Wish poured dark purple flames into the tiny ferret's form. Maralda watched, hesitant. She'd never gotten used to necromancy. Wish seemed to be a savant at it now.
Those purple flames seemed to flow into each blood vessel. Muscles spasmed. But it wasn't life.
Maralda felt her father's blood in her. The Inculti part knew what the fire of life was. This wasn't that. It wasn't a spark of life. Wish was pouring more death into the tiny animal. A semblance of life.
Maralda remembered her father's lesson to her on that part of pyromancy. Fire magick could reignite a still heart, but not a dead heart. That there was a point where something was more dead than alive. A point where the fire magick wouldn't bring back life. It would just begin a charnel fire, turning the corpse into a candle.
"Wake up." Wish intoned.
The dead feyborn ferret jerked. His muscles spasmed. Part of his jacket tumbled off of him. Then tiny eyes blinked open. The corpse let out a pained moan.
"My head." A single black ferret eye blinked. The other didn't open. It sounded like a male voice, with a Tomasi accent.
"Spirit, I've brought you back to-" Wish was interrupted by the dead ferret.
"You!" The ferret's body squirmed, trying to get up.
"You can't move, Spirit."
"He sounds angry." Maralda took a step back reflexively.
"I ain't going to be one of your walking corpses!" The ferret bellowed. "I already seen plenty! Let me go back to sleep."
"What happened?" Maralda asked.
"Things went to Shraxes is what happened." The ferret blinked at Maralda. "Who are you?"
"The dead shouldn't ask questions," Wish interjected.
Maralda ignored the android.
"Maralda Inculti."
"The writer? Huh. Well, you are in the presence of the greatest archaeologist in the City of Curses. Kaze Skysword." The corpse smirked as he spoke his last name.
Maralda suppressed annoyance. She'd heard the name. But not in the context the dead animal was referring.
"No, that was your mother. She invented the archaeologist path, you exploited it."
"You wound me!"
"Dead things don't feel wounds." Wish chided. "Enough. Tell her what you saw, Spirit."
The ferret's corpse shuddered. Kaze's snout opened, and then it gasped. The next words it spoke seemed to each ring to her. It wasn't the spell she heard. History. That was what she sensed with each word. History unfolding before her.
"The Prince is dead. There is a fire in the night. Something new. But it is something old too, made new. The Prince is dead."
For Maralda, those four words were going to be the start of a rather chaotic night.
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