Six years, and she hadn't visited in all that time. As she returned to her birth home, of all things, that was the thought that rattled in her mind. Carmine last visited her parent's graves on the eve of her induction at Leval. Since then, her life moved from one school deadline to the next. Even so, she should have made the time and visited.

That might have caused its own problems, she thought, looking at the new house under moonlight. Filbert said they rebuilt her home. Father told Carmine that her great grandfather built that house. It didn’t surprise her someone in that wretched town knew how to replicate it. It was close to the original in form, certainly, but in Carmine's eyes it was wooden blocks arranged in a pale imitation of something lost forever. Fortunately for them, Carmine didn't come for her house. Everything that made it a home was long gone.

Just as Filbert said, the old stable survived the attack. Carmine recognized it, but it looked smaller than what she remembered. The broken fence had been mended too. No matter the changes, so long as they kept the tools in the same spot, she'd manage. Carmine pushed the doors aside ignoring the cautious stirrings of the horses as she moved to the tool rack. She took a lantern off a wall hook and grabbed a shovel.

Her parent's graves sat far enough away that the townsfolk shouldn't have found them. Only Carmine and Nicholos knew the way, and Nicholos was busy on another dig. Moss climbed up their tombstones, but the small statuettes Carmine placed still stood untouched; a peaceful resting place amidst the woods.

This wouldn't work. She knew that. She didn't have knowledge, not nearly enough. Her best shot was a recollection of an unfinished spell circle she'd read years ago. Their bodies had long since decomposed, and Carmine hadn't the first idea how to restore them. If the exorcists found out, she would be prohibited from ever practicing sorcery again, at best.

This would not work.

The shovel blade bit deep into the undisturbed soil. Once, and again, she tore up the ground by the bladefull. Dirt covered her boots as it rose in a pile until she found them: a pair of soiled shrouds sunken amidst the earth.

Carmine descended into the chest deep hole, throwing her shovel aside. Her hands trembled as she reached towards the shrouds, fingers stumbling over the clothes edges as she unraveled them.

There they were. After eleven years she saw them again; a pair of withered skeletons in a shallow grave. Unrecognizable, if not for the names upon the stones. Nausea churned in Carmine's stomach as she fought the urge to retch. Father's skull didn't connect properly to the rest of his body. She remembered how his head lulled after the mob struck him too hard. He grew up with those people, and they broke his neck. Fire had charred mother's bones black, almost ready to crumble in the breeze. Carmine still didn't know how long elves were meant to live, only that her mother's life was cut short long before its time.

They deserved better than this. The life they could have had together…all the years stolen. Perhaps by Carmine's hand, perhaps, they could get some back.

She arranged the bodies side by side in the hole. She climbed out of the grave, calling an ember to her hand with a spell, and in one gesture she burned the grass around her to ash. In that ash she carved the spell to enchant her parents' bones, to reconnect them through magic, and through magic allow them to move, to see, to speak. Despite the years, every symbol and rune from that infernal notebook had burned into her memory, and she followed each step meticulously until she arrived at the one essential gap in its information. How could she bring their souls back from death? Magic responded to intent, and yet, she doubted want alone would be enough. Were it so simple there'd be a lot more once dead people walking around. Intent was easy, choosing the words to make it real however…

"I call upon the souls of the beings that once occupied these bodies," Carmine began, choosing her words to be as specific as possible. "Alan Felis and Antora Felis, hunter and sorceress, horsemaster and historian, father and mother, hear my call and heed my wish. By the power in me, return to this world and inhabit your remains for…two minutes." Bitterness stained her tongue as she added the time constraint. Their bodies weren't ready yet. Condemning them to existence in bones was not her aim. "I call upon you, return and live again. Return, and speak to me."

Her voice trembled as she completed the spell.

The moment the words left her mouth, her parents' bones jolted stiff in the graves. A piercing agony ran out from Carmine's chest, stealing her breath and driving her to her knees. The sensation extended from her body, tethering to the pair of corpses below.

She knew this feeling, felt it once before in the Riven sanctuary as she drew power from the dead ancient. Where the ancient's corpse felt like a boundless ocean, her parent's corpses were all consuming voids. They drained her of spirit rather than the other way round.

Sustaining the spell drained her more than any other she'd cast before. Her consciousness waned but she forced her eyes to remain open. She couldn't even be sure if it worked, but refused to release her concentration. She'd already committed, damn the consequences. It would take more than pain for her to relinquish this chance.

Blood rain from her nose as the strain wracked her body. As she wiped her face the blood running through her fingers glowed crimson for an instant before evaporating in red mist. That instant bought her a moment's relief; just enough time to catch her breath.

A seconds relief mattered little as the drain persisted minutes. It may have been a wasted effort after all, but she expected little from the first attempt. She could still learn from failure. Before she released the spell, however she sensed a change through the tether. Something filled the voids of her parent's bodies.

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A presence.

Carmine's blurred eyes struggled to focus on the rising skeletons. Both skulls turned on her, their movements, slow, sluggish. Their jaws parted, and though they had no voice, she sensed a whisper through the connection.

"Carmine?" The name came as a question, and pierced her through the heart.

"Mom?" She…she'd done it? "Dad?" She reached forward, hesitant yet eager to grasp their bony hands. Their fingertips barely touched when her parents withdrew. Voices flooded the connection in a torrential scream. Mother's and Father's among them, but several more, more than she called. Their bodies jerked and convulsed, limbs moving independently of each other, clawing at themselves, and damaging her parents' remains.

"Stop!" Carmine screamed. If they kept this up they'd destroy themselves! She acted fast, weaving a force field around their bodies to lock them in place.

"What's wrong?" She asked, but only hollow screams replied. What had she done? From the feel of it, more than just her parents' souls found their way in. "What can I do?" She asked, though she doubted even her mother had the answer. Even if she did, she was in no state to give it. The drain on Carmine’s intensified, and the pain with it. She couldn't keep her focus on the barrier much longer. Despite her desire to release the spell, the wayward souls kept hold. They wanted a living body, her body, and they'd get it if she didn't stop the spell.

She stared at her parent's bones; anchors for the called beings. Without them, the souls had no grounding, nothing to hold them here.

"I…I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean-" screeches cut off her apology. Her words reached no one. "I'm sorry." A brief flash erupted within her force cages, and the drain ceased, its connection severed. Carmine sensed what presences lingered in the area fading away. As she released her concentration, what remained of her parent's fell into a pile of dust on the floor.

Look what you've done, she thought, sulking on her knees. Just had to rush. Had to act without thinking.

Leaning forward on her knees, Carmine collected the dust in her hands, stopping as she noticed a gray hue on her right fingers, digging halfway down her palm.

The black hand, not as black as she imagined it, more pale like the flesh of a corpse a few hours old. An old curse made to mark those who’ve touched necromancy. She pressed her fingers together, barely feeling any sensation.

Just one more scar to cover up. She pulled her sleeve over the cursed marking, and gathered the dust with her burned hand. She put what little she could grasp in a small pouch and tucked it to her belt. A long drawn out breath escaped her lungs.

She wished the spell fizzled out, did nothing. A total failure would have been better than the crumb of success she tasted. They were there. Just for an instant, but it was her mother and father. She was certain.

It was possible. It could be done.

Carmine rose to her feet. With a simple spell, she dumped all the upturned soil back in the grave. No need for caution now.

"I'll find a way," She promised the graves, and turned towards Rieland. She had one more task before the night was over.

The last time she walked the road to town mud came up to her ankles, and the sky was doing its best to drown everything beneath it. Where soggy, dead crops once littered the field, a healthy harvest grew tall. A wry chuckle crawled out from her throat.

Maybe she really was cursed. Even so, she'd be a curse of their making. Rieland didn't change much over the years. Same wooden cabins, same lantern lit road, it all carried on without pause or change. For a moment she was grateful to have escaped this rigid backwater.

With the night aging on, no other took to the streets. Carmine moved along, her coat swaying under a howling wind. Loose shutters and signs rapped against walls, hiding the sounds of her footsteps. She stalked up the main road, never beheld by eyes unwanted.

The headman's home stood taller than all others. Once she thought it a sign of station, and respect, but now she knew better than to mistake greater means as a mark of good character. A blue door barred the entrance, its lock sturdy but simple. It obeyed her spoken command and allowed her inside her quarry’s home. The parlor offered hollow comforts in well made furniture, but she didn’t save for one short table. A bottle of clear liquor offered liquid confidence, and she poured a mouthful down her throat before dumping the rest on the floor as she went. She checked each room in passing, finding stale bedrooms gathering dust and studies only used by mold. The house made no sound, even as she climbed each stair, not a creak warned of her presence. Moonlight slithered through a crack in the bedroom door, its hinges refusing to close. It welcomed her inside.

His room had the stink of an old man and a weak bladder. A cane sat next to his bed, its crook indented with the subtle handprint from years of weight. She stood over the headman and moonlight struck his face. Scars climbed over his visage in a fractal pattern; Mother's work, but not enough. Father's knife found its way into her hand as she pulled the sheets back.

He stirred, wizened eyes opening. They met each other's gaze in a brief instant. His face twisted in horror, and he raised a hand in defense. He gasped when the blade fell once. By the fourth, he made no sound at all. Only by the sixth did Carmine realize the deed was done.

Her throat stung raw and her first felt warm and wet. She lit the headman's bedside lantern, only to find his horrified vacant stare fixed upon her, dead and hollow.

She held his stare for a minute, half expecting him to blink and cheat death a second time. He didn't. Carmine made sure of that.

She never expected to feel any better from this, but she at least expected to feel something. She'd thought the headman dead for years, but even then she wanted him, or someone in Rieland to face punishment for their actions. Now, with the deed done, and by her own hand..perhaps she should have been horrified by killing another being, or satisfied with revenge, but neither sentiment came. She felt neither horror nor satisfaction.

"You deserve nothing less," Carmine sneered, and spat on his corpse.

She placed her grayed fingers to the burning lantern's glass, barely feeling its singing heat as she pushed it from the nightstand.

It shattered against the ground, spilling burning oil onto the floor, and the headman's bed. The fire spread to the liquor Carmine had spilt, and traveled out the room through the house.

By morning, this place would be ash, along with everything in it. She looked at the headman's body one more time before tearing a portal back to Reefcliff's outskirts

By morning, her new work could begin.