I had idea for young Emmrich and older Siggin. Because I can.
A short story below the cut ❤️
The corridor beneath the Necropolis was, according to Emmrich Volkarin, perfectly secure but this assessment lasted only until the floor collapsed. There were places that shifted or disappeared, knowing all halls was near impossible.
Rook caught the edge with one hand.. And Emmrich caught Rook.
For several strained seconds, they hung above a dark shaft filled with broken masonry, ancient bones, and a faint green mist that suggested the inhabitants below had not entirely accepted their deaths. Very unprofessional
“Do not move! ” Emmrich hissed trying to be as calm as possible.
His voice was admirably steady. His face was not. Rook looked down between his boots. Something far below clicked its teeth at him.
“Well... ” he said brightly, “this is exciting!”
Emmrich’s fingers tightened around his wrist.
“This is not exciting. This is structurally irresponsible.”
“There you are. Always finding the romance in things.”
“There is no romance in plummeting into an ossuary!”
“I can think of worse final sights, young Watcher.”
Rook glanced up with a grin. Emmrich lay flat against the remaining tiles, one arm stretched over the broken edge. His dark robes were already covered in dust, and a strand of carefully arranged hair had fallen across his forehead. At twenty-four, he possessed the composed manners of a man three times his age and the wide, alarmed eyes of someone who had just remembered exactly how many bones there were in the human body. And how each of them break.
A flush climbed Emmrich’s throat.
“Rook.”
“Yeeeees?”
“This is not the good occasion.”
“Death waits for no occasion either.”
“Neither, apparently, does your... flirting.”
The stone beneath Emmrich’s elbow cracked. His expression changed at once. Rook felt it through the hand gripping him- the tremor, sudden and small. Something buried beneath impeccable posture, elegant speech, and the careful rituals of the Mourn Watch.
Fear.
Rook’s smile softened. He shouldn't tease him anymor.
“All right, all right...” he said. “Pull on three.”
“I have been attempting to pull you up this entire time.”
“Yes, but now we shall him a do it more... dramatically.”
“Why?”
“Because it improves morale.”
“It does not improve mine.”
“One.”
“Rook... ”
“Two.”
“I truly cannot stand you.”
“Three.”
Emmrich pulled. Rook kicked against the crumbling wall, found the edge of a carved skull, and hauled himself up. They rolled together across the floor in an undignified tangle of limbs, leather belts, dark robes, and one startled Rivaini curse.
Rook landed on his back. Emmrich landed half across his chest. For one suspended moment, neither moved. Dust drifted through the green witchlight.
Emmrich’s hand rested against Rook’s shoulder. His breathing was far too quick, despite his determined effort to conceal it. Up close, he looked even younger. Smooth-faced, fine-boned, his expression caught somewhere between outrage and relief.
Rook lifted one eyebrow.
“Now..” he murmured, “this part is romantic.”
Emmrich scrambled away so quickly that he nearly slid back into the hole. Rook caught the hem of his robe.
“Careful. You'll fall into a pit. ”
“That was not.. ” Emmrich stopped, pressed his lips together, and brushed the dust from his sleeves with sharp, offended motions. “You are incorrigible.”
“So I have been told.”
“That... does not surprise me.”
Rook sat up, flexing his scraped hand. The joint at his knee complained. Fifty-three years of traps, ruins, duels, shipwrecks, bad beds, worse decisions, and an unreasonable number of falls had left their signatures. Still he was alive at that age and that meant he was good. Wrinkles meant nothing.
Good, but not invincible. Emmrich noticed the blood first.
“You are injured!”
“Barely.”
“Your palm is bleeding.”
“It has done that before.” Rook said nodding with very serious expression.
Emmrich knelt in front of him and reached for his hand. Rook let him take it.
The young necromancer’s touch was careful. He frowned over the shallow cut as though Rook had presented him with a priceless manuscript damaged by rain. He whispered healing spell, green light reflecting in Rooks eyes was...
Beautiful.
“We should return to the upper galleries,” Emmrich said. “This passage is unstable.”
“Mm.”
“A-and the Veil disturbance is stronger than anticipated.”
“Mm-hm.”
“You are not listening.”
“I am. You have lovely hands.”
Emmrich’s fingers froze around his. Rook watched another flush rise across his cheeks. He shouldn't... Act like that at this age!
“Do you flirt with everyone who provides basic first aid?” Emmrich asked.
Emmrich released him and stood.
“Only the pretty ones.”
“We are leaving.”
Rook rose more slowly, dusted off his coat, and followed. The remaining corridor narrowed between walls lined with the resting dead. Skulls watched them from carved alcoves. Candle flames burned blue inside iron cages, though no living hand had tended them in Art last few years.
Emmrich kept close.
Not close enough to admit he was doing it, but close enough that the sleeve of his robe occasionally brushed Rook’s arm.
Rook smiled to himself.
“You know...” Rook said, “I thought about what you told me yesterday. ”
“That is what concerns me. Which is?”
Emmrich’s shoulders stiffened. Rook stepped over a cracked funerary tablet.
“About death.”
“It does lurk around every corner.”
“I am... aware.”
“Behind every door. Beneath every charmingly unreliable floor.”
“I am intimately familiar with the concept.”
“Ah yes, but you hate it.”
Emmrich stopped walking. The blue candles trembled.
“I do not hate death.” he said. The reply came too quickly, polished by repetition. “I am an initiate necromancer of the Mourn Watch. Death is the foundation of my studies.”
“You fear it.”
Emmrich’s chin lifted.
“Most sensible people do.”
“... Sure.”
Rook continued ahead, running his fingers along the edge of a stone coffin. Its lid bore the weathered image of a knight with flowers clasped to her breast. Each flower head was a tiny skull
“There is no shame in it, Emmy. ” Rook said and Emmrich winced internally. He didn't care for this pet name. Still when Rook said it.. It was different. A bit. “Fear keeps the feet quick.”
“Your feet nearly carried you into a pit.”
“And then fear helped me climb out.”
“That was actually me.”
“You helped a bit.”
Rook glanced over his shoulder.
“I prevented your death! ”
“You're my hero then. Sooo... thank you.”
Emmrich gave him a severe look. Not sure if it was genuine or teasing. Why talking to him was more difficult than any other person during study session, work or even a student party?
Rook laughed. The sound travelled through the tomb, warm and startling among the dead.
“You speak of mortality as though it were a grand adventure, Rook. ” Emmrich said. “As though the inevitability of an ending somehow makes every reckless act worthwhile.”
“Not every reckless act.”
“You deliberately drank from a chalice found inside a sealed Rivaini ruin.”
“It smelled like plum brandy.”
“It contained an awakened despair spirit.”
“Yes. Not worthwhile.”
“You tried to steal a sapphire from a dragon’s hoard while the dragon was awake.,”
“It was an excellent sapphire.”
“The dragonling set your coat on fire.”
“Fortunately it was not an excellent coat.”
Emmrich exhaled through his nose. Rook saw the exact instant he lost the battle against a smile. There it was- small, reluctant, transforming his solemn young face.
Rook slowed.
Emmrich noticed him staring and immediately composed himself.
“You were saying?”
“I forgot.” Rook pouted. He shouldn't look so... Boyish at this age!
“Convenient.”
“No, genuinely. That smile struck me directly in the head.”
“You survived a collapsing floor only to be defeated by a.. smile?”
“I always suspected it would end this way.”
The smile vanished, but not because of embarrassment this time. Emmrich looked away.
“Do not say that.”
They had reached a small burial chamber. Pale roots had broken through the ceiling, twisting around old stone. Somewhere above them, water dripped in a slow, steady rhythm.
Rook leaned against a pillar.
“Say what?”
“That it will end.”
“Everything does.”
“I know. It... scares me. ”
The words were quiet. Far quieter than the young man usually allowed himself to be. Emmrich folded his hands in front of him. His posture was immaculate, but Rook could see the tension in it now- the rigidity of someone holding himself together through force of etiquette.
“When I was a child...” Emmrich said, “I lost my parents. Saw their death.”
Rook did not interrupt.
“There was no light. I remember thinking that... the world would continue without me because it continued without them. That I would simply…” His throat moved. “Cease.”
The last word nearly failed him. Rook’s expression softened.
“That is a cruel thing for a child to learn.”
“It is a true thing.”
“No.” Rook pushed away from the pillar. “It is one truth. Not the whole of it.”
Emmrich looked at him. Rook stepped closer, though not so close that the young man would feel cornered.
Emmrich blinked.
“I have spent most of my life in places that wanted me dead.” he said. “Ruins. ships. forests. noble estates, which are much worse than forests. I have had blades at my throat and poison in my cup. I once woke with a giant centipede inside my trousers.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A story for another evening.”
“There will be no other evening if the centipede was venomous.”
“My point is, death has been following me for years. I know it is there.” He glanced toward the shadowed corridor behind them. “I can hear its boots.”
“And that comforts you?”
“No. But it reminds me to listen for everything else.”
Emmrich’s brow furrowed.
“The sea, for example. ” Rook said. “Music through an open window. Someone laughing in the next room. The first drink after a long voyage. The warmth of a body beside yours when morning comes.” His eyes settled on Emmrich’s. “A beautiful young necromancer trying not to smile at my jokes.”
Emmrich’s cheeks coloured again, but he did not look away.
“Life is exciting because death lurks at every corner. ” Rook said. “Not because dying is thrilling. Dying is usually messy, inconvenient, and very bad for one’s schedule. But knowing the road ends…” He shrugged. “That makes the walking matter.”
For a moment, the only sound was dripping water. Then Emmrich said:
“That is a dangerously appealing philosophy.”
“I am a dangerously appealing man. Come now. We are supposed to leave this place. ” Rook grinned, wrinkles at his eyes deepening a bit.
“We were already doing so.”
“Yes, but this is more... deliberate. The together part.”
Emmrich looked from Rook’s hands to his face.
“You are almost thirty years older than I am... ” Emmrich started carefully.
“Mm. Terribly experienced.”
“No! You are... As I said... reckless.”
“Frequently.”
Rook tilted his head and extended his hand.
“For some reason you appear to regard mortal peril as a form of courtship.”
“Is it working?”
Emmrich fought his smile for several valiant seconds. Then he placed his hand in Rook’s.
“Ask me again... ” he said, very properly, “when we are no longer inside a structurally compromised tomb.”
Rook’s fingers curled warmly around his.
Emmrich began walking, drawing Rook with him toward the corridor.
“So there will be another evening.”
“For the.. centipede story.” he murmured.
“Of course.”
“And for no other reason.”
“Naturally. You are smiling, young necromancer!”
Beyo d the burial chamber waited darkness, ancient traps, restless spirits, and the very real possibility that the remaining floor might attempt to kill them. Rook squeezed his hand.
Emmrich glanced at him from the corner of his eye.
