It did not need to be said, but monsters and undead were not pleasant tea time conversations. Then again, Seraphel already knew that and she had asked. She wondered if this would be her regular social conversation in Noelictus from now on.

…Maybe it was time to add something stronger to the tea. Still, she passed her time relatively pleasantly. Counting down her sojourn here. It wasn’t as if she was looking forwards to leaving more than staying.

——

The [Necromancer] scrambled through the forest, panting. His enchanted black robes were intact, his staff still glowed with magic, but he had lost his acolytes. He was winded. Dirty.

“Damn you. Damn Calanfer and damn you, Lantal—”

The man, Feremont. His hair was white. Bleached, not naturally white. He had copied his mentor, the great Az’kerash, the Necromancer. His friends used to tease him about it.

His…friends.

Not the fools who’d perished back there in the ambush. They were half-competent lowlifes.

Apprentices, in a sense. More like hired thugs with a passion for necromancy.

[Mercenaries], in truth. Like he was. Feren kept running, feeling at his side now and then. However, he’d gotten lucky; the festering wound was healed over, and he was back to full strength. Luck. He had luck, if a bitter, twisted pool of it.

Indeed, he’d been so close. The money had been good. Kill the Lord of Afiele. That was step one. Feren’s teeth were clenched so hard they might crack.

It had been a perfect ambush. If only a [Princess] hadn’t been riding through the forest at that exact time—

The man cursed as he hurried, trying to combine stealth and speed. He had to hide. The entire region would be hunting for him. He could kill any peasant or single tracker, even a group of them. He was powerful in death magic. But an army—

“Hundreds of undead. My apprentices! Years of preparation, wasted!”

The man snarled. He’d lost everything. Keeping his cabal of [Necromancers] secret, training them, stealing corpses from graves, treating with [Bandits] and other lowlifes—for what?

His name was Feremont. Friends called him Feren. And now a [Princess] of Calanfer knew his nickname!

He would be hunted. At least he couldn’t be scried with only a nickname. He had an anti-scrying ring, but they might try to find him with greater magics than the ring could prevent.

But he would always have been hunted. That knowledge—and hatred—kept him moving, even days after his flight. He was worn ragged, but this was his life. It always had been, the moment he had gone down this road.

They had pushed him down it long ago. Now? He was a wand for hire, though his employers would slaughter him if he tried to tell anyone who was paying him.