Chapter 10

Message from the Apocalypse

The Dark Lord’s daughter, Celest, was the young red headed student who reminded me of Hermione. She was the Dark Lord’s only child, but based on the conversations I’d overheard, he viewed her as more of a tool than a daughter. The sons of her father’s inner circle were all trying to court her, while she was here at Darksmith, so she spent most of her time outside of class studying or training to get away from them.

She’d been kidnapped twice and neither time had her father offered a to pay the ransom. Instead, he’d found the kidnappers extended families and begun hanging their heads outside his palace wall until they returned her. The kidnappers were then handed over to the surviving members of their families, who killed them rather brutally.

Celest was utterly useless as a bargaining chip, so I didn’t care about her any more than my other students. But I wasn’t surprised when at the end of our next class, she stopped by my desk instead of leaving.

I gave her a friendly smile. “How can I help you, Celest?”

“My father would like to know if you came to my aid because you were hoping to make me your apprentice?”

That was a reasonable assumption. “I’m a necromancer. You are not. An apprenticeship is out of the question.”

She paused. “You risked your life traveling through the Deadlands to get to me in time, and then faced down an Abyssal floor boss alone so I could escape. My father would like to reward you.”

Her father was known to be as generous as he was cruel. I wasn’t surprised he wanted to reward me.

“Dramyin’s skeletal texts, revised editions. I wish to borrow them for a week.”

“Excuse me?”

“From what I understand, your father has one of the three remaining collections. I would like to read them.”

“You want to borrow books?”

“Very expensive and very rare books.”

She frowned, flustered by my reply. “I’ll pass along your request.”

“Thank you. Now what do you really want? Based on your expression, you didn’t come here just to pass along your father’s message.”

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She nodded. “I would like to know if you think it’s safe for me to study the occult?”

“Outside of clerics and death magic practitioners, only those who have made demonic pacts of some form can safely study the occult, and I use the term safely in the loosest possible sense. You fit none of these categories.”

“What form of demonic pact would be required?”

There was too much curiosity in her tone.

I watched the last student exit the room and used a spell to close the door. “Put whatever you want to study on the table.”

“I don’t-”

I pointed a finger gun at her. The tip glowed with an ominous black necrotic energy. “I wasn’t asking.”

She stared at me, searching my gaze. She was trying to see if I was bluffing. “You aren’t afraid of what my father will do to you if you kill me.”

“Do I look afraid?”

“No. You’re gaze has the same intensity as my father’s. You’re confident you can deal with the fallout of your actions.”

She shivered, as she opened her storage pouch, and placed a box on the table. She flicked the clasps and lifted the lid. Inside was an engraved porcelain orb, covered in thousands of layers of enchantments. A small crack ran through half of it.

“This thing has been giving me nightmares since I was a child.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

She flinched as I picked up the orb, turning it over to examine the crack.

“I saw this orb in my nightmares before I ever saw it in real life.”

That was interesting and explained a few things that I’d heard about her father.

“I’m sure you did, but that’s not because the object is cursed. This is a Saints’ Seal. It’s a holy object.”

“Then why does it appear in my nightmares?”

“Because you’re a seer and you’re seeing the end of the world.”

She swallowed. “What?”

“The Saints’ Seals are warning devices. About three thousand years ago, a fissure between this world and hell opened up. There were a lot more saints in that time and all but one of them sacrificed themselves to close the fissure. Without the last saint, they only managed to seal the fissure instead of permanently closing it. The surviving saint made these seals on his deathbed to warn everyone when the seal on the fissure was breaking.”

The crack was slightly bigger than the accounts I’d read, but it wasn’t concerning. There had always been a crack in the seals, and the crack had always been growing.

“In my nightmares, I see demons running through the streets slaughtering everyone.”

“Did the nightmares occur more frequently after you found the saints’ seal?”

“Yes.”

“That’s typical of seers. Untrained, you tend to have the same premonitions over and over again, especially when you keep something related to the premonitions close. My advice is to join the Divination Club. The professors have some ability to see the immediate future and will help you train your ability so you can unlock the skill.”

She held out her hand for the seal.

I didn’t give it back.

“Seers have a way of twisting fate to what they see. If I give you this back, what you see is more likely to occur. Seeing as what you see in the end of the world, I’m not giving this back.” I opened up my top draw and placed the seal inside. “Enjoy the rest of your day.”