Necromancer Uprising: Book 4 Read online

  Necromancer Uprising

  Stones of Amaria Book 4

  by

  Lindsey R. Loucks

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Stones of Amaria

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Necromancer Uprising (Stones of Amaria Book 4) © February 2020 Lindsey R. Loucks

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  COVER: Design by Definition

  Editing: Heather Hambel Curley

  Stones of Amaria

  Be sure to check out the other authors’ series in the Stones of Amaria world! You don’t have to read them all to understand what happens in this one, but you might as well because books! ☺

  Amazon Series Page

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  Chapter One

  Headmistress Millington was nowhere to be found. I tore through the school searching, even doubled back to Ramsey's...body...to retrieve the key he conveniently had to her office. Inside, I found an open trapdoor that led to an underground tunnel and then outside. But she was gone, as was the habit of the skin-walker. Even the professors didn't know where she went.

  "I sent her a raven regarding Professor Woolery and Ramsey," Mrs. Tentorville, the librarian, had said to Professor Lipskin with tears in her hazel eyes. "I can't imagine what could be more important than burying our own."

  I kept my mouth shut. The headmistress could implicate herself since me accusing her would only cause confusion, and the academy already had plenty.

  It took several days for me to let go of my rage enough to mourn Professor Woolery—but not Ramsey. I wouldn't let myself believe he was really dead since I still had the six rocks I'd collected his soul in, or at least I thought I had collected his soul. I had no way of knowing if it really worked until the rocks were activated, and the only person I knew who could do that still floated four feet above her bed with Ryze's onyx stone still gripped in her hand.

  For two short months, I stayed locked in my room with Nebbles while stewing in my fury, while strategizing for the coming war. I gave up on going to classes and worrying about homework. Since I’d missed so much, I didn’t see the point.

  If it weren't for Jon and Echo, I would've let my anger absorb me, would’ve existed in a dark void like I had after Leo's death. In a way, I suppose I still was, but they helped me carry the burden of grief and refused to leave me alone with it.

  Which was why I was about to throw a killing spell at Jon in the catacombs.

  “Occidere.” Black fire writhing with even darker veins shot from my palms and streaked toward his head. Or more specifically the glowing green worm that had fallen from the ceiling and attached itself to him. It exploded into glowing green guts that flecked his face.

  “Yep.” He wiped it off with his sleeve. “Thanks for that.”

  “Are you all right? Did it bite you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, feeling the top of his head. “Would I be able to tell right away?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I think I’m good, then.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks again.”

  From a nearby wall made of bone, Echo blew the dust from a name inscribed on a tomb. "Hugh Jass. Poor guy. I'm so sorry that's your name. Can you imagine the ridicule?"

  "Guess what his twin's name was?" While mopping worm guts from his face, Jon scanned down the page of the huge book that listed everyone buried at Necromancer Academy. "Lar Jass."

  Echo groaned. “Who would be so cruel to name their kids that?”

  "Open them both, pretty please?" I kept my back to them and snapped my dark light—the only description I could come up with—into my palm. My gray magic had grown black and only slightly lit up the intense darkness around us. Splitting Ramsey's soul was among the blackest of magic spells. So were the killing spells I'd practiced on reliving plants and green worms in the weeks since the memory grenade. My dagger wouldn't be enough, not if I was headed into war with my enemies. I'd become darker and darker, only a shadow of my former self. But shadows are such tenacious things, always clinging and following. Which was exactly what I planned to do.

  Jon and Echo pulled the ornate handles of the two caskets, and they rolled out from the bone wall. Dust plumed out and choked the air, and Jon went into a coughing fit while Echo waved the dust away.

  "Are they there?" I asked, trying to peer over my shoulder and keep an eye on our surroundings at once.

  "Um..." Echo covered her nose and mouth with her cloak sleeve and leaned in closer. "Yes! Hugh has two good ones."

  I exhaled a relieved breath. "Thank the gods."

  We'd been looking for a still-intact twin's eyeball for weeks now, preferably from someone who wouldn't miss it, like someone buried in the catacombs. And we needed it now. Rumor had it that Ryze was off trying to destroy the fifth stone, which meant he was away from his stronghold. That’s right, fifth stone. The previous four had already been destroyed.

  Jon turned to search the darkness with me. "Grab it and let's go. This place is too damn creepy, and that's saying something."

  “Uh-huh.” Echo rustled in her pockets. "Just give me a second to scoop it out."

  "Without the commentary, please.” Jon shook his head hard and firmed his lips, looking a bit green, though that might’ve been the worm guts. “Cutting off a dead man's hands is one thing, but an eyeball? I just ate lunch."

  "Yeah, I did, too, and you don't see me complaining." Echo grunted. "Oh, wow, this one's really in there good."

  I grimaced. I didn't really need the details either. It was bad enough that I'd have to put it up to my face, and it would basically absorb into my eye, or become one with it so I could say the spell and walk through anyone’s skin, or basically become their twin whether they had one or not. Gotta say, the idea of skin-walking curled up my nerves. I'd been only two people before—Dawn before Leo's murder and Dawn after—and I'd been them for so long that I didn’t know how to be anyone else.

  "Okay...there,” Echo said. “Want me to grab both just in case?"

  "Ye—"

  The bell around my neck began to ring, the one that only rang when someone reliving was near. A pretty common occurrence down in the catacombs. Still, I angled myself in front of my friends, every muscle in my body tensing.

  "That's a no," Echo murmured, her voice tight. “There’s no time.”

  She and Jon quickly rolled the caskets back into the bone wall.

  "Let's move," Jon whispered and snapped his off-white magic into his palm.

  Echo did the same.

  The three of us stepped lightly u
p the path in the direction of the giant's skull, moving as one. My ears prickled for any other sound than the bell and my thudding heartbeat. We had never seen the mysterious cloaked figure Ramsey and I had run into, only rogue skeletons that had been brought back and never put to rest again. It was just a hunch, but that cloaked figure might've been Headmistress Millington throwing death curses at us since we were getting too close to the Staff of Sullivan hidden down here. Now, obviously, that wasn't a concern. Ryze had the staff, said it had been given to him, likely also by Headmistress Millington.

  My blood scorched with venomous hatred every time I thought of her, which was every single second. Part of what I’d devoted myself to the last two months was learning to detect her magical signature in a similar way the Ministry of Law Enforcement detected magic at crime scenes. Instead of sprinkling fairy dust around like the Ministry does, though, I tap a skull. Not mine, just some random small one I found outside and kept in my pocket. According to the Book of Black Shadows where I’d picked up that little tip, all magic leaves a trace, and it can be smelled or felt by tapping a skull. Or by doing a blood bond like Jon, Echo, Ramsey, and me. Since I wanted to know the instant she was around, I’d learned a spell that tapped the skull for me continuously and silently with a skeletal finger. Not one from my dead man’s hand, which I also had in my pocket. I might need to think about getting bigger pockets.

  With Ramsey’s key to the headmistress’s office, I’d picked up traces of her magical signature—wet fur and a sort of empty feeling. Obviously she hadn’t used the Staff of Sullivan to mask it in here, the only object I knew of that could do such a thing. She’d used it when she killed Leo. When I scented her signature again, I’d pounce and then destroy her piece by piece for my brother’s murder. For conning all of Necromancer Academy. For pretending she cared.

  "Breathe, Dawn," Jon muttered, sweeping his gaze over our surroundings as we moved.

  “Trying.” I briefly wondered if he and Echo regretted our blood bonding which announced our magical signatures and our emotions. If they did, they never said, and the blood bond never hinted at annoyance. Not even once.

  I did breathe—but it snagged the very next moment. More sounds joined the bell around my neck, staggered footsteps coming down three separate tunnels. Those tunnels plus two more converged in one large area dusted with brittle bones across the floor, and we happened to be right in the middle of it.

  "Straight ahead. Go," I whispered.

  I wasn't so sure we could take on three relivers at once, and I didn’t want to find out.

  The first one came barreling out directly toward us, minus a head, black scraps of clothing clinging to its skeletal frame.

  "Revertere ad mortem," Jon shouted.

  The skeleton blasted into parts, and the force caved in the tunnel on top of it.

  The second and third relivers burst from their tunnels at the same time.

  "Revertere ad mortem," I yelled toward the second, but I missed and hit the skull-filled wall swarming with green worms. The return-to-death spell exploded them into green bits, even though I doubted they were reliving. Magic was still a bit wobbly with Ryze’s return.

  The third reliver knocked hard into Jon, sending him flying through the air. He landed on his side with a pained groan.

  "Jon!" I shouted.

  "Fine," he moaned.

  "Come on, Bonehead." Echo drew the reliver away from him with a finger curl, her lips curled in a sneer and her blue eyes sparkling with dark delight.

  Throwing spells was her last resort. She much preferred physical combat.

  Over her head, another was coming through one of the tunnels. And yet another in the next tunnel over with two more behind it, and still another in the tunnel next to Jon. We were being ambushed.

  "Revertere ad mortem." I aimed the spell at the tunnel with three relivers inside, and the spell exploded their bones and skated several bones across the floor.

  The one squaring off with Echo lunged at her, its hands reaching for her throat. She reared back with her fist.

  “Revertere ad mortem,” Jon shouted at one.

  Another nearby sprang at him before he could say the return-to-death spell again, but he lunged for two long bones and gripped them in both hands. He swung and smashed through it, but its remains hit the backs of Echo's feet and made her trip. She stumbled, and the reliver attacking her followed her to the ground, its hands tightening around her neck.

  "Echo!" We were at too great a distance for me to trust I'd hit the reliver and not her. I raced toward her.

  Jon tried to haul himself to his feet to help, but one of the relivers scurried on hands and knees over the floor and then twisted his foot around. He screeched in pain.

  Damn it, fighting them off was getting us nowhere. Time for plan B or C or wherever we were at now, because these relivers were relentless. If I blasted them apart, I might hurt my friends more than they already were.

  Echo writhed and tried to fight off the reliver strangling her, but her face was turning purple. Jon couldn’t get much more out than a pained howl as the reliver kept twisting his foot. Any more and it would snap.

  “Stay low, guys!" I shouted, but I had no idea if this would work. I brought up my hands, my uncertainty quaking through to my soul, and opened my mouth to say the killing spell. I hoped, prayed, wished—whatever it took—that my magic would continue working only if I truly meant the spell I said. I truly did not want to kill my friends. "Occidere."

  Black magic shot from my bound hands toward the relivers. They exploded into a white powdery cloud that choked the air like a thick fog.

  I spat tiny bone particles out of my mouth and shook myself like a dog.

  "Let's be done down here and never come back, okay?" Echo rose to her feet and blew a strand of hair out of her face, spraying up a cloud of bone dust too.

  "Agreed." Still lying flat on the ground, Jon held both his arms out. "Help me up, please?"

  Echo and I crossed toward him and hauled him upright, but he hissed as soon as he tried to put weight on his right foot, the same one the reliving had grabbed onto. I said the healing spell, and it clung to him in a black web and then seeped into him.

  Even though it was white magic, it seemed to have no effect on the color of mine, as though mine had been stained in permanent black ink. It used to be that white healing spells balanced me out, but now... It seemed like black magic had swallowed me up. This both made sense, given the spells I'd been practicing, and concerned me. What if my magic became darker and darker? What if it rotted my soul? What if... I hated to think it, but what if I was turning into another version of Ryze? A successful necromancer. Someone who could split a soul into six parts. A person who would stop at absolutely nothing to get what they wanted. The only difference was what we wanted, but still. Our similarities weighed on my mind and dragged it down with sharp talons. But we had our differences, too. Huge, important differences. I needed to remember this.

  We clambered up out of the catacombs into the empty Gathering Room. Most of the other students had already gone home for the start of summer, but we’d stayed, as had several mages who guarded the place. With the headmistress gone and with the threat of Ryze, the academy was vulnerable to attack. So was Seph who still gripped the onyx since Ryze was deadset on saving the stones from destruction even though he’d failed four times. So, we weren’t willing to risk leaving Seph without protection. Professor Lipskin, who’d sort of unofficially stepped into the headmaster role, had said that was okay even though he hated everything. My parents, who were here now visiting, also seemed okay with me staying.

  I grabbed hold of Jon's hand, Echo gripped the other, and we both hauled him up out of the square-shaped hole in the ground and into the Gathering Room. "After everything that's happened here, will you miss this place once you leave?"

  "Yes and no," Echo said quietly. "You?"

  "I don't know. That's why I asked you."

  Jon brushed the bone dust off his
cloak. "I will miss it. I have no regrets coming here."

  I nodded, wincing at the truth in his eyes as I rolled back the stone door over the catacombs. "On the one hand, I know myself a little better now after coming here. On the other...I know myself a little better now after coming here. I've made terrible mistakes, but I've made fantastic friends. I guess that balances things out a little."

  Echo smiled sadly. "Not just friends but lifelong friends. Maybe because we lost others and we had such a large gap to fill, but...you guys just walked right in."

  "I think that's it exactly." The hole Leo had left would never be filled, but having others in my life I truly liked helped ease the sting of his loss.

  Echo's blue eyes glittered in the torchlight as she gazed down at the floor. "So are you going to try out your new eyeball or what?"

  Worry flared through Jon's magical signature coursing through our blood bond.

  I reached out and squeezed his shoulder, appreciating his concern. "I'll give myself a break. Come to my room in two hours so I have time to fill up my magical reserves, and we'll see if the eyeball works, okay?"

  The last thing I wanted to do was fall into mage's oblivion again. Besides, two hours would give me time to prepare for what needed to be done. Alone.

  They nodded, and Jon headed to the guys' wing while Echo and I headed toward the girls'.

  "See you in a bit..." Echo stopped by her door and eyed me critically. “Right?”

  "Of course." I wasn’t lying about that part.

  Once inside my room, I grabbed Nebbles’s favorite toy—a stick with a feather dangling from it—and headed down to see her and Seph in the infirmary. Nebbles had found her own way there and then had vomited on my pillow for not telling her where her favorite person was.

  “I’m sorry,” I’d told her, but she’d just glared at me with her one orange eye.

  One time, she'd had a tiny bone sticking out of her mouth, and while gazing right at me, she'd snapped down on it hard like a furry version of Professor Margo Woolery. The cat was a fierce, gorgeous murderer, and I'd miss every last gray hair on her head if I never saw her again after today.