Fall of the Arch Lich (D'Vaire, Book 6)

by Jessamyn Kingley

  “Yes, he’s unique to both races. Reaper is a new type of resurrected soldier,” Alaric replied. He was beginning to grow angry. Grymington was not even capable of defending himself; he didn’t know what the hell Sigimund had been thinking.

  “Sorry to go off topic, but is that why you thought Drys and I should be separated? Because once we got our memories back we would no longer be incorruptible?” Conley asked.

  “No, when I was a teenager I believed that stupid story about some resurrected dude running around killing everyone. I didn’t think any resurrected people were incorruptible at that point,” Chander responded. “I’ve spent my life surrounded by fallen knights and my sentinels. I know better now. Not everyone who returns with their memory is trustworthy, but you were both noble dragons who led your people brilliantly before your deaths. You are as honorable as the rest of the fallen knights.”

  “So, we have a new incorruptible resurrected race meant to somehow replace the sentinels, but they’re given no tools to even fight. Are you impervious to temperature extremes? Do you have invisibility? We know you can teleport—all magickind except for elves can. Do you have sexuality like fallen knights, or do you lack it as sentinels do?” Roman asked.

  “I have no meaning for the word sex,” Grymington replied. “I don’t become distressed in high heat or extreme cold. I can become invisible in this form but not my reaper form.”

  “Why do people do that? It seems like punishment to resurrect someone but take away their sexuality,” Chander complained. “Grymington, we’re so glad you decided to come here today. We’re going to do what we can to help you.”

  “I don’t wish to return to Arch Lich Roth,” Grymington said.

  “You won’t,” Alaric replied. “We have space at our home, you’re welcome to live with us.”

  “We can do that, right?” Chander asked.

  “Reaper isn’t a recognized Council race,” Drystan answered. “But we can do a temporary ID card that lists him as a sentinel for now. We’ll need to decide what the future is for Grymington and any other reapers who are resurrected.”

  “I suggest we keep this quiet for now,” Chander responded. “We need to find these damn warlocks and see if Sigimund has resurrected more reapers. I’m guessing he must do a lot of resting between them. His power doesn’t match mine by any stretch of the imagination, and he’s old enough that it’s begun to wane. He was never strong enough for immortality.”

  “We have plenty of space at our condo,” Alaric said. “Are you interested in living with us, Grymington? We can have a set of daggers made for you, so you can begin training with myself and the other sentinels.”

  “I’m very interested in training,” Grymington replied. “I accept your invitation.”

  “Before that happens, we need to get to that house and find those fucking warlocks,” Drystan remarked. “Sigimund will have to answer to the Council for resurrecting them. You can’t just summon up known criminals with their memories intact.”

  “We can’t prove shit without them,” Chander retorted. “Call Dra’Kaedan and tell him we need his help. He can teleport us as a group to the location in Grymington’s memory. I realize he can track, but once Sigimund discovers Grymington is gone, he’s going to hide the warlocks somewhere.”

  “I left early this morning, it took me a few hours to find the Order of the Fallen Knights,” Grymington explained. “The house is miles from here, and I had no choice but to walk.”

  “He may already know Grymington has left,” Conley said. “Damn it.”

  “We’re wasting time. Let me call Dra’Kaedan and let’s get moving,” Drystan replied.

  Drystan stepped out of the room to call Dra’Kaedan, and Alaric imagined the warlock wasn’t going to take the news well when he learned the people who had hurt him personally and taken down nearly his entire race had been resurrected. Alaric hoped they could find them; it might be the evidence they needed to get Sigimund off Chander’s fucking throne. Then hopefully he could have Chander restored to the title that was rightfully his while Sigimund rotted in a prison somewhere for knowingly bringing criminals back from the dead.

  As far as Grymington was concerned, Alaric was going to make sure he was fully equipped to handle himself. He didn’t know how effective his giant skeleton form was, but they would figure out how to make it work. In the meantime, they’d give him a home and hope that Sigimund hadn’t spent any time adding another resurrected soul to the reapers. He was obviously ill-equipped to properly handle the creation of a race. There was little doubt this was more about the fallen knights than the sentinels.

  It’d been Chander who had designed and brought to life the former, and Sigimund must have sought out a way to make himself appear at least equal to the Fate-born leader he’d forced into resignation. The man appeared to have no concept of the fact that he was inferior to Chander in both magical strength and, it seemed, intelligence. Who would resurrect a race of soldiers that couldn’t fight? It didn’t take a genius to figure out your spell should include methods of warfare. Sentinels and fallen knights were given many different abilities that both enriched with training. Drystan returned with the Grand Warlock and Duke D’Vairedraconis in tow. They were introduced to Grymington and the last thing Alaric wondered before they headed toward Sigimund’s property was what the Skeleton Seven would think of their new housemate.

  Chapter 39

  The house Sigimund had resurrected Grymington in was empty. It didn’t have a single stick of furniture on any of the three floors. Chander stalked around the grounds with his Daemon Lords on his heels. The property was now crawling with sentinels and fallen knights. Each of them was desperate to find some trail to lead them to where the warlocks were that Grymington spoke of. There was no real question of whether the reaper was lying; he was a resurrected soldier and had chosen to seek out the leaders of the fallen knights and the sentinels who were fully capable of detecting deceit.

  Besides, Chander shouldn’t have been surprised to learn Sigimund would do something as reckless and stupid as bringing back the Mallent family.

  “How pissed are you?” Baxter asked.

  “It’s pure strength of will holding back my demon from finding Sigimund and at the very least dick punching him before I hand him over to Drystan and Conley,” Chander replied.

  Dra’Kaedan walked over to where Chander was prowling around, mostly trying to stay out of the way. His dragon mate was holding his hand. “Hey,” the warlock said.

  “Who is the third Mallent?” Chander asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Dra’Kaedan responded. “Latarian said she was named for Carvallius’s father. I don’t know his name though. If I remember correctly, he died when Carvallius was a young man.”

  “Any clue how?”

  “Not a one but if Carvallius was around, I wouldn’t put it past him to have been involved. He was suspected of killing Latarian’s parents though no one could prove it,” Dra’Kaedan explained. “We have to find these fuckers if it’s them. No magic doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.”

  “Exactly what I said,” Chander replied. “It’s interesting though. Most necromancers that summon people from the dead with their memories intact do it to ask questions or gain knowledge.”

  “How often does that happen?”

  “It’s a customary practice. We use a temporary spell to resurrect them for a brief time only. It’s pretty much a crapshoot though. Either the person is pissed they were resurrected at all or they’re pissed that it’s only going to last for a little while. You rarely get the answers you seek. I haven’t done it since I was a kid.”

  “There’s a chance Sigimund may have used a temporary spell?”

  “I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up because it would be just like Sigimund to bypass that little part of the tradition,” Chander responded. “And he pulled three from the dead from the same family. Very unusual. I didn’t even know he knew the Mallents, but Carvallius would
have been a contemporary and we know that man got around.”

  “Sigimund is older than Carvallius. Perhaps he knew his father as well.”

  “Why the fuck would anyone summon Latarian?” Duke Brogan D’Vairedraconis asked. “She was a lazy sorcerer with ridiculous plans that never amounted to shit.”

  “Carvallius supposedly loved her,” Dra’Kaedan told Brogan. “Maybe he insisted on having his granddaughter.”

  “Sigimund resurrected Grymington about three days ago, so his power is probably still not at full strength. I think this might not be his plan alone. How did he get this house cleansed to the point none of these powerful fallen knights and sentinels can track a damn thing?” Chander asked.

  “I don’t know,” the warlock replied. “This is seriously fucked up.”

  “I hate this,” Brogan complained.

  “Grymington is all kinds of cute,” Dra’Kaedan remarked.

  Chander nodded. “His face is angelic. It’s classic misdirection. All you see is this adorable man of small stature. I assume it’s to give you a sense that he’s no threat. Then he morphs into a giant skeleton who was supposed to have a scythe. It’s like a shitty parlor trick. I think Sigimund is losing his fucking mind.”

  “Here he comes with Alaric,” Benton said. Chander turned to see his fine-looking man stalking toward them alongside Grymington.

  When they got close, Alaric lifted Chander’s chin with his finger and brushed their lips together. After the kiss, Chander’s hand was snug inside of Alaric’s. He looked over at Grymington and saw a puzzled expression on his pretty face.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked the reaper.

  “I’m curious as to why you would press your mouths together.”

  “It’s called a kiss. We’re mates,” Alaric replied.

  “I’ve heard that word several times, but I have no idea of the meaning,” Grymington answered.

  “Fate gives all shifters and magickind a gift,” Dra’Kaedan explained while looking up at his dragon shifter. “That gift is a person who is the other half of your soul. Your perfect compliment. If you work hard and treat that person well, you’ll fall in love and share your lives together.”

  “I’m the only reaper. Will I have a mate?”

  “Absolutely,” Baxter replied.

  “It sounds like something good to have,” Grymington said. “Lich Sentinel-mate, you are a hybrid?”

  “Call me Chander, and yes I am.”

  “Are you Chander Daray?”

  “Yes.”

  “Arch Lich Roth doesn’t like you,” Grymington told him. “He uses many coarse words to describe you.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Chander said dryly.

  “What is your other half, Chander?”

  “I’m a type of demon.”

  Grymington’s forehead crinkled. “What type?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t know much about demons. All we know so far is there are at least two different types. We don’t have enough information to classify them yet,” Chander replied.

  “I should like to learn more about these demons.”

  “We’ll teach you all we know,” Alaric stated. Chander knew he was furious. His voice was strained, and he had the sentinel poker face going on.

  “Is it possible for these resurrected warlocks to steal magic from someone else?” Brogan asked. “Carvallius managed to turn Dra’Kaedan into a familiar so Latarian could siphon his power.”

  “They were warlocks then, so they were capable of stealing from another warlock,” Chander responded. “Whole different barrel of fish when you’re resurrected. They’d need some way to convert the power from living to dead. I can’t think of a single way to achieve that. The only way I can even get anywhere close is with pure fantasy. They would need an intermediate and the idea of a succubus or incubus is the kind of thing you read about in a book. They don’t exist.”

  “Chand, that’s what we would have all said about demons a few years ago,” Dra’Kaedan reminded him. “We need to find them before they make fiction real. I don’t want to know what kind of nasty shit that trio is capable of. They may not pick up weapons, but they weren’t good people in life.”

  “We need to look past Sigimund. He has help. Is it the other elders? Where the hell are they?” Chander asked. “They didn’t protest when the elder council was abolished, and Sigimund was elected without competition. And who the hell is taking care of the necromancers while Sigimund is running around getting into trouble and committing crimes?”

  “I wish I knew,” Dra’Kaedan replied.

  * * *

  It was after dinner before Chander got one fucking minute alone with Alaric. He was determined to have a discussion before their impromptu meeting with the Skeleton Seven—the men had been asked to come to the condo so they could meet Grymington. The two were ensconced in their bedroom and Alaric was changing into his casual uniform. Normally, he did it earlier in the day, but he’d been too busy. After taking a seat on the bed, Chander opened his mouth to speak but Alaric beat him to the punch. “I’m sorry, baby.” Alaric tossed his jacket onto mattress near his mate.

  “What for?”

  “Moving Grymington into the house should have been a private discussion between you and me before I issued an invitation.”

  “It would have been a quick one. I would have asked him if you hadn’t,” Chander said as he watched Alaric remove his collarless dress shirt. He got to admire his sculpted chest for a half second before the man pulled his T-shirt on.

  “Why is the poison he applied to his new daggers yellow instead of green?”

  “It’s likely not as strong. We can ask Vadimas to test it though,” Chander replied.

  “How worried are you about these warlocks running around with Sigimund?”

  “Not as worried as Dra’Kaedan I think. There’s no way to give them power. All they can do is offer advice and help Sigimund construct plans. That’s probably one of the reasons they’re so pissed. In death, they would have still had that magic intact. There are spells that can be cast by spirits but once they were resurrected, that’s it. If this is a temporary resurrection, they’ll return to death without power. I would be ready to rip Sigimund’s heart out if I were them.”

  Alaric sat down to remove his shoes and leaned over to kiss Chander before untying his laces. “They might not even be willing to help him plan shit?”

  “Exactly. He likely resurrected three people who now hate his guts. I’m more concerned about the living people helping him.”

  Alaric’s shoes hit the floor and then he unzipped his slacks. Chander admired the round ass cheeks covered in gray cotton underwear as Alaric tugged off his trousers. “You think the other former elders are helping him with whatever it is that he’s doing?”

  “I think they have to be. I wonder who else.”

  To Chander’s regret, Alaric shoved his legs into his gray uniform pants and yanked them up. “What do you think he intends to do? These reapers aren’t capable of much on their own.”

  “I know, what an idiot. I don’t think he understood that just because you call forth a warrior soul doesn’t mean they know how to fight. He’s not as intelligent as I thought. I mean, without memory means just that. Grymington was a clean slate.”

  “How am I supposed to teach an eight-foot-tall skeleton how to fight?”

  “Babe, I have no clue. Did you see the faces of the Skeleton Seven when they saw both of Grymington’s forms?”

  Alaric grinned for the first time in hours. “I think it gave them renewed hope they would have bodies again.”

  “That’s about the only good thing to come out of today besides Grymington himself.”

  “I spoke with him privately earlier. He’s putting up a good show. He despises Sigimund.”

  Chander’s eyebrows went up. “What did he say about him?”

  “Sigimund didn’t bother feeding him. Told him he was dead and couldn’t die so there was no point in giving him foo
d. He made it clear he respected the resurrected warlocks but that people like sentinels, fallen knights, and reapers are mindless soldiers who should serve their betters without question.”

  He couldn’t have helped his eye-roll. “He really is an asshole. Grymington said he was resurrected as a leader though, right?”

  “He’s marked with a scythe.” One side of Alaric’s mouth lifted in a smile. “Dead center in the middle of his chest.”

  “Now why does that sound familiar?”

  Alaric poked him lightly right over the skull that rested between his pectorals. “Oh, I don’t know. Fate seems to like that spot in identifying her leaders.”

  “And what do we do about this? Grymington is a leader. His race isn’t recognized.”

  “At some point, we’ll ask the Council to recognize it,” Alaric said. “He’s resurrected and he’s a reaper. We’ll call him the Lich Reaper.”

  “I like that. As long as Sigimund is involved, I hope he’s the leader of a race of one.”

  “Me too, not that I would say that to Grymington.”

  “The Council isn’t going to want to give him full voting rights.”

  “If it’s all right with Grymington, we can add him to the leadership of the sentinels with his race recognized but voting would be through me.”

  “How do you think the Skeleton Seven will feel about it?”

  Alaric shrugged. “We’ll have to talk about it and see. I can’t imagine they’ll oppose it. They showed no inclination to snub Grymington in any way.”

  “I thought Victor was going to start shitting rainbows or something.”

  “He was quite taken with Grymington.”

  “What you sentinels don’t realize is the Lich Reaper is all kinds of crazy cute. He’s going to get a lot of reaction wherever he goes. I think that’s the point. Sigimund was obviously thinking he’d gain people’s trust and make them relax in his presence. Kind of the opposite of the super scary elite assassin sentinel reputation.”

  Alaric gave him a disgusted glance. “It’s a stupid tactic to think you can fool people by presenting someone who is, as you said, crazy cute. Sentinels wouldn’t see that. He appears to be a small blond man with yellow eyes.”