[Present Day]

  The ramparts were silent. The wind whistled through the Bck Spire, smelling of old dust and coming storms.

  Maeve stood alone. She looked down at the valley. The tactical situation was critical. To the south, the main Alliance force was gathering—a hammer led by the Quartermaster and the old Alchemist.

  She was outnumbered. She was outmatched. She needed a deterrent.

  She looked at the valley floor. It was a graveyard of history. Beneath the mud and the grass y the bones and preserved remains of thousands of soldiers. To a poet, it was a tragedy. To Maeve, it was inventory.

  Resources, she thought, her gaze sweeping over the mounds. Raw materials waiting to be processed.

  She knew the rules of Necromancy. To move the dead requires a spark. To hold the dead requires a Source. She was a Vessel, designed to be empty. If she tried to cast a mass resurrection spell herself, she would shatter. Her mana would run dry, her vessel would crack, and she would simply break apart.

  But the Spire was a fortress built by the Soulfather. He would not have left it defenseless.

  There must be a residual charge, she reasoned. A local power I can tap into.

  She decided to test it. Small scale. Low risk. She focused on a single mound of earth near the gate. A fallen sentry. She extended one finger. She didn't push power out; she just opened herself up as a conduit. She visualized the spell not as a prayer, but as a command.

  Bind. Animate. Rise.

  "Rise," she whispered.

  She flinched immediately, pulling her hand back, bracing for the backsh. She expected the sharp snap of her mana breaking. She expected the drain on her life force.

  Nothing hurt.

  Below, the dirt shifted. A skeletal hand punched through the soil. A single, armored corpse dragged itself up. Its eyes snapped open—not with a soul, but with a cold, pale blue static.

  It worked, Maeve noted. The vessel is stable.

  She stared at her hand. It was pale. Smooth. Perfect. Curious. Necromancy was an exchange. Life for death. Rot for motion. She was buying soldiers, but she wasn't paying the bill.

  She tried again. This time, she aimed at a cluster of five graves. Then a squad. Then a ptoon.

  "Rise. Rise. Rise."

  She began to cast faster, waving her hand like a conductor. With every motion, the mud boiled. Dozens, then hundreds of corpses cwed their way out. She wasn't draining. She wasn't tired. In fact, she felt a strange, humming vibration beneath her feet.

  She felt the power flowing, but it wasn't coming from her. The pressure was coming from somewhere else. She felt a phantom sensation—a heavy, taut pulling downward, anchoring her to the roots of the mountain.

  An Anchor, she realized. The Architect left a buffer.

  She imagined a massive crystal deep in the celr, or a rune of immense power absorbing the toxic cost of the spell so she could remain pristine. She did not know the Anchor was a weeping, broken thing in a crypt deep below.

  The cost was being paid, just not by her.

  She stopped testing. She committed. She threw her arms wide, embracing the impossible, cost-free power.

  "Awaken," she commanded the valley.

  Thousands.

  The ground erupted. A legion of flesh golems stood up in unison. They did not mourn. They did not speak. They simply waited for orders, silent and terrifying in their absolute ck of humanity.

  Maeve lowered her hands. She noticed a smudge of dark mud on the ce of her cuff. She stared at it with a quiet, confused gravity. She smoothed her dress, wiping the imperfection away.

  She accepted the power. She turned to her new army, the Soulless Queen ascending to a throne she didn't know was being held up by a fallen.

  "Secure the perimeter," she ordered.

  The dead marched. And Maeve remained beautiful, terrifying, and completely unaware that her safety was being purchased, second by second, in the dark below.