The moon was at its highest point in the sky. A silver-haired girl watched it with interest. In a night like this, the energy of the spirits was stronger. Full moon was always practice time, since most creatures of the night fed of its energy. For a necromancer apprentice such as her, it was the ideal time to train.

“Food, Adela” a hoarse, grave voice announced, making the young girl shift her attention from the moon to the fire at the center of the camp. She stood up on the tree branch she was sitting on, and jumped down, landing without making a sound despite the dry leaves and other vegetation covering the forest ground.

She approached the fire, and accepted the food from her master, a corpulent man with the same silver hair as hers, and blue eyes surrounded by heavy wrinkles. She smiled at him in thanks and sat down on the tree stump, enjoying the mushroom soup while it was warm. Soon after, her master sat next to her. The two ate in silence for a time.

“How much longer until we reach the viscount’s estate?” she asked, reaching for some bread from her pouch to soak in the soup.

“We shall arrive before dawn.”

“See? And you said I was going to slow you down” she said cheekily, munching on the bread. Her master narrowed his eyes at her.

“I was supposed to arrive yesterday, how can you say you didn’t slow me down?”

“Not for such a long margin. The way you talked then, it made it seem as if I was going to delay you for days at least” she responded, shrugging.

“I don’t understand what made you insist on coming with me so much. As far as I know, you were against me doing this type of mission and refused talking to me for a whole week. Then, you suddenly appeared as I was about to depart and demanded to accompany me.”

“I’m still against this. You always tell me necromancy it’s about working with the spirits, and that the ritual of false life is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the world. That no necromancer worth its salt would ever think of performing it, and yet, you’re travelling from so far to do exactly what you warned me never to do.”

“It is macabre, and it shouldn’t be done. Forcing a soul to return to its body in exchange of another it’s an act that brings darkness upon the caster’s soul, and its overuse in the past is what brought those of our kind such bad fame and persecution. My opinion over the matter has not changed.”

“Then why?” Adela asked, turning her ice blue eyes towards her master, frowning at him in censure. “Why do it anyway?”

“Because Daniel de la Rosa saved my life, and our kind never forgets a debt of that magnitude. Never.”

Adela said nothing more after hearing that, looking at the remaining soup in her plate as her master stood up and went to serve himself more from the pot above the fire. She stirred its contents, pursing her lips and thinking about her vision.

She didn’t tell her master the reason she suddenly wanted to tag along with him, and under normal circumstances she wouldn’t even dream of demanding something like this from him, but she knew her presence was necessary, now more than ever.

She was locked in her room, contacting the spirits of the dead seeking for information on how her master’s mission was going to turn out, getting frustrated every time she was forced to watch the ritual taking place but nothing beyond that, when something changed.

The little girl that had been used as a sacrifice wasn’t there anymore, and it its place there was a corpse, a replacement standing where the girl was, with no sign of her anywhere. It surprised her because that was the technique she was best versed at. Somehow, that girl had done something to change her fate, to give her a chance at salvation, and that something allowed Adela to see the changes on her vision and understand she was a fundamental part of what was going to happen.

So of course she had to come, even if her presence slowed down her master, even if every part of her screamed of how wrong it was. Her vision gave her the right to intervene, and Adela couldn’t wait to save that girl, but most importantly, she couldn’t wait to save her master from doing something she knew he was gonna regret.