The air shimmered with latent mana, heavy and dry like the breath of tombs. Morte felt it curl around his skin—not hostile, but testing. In the outer city, the undead gave him a wide berth, shuffling in programmed obedience. Here, he was watched.
And here, they spoke.
The first was Mistress Kalvanna, a towering death weaver cloaked in silk spun from funeral wrappings. Her face was a silver mask—expressionless, but her voice dripped with venomous grace.
"The little heir dares walk alone," she whispered as she descended the steps of her ivory mausoleum. "The Skeleton King's pet experiment… or his weapon?"
Morte paused but didn't answer. He had seen her before—she taught soul-binding at the Bone Academy but rarely addressed him. Her shadow moved separately from her body, stretching toward him like a hungry eel.
He met her gaze.
"I am what he made me," Morte said calmly, though his fingers twitched with the urge to call mana. "What I choose to be is still my own."
Kalvanna's laughter was dry bone on slate.
"How adorably naïve."
She let him pass, but the lingering cold of her presence clung to his thoughts.
Further down the street, a faint echo of clapping drew his attention. A small amphitheater, cut into the bones of some massive leviathan, held a gathering of phantasmal courtiers—spirits clad in finery that had long since rotted away. At their center stood Lord Azor, a flame-eyed revenant with his ribcage exposed beneath a tattered noble's coat.
"There he is!" Azor bellowed with theatrical glee. "The Child of Death walks among us, and none offer him wine? Scandal!"
He flicked a hand. A skeletal servant emerged from a crypt archway bearing a crystal goblet—brimming with what Morte knew, from bitter experience, was liquified necrotic energy.
"Drink, boy. Let your marrow remember where you were forged."
Morte took the goblet, examined it, then handed it back without a word.
"I'm not thirsty."
Azor's eye flames flared briefly—then settled. He smiled. Morte wasn't sure he liked that smile.
"Oh, he is growing well. A shame, really. I had a bet that you'd implode before your tenth birthday. Alas."
The courtiers laughed. Morte bowed slightly and walked away, pulse steady.
As he reached the edge of the plaza, a soft, mechanical whisper caught his ear. From the shadows of a collapsed spire emerged Wight Nemuros, his emaciated frame reinforced with long limbs. A permanent small stream of black blood flowed from his eyes..
"You carry too much death," Nemuros rasped. "It clings to your skin like oil. It will poison your thoughts, eventually. Make sure you know what you feel… and what is simply residue."
"I know," Morte replied. "But it's hard to tell the difference sometimes."
Nemuros stopped walking.
"Then stay sharp, boy. The moment you forget which is which… we'll know. And so will he."
Each encounter left a different chill on Morte's spine. These weren't lessons—these were warnings. None of them denied what he was. None of them truly welcomed it either.
They watched. They whispered. They waited.
And now he stood before the black obsidian gates of Ebonhold.
The Lich King waited within.
The doors of Ebonhold opened with a groan like the shifting of continents.
Morte stepped into the vast darkness, his footsteps swallowed by the silence. This was no ordinary chamber—it was a sanctum carved into the bones of a world-devouring wyrm, its ribcage now archways that lined the vaulting ceiling. The air buzzed with necrotic resonance, thick enough to taste—ash and silver and memory.
Torches burned without flame. Soulfire braziers cast no shadows.
At the far end of the chamber sat the Lich King.
He did not move. He never needed to. The throne was sculpted from obsidian and black bone, crowned with drifting, pale blue motes of light—souls that whispered unintelligibly in spirals around his armored frame. His helm was set with a single rune that glowed faintly, like a cold moon.
Morte approached, but not too close.
He bowed. Not out of fear—but out of respect.
"My King."
A pause.
Then, the voice.
"You are late."
It was not anger. It was not disappointment. The Lich King's voice simply was—as eternal and inexorable as the tide of death itself. It echoed without echo, vibrating in Morte's bones rather than his ears.
"I was in the inner city," Morte said, standing straight. "I wanted to walk alone. I wanted to see who would speak to me without your shadow."
"And?"
"I was… spoken to. Warned. Measured. Judged."
The Lich King rose from his throne—not with effort, but with inevitability. Even now, Morte had never fully seen what lay beneath that helm. Something more than a skull. Something less.
"And what did you learn?"
Morte's pale violet eyes didn't waver.
"That they fear me. Not just for what I might become—but for what I already am."
The Lich King descended the steps of the dais. Each footfall echoed with gravity. As he came to stand before Morte, the temperature dropped—not cold, but still. Time seemed to hold its breath.
"You are beginning to see."
A skeletal hand, wrapped in ethereal armor, reached forward—not to strike, but to rest gently on Morte's shoulder.
"You have mastered flame, frost, and bone. You wield the third tier with discipline and precision. Herc tells me your swordplay is adequate. And yet..."
A pause.
"Something stirs in you beyond what I taught."
Morte swallowed.
"I can feel things. Patterns in the air. Death... speaks to me."
The Lich King nodded.
"Necrovia has seeped into your soul. This place is not just your shelter. It is part of you now."
His grip tightened—just for a moment.
"You are no longer merely a child protected by death. You are a child shaped by it."
Morte looked up.
"Is that what you wanted?"
The silence that followed was deeper than before.
"No," the Lich King said. "But it may be what is needed."
He turned away and walked toward the throne once more.
"You will be summoned soon. The Council wishes to speak with you. Kalvanna is not the only one who doubts your place here."
"I don't care what they think."
"You should. Because whether you care or not... they may one day try to kill you."
Morte stood in silence.
And for a long moment, so did Death.
The Butlers' Wing
The throne room had emptied like a tide retreating from blood-soaked sand. Morte did not return to his quarters.
Instead, he walked the quiet corridors of the upper citadel, past the murals of conquest and coronation, until he reached a smaller, humbler hall—one still lit by fire, not soulflame.
He opened a familiar door.
Inside, a kettle hissed quietly atop an iron stove, and a single oil-lamp swayed ever so slightly in the still air. The walls were lined with simple bookshelves—organized with maddening precision—and a large desk cluttered with scrolls, old keys, and empty teacups.
At its center stood Kyris, the Lich King's former aide and Morte's oldest confidant.
"Ah," Kyris said, without turning. "I had a feeling I might be seeing you tonight."
Morte stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The scent of dried herbs, ink, and pipe smoke met him like a memory.
"Did the King summon you as well?" Kyris asked, pouring a second cup of tea without waiting for an answer.
"He spoke to me," Morte said, easing onto the old reading bench near the fire. "Not as a child. Not even as his ward. Like... something else."
Kyris turned, placing the cup before him. His smile was faint, but warm.
"Good. It's about time he recognized the weight you carry."
Morte looked into the tea. It was dark, fragrant with something earthy. "They fear me."
"They always did," Kyris replied, folding his hands. "But now you can feel it."
Morte sipped, then leaned his head back against the stone wall, staring at the high ceiling.
"Do you?" he asked softly.
Kyris didn't answer immediately. Instead, he walked to the hearth and stirred the fire gently.
"I've seen you grow from a crying infant wrapped in a dying woman's shawl... to a boy who summoned skeletons before speaking full sentences... to a young man who walks like he already knows the end of every conversation."
He turned, his eyes thoughtful.
"I don't fear you, Morte. I worry for you."
Morte frowned. "Why?"
"Because you see too much. And feel too little."
Kyris knelt before him, placing a hand over the boy's.
"You've grown in power—faster than anyone should. But strength forged in shadow alone risks forgetting the sun. Even the undead dream, Morte. Even the cold crave warmth, if only in memory."
Morte looked away.
"You sound like a priest."
"I was, once," Kyris said, chuckling. "A long time ago. In a city that no longer exists."
Silence.
Then—
"Will they try to kill me?" Morte asked, the question so quiet it might've been mistaken for breath.
Kyris didn't lie.
"Some already plan to."
Morte looked back at him, pale violet eyes unreadable.
"Then I'll be ready."
Kyris's gaze sharpened.
"No. You'll be wise. Power without restraint is just fire waiting for fuel."
A pause. Then Kyris smiled again—gentler this time.
"But you're not alone, my boy. Never that. So long as I draw breath—such as it is—you will have an ally in me."
Morte nodded once, and for the first time that night, some of the tension in his shoulders eased.
The fire crackled.
Outside, the city of the dead shifted and moaned beneath the cold stars.
And in the little room behind the throne, a child shaped by death found a flicker of something else: trust.