My lover is an undead while I am a necromancer. Though we didn't really use to be like this, you know?
He was once a cavalry commander wearing shiny armor, riding on a horse that looked like it was fed on gold, men who followed his orders without a second thought. Meanwhile, I was just a poor village boy. Dirt under my fingernails from tending vegetables in some corner of the map. A nobody who probably would have lived his whole life quietly and died just as quietly.
But… well. Things happen.
Somehow, we met. Somehow, he looked at me. And somehow, we fell in love.
And then he died.
You cannot imagine the pain I went through. So severe I felt like I would split in two. And in my most despairing moment, I turned to necromancy.
It was ugly work. A bunch of sleepless nights since most of the spells required to be done in absolute darkness. Bloody hands and guilty conscience. Heck! I don't even remember how many times I nearly died from dabbling on things I shouldn't. But it did pay off, though.
Except… not in the way I had hoped.
He became an undead.
He did not bleed, he did not eat, he did not even talk. He just… he was just there.
Still, I told myself there had to be a way. So I kept researching. Days passed quickly until I could not even tell how much time had passed.
And then the temple found out.
They always acted like they held the world together. Priests with their long robes and holier-than-thou voices. The moment they sniffed out that there was a necromancer raising an undead in some remote mountain, they came down on us like the hand of God. And not just us. They ordered our families killed too and anyone who had ever shared a meal with us. Said we had sold our souls to the devil.
My friends turned their backs on me, denied they ever knew us. Understandable but damn that hurts.
In the end, we were burned at the stake together.
It was almost funny. Like we were punished for nothing more than daring to fall in love. And as the flames crawled up my flesh, I screamed. I cursed them all. Told them I would come back, that I would hunt them down one by one until not a single one of them was left.
Coming from a necromancer, of course they were scared silly.
"Idiots," I remember muttering through the pain. "As if necromancy could really do that."
But then… I actually came back to life.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽ ☆ ☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
Gasp.
I shot up, sweating all over and breathing like I had just outrun a pack of wolves. For a second, I thought I was still burning at the stake. I could almost smell the smoke and feel the fire crawling up my skin.
But then I looked around and froze.
This was… my shack?
Same old wooden walls. Same tiny bed. Same table with my tools tossed on it. Everything exactly as I remembered.
I pushed the door open and stepped outside. The air was cool, but the sky was blood red.
There was only one time in my life the sky looked like this and that was ten years ago. The day I found Morris Akote, the former cavalry commander, half-dead and bleeding, and dragged him to my shack.
But that doesn't make sense, right? I died. I clearly remembered being burned at a stake. So how…?
That's when I remembered something else.
Just before I drew my last breath, I heard a voice coming from inside my head (if that even made sense).
"What a pitiful thing you are. Be happy in your next life, okay?"
I don't know who said it or what they wanted.
But somehow, I was back to ten years ago.
The sun was already high in the sky and it felt hotter than usual. Maybe the red was making everything hot? Either way, I didn't have time to think about it. If I remembered correctly, Morris Akote should be at the foot of the mountain around this time. So I ran.
Sure enough, I found him.
He was lying on the ground, bloody all over. An arrow stuck out of his back. There was a nasty gash on his side, and his uniform was torn to shreds. His horse was dead beside him, its body already stiff.
Morris's head hung low, his breaths uneven, his face pale. His hair—red as fire—looked even darker under the glow of the red sky, like it was soaked in fresh blood.
Without a word, I pulled his arm over my shoulder and dragged him to my shack.
Since I already had knowledge from my previous life, his condition didn't complicate further this time. I patched him up faster, stopped the bleeding, cleaned the wounds, and cauterized what needed cauterizing.
Then as I was wrapping a bandage around his torso, I found myself thinking about the future.
In my last life I was blind, just reacting to things as they came. It was too late when I learned that Morris Akote was stripped of his position as a cavalry commander after he was accused of treason. He escaped his prison and made his way here, hence the injuries.
In about three days, the cavalry will come to this very mountain. Heck! Should we move out now?
I tightened the last bandage and sat back, wiping my hands on the hem of my clothes.
Then… I wasn't sure what I was thinking, but I leaned down and pressed my lips to his forehead. Remaining in that position for a few seconds before whispering to him.
"You're not dying on me in this lifetime, Akote."
Seeing no reaction from him, I pulled back before I did something even more pathetic.
I sat on the edge of the bed and dragged a hand through my hair. This time, things will be different.