Reborn As A Useless Mage, But I'm Already The Angel Of Death

03

The Dark Empire stood on the backs of its five Great Houses, each one a pillar of power specializing in a different branch of the Dark Arts. House Blackwood ruled Necromancy. House Sinclair held dominion over both Curse Art and Weapon Art. House Ravenshaw was known publicly for Beast Taming, though their true power ran far darker than anyone suspected. The remaining two houses commanded Soul Art and Shadow Art respectively, completing the empire's foundation.

Every child born into these bloodlines began training at three years old. Most awakened their Dark Mana by seven. A talented few reached Grade 2 magic by ten.

Adrian Blackwood had been performing Grade 2 Necromancy before he could properly tie his own shoes. By the time he turned fifteen, he had reached Grade 6, a feat so absurd that the Empress herself had personally written him a letter of recognition. He promptly refused her invitation to visit the palace, calling the trip unnecessary in a letter so blunt that his father nearly had a stroke reading it.

Genius of the Dark Empire. Lunatic of the Dark Empire. Both titles belonged to the same boy.

Sitting in the carriage as it rolled toward the celebration, Adrian watched the Ironhaven skyline pass by and thought about how much energy he had wasted being difficult for the sake of being difficult. That version of himself felt like a stranger now. War had burned the pettiness out of him completely. When you have held your dead friends in your arms and then raised their corpses to fight beside you because there was nobody else left, you tend to lose interest in petty rebellion.

"You have been strangely pleasant all morning." Lilly watched him from the opposite seat with narrowed eyes. "Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"

"I am being normal."

"You are never normal. You once told the Empress's personal envoy to, and I quote, crawl back to whatever hole he slithered out of."

"That man was incredibly annoying."

"He was delivering a royal commendation! For you!"

"An annoying commendation."

Lilly leaned forward, studying his face with the intensity of someone examining a suspicious insect. "Are you in love?"

"What?"

"That would explain it. Some poor girl has gotten hold of you and turned your brain to mush."

"Nobody has gotten hold of anything. I am simply choosing to be less unpleasant. Is that not what everyone has been begging me to do for years?"

"Yes, but I did not think you were actually capable of it."

The carriage arrived at the banquet hall, a sprawling marble structure in the heart of Ironhaven's noble quarter, already packed with aristocratic families in their finest clothing. Adrian helped Lilly down from the carriage, ignored the stares from passing nobles who clearly expected him to insult someone within his first five minutes, and followed his sister inside.

The hall buzzed with conversation and string music. Crystal chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings. Servants weaved between clusters of elegantly dressed guests carrying silver trays of wine and appetizers.

"There they are!" Lilly waved across the room and pulled Adrian toward two young women waiting near a marble pillar.

"Adrian, you remember Julia West? And this is Maya Sinclair. Maya, this is my tragically antisocial twin brother."

Julia West dipped a polite curtsy. She was a small, quiet girl with watchful eyes and an expression that suggested she was always thinking three steps ahead of whatever conversation she was in.

Maya Sinclair was different. Tall, athletic, with sharp cheekbones and dark hair cropped unusually short for a noblewoman. Long black gloves covered both arms up to her elbows. She met Adrian's eyes directly, without the nervous deference most people showed when greeting a Blackwood heir.

"So you are the famous lunatic." Maya's tone was flat and unimpressed. "You are shorter than I expected."

"And you are exactly as blunt as my sister described. Grade 4 in both Curse Art and Weapon Art at fifteen. That is impressive."

Maya blinked, clearly not expecting a genuine compliment. "Grade 6 Necromancy at the same age. That is more impressive."

"I had a head start. My family starts beating Dark Arts into us before we can walk."

"Mine too. Except they use curses instead of corpses."

"Charming."

Lilly stepped between them with both hands raised. "Wonderful, you are getting along. Please do not bond over childhood trauma at my birthday party. Julia, let us go find seats before all the good ones are taken."

The three girls moved off into the crowd, leaving Adrian standing alone near the pillar. He watched them go, his expression carefully neutral despite the storm behind his eyes.

Maya Sinclair. In his previous timeline, she had been one of his most trusted commanders during the final years of the war. Together they had devised the strategy that brought down the Demon Lord of Pride. She had nearly died three times during that campaign. The third time, it was Adrian who carried her broken body off the battlefield and refused to let the field medics give up on her.

She did not know any of that. She never would. To her, he was just Lilly's weird brother who happened to be good at raising the dead.

Adrian slipped away from the main hall when nobody was watching and found a secluded balcony overlooking the estate's eastern garden. The evening air was cool and smelled of jasmine and cut grass.

He held out his right hand, palm up, and whispered a word that no living mage in this era would recognize.

Black threads of Curse Art spiraled from his fingertips and shot outward like invisible needles, piercing through a cluster of sparrows perched on a nearby branch. The birds dropped instantly, dead before they even registered the attack.

Adrian flipped his hand over. His eyes shifted from brown to pitch black.

The sparrows twitched. Then they rose. Their dead eyes glowed with faint purple light as necromantic energy flooded their tiny bodies, binding them completely to his will.

Two branches of Dark Arts. Simultaneously. A feat that every scholar in both empires would have called flatly impossible, since mastering even a single branch consumed a mage's entire lifetime. Adrian had mastered all five traditional branches and created a sixth one of his own design that he called Origin Art.

"Go." He flicked his wrist and the undead sparrows scattered into the night sky, each one a tiny surveillance drone linked to his consciousness, scanning the grounds for any concentrated mana sources that should not be there. "Find me anything that does not belong."

He turned to go back inside, then froze.

His left arm was burning. Not the dull throb of the Holy Mark he had grown accustomed to, but a violent, searing pulse. Golden light bled through his sleeve, so bright that the fabric itself seemed to glow. The serpent sigil writhed against his skin like a living thing, reacting to something nearby with an intensity that bordered on painful.

Adrian gripped his forearm and stared down at the golden aura spreading beneath the black fabric.

Something was wrong. Or something was coming.

The mark pulsed again, harder, and the golden light bled through his fingers like liquid fire.