The Necromancer’s Game

The Blood Moon Trial

Draven awoke to the taste of ash.

He lay on cold stone beneath a crimson sky. The air shimmered with heat, and above him hung a moon split in half — one side burning red, the other black as soot. It bled light across a shattered wasteland, painting everything in the hue of old blood.

Lucen hovered a few feet away, his ghostly form dim in the heat haze. “You still breathing?”

Draven pushed himself up, every muscle aching. The air was thick here — alive with whispers, faint echoes of laughter and weeping that came from nowhere and everywhere at once. He knew that sound. Souls. Unbound and restless.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“The second realm,” Lucen said quietly. “The Blood Moon Gate. It’s where condemned souls wander until they lose themselves.”

Draven dusted his hands on his torn cloak. “Then we’re in hell.”

Lucen smirked. “If hell had a sense of humor, maybe.”

They stood on the edge of a black plain littered with bone fragments and shards of mirror-glass. Far in the distance, a ruined citadel rose — its spires bent like claws. Between them and the fortress, the landscape rippled with movement. Shadows crawled under the red light, shifting in ways no living creature should.

Draven drew his dagger. The blade pulsed faintly with blue runes. “The Broker said the second round would test survival.”

Lucen glanced around. “Define survival.”

A low hum rolled through the air, vibrating in Draven’s chest. He turned toward the horizon.

A figure walked through the mist — tall, cloaked in tattered red, its face hidden behind a cracked mask. In its hand hung a chain, and at the end of that chain… something moved. Crawled.

A soul.

The chained spirit dragged itself across the ground, weeping soundlessly, its body flickering with light that looked painfully human.

Draven stepped forward before he could stop himself. Something about that light tugged at his memory — a soft voice, a laugh in the rain.

“Eira…” he whispered.

Lucen’s voice cut through sharply. “It’s not her.”

The figure raised its head, and the world seemed to hold its breath. When it spoke, the voice was cold and hollow — but beneath it, something ancient stirred.

“Round Two,” it intoned. “The Trial of Memory. Retrieve what was lost. Or be consumed by what you remember.”

The chain clattered. The chained soul turned its head toward Draven, eyes burning white — and screamed.

Wind exploded outward, tearing through the plain. The world rippled again, and the landscape changed.

Draven staggered.

He stood not in the wasteland, but in a street he recognized — the broken towers of Aedryn, his homeland. The smell of smoke and blood filled the air. He knew this day. The day the dead first rose at his command. The day everything ended.

Lucen’s ghost flickered beside him, his form distorted. “It’s not real,” he said, voice strained. “It’s the memory. The trial’s making you relive it.”

But Draven’s body was already moving on its own. He saw himself — younger, arrogant, eyes burning with power — standing before a crowd of soldiers and necromancers. Saw his hands raised, chanting the words that no mortal should have spoken.

The ground cracked, and the dead began to climb out.

Hundreds. Thousands.

Draven felt it again — the rush of power, the ecstasy of control. The moment when life and death bowed before him. But this time, beneath it, there was something else — the cries of the living being pulled down into the same graves he opened.

Lucen gritted his teeth. “Break it, Draven! It’s trying to bind you to the memory!”

Draven clenched his fists, fighting the pull. The world shimmered again. The faces of the soldiers twisted, became the faces of the phantoms he’d absorbed. Their mouths opened in unison.

“You made us,” they whispered. “Now join us.”

The red moon’s light bled into the vision, melting the streets into rivers of fire. The younger Draven looked at him and smiled — that same cold, proud smile that had led to his execution.

Draven reached out — and his hand passed through his younger self, through the memory, through the illusion.

“Enough!” he roared.

A wave of black energy burst from him, tearing through the vision. The city shattered like glass, collapsing into the red mist.

When the world steadied, he was back on the plain. The chained soul knelt before him, its body flickering weaker now.

Lucen drifted closer. “You broke it. The trial’s done.”

Draven wasn’t so sure. The chained figure in red still stood before them, silent. Then it raised its hand, and the soul on the chain dissolved into a flurry of pale embers that drifted toward Draven.

He didn’t move as they sank into his skin. Warmth spread through his chest — not pain this time, but something heartbreakingly familiar. A scent. A voice.

“Draven, come home.”

He gasped, stepping back. “That— That was—”

Lucen’s eyes narrowed. “A piece of her. Of Eira.”

Before Draven could respond, the red-cloaked figure spoke again, its voice cracking like old wood.

“You’ve taken back what was lost. But every memory has its price.”

The ground split open beneath him. Chains erupted from the earth, wrapping around his arms, his throat, his legs.

Lucen shouted, “Draven!”

The figure’s mask cracked further, revealing a mouth that smiled too wide. “Welcome to the next game, necromancer. The Blood Moon doesn’t end until you remember everything you buried.”

The chains pulled tight — and the world turned black.