SYBIL

I wipe the sweat from my brow in the hot sun, stretching my sore back and looking over the fields. My bone-family was working tirelessly under the summer sun. It’s a weeding day, and there are some fields that need harvesting. The eleven of us have been working since dawn.

Already, two years have passed. The war had come and gone, with the barest of whispers in Yvolstein’s bar in Reisau, and then… nothing.

My fingers and shoulders ache, and it’s just about quitting time. Via lets her basket drop a row over from me and flops onto the soft earth. “I am done!” she moans.

I hide my smile. The little goddess has not stopped throwing her fits, and she hasn’t left my side since the first day either. Whenever I asked, she would say something about learning my secrets, or getting ideas on sidelining the war. But since the Cardenas royal family took the Ledian crown, she found other excuses like: “Need to keep an eye on you, make sure you don’t lose your head.”

I didn’t mind her company, at the end of the day, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to convince her to leave–even if I wanted her to. Besides that, she helped my crops grow faster, more abundantly, and larger than I could manage on my own merits, and Maggie had long fallen in love with her spunk.

The great footsteps of Henry make me look up again. “Are you done too?” I ask them.

Their copper magic touches mine with a gentle nudge. They want me to rest, actually. I sigh and pick up my basket and Vi’s. “Okay,” I tell them both. “Let’s call it a day then.”

“You’ve wanted some of that cold drink Yvolstein’s concocted, too.” Via agrees. “Don’t want to keep you from that.”

I smirk. I don’t know about any of Yvolstein’s new creations. “Goddess, that does sound good.”

“It would be good for a goddess too,” Vi says casually, jumping up to follow behind me, clasping her hands behind her back in casual nonchalance.

“I think I’ve given quite enough offerings to the local goddess,” I tease, “I’m beginning to feel like a fanatic.”

“I don’t think the gods can get enough offerings, frankly.”

“Can they not?”

“They certainly won’t be opposed to a cold offering on a hot summer’s day,” Via points out.

“Alright, we’ll go down to Reisau.” I pretend to cave, as if I hadn’t already anticipated taking her into town anyways. Besides, I had some friends I needed to visit. It’d been a week since we’d been down to town with all the harvest preparations we’d been at. Haven and Soleil were eager to continue the card game we’d left off on. We dropped off our baskets with Lasis in the processing room first.

They arranged them in the stacks of baskets to sift through. “It’s looking good so far, Sybil.” They tell me. “I’ll need you to meet with some buyers on Tuesday. They’re interested in buying up our wheat for flour when those are ready.”

I wince. Lasis has been in charge of most of our shipment, since they’ve had a mind for numbers and business. They were unfortunately limited with business meetings, considering their lack of flesh and the new laws against necromancy. I’d had to learn fairly quickly how to conduct myself in business meetings. The first few times, Lasis tutored me late into the night until I managed the right face, and didn’t allow myself to be low-balled during their roleplaying business agreement meetings. “Where are they coming from?”

“Blaiszen.”

I whistle low. “That’s pretty far.”

They shrug and gesture at Via who has laid down on a potato sack and has her arms thrown over her face. “Word’s gotten around,” they say, as if that explains everything.

It does.

I rub my temples. “Okay. Tuesday you said? Where?”

“They’re willing to come here but…” Lasis drums their phallanges on the wooden desk where they’ve been keeping a careful ledger of our inventory.

“Got it. Write that I will meet them in Torsen, then.”

Lasis nods. “You’ve got it.”

“We’re heading into town, do you know if we need anything?”

They thumb through the ledger, consider, then shake their head. “No, I think we’re good.”

I nod and gather up the limp Via, twisting her small frame onto my back. She grips around me gratefully and rests her head on my neck. She still had the constitution of an eleven year old, despite being an ageless being. She would bounce back after a little nap. “Alright. Thank you, Lasis.”

They wave me off. “See you later tonight.”

In the past two years, we’ve built up an impressive compound of sorts. The farmhouse had been expanded from a small loft shed by building off of it. We’d included a dining room and a reading room, and a few extra rooms in the loft area for when Soleil and Haven, or any other visitors from town, needed to stay the night.

The shed the constructs had built on our first day together had been remodeled into a barn, and they had built another building that suited each of them more closely. While none of them strictly slept or ate, they still needed to experience stasis to regenerate energy after long stretches of arduous labor. Their building had been built in anticipation for the necromancy ban, and so from the outside looked like another nondescript processing facility. Inside, however, each soul had their own room, decorated to their own unique expression. Samantha’s room was filled with flowers, both potted and cut; Lasis’ room was fashioned in a minimalist fashion; Roderick’s room was filled with various tools and a few flower boxes to test different fertilizers; Amelia’s was filled with color and decorated in plush pillows and rugs; Jun’s room was covered in the various quilts they’d stitched together in the past few years with a singular rocking chair underneath the window; Willard’s walls were covered in tapestries depicting knights and battles long past, and he’d accumulated quite a collection of rapiers; Jim’s room was darker in color, filled from ceiling to floor with books; Rose’s room was simple yet plush, leaning on a cool colored theme; Neil’s room held a myriad of sailing paraphernalia; and Morgan’s contained practice dummies and pugilist gloves. Henry had a large room all to themselves in the back of the house, also. Soleil had helped fashion them a door that they could use comfortably without needing to duck or turn sideways. Their room was filled with small potted succulents and plants trimmed to look like little trees.

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In all my years as a practitioner before Reisau, I’d never seen constructs express themselves so creatively. It was such an honor to lend a little bit to their after-life joy.

As we walk back to the farmhouse, Henry scoops us up and sets us on their shoulder. I grip onto one of their vertebrae and lean into them. Our magic twines together in a gentle embrace. “You’re tired today, too,” I comment, pressing the purple and green magic of my soul into the sensation of their copper essence.

They nod.

“But you’re worried?” They incline their head, considering.

Henry has remained mute over the years, but we’ve learned together that with inflections of our mana, we’re able to communicate. Above all, they have remained my closest construct; my silent guardian. They’d also taken quite a liking to Via.

Henry nods finally in decision and their copper magic presses in shapes against mine. Is war coming? You are worried, they sign.

“I am,” I say, signing back. I hesitate. “I don’t know what happens next.”

Henry nods. No need to worry. They sign. We are safe here. We are secret.

My fingers tighten against Henry’s vertebra as we get closer to the house. I sign back to Henry. What if they kill me? I don’t say the words aloud. Via’s grip around my shoulders and middle is still tired, but I know she’s still awake, listening.

Henry’s magic is gentle and it curls around me. I won’t let them, they say simply, concretely with the punctuation of finality that suggests they don’t need to expand on the details.

You’ve been around for centuries, Henry, I don’t want to risk your life.

Henry lifts a massive hand and ever-so-gently pats me on their shoulder as their copper magic signs against mine: It is what I was created for.

I don’t like that.

We’ve reached the house and they gently lift me from their shoulder and set me and Via on the ground. I swing the half-asleep goddess around to my front, finding it a little easier to balance her on my hip. Henry seems to smile down at me. Do you want me to carry you into the village? They ask.

“Not this time,” I say aloud this time, still signing against their magic. “Go rest, please?”

I will, they sign and dip their head to me. I lift my hand and press it gently against their skull.

“Thank you,” I say.

Yes.

They straighten and amble toward the construct building and I carry Via into the house. Jun meets me at the door. “Getting warm out there,” they say, lifting Via from my arms and settling her into the plush couch. She curls herself around a pillow like a cat, and is fast asleep before we make it to the kitchen.

“It is. Via wants to go into town in a bit. Thought we might rest a little before heading down.”

Jun clicks their teeth. “You need water.” They say simply, filling a glass from the tap. Running water was a fun luxury that Haven helped me with a year ago. I would never be able to thank her enough for the marvel that was indoor plumbing. They hand it to me and I gulp it gratefully, leaning against the counter. “And probably a bath,” Jun adds, watching me with an incredulous look in their eye.

“Thank you, Jun,” I mutter sardonically at the grumpy skeleton. Their magic brushes against mine like a gentle chuckle, but they don’t respond.

“House is clean,” they say instead. “Storm coming though.”

I wince. “You ought to go take a break, then. Thank you.”

They nod. “I can do that,” they say. “I also set aside a light lunch for you both, if you wanted to eat before you head down.”

“Okay, thank you, Jun. I’ll check in with Via.”

Jun grasps my arm as they pass in a gentle salutation before leaving the room. I gather up lunch from the icebox and sit down to eat. I know Via will be bouncing off the walls in just a few moments, but for now I want to enjoy the silence.

My mind darts back over the news I’d heard from town before we got started in our harvesting work. Word had come into Yvolstein’s tavern from a traveling vendor heading north from the southlands, by Cainern. It’d been six months since the Cainern Cardenas king had taken over the throne, deposing the young mad prince, Antonio. The man that I could never bring herself to hate. No one had seen or heard from him since King Herman’s coronation. There were rumors abounding that he had been killed, resulting in a seamless transition of power. Some rumors said he’d run off to save himself the embarrassment of his brother sitting on his throne. That all to say that Herman de Cardenas was not a better ruler than the young Antonio. Frankly, the laws pertaining to non-human creatures were increasing at an alarming pace.

While I had never worried about death, in the sense of the matter that I did not fear dying but was concerned for the wellbeing of my family on the farm, I was beginning to worry about my newfound friends in Reisau and their livelihoods. It was hard enough running a full operation managed primarily by the undead with a living and breathing person as its figurehead–it was another story entirely for those, like Soleil, who could not change or glamour their appearance away into humanoid. The drider would live a very long and very lonely life. Not to mention the others who could glamour themselves into resembling humans and flying under the radar–they would never quite feel safe in a world that had deemed them evil creatures.

I hadn’t cared for politics during the wars all those years and a life ago, but now I kept my ear a little closer to the ground. If the fanatic druid-descendants from Cainern could take over our country and establish its own legislation outlawing my kind, I will have lost everything I ever held dear.

My duty to my tradition warred within me with the desire to remain in my newfound peaceful life on the farm. What good could I do on my own? So I was the last necromancer, and no necromancers was not an improvement over one. I didn’t have an army to face the Cainern king, and they had already embedded themselves into the acting military. I couldn’t use my voice: I don’t think they would take kindly to a necromancer waltzing into their castle seeking audience with their king.

And beyond all of that: my bone family needed me, my supernatural friends in town needed me. If I were to go galavanting through the doors to reclaim – what, exactly? I wouldn’t risk only my own life, but the lives of everyone I held dear. My “real” family was long-dead, bound by duty and purpose. I would not let myself meet the same fate.