The Necromancer’s Game

Returned to the Living

Draven jolted upward with a sharp gasp.

The void vanished. The ruins, the future, the Architect’s shadow—all gone.

Cold air hit his lungs first. Then stone beneath his palms. Then the tremor of someone gripping his shoulders.

“Draven—look at me.”

The voice was warm, breathless, trembling.

Eira.

His vision swam, resolving into her face hovering over him—eyes wide with fear, hands cupping his jaw as though anchoring him to the world.

He blinked hard, breath ragged. “Eira…?”

Relief washed over her so intensely it almost hurt to see. “You were gone—you stopped breathing—Draven, what happened?”

He couldn’t answer at first.

His mind still hung between worlds. The Architect’s voice still echoed in his bones. And the memory of the future—that broken, empty Draven—still clung to him like frost.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

Eira touched his forehead gently. “You’re burning.”

“No,” he whispered. “I’m remembering.”

Her brows knit, confusion flickering across her face, but she didn’t push. Eira never pushed before he was ready.

Footsteps echoed behind her. Draven turned slightly to see Lysandra pacing like a caged animal, sword in hand, eyes sharp with worry she was trying—and failing—to disguise.

“You vanished,” she said. “One moment you were standing in front of Death, the next you just… fell. Into nothing. We couldn’t reach you.”

Aric stepped forward, pale but determined. “You were gone for minutes, Draven. Not seconds.”

Minutes.

It had felt like hours… days… years.

Draven forced his breathing to slow. Eira’s hands stayed on his shoulders until she felt him steady.

Finally, he stood. Every muscle ached, not with pain, but with knowledge—heavy, unwelcome, impossible.

Death was gone. The courtyard empty. Only a strange coldness lingered, like a footprint in the air.

Lysandra scanned the space. “Where did he go?”

“He left,” Draven murmured. “He wanted me alone with… someone else.”

“Who?” Aric asked.

Draven hesitated.

How did he explain the Architect? How did he explain a being older than Death, a being that had shaped worlds before life had even begun?

He looked at the cracked ground beneath him. “The one who created the Veil. The first god. The Architect.”

Silence fell like a blade.

Eira’s breath hitched. “That’s impossible.”

“I saw him,” Draven whispered. “I spoke to him. And he showed me what happens if the Veil breaks.”

He turned slowly, taking in their faces—fear, disbelief, suspicion.

“It was… Veilmoor,” he said. “Ruined. Empty. Dead. And a version of me was there.”

Aric frowned. “A vision of yourself?”

“No,” Draven said softly. “Me. If everything goes wrong. If I make the wrong choices. If I trust the wrong person.”

Lysandra crossed her arms. “Who?”

Draven closed his eyes.

Lucen.

The name sat like a stone in his chest.

He hated the way the future Draven’s voice had cracked when he spoke it. He hated knowing that betrayal wasn’t a vague possibility—it was something that had already happened once, in another path.

But he couldn’t say it yet. Not without understanding why.

So he said nothing.

Eira studied him quietly. She always sensed when he hid something, but she didn’t corner him. Instead, she reached for his hand, fingers brushing his.

“We’ll face whatever comes next,” she said softly. “Together.”

Warmth flickered in him—brief, stolen, fragile.

But the Architect’s warning crushed it.

You will choose her… or the world. You cannot save both.

Draven forced the thought down.

They needed answers. They needed direction. They needed time.

He had none of those things.

A low hum stirred the air.

Lysandra drew her blade instantly. “What now?”

A ripple spread across the courtyard. The ground twisted, darkened, and began to crack open—as though the world itself had decided to breathe.

Aric stumbled back. “Not again—”

But this wasn’t Death.

And it wasn’t the Architect.

Draven felt it before he saw it—a familiar pull, a tether woven into the core of his resurrected soul.

Lucen’s voice whispered across the air.

“Draven… find me.”

The courtyard erupted in a burst of cold white light, so sudden Eira shielded her face.

Draven staggered forward, heart racing.

“Lucen?! Where are you—”

The light contracted, sharpening into a single glowing sigil burned into the stone.

Lysandra’s eyes went wide. “That’s… that’s Reaper code.”

Eira knelt, tracing her fingers near it, not touching. “It’s a summoning mark. A location. He wants Draven to follow it.”

Aric looked from the glowing rune to Draven, swallowing his fear. “Why would Lucen summon you now? He hasn’t appeared since—”

“He’s afraid,” Draven said quietly. “I could hear it in his voice.”

Silence.

Not disbelief.

Not denial.

Just the weight of how dangerous that meant things had become.

Lysandra pointed her blade toward the sigil. “So where does it lead?”

Draven stared at the symbol. As he watched, the sigil shifted, rearranging itself into a pattern he knew far too well.

His stomach dropped.

Eira whispered the name first, voice trembling.

“Draven… that’s the symbol for the Hollow Crypts.”

The ancient underground labyrinth. The place where forgotten kings were buried. Where necromancers feared to walk. Where the Veil was thinnest.

Draven’s pulse thudded in his ears.

Lucen was calling him there.

“Why?” Aric asked.

Draven exhaled slowly. Because he already knew the answer.

“The Architect isn’t done with me,” he said. “And he’s using Lucen to keep the game moving.”

Eira stood, gripping his wrist. “You’re not going alone.”

Draven met her gaze. “No,” he whispered. “I’m not.”

Lysandra nodded. “Then we prepare. We move at dawn.”

Aric swallowed. “What if it’s a trap?”

“It is,” Draven said. “But we’re going anyway.”

The sigil pulsed once—bright enough to sting their eyes—then faded into the stone.

The courtyard silenced again.

But the air felt different now. Thinner. Colder. As though the world was waiting for their next step.

Eira squeezed his hand once before releasing it. “Whatever’s down there… we’ll face it together.”

Draven hoped that was true.

Because the future he’d seen still echoed inside him.

Because the Architect’s warning still whispered:

You will choose her… or the world.

And because as the wind swept through Veilmoor’s ruins, Draven heard one last whisper—quiet, mournful, and coming from everywhere and nowhere at once:

“Don’t be late, Draven. He’s already changing.”

Lucen’s voice.

But twisted.

Darker.

Almost unrecognizable.

Draven felt the blood in his veins go cold.

Lucen wasn’t just calling to him.

He was becoming something else.

And whatever waited in the Hollow Crypts…

They weren’t prepared for it.