The dead knew him now.
Not in the way they feared the living. Not in the way they clung to memory. The dead recognized Malik Graves because something inside him pulsed at their frequency—like a beacon. Or a drum.
They didn't rise in terror. They rose in recognition.
He had gone back to the cemetery twice since the awakening. Each time, he left offerings—salt, blood, and names. Each time, the earth trembled beneath his touch. Each time, he felt closer.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, the graves whispered before he even arrived.
Naomi walked beside him, her fingers twitching at her side. "You feel that?"
"Yes," he said.
"Something's already waiting."
Anacaona emerged beside them without sound, her spear angled low. "The ground is unsettled."
"Another summon?" Naomi asked.
Malik shook his head. "No. This isn't mine."
They reached the gates.
The wind howled and then stopped—like a breath held too long.
Malik stepped through the threshold—
And the ground exploded.
A corpse—fresh—erupted from the soil, snarling with black fluid pouring from its mouth. Its eyes were gone, replaced by coins that shimmered with sickly green Echo. Chains dragged from its spine, latching into the ground like roots.
Naomi shouted, conjuring fire into her hands.
Malik raised his palm, Echo coiling—
But the corpse didn't attack.
It spoke.
"I… saw… the second… one…"
Then it convulsed.
And tore itself in half.
Naomi backed away, her hands still glowing. "What the hell was that?!"
"Bound soul," Malik said. "But not to me."
"Then to who?"
Anacaona looked to the east.
"To the one who stirs in silence."
They stood in the aftermath, smoke and rot curling into the trees.
Malik crouched by what was left of the body. He didn't flinch from the smell. The black fluid was wrong, and the Echo it gave off made his teeth itch.
He dipped two fingers into it.
The pulse was faint. Twisted. Distorted, like something had pulled too hard on a soul that didn't want to be moved.
"This isn't a resurrection," he muttered.
Anacaona stepped beside him. "No. This is reanimation. Crude. Forced. A violation of will."
"There's another necromancer," Naomi said.
Malik stood. "Or something worse."
Later that night, Malik lit incense in his room. He sat on the floor, drawing sigils with bone ash and salt. He didn't call Obsidian. Didn't summon Anacaona. He needed something else.
He needed silence.
As the last symbol sealed, he closed his eyes.
He didn't meditate. He listened.
There—beneath his heartbeat—was the door again.
Still closed.
But shaking.
He stepped through in his mind.
And this time, the library of bones was different.
Books were missing. Chains lay snapped. Dust hung in the air like old breath.
Something had been here.
And it had taken something with it.
A shape moved in the distance.
Not the mirror.
A figure.
Malik walked toward it, each step echoing louder than the last.
When he reached the corner, he saw it: a man in a long coat, hands clasped behind his back.
The same one from the street.
"You're not part of me," Malik said.
The man turned.
His face was ordinary. Forgettable. But his eyes… weren't.
They shimmered with possibility.
"I'm not your enemy," the man said. "Not yet."
"Who are you?"
"I am a witness."
"To what?"
"To your second."
Malik woke with a gasp.
The incense had burned out. The sigils had faded.
But on his desk, something new had appeared.
A shard of obsidian.
Not his summon.
Just… a piece.
Wrapped in twine.
Naomi stepped in from the hall. "Something happened, didn't it?"
He picked up the shard. "The second one is waking."
Naomi raised an eyebrow. "And that's bad?"
Malik stared at the shard.
"It's only bad if I don't wake them first."
The next day, Malik skipped school.
He followed the whispers.
Not voices. Just tugs in his gut, like gravity had turned on its side. They led him to the edge of the city, where the urban sprawl gave way to old forest and forgotten structures.
Anacaona followed in silence.
"Why here?" she asked.
"This place remembers."
They found it buried in a sinkhole—an altar of cracked stone covered in vines. Runes etched into the base glowed faintly beneath the dirt. Malik stepped into the center and placed the obsidian shard on the slab.
The air rippled.
And something answered.
It didn't rise from the ground.
It descended.
A figure of smoke and rust, armored in bones that didn't match, eyes hollow and dripping with silver light.
Its voice was many voices.
"Why do you call?"
Malik didn't flinch. "Because you were mine."
"And now?"
"I ask you to remember."
Silence.
Then—
"Then prove you have not forgotten me."
The air split.
And Malik fell.
He landed in a ruin.
Dark sky. Shattered towers. Rivers of blood.
A battlefield he'd never seen… but had stood on.
All around him, the dead moved.
Not his.
The second's.
They wore armor made of screaming faces. Their weapons bled memories. They didn't see him.
Until one looked up.
And smiled.
Malik drew Echo into his hands.
His body remembered.
He moved through the field like a storm—dodging, redirecting, slicing with will alone.
The dead fell.
But more rose.
He reached the tower at the center.
At the top, the second summon waited.
A woman this time. Cloaked in feathers. Face hidden.
"You made me wait too long," she said.
"I wasn't ready."
"You never were. But I came anyway."
She held out her hand.
Malik took it.
A flash.
He awoke in the forest.
The altar cracked.
The shard gone.
And beside him…
She stood.
Feathers. Flame. Silence.
"I am Elaris," she said. "And I do not kneel."
Malik smiled.
"You never did."