red. "Eron... I... I won't let him..."

"Don't talk, Phira. Just breathe," Eron pleaded, his tears falling onto her chest. "Della! Do something! Heal her!"

"I can't, Master!" Della cried, her form flickering. "Varek’s aura is negating the bond! I’m fading!"

Varek stepped forward, raising his free hand. A bolt of shimmering, iridescent light gathered in his palm—a spell that hummed with a sound like a thousand erased memories.

"She’s seen too much, Eron," Varek said, his voice almost gentle. "She’s a good soldier. She deserves to live. But she can't live with the memory of you. It’s for her own good."

"No!" Eron roared.

Varek fired.

The bolt didn't strike Saphira’s heart. it struck her forehead. Her body jerked, her eyes rolling back as the iridescent light flooded her skull.

"Saphira! Phira, look at me!" Eron screamed, shaking her.

The light faded. Saphira’s eyes cleared, but the fire was gone. The love, the fury, the desperate rebellion—it was all vanished, replaced by a blank, hollow stare. She looked at Eron, her hand falling away from his face as if she were touching a stranger.

"Who...?" she whispered, her voice devoid of any emotion. "Who are you? Why are you touching me?"

Eron felt his soul shatter. The physical pain of the bone-blade was nothing compared to the void in her eyes. "Phira? It’s me. It’s Eron. We were just... we were together. You saved me!"

Saphira blinked, looking at her blood-stained hands, then up at Varek. "Commander? What happened? Why am I in this basement? And why is this... this boy holding me?"

Varek stepped over, offering a hand to his student. "It’s alright, Saphira. You were attacked by a High-Tier Revenant. You’ve been through a trauma. Come, let’s get you back to the Bureau."

"No!" Eron lunged at Varek, his violet mana erupting in a desperate, chaotic flare. "You can't take her! You can't just wipe her clean!"

Varek didn't even look at him. He simply flicked his wrist, and a wave of force sent Eron flying back into the stone wall.

Mariel Sorn stood up from her chair, her grey lace dress fluttering in the stagnant air. She caught Eron before he hit the ground, her cold arms wrapping around him.

"Let her go, son," Mariel whispered into his ear. "She is a ghost now. But you... you have a war to win."

Eron watched, pinned by his mother’s grip, as Saphira Kelm—the woman who had just risked everything for him, the woman whose taste was still on his tongue—walked away. She followed Varek toward the stairs without a single backward glance, her posture straight, her face a mask of perfect, professional indifference.

She didn't know his name. She didn't know his face. To her, he was just a failure in a damp basement.

"I’m going to kill him," Eron whispered, the violet light in his eyes turning a dark, bruised purple. "I’m going to kill every single one of them."

"I know," Mariel said, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw just as Saphira’s had. "But first, we have to wake up the rest of the family. The clock is ticking, Eron. And for the first time in centuries, it's ticking for us."

As the sounds of the Exorcists faded into the distance, the basement grew cold, leaving Eron Valther alone in the dark with a mother he never knew and a heart that had been erased from the only world he ever wanted.