The assassin's temper had bubbled underneath the surface of her skin — a brewing storm being quelled by only the looming pressure of the mission — for the rest of the journey. A walk through the forsaken parts of Wyrith that she usually enjoyed had to be ruined by the actions of a Fireborn — a Fireborn Morana was just beginning to tolerate.

"You're limping," Damian pointed out from where he jogged behind her, trying to keep up with her fury-fuelled pace. The first words he said to break the silence that enveloped them only added more power to her anger.

Morana glanced down at her leg to find splotches of blood rising into her trousers. Considering the rushed stitches she had given the wound before heading to the Defiant Moon Tavern, it was better than she expected. Her leg was still bruised from where the Captain's dagger had pierced her, but it was mostly healed. A salve she had been gifted from Blood and Bottles and the fast natural healing she had been blessed with helped greatly.

Dark magic had several perks.

"So I am," Morana dismissed. There wasn't much further to go until they reached the ruins where this sorcerer supposedly lived.

"Are you still angry about before? As I said already, I can't use my fire like that."

"You must be friends with fish if they forgive you for something serious in a matter of hours. The only way you could earn mine for causing us trouble down the line is if I end up forgetting." The necromancer frowned. Damian was a privileged royal — a prince to a Fireborn Empire. What would he know about danger when he had guards to eliminate his threats for him?

"Perhaps no trouble will come from it at all," he offered with a sheepish smile, finally catching up with her furious steps.

"You really don't understand, do you? That person could have been anyone. A Wyrith guard, another underlord from the Lost Abyss waiting to sell me and Silas out, someone from your own entourage. Anyone." Morana stopped, ready to redirect her rage to the man beside her. "I will be the one to get the blame if this mission goes awry and you have no idea what that entails."

What punishment would Silas forge next time? Daggers? No, they were overused and too plain for his taste. Maybe it would be a newly invented weapon sold in the Wandering Market he wanted to test out. Perhaps she would once again be submitted to the tides of the Molten Sea that he had dragged her from the night they met.

She shuddered at the thought as a frigid chill raced down her spine, gooseflesh spreading across her arms.

"I'm sorry." The Fireborn reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. For someone who hadn't produced a lick of fire, he was surprisingly warm. "If there's anything that will come from it, I will offer myself in your place, but there was nothing I could have done."

Morana could only shake her head, pulling away despite his heat chasing away her cold. There was a reason she was the one to receive the strange punishments her boss conjured and she didn't want anyone to be submitted to the same fate.

She gazed back up at the hill they had been climbing to find the beginnings of stone arches watching their conversation. "We're here."

A set of large ruins laid at the top which had crumbled into nothing but a plain of cobble. Few structures remained scattered around what Morana reckoned was once a fortress — one of which she had made a small home in to hold her most valuable belongings. Two towers stood at the far edge of the remnants of necromancer life. One was severed in half as if it had been cleaved with a blade, and the other still stood but it was overgrown with ivy and moss.

That had to be the one the sorcerer lived in.

Damian stopped in his tracks as he observed their destination, taking a deep breath to brace himself for what was to happen next. The assassin could only find curiosity curled around her mind. No amount of steady breathing could prepare anyone for the payment the sorcerer had planned — for the secrets Silas kept hidden in shadows.

After trudging up the steps that led to the intact tower, Morana peered around the entrance before entering. The last time she dealt with a witch or wizard of any kind ended in an unforgiving explosive trap to ward off trespassers. Only hinges remained of the door that was meant to greet them, allowing them to look into an entrance of cobwebs and destroyed furniture.

Nobody could have disturbed this area since it was abandoned centuries ago.

"Are you sure we have the right place?" Damian questioned with a frown.

"Do you see any other habitable towers around here?" These were the only necromancer ruins the island had to offer, save for the ghost village they had already travelled through, so this had to be it. "We'll just have to invite ourselves inside."

With a tentative step over the boundary of the door and no hints or hisses of a stewing detonation, the necromancer wandered inside with a cough from the dust that filled her lungs.

Even with several scans of the circular room, Morana couldn't find any signs of life. A rounded table took up half of the area and a leaning bookshelf that could collapse at any moment were the only furniture not destroyed or lost to time. Moth-eaten tapestries and carpets were once vibrant decor pieces, but now they had been soiled with dirt and riddled with holes.

Despite the structure being a tower, she couldn't see a staircase, ladder, nor a hole in the ceiling where one might have been, to get any further up.

"One of these walls has to be hollow," Morana murmured to herself.

As she started making her way around the base of the tower, knocking on the rotted wallpaper at every interval and watching the Fireborn as he scoured through empty, yellowed books, a ticking sound appeared near the entrance of the tower. A clock's heartbeat growing faster and faster with each puzzled breath.

"What did you do?" Damian froze, as if the noise were a warning of a greater threat.

"I didn't do anything!" The assassin approached the sound, preparing to punch a hole through the weathered plaster to reach what was on the other side. However, before she could strike, the wall slid apart to reveal a furious man.

Violent tempests of white encased him, rippling his navy robe in the howling winds it produced. Their creator matched his magic in every sense — seething and greying with age. Rings of various sizes adorned his fingers, the runes etched into them glowing with the same power he wielded, feeding the storm that only hungered for more.

This had to be the man they were looking for.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't hang you from the top of this tower." The blazing source of ivory grew taller as the sorcerer spoke.

While the Fireborn backed up and raised his hands in surrender, Morana only wandered closer, amused by the danger that awaited them. "We're here on behalf of Silas," she explained as she reached for the card her boss had given her. "You've been working on something for him and it's time for it to be collected."

Sparks sprayed across the stoned-tiled floor as his magic dissipated, the sorcerer's sigh echoing in the new-found silence. "And who might you be? I don't see that persistent arsehole around here anywhere."

"We're the people here to collect what's his." Morana crossed her arms. "You don't need to know anything more."

Her movement guided the sorcerer's irritated glare to her chest — to where her necklace lay. "You're a necromancer," he breathed. With a snap of his fingers, wisps of magic raced for the gemstone, forcing it to glow. "Are you one of the twins?"

She encased her necklace in a tight fist, batting the tendrils away with another. "I might be."

The sorcerer stepped aside to reveal a set of spiralling stairs behind him. "Perhaps Silas is good for something after all."

Morana and Damian locked eyes, a silent question lingering between them, only for it to be broken when the assassin shrugged. She walked past the sorcerer and headed up the stairs, holding onto the rotting bannister as the several turns became dizzying.

It wasn't long before a landing appeared, revealing a cluttered mess. Every inch of space was covered in either enchanted trinkets, sigils etched in chalk and other unnamable substances, or various strange ingredients. Only a few patches of the floor were visible to step through the disarray.

Morana followed the path which led to a collection of bones hanging from the ceiling via thin pieces of string. Running her hand along them, revelling in the hollow sound that echoed from them when they collided, she spied more items on a table below. She picked up a large trinket that appeared to be singed by a stray flame, streaks of burnt metal torn across the surface as if they were battle wounds — an apparent failure. If the sorcerer was rooting up the necromancers' pasts, Morana hoped he was at least successful. Otherwise, his remains would be joining them.

"You're a twin?" Damian asked. His amber eyes raced across her features as they struggled to figure out who she looked like. For why she was so familiar when she pulled down her mask.

Morana nodded with a grin. "Any guesses as to whose twin I am?"

"You-"

"Get your thieving fingers off of my work and keep heading up," the sorcerer warned as he followed the Fireborn up the stairs. "Silas' contraption is in my study on the top floor."

As much as she was excited to see the look on Damian's face when he figured out Wyrith's Princess was her sister, she was even more eager to see what her boss had requested from the grumpy wizard. At first, she thought it was information of some kind as that was what Silas' plans thrived and leeched from, but it was something physical. What could he possibly need to assist him claim the throne of Wyrith?

They passed another floor which was entirely bathed in darkness, save for a few glimmers of gold resting in sconces on the walls. It wasn't too long after that they reached the very top.

Bright light streamed into the final room, forcing them to shield their eyes to help them adjust to the sudden change. A hole in the roof where the structure had collapsed in on itself formed a grand window above them. Instead of permanent access to fresh air, the gap had been sealed with rippled glass. While pieces of the sorcerer's work were still scattered around, it was much more manageable to traverse through. A bed was shoved to the far end, stacks of books and sketches towering on the headboard and ornaments that thrummed with life poking out of the sheets.

The sorcerer sat at his desk and picked up a metal star that shimmered with what seemed to be golden glitter at first glance. "You're lucky I finished it this morning." He held it out for Morana to take but, even with her swift movements, he snatched it back into the air before she could take it. "I need my payment first. What did you bring for me?"

"What do you need?" Damian's throat bobbed.

Morana pushed him from behind so that he was closer to the sorcerer. "I got told to bring a Fireborn, and so I have." She wrapped her arm around Damian's shoulders, standing on her toes so she could reach. "His soul is all yours."

"I don't need a Fireborn." His teeth grated together and the contraption fell back to the desk with a jarring thud. "I gave Silas a list of things I need for my spells and told him to get me one in return."

"Do you have another copy of that list?" The Fireborn hesitated before he asked. "I was told I could provide what you need but we have no idea what that could be."

Rummaging around in his desk drawer, the sorcerer pulled out a crumpled corner of parchment. "A Phoenix's feather, a Siren's voice, some Selkie skin, or a Dragon's scale."

Morana wasted no time patting down Damian's pockets and searching him for secret compartments where one of the elusive, rare spell ingredients could be hidden, but she found nothing. Not even a pouch of gold or a weapon that he could defend himself with.

"You didn't come with much, did you?" she murmured.

First, he let the information of their whereabouts escape with an unknown source. Now, he couldn't even provide his main purpose in her boss' plan. Was there really nobody else Silas could get?

The Fireborn only nodded, going through the list again in his mind. "I don't have one on me, but I could get you a Dragon's scale."

"Aren't Dragon's extinct?" The assassin removed her hands from their search and tilted her head in confusion.

"Aren't necromancers extinct?" he countered.

"That's the most difficult item on this list to acquire by far," the sorcerer began. "If you could get it for me, that would be a great help to my research."

Damian winced. "It will be difficult, be doable."

"Even with the wall around the island? You won't be able to leave while it's there." She hadn't heard of any Dragons making their home on the island of Wyrith — dead or alive. Unless the scale had already been harvested from the mythical beast.

"Yes. He's definitely within the wall's boundaries."

Morana's cerulean eyes flared as a realisation clicked into place. Itros' information from the Defiant Moon Tavern was useful after all.

"We do need this contraption now, though," she pointed out. "Is there a chance we could owe you?" She extended her hand, waving fingers ready to collect what they needed.

"Only if I can have some information first. My life's research has been about necromancers and what happened to the last twin queens, and I've never had the chance to talk to one until now." The sorcerer leaned forward, grabbing a feathered quill which had fallen onto the floor. "Tell me, are you able to bring someone back from the dead? With everything they left behind, it's not clear if your powers can reach that extent."

Morana withdrew her hand. "I can manipulate the remains of the dead, but resurrecting is something entirely different. I haven't been able to wrap my head around it," she confessed.

"So you've tried?" he pushed, noting every word she said in a tangled scrawl of letters.

"Of course I have. Though, it wouldn't happen no matter what I tried."

Flashes of memories pierced her vision and only a series of rapid blinks could force them back. She had tried to find out the extent of her magic soon after she discovered what she was — after she made her first kill under Silas' care. As soon as her boss had left her sitting in the pool of their target's blood once their job was complete, she tried to undo the death she had caused. She could control his corpse with shakey movements, but nothing could return the life she took.

"It was like my magic was reaching for something more to be able to give them life again," Morana continued. "Something I don't have access to."

"Interesting. I needed to know if the necromancers could have just brought themselves back from the dead after the First King ended their line, and this helps me lean toward a no. One last thing." The sorcerer retrieved a bone from a shelf above him and placed it on the desk. "Can you move this for me?"

Holding out two fingers, she beckoned them up, making the bone and her necklace float.

"Necromancers can manipulate necromancer remains," he mumbled as he finished his notes.

"Is that all you need?" Damian watched the bone hit the desk, his gaze straying to the assassin's necklace.

"That will be fine for now." He tapped his quill in thought, blotting the paper with inked speckles, before passing the contraption to Morana.

It was much lighter than she originally suspected. The gold metal had a dark crystal fused into its centre, surrounded by lines that hinted at segments which could move. However, with the tug she gave it, nothing budged.

"Silas should know how to use it," the sorcerer confirmed.

"We'll take our leave, then." Morana slipped the star into an empty pouch on her belt, fastening the three buttons for extra protection.

"Don't forget my Dragon's scale! If it isn't brought to me within a week," he snapped his fingers and another nearby experiment shattered in a burst of white sparks, "Silas won't be able to use it."

Chapter Word Count: 2,843
Total Word Count: 34, 155