Page 11 of The Necromancer's Prisoner

The same soft touch could be seen throughout the rest of the tower. Though the ancient walls were crumbling and the decrepit structure seemed like a particularly fierce gust of wind might topple it over, Ignatius had obviously tried to spruce it up. He’d replaced most of the essential furniture and draped rugs over much of the cold, barren stone while his undead ensured the hearths on each level never went out.

Not that he did any of it with supplies that were his to take,Alistair reminded himself, studying his blankets with a pensive frown. While the necromancer might have brought some of this into the mountains himself, Alistair suspected he’d commandeered the bulk of it from Singer’s Rest, along with his food and water.

Undead had attempted to bring him meals throughout the day, and though Alistair knew he was being stubborn, he refused to touch a morsel of it despite his growling stomach. With his dawnflame replenished from rest, he could manage all right without food for a day or two. If the storm lasted any longer than that, he might be forced to reconsider.

It wasn’t that he really thought the necromancer would attempt something so obvious as poison at this point. Undead brought his meals at the same time as Ignatius’, and they’d made no attempt to stop him from swapping the platters when he tried.

Instead, it was the principle of the thing. This food had been stolen from the good people of Singer’s Rest. To partake in it seemed tantamount to endorsing its theft. Worse still, it felt like admitting defeat before Ignatius’ unsettling kindness. Accepting his hospitality would be the first step toward acceptinghim, and that was something Alistair simply was not willing to do—not when it meant violating his oaths.

Whenever his conviction started to flag, he needed only to look to one of the ubiquitous undead to remind him of the dark magic wielded by their master. No matter how docile they appeared, they remained unholy abominations. Whatever brief glimpses of humanity he caught behind their dead eyes were nothing but illusions—perversions of the people they’d once been.

He had a harder time dismissing his host, however. As much as he wanted to hate the vile necromancer, Ignatius had saved his life twice now when he could have left him to freeze. If his mercy served a nefarious purpose, Alistair had yet to decipher it.

And while Ignatius might be lying about the missing townspeople, Alistair had searched enough of the tower to know they weren’t being held here, and none of the undead he’d scrutinized seemed fresh enough to belong to them. He wished he’d thought to acquire descriptions of the missing villagers when he’d arrived in Singer’s Rest, though he supposed those would have been of limited usefulness anyway when it came to bleached bone.

Is the necromancer being honest? Is he really nothing more than a roaming vagabond caught in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Alistair’s uncertain thoughts left him on edge. With little else to do to entertain himself, he ended up running through his fighting forms in the great hall since it had the most open space.

His hands itched for his sword, and he felt naked without his armor, but he nevertheless relished the strain of his muscles pushed to their limits. Practicing his technique never failed to clear his mind and put him more at ease. Even the lurking undead couldn’t disrupt his rhythm.

By the time he was done, familiar hunger gnawed at his gut. It took all his willpower to resist digging into the bowl of roasted vegetable stew left behind for him. But by the Light, he wouldnotgive up his silent protest—even if it only benefited his own peace of mind.

When night fell with no sign of his reclusive host, Alistair found himself pacing restlessly in the sitting room. He might not be in a cell, but stripped of his belongings with the storm raging outside, he still felt very much like a prisoner. The least Ignatius could do was offer him more explanations instead of leaving him alone all day with nothing but the dead for company.

At last, Alistair couldn’t take the silence punctuated by rattling bones any longer. He strode to the stairs leading to Ignatius’ quarters and clambered up them. Enough timidity—he was a Knight of the Order for Light’s sake! It was past time he acted like it and demanded more answers along with his missing equipment.

He half-expected the undead in the room to try to stop him, but they continued with their business as usual. Good—that meant he wouldn’t have to waste any precious dawnflame on them. He arrived at the top landing and was reaching for the door when he heard a muffled voice on the other side. He furrowed his brow, knuckles hovering over the wood to knock.

Who was the necromancer speaking to? Alistair had assumed they were the only two intelligent beings in the tower. Wasthiswhere he’d been keeping his prisoners? Or perhaps the necromancer had a secret accomplice he hadn’t wanted Alistair to know about.

His curiosity piqued, Alistair pressed his ear against the wood to listen.

seven

Ignatius

Iggieslammedhisbookshut, tightening his grip on its spine at another infuriating round of footsteps from below. He’d been forced to listen to the paladin loudly pacing about the sitting room andclompingup and down the stairs all Dark-cursed day, and he wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take. As if it wasn’t bad enough knowing he had a Knight of the Order camped out in his tower, the paladin’s restlessness was making him jittery by association.

Alistair. What a suitably pretentious name. And ofcourse,Iggie had been right about him belonging to one of Khordan’s noble houses. Iggie hadn’t recognized the name, but that counted for little—even before he’d been a necromancer on the run for his life, he hadn’t exactly been privy to court gossip. The fact that the paladin was any sort of noble at all confirmed the worst things Iggie had assumed about him.

Even if heisbuilt like some sculptor’s rendition of a god…

Admonishing himself for viewing a Knight as anything other than a threat, Iggie tossed aside his worn book—at this rate, he’d never discover how the pirate prince outwitted the kraken or escaped with his marooned princess—and began his own nervous pacing. Now that he’d given the paladin the freedom to roam the rest of the tower, he was beginning to feel likehewas the one who was trapped.

He’d started to head down a half-dozen times throughout the day to check on his undead or do a sweep of the perimeter or simply stretch his legs, but each time, he’d thought better of it. The paladin’s equipment might still be shoved in a crate under his bed, but he possessed no illusions that the paladin couldn’t kill him if it struck his fancy. And he hadn’t exactly seemed trusting earlier despite Iggie saving his life yet again.

What use did Iggie have for a bunch of kidnapped villagers? If he was that desperate for more undead, he’d be better off raiding the village’s cemetery. Fresher corpses might maintain more of their personalities and skills, but even if Iggiewasa murderer, it’d hardly be worth the hassle of abducting a handful of people against their will to bolster his ranks.

Not thatLordAlistair would listen to anything that dared contradict the Church’s caricature of those who wielded duskflame as evil masterminds hell-bent on world domination. Why hadn’t Iggie done the reasonable thing and thrown the paladin back in his cell, ineffective or not? Or better yet, left him to freeze to death in the storm…

He’s not entirely a lost cause. He introduced himself, didn’t he?

True. Alistair’s gesture while Iggie was retreating to his chambers had caught him off-guard. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the paladin genuinely contrite over his accusations. Perhaps he was more than the Church’s puppet after all.

Iggie huffed out a sigh as he sank into his chair. He raked his fingers through his tangled red hair until it was even more of a disheveled mess than usual. As he often did when overwhelmed, he found himself rambling to Marlon and Cynthia, who stood silent sentinel by the door.

“I don’t why I’m letting his presence here affect me so much! I mean, this whole situation is absurd—a necromancer and a paladin, trapped alone in a tower for days? It’ll be a miracle if we both make it out of this in one piece.”