> It may be confusing to say that there is no magic when we have beings such as Inheritor Rykard and the Necromancer. However, and this will make sense in later chapters, it is more likely that these two persons are proofs of gods and not magic. How else could they exist?

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> - Of Myth and Legend, The Old World

William froze. He stood next to Elena among the group of scared people. Clearly, they were terrified of the undead near them. With Elena’s hand in his, he couldn’t help but know that she too felt fear, worry, and betrayal. He looked at her, and brought her closer, “it’ll be okay,” he whispered. It was all he could do. She didn’t stop shaking, but she brought herself closer to him. She didn’t want to be separated from him.

The stage where Rykard and the Necromancer stood seemed farther now. The members of the church on the stage looked on impassively, scanning the crowd. Maybe they were expecting something? The moving crowd and the undead horde that Erasmus brought had scared the people away from the stage, from the goal of identifying the man beside Rykard.

William wanted to get closer, to get a better look at the man, and see for himself if he could track him down, and find the bones he used to create undead. It would take some time, but if he could find, and destroy the bones that man had used, then he wouldn’t be able to create undead anymore. However, the crowd kept pushing him back, farther, and farther from the stage. Their cries and jeers sang louder than the music had and invaded his senses in a way no music ever could. Discordant tongues spewed hateful words for beings inconceivable to them and their world. The only saving grace was the warmth of Elena’s palm in his own.

He looked down at her again, worry and fear clearly filled her very being. She shook and flinched with every push of the crowd. Tears welled in her eyes as she struggled to hold them back. This clearly had been too much for her. He looked up for a way out, past the groups of people surrounding them, and saw the police handcuffing and zip-tying the men and women Erasmus brought.

A feeling of dread and worry, akin to the one he felt all those years ago came to him. It crawled up his neck and traveled down his arms and legs, a need to lash out, to defend the people who only wanted to be normal. Then, its counterpart came, fear. Fear joined the need to act, it poisoned the urge to change the current situation and froze him in place.

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These twin sensations were like brother and sister, comingling in his veins, his heart, and his very soul. The need to act led him to fall, and inaction led him to die. Escape was futile. His eyes could not be pulled from the site of innocent, once-living, men, women, and children, begging to be let up, to prove their innocence. Many still pointed at the stage, crying out that the man beside Rykard was the Necromancer. No one in the crowd believed the words, and the police seemed to grow more violent each time the words were uttered, striking as they saw fit. A perimeter of police formed around the group, protecting the living, fearful men and women beside William and Elena, holding small stones aloft.

Just because they’re different he thought, just because we’re not the same.

The sweet smell of a dying season filled his lungs. Summer ended, fall began, and the death of the year drew nearer. Purpose swam in his heart, and permeated his soul. I am drawn to death. I am urged to change. With purpose, he felt at his soul. He was ready to undo what he had done all those years ago, to release the seal on the Jaan, to pour his heart out and take the chance to end things fully, but when he looked at Rykard, the man who had taken everything from him, anger and fury left him. Only fear remained.

William remembered Sona, a dear friend he let die. A friend who died because she showed him mercy, and was erased from history for it. Anger struggled against his fear for a moment, a need to right the wrongs of the past, to surge forward, to fight, but, it was useless. Seeing how easily the small horde was defeated, how easily they fell, and how much they hated the Necromancer, it was clear that they wouldn’t help him even if they knew the truth. I’m sorry, Sona. The anger inside him died, leaving only fear.

The people pushed again as the undead were loaded into the cars. He heard their words of fear and hatred.

“Please! That man is the Necromancer!” he heard one say.

“You’ll regret this! The Necromancer is here! We need to stop him before he attacks Rykard!” screamed another.

All of them were righteous fools, and good people, William thought.

Rykard never comes to these events, he thought. Then, as it dawned on him. Only one person saw the Necromancer’s face, and only Erasmus managed to find an image of him, and we only ever saw him around the festival supplies. “This was a trap,” William whispered, loud enough for Elena to hear. He looked at her, the orange light of the street lights glow softly illuminated her face. She looked scared, her dress appeared too big on her small frame, and for a moment, she didn’t look like a twenty-year-old woman, but like a scared little girl. There’s no way she could have known.

He looked at Rykard, the incarnation of evil as rotten as himself, then at Elena. The need to kill, to die, to forget, to rest, and to run all warred within his mind and body. Then he chose. He shifted his hand and grabbed Elena by the wrist. He pulled her back through the surging crowd, and into a steady stream of people that just wanted to get away.