Necromancy was easily one of the rarest magics in Hakarth. It was equaled only by psychometry, in which an individual could see some part of the past of a person, place, or object, and telekinesis, which allowed its users to move things with their mind. Both were sought after, at least. Telikinetics were always welcome with the combat guilds. Pyschometers were more than capable of making a life for themselves in forensics with the security guilds. But necromancers…

There was only one real place for them; the mines. There they were worked to the bone, raising undead to unearth valuable metals and other commodities. Most necromancers could raise only five or ten undead at a time, some fewer. That meant long shifts deep beneath the earth, attending to a small handful of earth elementals while praying that the surrounding stone of the mountain would not crush them where they stood. Of all the jobs in the city, the miners were also some of the few who chanced an encounter with the erowist.

Necromancers were not, for all of their efforts, treated as honored members of society. Their work was inauspicious, requiring that they obtain licensure with local cemeteries and crematoriums to obtain corpses to animate in the mines. No one liked to consider that friends or family could be down some dark hole, hauling precious ore back to the city center. Their only solace might lie in the fact that necromancers had no power over souls or anything of the sort – the undead they raised were mere puppets strung along by the necromancer’s magic. The corpse was a convenient medium for that power, and nothing more. The souls within were, quite simply, gone.

Merigold sat at a long table with Alecia and Garret, who were both concentrating on their given tasks, and only occasionally peering at her with obvious discomfort. They had all three returned to their classroom with their class. The professors were in the process of publicizing the results of the Awakening, and would soon after come to discuss personally, with each student, which guilds they could expect to hear from in the coming weeks. In the interim, they had been given time to practice with their newly Awakened powers. Since they all studied every form of magic, to some extent, and the use of their powers once Awakened was innate, this was an altogether fruitful arrangement for most students. Alecia already had a thin pile of business cards in front of her, appended with gleaming silver-blue runes in her exquisite, practiced script. Garret held his hand above the table, forming, melting, and re-forming ice sculptures in the shapes of various animals. His favorite appeared to be a turtledove.

“Merigold,” Alecia said, watching her pluck at the sleeve of her dress with one arched brow. “You knew this was a possibility. We all did. I know that you must be shattered, but—”

“What exactly do you know? You have precisely the magic you expected to have,” Merigold interrupted her, watching as Alecia’s brush moved seemingly of its own accord across the back of another business card. Following her gaze, Alecia picked up the card and handed it to her.

“Hold this,” she said severely.

Merigold stared hard at her friend for a long moment, and then took it. Instantly, she felt her shoulders relax. Her heartrate slowed as some of the tension drained from her body.

“A relaxation charm,” Alecia said by way of explanation. “It will wear off in an hour or so, but it should help you calm down and think through things. This isn’t the end of the world. Necromancers are a valuable – don’t roll your eyes, it makes you look like your sister – they are a valuable and necessary cog in the great machinery that is Hakarth.”

“She’s right, Meri,” Garret said, extending a crystalline swan to her. Merigold took it, admiring it’s pencil thing neck and the bubbles trapped within. She knew they were an imperfection that Garret would be working hard to eliminate for the rest of his life, but she thought they were beautiful.

“I know very well that you’re right, both of you,” Merigold said flatly, “but my dream was to be a Drafter. To have a quiet, boring life.”

“I hear the mines are quite boring,” Alecia said unhelpfully. The ice swan had begun to droop in Merigold’s hands, its etched eyes watering as if it cried for her. Garret sighed.

“My mother can make an ice swan last for the better part of an hour. I know I can technically use this magic, but it really is harder than it looks,” he said.

“Is it?” Alecia asked with barely a glance at the swan.

“No need to be like that,” Garret said, plucking the half-melted swan from Merigold’s hands, “we both know how hard you’ve studied to make your magic look so effortless.”

Alecia looked at him, seemingly trying to decide whether to respond in a haughty manner, or be pleased. She settled for pleased. “I appreciate that you noticed my effort, Garret.” She extended a card to him as well. He took it, and looked questioningly at her. “A focus charm. It will also wear off in about an hour,” she said. “So there you are, I have work to do as well.”

She looked pointedly back at Merigold and added, “I’m not trying to be harsh with you, Merigold. I’m being real. One hundred percent real. This can’t be changed. No amount of tears or study will undo the fact that you are a necromancer. I suppose we had better find you a dead spider or something to practice with, because I am quite sure you need something to focus on right now that isn’t your presumed failings.”

Merigold moaned at the thought of picking up the desiccated husk of a decaying arachnid, but was thankfully saved by the return of their professor.

Thereafter, the day dragged by. There was a jubilant atmosphere in the academy which she simply could not be a part of. Students celebrated their newly discovered powers, reveling in the opportunity to display the effects of a lifetime of study. Water shot from water fountains, arcing overhead as she walked through the halls. Fireworks popped along the buttressed ceiling, in every shade of crimson and gold – the easiest colors to magically produce. Lights flickered on and off all throughout the school, as the lightbringers flexed their new magics. The courtyard shimmered with half-melted ice sculptures, around which whistled a breeze whipped up by wind elementals discovering their real strength for the first time. Runes gleamed in the recesses of brickwork throughout the school. Laughter echoed down the halls from students tricked into seemingly innocuous Drafter contracts, only to face repercussions in the form of purple hair, singed eyebrows, or the ever-classic bout of flatulence.

While many students boarded the train that afternoon laden with dozens of guild pamphlets, Merigold carried just two; a glossy pamphlet with an earth elemental lording over a pick-axe carrying skeleton that promised a safe internship in North Mine Number nine, and an imperfectly stapled booklet stamped with the identifier for East Mine Iron. Apparently, East Mine Iron had no marketing department whatsoever, and simply did not care.

Reese met her at the usual time, in the usual location to catch the train – by a thorny acacia tree that case a thick pool of shade over one corner of the courtyard. Merigold was peering up into its branches when her sister arrived, trying to find peace in the hush of the elementals’ unnatural winds through its great branches.

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“You never came to tell me what happened,” Reese said immediately, dark eyes on the side of Merigold’s face. “Which means I can guess things didn’t go your way. I’m sorry, Meri. I really am.”

“You couldn’t possibly have anything to be sorry for,” Merigold said rationally. When her sister hung back awkwardly for a second, and then wrapped her arms around Merigold’s shoulders, however, Merigold hugged her back. There were a few bitter tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I know someone whose brother went to work in the mines. I could introduce you,” Reese said softly, noticing the pamphlets Merigold held in a too-tight grip. “Are you an…are you an earth elemental?”

“A necromancer,” Merigold choked on the word. Reese’s eyes widened. Contemplating, she looked away.

“Oh,” was all her sister managed.

“Let’s not miss the train, Reese,” Merigold said weakly, turning towards the tracks. Any moment, the train would come roaring into view, and she intended to be on board.

For once, Reese did not argue, nor suggest they wait for another train and spend some time socializing. The two of them rode home wrapped up in an awkward silence, swaying as the train rumbled through the heart of Hakarth. It looked like a different city. Meriold thought maybe a storm was rolling in. The skies were darker than before, and there was a weight to the air that had not been there in the early morning hours. Stepping off the train, however, she found that she was wrong. The view she had admired every morning had simply been drained of color, the beauty sucked out and a dead husk left behind. There was no glitter in the glass windows of the rich buildings now. They were as dark as the pits in the poor districts.

The city of Hakarth, for the first time in her life, struck her as ugly and cruel. Maybe it would be so, Merigold thought, for the rest of her life.

In fact, her feelings did not change that night, when she saw her mother’s stricken reaction to the news, and her father’s calm but sorrowful acceptance. They did not change when she rose the next morning to her usual routine, stubbornly clipping her wild hair to her scalp, donning a pragmatic tweed coat and sensible boots, arranging the study materials in her bag for easy access, and sitting down for breakfast with her family. The only part of her routine that had changed was that she left her Drafting books untouched on her desk. In her mind, they now belonged to Reese. Perhaps, later in the day, she could make plans to take a trip down to the bookstore to select some texts about necromancy. Merigold had never paid much attention to the details of raising and manipulating the dead, the economics of necromancy, or the selection of corpses. That, she determined, would now change.

Perhaps.

A week passed as she combed idly through books about necromancy. They were thick, heavy tomes. The text within was oily and fuzzy, arranged haphazardly in ways utterly foreign to books on Drafting. Merigold found herself running her fingers along her old Drafting texts every night, wishing she could return to them instead. Necromancy was, simply, a dry subject. There were entire chapters dedicated to the selection of corpses based on the circumference of the cranium, the width of the ulna, the length of the femur, the state of decay – Merigold found herself growing increasingly queasy as she read about looking for traces of maggots, and removing bodily organs to prevent unnecessary odors from accumulating in the mines.

A second week passed as she dedicated herself to research into the mines themselves, from living conditions to safety to the frequency of incursions by the erowist. It was difficult for her to sleep. She began to pick at her meals, and to ignore the occasional loose curl, escaped to wreak havoc around her eyes. Gradually, her classroom at the academy emptied as students selected their guilds and trounced off to internships. Merigold suspected that Garret and Alecia had made up their minds long ago, and continued to attend class and speak with their professors merely to ensure she eventually made a decision to do something.

It was halfway through her second week, after she had been informed by one of the professors for the third time that she simply must apply to intern with a guild within the next few days, that Merigold returned to her desk to find three pairs of eyes on her. Alecia and Garret sat side-by-side with Reese, the two pamphlets Merigold had brought home the day of their Awakening lying on the desk in front of them.

When Merigold hesitated, staring hard at the three of them, Alecia gestured imperiously for her to sit. She did, but only because she knew her friends would have her best interest at heart.

“Meri,” Reese began, only to stop when Alecia glanced meaningfully at her and held up a hand for silence. She fixed Merigold with a hard look.

“Tell us what you’re planning, Merigold.”

Silence fell over the table. Merigold’s eyes traveled down to the pamphlets, but her head never moved.

“I don’t have one,” she finally admitted.

“Have you ‘raised’ anything yet?” Alecia clarified.

“I have not.”

“Do you plan to?”

Merigold met her friend’s steely gaze. She did not need to answer.

“So, you plan to give up on your magic altogether, and what…leave Hakarth? Seek employment somewhere that asks no questions? Maybe steal away on one of the ships as an analyst?”

Merigold still said nothing.

“There’s an alternative, Meri,” Garret interjected, when it became clear Merigold would not answer them. “But you might not like it.”

Reese made a sound of disgust. “Whether she likes it or not doesn’t matter much, does it? Meri, I don’t think you ever really listened when I told you I don’t want to be a Drafter. But now you get it, don’t you? I don’t want some magic to dictate my life for me. I don’t want to be told what I have to do, for the rest of my life, because of a single day…a single Awakening.”

Alecia had looked down the table, her expression softening.

“I don’t want to just be a ‘cog in the great machine of Hakarth’,” Reese quoted an oft-taught phrase in the academy, the very same that Alecia had used the day they all learned Merigold was a necromancer. “I want to choose my life,” Reese continued, ignoring Merigold’s sharp look.

“Your still a child, Reese,” Merigold said. “We don’t get what we want. As you said, I know that very well.”

“Who is the child here?” Alecia demanded. “The one sulking and scheming to run away from everything, to a fate that will likely be worse than anything she could suffer here, or the one who is a little idealistic and has actual gumption.”

Merigold snorted. “What’s this other option,” she asked, looking at Garret. In response, he reached into the inner pocket of his vest and pulled out a pamphlet. He set it on the table between them, letting her read the title.

“Combat Guild Radvik?” she read aloud. “Combat guilds don’t take necromancers. We’re useless in battle.”

“Radvik is…in a hard place,” Garret said.

“They’re a newer guild, explorers who are trying to create a name for themselves clearing the way for merchants crossing into and out of Hakarth, and providing for better security against the erowist in the mines,” Reese explained.

“They head-hunted me, and I agreed to intern with them. During the interview process, they mentioned that they need people. Any people. They might not be too picky about what your magic is. I even met a lightbringer they had brought on as support,” Garret explained.

“Do you really think they’d take a necromancer?” Merigold scoffed.

“They took an Illuminator,” Alecia said, surprising her. “None of the combat guilds have ever needed one, but I proved my worth. I’m fast – very fast – at what I do. I can help them set traps. Ambushes. The idea was intriguing to them. They opted to give me a chance.”

“So you’re both…” Merigold said, still processing, “you’re both going to the same guild?”

“Indeed. And, more importantly,” Alecia informed her, “when we asked if they would consider interviewing a necromancer, they did not say no.”

“But they did not say yes,” Merigold observed.

“Who gives a crap,” Reese interjected. “It’s not like they’ll be out looking for necromancers. You’ll have to go to them, Meri. For once. Not everything in life will just come to you.”

Merigold blinked, staring between the three of them.

“It’s an opportunity, maybe the only one you’ll have other than the mines,” Garret said gently. He pushed the pamphlet a little closer to her. “Talk to them, at least.”

Merigold slowly picked up the pamphlet, unsure what she planned to do with it. Not talk to the Radvik guild, certainly. Not put herself on the front lines, in constant danger of facing down one of the erowist or, by the sound of it, bandits and marauders seeking a quick buck in the mountain passes.

“Don’t shake your head, Merigold,” Alecia warned before Merigold even realized what she was doing. “If I hear you still haven’t met with them by next week, I will quite possibly never speak with you again. I don’t want to be there when you inevitably destroy your own life because you were too much a coward to step up.”

Alecia did not wait for a response. She stood and stomped out of the classroom. Garret and Reese watched her go, one sad, the other – Reese – rolling her eyes.

“Think about it, Meri,” Garret suggested. “At least think about it.”