“All right, kiddo. How about you tell me this secret Lyn’s got you locked down here for, eh?”

I’m sitting face-to-face with Rowan, down in the hideaway under the shack. Lyn stands behind him, arms crossed. It’s… a bit of a serious atmosphere, but I suppose it’s a pretty serious subject.

“Um. Well. I’m a necromancer.”

Rowan glances up at Lyn, his flabbergasted face clearly seeking confirmation. He’s a bit of an odd-looking guy, way too young to rock the black mutton chops he has. He’s still quite attractive, though, and it’s a secret to no one that he and Lyn are in a relationship. They’re a power couple, and quite the contrast to my emaciated ass.

“...How long have you been hiding this from us?” Rowan asks, attention returning to me. “And how did you learn?”

“Um, I… haven’t been? I found out earlier today! I just… it just happened!”

“She’s telling the truth, Rowan,” Lyn confirms.

“...But natural animancers aren’t a thing,” he says. “I mean… hypothetically they’re a thing, but there’s no record of one ever existing.”

“Then she’s the first. Or there’s a bunch and we don’t have records of them. But I saw her do something, Rowan, and it didn’t look like a spell at all. She just did it.”

He taps his chin, thinking.

“...Well fuck,” Rowan eventually concludes. “I don’t know what this means, but it’s probably bad news if the Church finds out. Kinda throws a wrench into their doctrine. Er, at least a little? Maybe it’s not that bad, but we probably shouldn’t ask them about it.”

“Why?” I ask. “I don’t get any of this Church stuff. What do they have against animancy?”

“Mmm… well, sort of a twofold answer to that. The first is the Church side: souls are gifts from the Mistwatcher, or so they say. When you start messing with souls, you’re not just messing with the fundamental nature of a person, you’re messing with the Mistwatcher’s direct business. We don’t know everything about the Mistwatcher, but the Church is very adamant that it’s a bad idea to mess around in his business.”

I frown, thinking.

“Well, okay, I guess that makes sense. So, what’s the second reason?”

“...Uh, pretty much just basic common sense. The Church and the government are sleeping together nice and tight, but even without that any sane government would regulate or outright ban animancy. You can do crazy stuff with it. Read minds, corrupt thoughts, change people’s beliefs and personalities, make them fall in love with you… and it’s nearly impossible to trace except by another animancer. You’re a necromancer specifically, you said? Necromancy doesn’t do most of that really spooky stuff, but even then a powerful necromancer can create loyal, undying armies more or less by themselves. Along with all sorts of stuff I probably don’t even know about. It’s all restricted knowledge.”

I nod. Yeah, okay, so I’m spooky and dangerous. Check.

“So it’s the most awful magic around. Great. What are all the other kinds of magic?”

“Ah, haha,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Presumably there’s a kind of magic to affect everything in the natural world, but we don’t know it all. Magic is learned and categorized by reverse-engineering it from observation. Take a mage that can see magic, watch it happen in nature, try to make a formula for it. Kineticism, the branch of magic concerning movement, was created by observing the forces that hold the islands in the air, for example. There’s a bunch of kinds of magic; thermomancy for heat, biomancy for body stuff, and metamancy for magic about magic, just to name a few. Oh, and technically chaos magic, which is just kind of tossing raw power around without funneling it into a spell first. Don’t, um, do that. It’ll kill you. Learning to be a spellcaster is incredibly dangerous. If you’re really a natural mage, though, anything you feel like you can do on instinct is probably safe. Um, at least, safe in the your-immediate-health sense, not the short-and-long-term-consequences sense.”

“So the deal with necromancy and animancy is…?”

“Oh, right. All necromancy is animancy, but not all animancy is necromancy. If you are a necromancer, your deal is specifically concerning souls of the dead and/or souls currently outside of a body. Its counterpart would be cognimancy, which is manipulating the souls of the living to affect a person’s thoughts and actions. Although if you want to get really semantic, these designations are more academic than truly discriptionary, and a unified—”

“Nope nope nope. Enough nerd talk,” Lyn butts in. “Can you help her or not?”

He frowns.

“Help her how? If she’s caught using necromancy, she’s gonna die or get carted away. My advice is don’t use it.”

Lyn shakes her head.

“Come on, Rowan. That’s like asking me not to run. It’s part of who she is. You can’t just take that from her! The Church is fucking dumb anyway.”

Part of who I am? I’m not sure if I like the idea of necromancy being a key element of my personality.

“...Dumb or not, they can still kill her,” Rowan mumbles. “But fine. What kind of stuff do you know how to do already, Vita? I really don’t know a lot on how necromancy works, because… well, it’s absurdly illegal.”

“Um. I can, uh, pull souls out of people’s bodies. And then if I take out a bit of my soul and mix it around with the other soul and put them back, I make a Revenant, I guess. Or at least I did that one time. I can also, um, eat the soul. Which I think makes me stronger?”

“Uh,” Rowan says eloquently. “Revenants and soul-eating. Well. That’s… I mean, how did you find this out, exactly? How many people are dead?”

“J-just one!” I insist. “The Revenant was, um, under my control when I made it. So he didn’t attack anybody, or… well, I mean, he did, but that’s because he was an asshole, not because he was a Revenant.”

Rowan leans back in his chair, blowing air out his nose as he balances the rickety wooden thing on two legs.

“Okay. Well. That’s… I don’t know what to do about that. If your powers require somebody to die, you probably should not be using them.”

“Yeah…” I say dejectedly. “That makes sense.”

It makes too much sense, really. I don’t know what I want to be in life, but “Mass Murderer” is certainly not on the list. And I’m… a death mage, basically. I just deal with death. Maybe I can wait around for people to die of natural causes and then eat them? Ugh, that sounds even worse. Am I just destined to be a horrible monster?

“Have you tried it with animals?”

I blink.

“Huh?”

“Animals,” Rowan repeats. “Animals have souls. Monsters too, if you care to make the distinction. They tend to be weaker than the souls of humans and other sapients, but they have them. Might be a more ethical way to test out the kind of things you can do.”

I swallow.

“...Isn’t that risky?”

“Of course it’s risky. You’re a necromancer. Don't use it at all, or get used to risk. But if you wanna use your powers, animals are probably the best way. Just keep your distance from the Templars, kid. If they grab you and find out that we helped you? Everyone here is dead. Don’t tell the kids anything, either.”

“Okay. I won’t,” I promise, nodding.

“Good. Now let’s go. I wanna see what you do. You got a preference for which pest to kill?”

I think about that for a bit. What sort of animal would I want to serve eternally in my loyal undead army?

"What about crows?"

Rowan smiles knowingly, standing up to exit the hideout. I blush a little. I might sleep with a stuffed crow still. It’s not weird.

"Crows, huh? Why crows? Might be a little hard to catch 'em."

"I just... like crows,” I protest meekly.

"...So you want to kill them and mess with their souls? Should Lyn and I be worried?"

My face goes white.

"N-no! That's not what I meant at all!"

"Kidding, Vita," Rowan says with a laugh, tousling my hair. "Crows could be good practice. They're smarter than most pests. I'd question how long a crow zombie would actually be able to fly, but... well, we can't let you leave undead around anyway, okay? That could be really bad."

I nod, following him out of the hideout. Lyn says something about grabbing some more food and heads out, leaving the two of us to walk silently through the back streets of Skyhope. Rowan's finger twitches a bit, drawing a lazy path in the air. When he's done, I’m suddenly unable to hear the city’s noise around me.

"There we go," he says. "Silence bubble. We can chat freely now, if you want."

"Um... yeah. Question. I pulled Grig's soul out of his body while he was still alive. That's affecting a living soul, right? Is that proof of the, uh, unified thingy you were talking about?"

Rowan looks down at me with a raised eyebrow.

"It ain't proof of shit. But yeah, the labels we give this kind of stuff? It's all observation-based. We made up the names to describe what we saw, magic didn't create a bunch of spells based on names we gave it. There's gonna be some fuzzy areas. The unified theory is just one of many theories on how magic as a whole actually works... but as interesting as that is to pontificate about, it's nowhere close to proven. From a practical perspective, the groups we have are going to be how people learn magic for decades. It’s not weird for a natural mage to have a few things outside whatever our imperfect understanding predicts they should have, but if you think you're a general animancer rather than just a necromancer... well, let Lyn and I know as soon as possible, okay kid?"

I nod.

"Good. Here we are then,” Rowan says. “This should be a good spot to fish for crows."

We turn a corner into a small clearing, empty of any people. There is, however, lots of trash. Rowan starts drawing something in the air again, though it makes no trail I can see. Eventually, some illusory food scraps pop into view nearby, while the two of us are covered with a fake trash bag.

"All right, now we wait. You're gonna have to be quick to grab 'em, so stay sharp."

I nod again. Illusion magic, huh? That's pretty useful for a con man. Time passes before a few crows come down and start pecking, immediately confused when their beaks pass right through the food. But before they can smell foul play, I reach out and...

...Miss. Embarrassingly. The crows are way faster than I am and just fly off. I turn an ashamed glance towards Rowan, who chuckles.

"Okay, okay, I'll help. Just don't tell anybody I can do this. I've got a kynamancy license, but I do not have a thermomancy license."

The next bird to fly down immediately gets flambéed. As it falls over dead, something... stays where it was. A tiny, tiny soul. I can’t see it, but I can feel it. Reaching out, I cup my hands around it, just over where the corpse lies.

"You got something there, Vita?" Rowan asks, raising an eyebrow and leaning over to look at my seemingly-empty hands.

"...Yeah," I confirm, nodding. "I have a crow soul."

"Hmm. If you say so, Vita. I can't sense a thing. But I guess I've heard souls and magic aren't quite made of the same sort of stuff."

"Mhm," I agree.

Makes sense to me. I can’t sense Rowan's spells like I can the floating soul. ...But I couldn't sense the soul until it wasn't in the crow anymore, either. Good to keep in mind.

"M'gonna try some stuff," I warn. “Dunno what it'll do."

He nods.

"All right. I'm ready."

First, I close my hand around the soul. It sinks into my arm, something about what I am now holding it in place. Just as I thought— though I’m not sure why I thought this— it's not getting dissolved. It's just... another soul inside me, trapped in stasis. Unused, for now.

It feels very different to the soul I took from Grig. It’s more like the tiny shard I took from my own soul than his. It’s small, and... sharp somehow. As if it’s broken. A Soul Shard, if you will.

And speaking of shards, I put my hand to my chest and pull out a fragment of my own. It’s such an odd thing to do, thinking about it now. Splintering my very being? Yet it feels as natural as walking. Even more natural, perhaps. There’s a subtle joy in the act, a satisfaction in practicing something that is uniquely and indisputably mine.

Reaching out with my other hand, I grab the crow corpse. Then, I stick the little shard of my soul inside it. In my hand, I feel it grow out those threads like Grig's soul did, spreading throughout the body. Jerking and flopping, my crow zombie shudders to life.

"Neat," I murmur quietly.

It struggles in my grip, not hurting me but trying to get free. It wants something! That’s interesting. I like holding it, it’s cute. I loosen my hands anyway, though, curious to see what it will do... and it tries to lunge at Rowan!

"Stop!" I hiss, and the bird halts immediately, all movement gone. I nod. Good. It knows who its master is. Now for the coolest part about crows.

"Fly," I demand. It staggers and hops, flapping its wings awkwardly. It looks like the poor thing would have no idea how to do that, even if it wasn't quite as burnt.

"Hmm," I murmur.

"Learning a lot?" Rowan asks, his smile failing to disguise the fear on his face.

I nod again, feeling out my own instincts for things to do next. The crow couldn’t fly when it only had a piece of my soul in it. Would it know how if it had a piece of my soul and its own soul, like how Grig knew who he was?

"Open your beak," I command, and the zombie complies. Willing the crow soul shard out of my arm, I try to drop it down the crow's throat... but it doesn't really work. Something is wrong. I frown, thinking. Pulling my spindly soul shard out of the crow again, it goes limp. I mix it with the crow shard like I did to make Grig, and then shove it all back in the body.

The crow gets up and tries to attack Rowan again. This time, though, it kicks off my hand and flies at him.

"Stop," I murmur softly, and it freezes, dropping to the trash-covered floor.

"Shit, Vita, you're gonna give me a heart attack with that thing," Rowan murmurs, untensing a bit.

"Sorry," I respond. "Got it to fly, though."

"...Yeah, I guess you did. You're a quick learner, kid."

"Mmm. Not a kid. Killed a guy earlier today."

Rowan's face turns very serious.

"That doesn't make you an adult, Vita. It's a tragedy, not a rite of passage."

Silence follows that. I pick my limp bird zombie back up.

“Don’t attack Rowan. You may move again.”

The bird coos happily, ruffling its feathers as I stroke a finger down its back. It’s still warm.

"I think I forgot to tell you that the son of the guy I killed saw me in his house while Grig was a Revenant," I say suddenly.

Rowan blinks.

"Uh. Okay. That's not great. Did you tell Lyn?"

"Yeah."

"What did she tell you to do?"

"Stay away from the bakery and hope they think he ran off with me."

"...Gross, Lyn. But I don't have a better plan. We're not gonna kill the son too."

"I feel bad for him. Grig beat his wife and kid a lot, I think. And they'll probably go out of business without him, now."

Rowan shrugs.

"Well, if I could solve the problems of every kid in the city, Vita, I would. But I can't. I don't have the power, the money, the influence, the anything to do that. It's a handful feeding the little mouths we have already. And now you..."

He cuts himself off before he can say I’m yet another problem, but my heart clenches up anyway. Lyn and Rowan really were going out of their way for me, weren’t they?

"Sorry," I murmur.

Rowan tousles my hair again.

"Hey. None of that. You didn't ask for this. We'll figure out a way to keep you safe.”

I lean into his touch, hugging my bird. Thinking back at how its first instinct was to kill him.

"Hey, Rowan? Do you think it's my fault that the stuff I make is so violent? I'm putting bits of my soul in them. Does that say something about me?"

He sighs, sitting down in the trash next to me.

"I don't really know anything about necromancy, Vita. But almost all undead try to kill living things. It's just what they do."

"...Yeah," I murmur. "I guess that's all I can really do, too. ...Can you catch me something alive? Maybe I'm a cognimancer too? I can mess with my own soul, and I'm alive."

He takes a deep breath, nodding slowly.

“...Sure. I can probably snare a rat or something.”

He gets up to do just that, and I take some time trying to command my bird-zombie nonverbally. Maybe I can establish some kind of mind-link to make it easier to control it from a distance...? I don't make any progress, though. Whenever I try, it feels like my soul is trying to stretch out of my body to touch the little bird, but it just doesn’t stretch far enough.

"Here you go, kid," Rowan says, returning with something dangling between his fingers. "One unconscious rat. Work your magic."

"Stay," I tell the crow, who glares at the animal ravenously. I accept the rat, pull out a shard of my soul, and try to put it inside while it sleeps... but nothing happens. My soul shard simply doesn't fit inside the living creature. Furthermore, I can barely sense the rat's soul, even while touching it. It‘s just enough sense to know I could pull it out, if I wanted to.

I did, but I hold off for now. Shaking my head, I look up at Rowan dejectedly.

"No dice, huh?" he says. "Sorry kid. Though I gotta say, personally? I'm glad you can't do that kind of stuff. Cognimancy is some spooky business, even compared to the walking dead. Or, uh, the flying dead, as it were. Now un-animate that thing and let's get out of here."

"Okay," I agree with a nod. "Question first, though. How does Lyn's threat sense thing work? I spiked on it when I ate the last soul. Why? I don’t want to set that kind of thing off."

Rowan tilts his head a bit.

"When you ate…? Well, martial types like Lyn get all kinds of pseudo-magic crap, and it's long been theorized that the stuff they do comes from the same kind of energy that makes souls work. If that theory is true, my guess is that Lyn is vaguely judging a soul's strength compared to her own. You might be able to learn how to do it, actually. As an animancer, it might even come more naturally to you than it does to her. ...Unless I'm totally off-base, I guess."

I nod, pulling out the rat's soul and popping it in my mouth. It’s so tiny! Even smaller than the crow's soul. Discarding the corpse, I grab my little crow Revenant and pull its soul out too. There’s something viscerally satisfying to it, really. I hide both of the bodies in the garbage pile, popping the souls down my throat. They aren’t very filling in the, uh, spiritual sense, but it makes me feel a bit better to have my shard back inside myself... plus a bit of interest.

"...That's super freaky," Rowan mutters, staring intently.

"Sorry," I murmur, standing up.

"It's fine. Really. Just try not to get into the habit of it too much, okay?"

I nod.

"On the bright side, I might be able to sustain myself on souls if we don't have enough bread."

He gives me an odd look for a beat, then laughs, pulling me in for a side-hug.

 

"Aw, shit. Come here, Vita. You're a good kid, yeah? It's probably not a good idea, though. A strong soul and a starving body is still half of you not working right, okay? We'll figure something out. No need to fast for us."

"Okay," I answer, nodding yet again. "...Hey, Rowan?"

"Yeah, Vita?"

"Is there something else I can do to help you out? Like, with your job?"

He thinks for a while at that.

"Not with necromancy, if that's what you're asking. But I can certainly use an extra pair of hands. There are a few easy duo cons we could do."

I nod.

"Yeah. S'what I meant. Thanks for helping me today."

"Yeah. Sure thing, Vita. You're basically family, you know?"

"I've only known you for a year, though."

He shrugs.

"Doesn't really matter. We starved together. You stepped up and helped Lyn and I out when you didn't have to. If the way I'm returning the favor involves hiding you from Templars, so be it."

I frown. Those things hardly seemed comparable.

"...I should have started helping way earlier. I'm way older than all the other kids in the shack."

He blinks.

"Really? You don't look that much older."

"I'm sixteen!" I insist.

He scowls down at me, giving me a serious once-over. Why was this so hard for everyone to believe!?

"...You're just so small. You really struggled to eat before you found us, didn't you? We're not even doing that good of a job, but you were desperate enough for our handouts anyway. It must have been really bad, Vita. I'm sorry."

I swallow dry, looking away. That’s definitely not something I want to get into. What does he expect? People in this city starve to death all the time.

"M'still worried about Grig's son,” I say, changing the subject quickly. “His wife too. They'll recognize me. Is there some way you can make me look different?"

"Not a great way, no," Rowan answers, taking the topic change in stride. "I can probably disguise you while we're together, but some kind of complex facial enchantment that maintains a different appearance and moves with you without my constant attention? Yeah, no, you'd need like, a metal artifact or something. Way beyond anything I could pull off."

Hah, yeah. Metal. Like that’s going to happen. I nod once more, curiosity sated for now. It's a shame we can’t hunt for food. Souls for me, meat for everyone else... it would have been ideal. It was never safe to eat meat unless it was treated by a biomancer, though. Cooking food helps, but all sorts of heatproof magical diseases hang out in wild animals, and if anyone in the shack catches one of those, they would absolutely die.

Rowan and I depart the trash-covered clearing, heading off to one of the places he likes to set up his job. Eventually, the two of us make it back to a busy street, Rowan's silence bubble dispelled. There the con begins, sending instructions by magicking words into my ear that are so quiet, no one else can hear them. I fake a few "customer victories" together on one street, act as an assistant on another... it’s kind of fun. Rowan has an odd kind of personal magnetism to him, where even people who know he’s scamming can’t help but enjoy the show. I actually find myself smiling a little.

...Until a Templar walks by, one of the very hands of the Church that hates the very idea of my existence. Fear freezes my heart like ice. It’s just a normal Templar, thank goodness, wearing standard-issue armor rather than a unique getup. He (I think it's a he, anyway) was covered in armor from head to toe. Chitin armor, in fact, probably carved from some wretched monster from outside the walls. A sword hangs on his hip and a shield on his back, each piece of the outfit adorned with the Eye of the Mistwatcher, the symbol of the Church.

Worst of all, he is absolutely, definitely, walking straight towards Rowan and I.