Sven put himself between Stephanie and Emrys without a moment’s hesitation. He had not worked so hard to get her back, to lose her so easily.

“Sven, I don’t want to hurt you. Or Stephanie.”

The necromancer held his hands out palm up, in a gesture of peace. “Then don’t.”

Emrys shook his head. “We have to stop you from hurting anyone else.”

“You have! Good job. I only turn to necromancy to bring Stephanie back and now that I have, you don’t have to worry. I won’t do it anymore I promise.”

Emrys wavered. “You’ve hurt a lot of people.”

“I know.” Sven stepped closer. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. You have to know I did as little damage as I could. It took me a while to get the basics down, but then I went straight for the ritual to bring her back. And I don’t need necromancy anymore. I’m done. You did it. You stopped me.”

Emrys’s fireball flickered. “Why didn’t you tell me, Sven?”

“I couldn’t put into words. I tried once, when it first started.” He leaned against a stone pillar. “One of the goddesses came to me in a dream and told me where to find the spell book.”

Emrys’s eyes snapped up. “Which one?”

Sven gave an apologetic shrug. “I don’t know. The dream faded, and the only thing I could remember clearly was the spell book. I wanted to tell you so badly, but it was like the words refused to leave my mouth.”

Emrys was struggling. He wanted to believe in his friend, desperately wanted the nightmare to be over. But he remembered Jason’s frightened eyes and the twisted corpses in the cages downstairs.

The necromancer must have seen the shift in his old friend’s eyes. He whipped his hands out from behind his back, his fingertips already dancing with purple energy. The magic lashed out at Emrys.

The arcanist fell to the side, narrowly dodging the death ray aimed for his chest. Years of fighting in the dungeons have left him with excellent reflexes.

Before he could think too much about what he was doing,Emrys called forth the flaming sword that had saved him against the undead Goliath at the tower entrance.

Sven backed up warily. “That’s new.”

“Not really,” Emrys grimaced. “I just haven’t seen you in a while.”

“You don’t have to do this. We could just go back to how things were.” The necromancer’s voice was smooth and calming, but even as he spoke, the five corpses began to stir.

With his sword in one hand, Emrys used the other hand to conjure fireballs. He shot them at the corpses with wild abandon, caring only enough to make sure the splash damage didn’t impact Zereh.

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Zereh dashed toward the necromancer, only to slam right up against a golden shield. It formed a mostly translucent barrier between her and the necromancer, glowing bright and opaque only when she pressed against it.

Sven flashed her a smirk. “I owe your paladin friend my thanks,” he said. “Not only did he grant me the power to properly complete the ritual to bring Stephanie back, I have a few temporary spells at my disposal.”

Zereh slammed her fist against the shield. Golden light rippled out from the impact.

The warrior knew that no shield was truly impenetrable. It would give out if it took enough damage or if the time limit expired. But she also knew that the paladin who had granted this boon was more than twice her own level. The shield was beyond her ability to circumvent, and Sven was closing in on Emrys too quickly for her to rely on the time limit.

The necromancer slapped his palm against Emrys’s chest, the blow enhanced with deadly magic.

Emrys slid across the stone floor, stopping only when he slammed into the wall.

Sven approached him slowly, the edge of his lips curling. “You should have been the one person I could trust with this,” he snarled. “The one person who would support me. But even in Westover, I knew I couldn’t trust you.”

The death bolt charged between his palms, a swirling ball of purple and black magic that grew with every second. He knew how Emrys had honed his constitution in the dungeons, and he wasn’t going to take any chances. If he was going to take him out, it would have to be in one shot.

“Emrys, close your eyes!” The warrior held a blue glass bottle with a white label. The glass was just on the edge of translucent, and on the other side something bright and vibrant was bouncing around just out of sight.

She scrawled Sven’s name across the label and uncorked the bottle. White lightning emerged joyfully at first as though delighted to be free of its confines, then arced across the room. A direct hit at the necromancer.

The lightning flooded his body, far too much power for one man to overcome. His body glowed from the inside for a brief moment, the lightning following the path of his veins, searing him from the inside. Sven’s body shook violently for a moment, then stilled.

Emrys scrambled away from the corpse. “What the hell was that?” he screamed.

“A trick that only works once.” Zereh tossed the spent bottle. It clattered against the stone floor and rolled away. “I was saving it for something else, but here we are.”

“Much appreciated,” the arcanist grunted.

“Where’s the girl? We should be able to take her back to town.”

“Stephanie?” The arcanist looked around, but the young woman was nowhere to be seen. “Did you see her leave?”

Zereh sheathed her blades. “Huh. Must have snuck out during the fight, I guess. Probably just went back home.”

“Probably.” Emrys pushed down his unease. It made sense, he supposed. If he woke up in the middle of a fight, he’d probably run out as well.

There was just something about her eyes that stuck with him. She hadn’t looked afraid, was the thing. If anything, the look on her face had been calculating. What was she thinking? Weighing the odds of Sven winning the fight?

What if she came back wrong, more undead than Sven had intended? She’d looked normal, but it could be the type of thing to slowly change her.

Emrys was stalling. Thinking about anything besides the reason he was there.

Zereh approached the body. “I guess we failed the quest,” she said. “Though to be honest, I don’t see any way we could have succeeded.”

“No, he was. He was already lost.” Emrys’s whole body shuddered. “I can’t go back home. Not after…this.”

Zereh patted his shoulder. “Then don’t.”

“But what else is there for me? My whole life has been devoted to the dungeons. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself besides that.”

Zereh’s mind whirred. “You could come along with me, if you want. I’m headed to the Wildlands next to help expand the borders.”

“You wouldn’t mind?” He looked at her with uncertain hope.

She rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t have invited you along if I did. I’ll tell you what, I have a few errands I need to run.” She handed him a key. “Why don’t you take Lilith back to town, and I’ll meet you back in Sonora?”

Emrys nodded slowly. “I can do that. You promise you’ll come back?”

“I promise.”

Without another word, the warrior vanished.