The Necromancer’s Game

The Hunt That Should Not Exist

Night draped itself over Veilmoor like a shroud, heavy and breathless, as Draven pushed deeper into the ruined district. The air was colder here—thin, strained, like the city itself was trying not to breathe.

Lysandra walked beside him, unusually quiet, her senses sharp. Behind them, Aric kept turning his head, eyes narrowing at shadows that twitched without wind.

The city wasn’t sleeping.

It was watching.

“Three necromancers,” Lysandra murmured, her hand brushing the hilt of her curved blade. “All bearing Death’s mark. And all playing the same game as you.”

Draven scoffed. “Death always hated being bored.”

But even as he said it, something gnawed at him. A question he had been avoiding ever since he rose from the coffin:

Why him? Why again? Why now?

He didn’t ask it aloud. Every time he thought about Death’s voice—the amused cruelty, the way it curled around his spine—something inside him twisted.

He wasn’t ready for the answer.

They reached the shattered gate of the Blackwater Courtyard. Once a place of trade and quiet wealth, it now lay in ruins, swallowed by an unnatural fog that pulsed with faint whispers.

Aric swallowed hard. “I don’t like this place.”

“You’re not supposed to,” Draven replied.

He stepped forward—and the fog shifted.

Not away. Toward him.

Lysandra’s hand shot out automatically, grabbing his sleeve. “Draven—something’s wrong. The air… it’s not fog. It’s—”

“A ward,” he finished, his pulse tightening. “Someone wove it with intention.”

“Not someone,” a voice echoed from behind the crumbling arch. “Three someones.”

Shapes emerged as if carved out of the mist.

The rival necromancers.

A hooded figure with a silver bone mask stepped first, robe trailing across the ground like spilled ink. Shadows clung to him as if trying to escape their owner.

Beside him, a tall woman floated a few inches off the ground, her eyes pale and unfocused, as if she saw nothing and everything at once.

The last—a young man with white-streaked hair—leaned on a staff etched with runes that flickered like dying stars.

The masked necromancer tilted his head. “So you are Draven Kaine. The favorite.” His voice was calm… too calm.

Draven didn’t speak. They already knew who he was.

The floating woman smiled faintly. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“We’re not here for introductions,” the younger man snapped. “We’re here because Death is playing unfairly.”

Draven’s eyes hardened. “Death doesn’t do fair.”

The masked necromancer shifted slightly, the bone mask reflecting faint moonlight. “We know what you are. What you can do. And we know that your resurrection wasn’t part of the original game.”

The air tightened around Draven like invisible fingers closing around his throat.

Lysandra stepped in front of him. “Say what you want and be done with it.”

But they did not speak to her.

The floating woman drifted closer, her voice soft, almost pitying.

“Draven… you don’t know the truth, do you?”

His jaw clenched. “What truth?”

She raised a hand toward him—not touching, but sensing. “Your soul has been altered. You’re not alive. You’re not dead.” Her unfocused eyes sharpened suddenly, unnaturally.

“You’re something in between.”

Draven felt the words hit him like a cold blade. He kept his face unreadable, but his heart lurched.

Aric’s brow furrowed. “What does that even mean?”

“It means,” the masked necromancer said, “that Draven Kaine is the only one here who does not belong to Death’s Game.”

Silence dropped over the courtyard.

Veilmoor’s ruins seemed to lean closer, listening.

Draven’s voice was low. Dangerous. “You expect me to believe anything that comes out of your mouths?”

“You don’t have to,” the younger necromancer replied sharply. “But you should believe this—”

He drove his staff into the ground.

The runes blazed.

The fog exploded outward in a shockwave that slammed into them like a tidal surge, cold and biting. Lysandra staggered; Aric stumbled against a broken pillar.

Draven planted his feet, shadows curling protectively around his arms.

The masked necromancer spoke again, voice almost gentle.

“Death has lied to all of us. But to you most of all.”

The floating woman pointed toward Draven’s chest.

And then— Her eyes widened.

Her voice broke.

“Oh,” she whispered. “He doesn’t know. He truly doesn’t know.”

Draven took a step forward, breath sharp. “Know what?”

The masked necromancer finally lowered his hood, revealing a scarred, pale face marked with inked sigils.

“Draven Kaine,” he said quietly, “you weren’t resurrected.”

A cold shiver ran down Draven’s spine.

“You were rewritten.”

Draven froze.

Lysandra’s hand flew to her blade.

Aric’s breath caught.

“Rewritten?” Draven’s voice was thin, strained. “By who?”

The masked necromancer inhaled.

And pointed behind Draven.

Draven turned—

—and the shadows behind him split open like a curtain.

A figure stepped out. Tall. Familiar. Wrapped in a cloak of shifting darkness.

A voice he knew too well. A voice he feared more than death.

“By me,” the figure said softly. “I rewrote you, Draven.”

Draven’s blood turned to ice.

Death himself stood behind him.

Smiling.

“And now,” Death whispered, “it’s time for you to remember why.”