Deus Necros

A few hours later, Celest woke up.

For the first time in years, waking did not feel like climbing out of a grave.

There was no crushing weight on her chest. No fog clinging to her thoughts. No endless pull dragging her back down before her eyes could focus. Her body felt weak, yes, and her limbs trembled when she tried to move them, but it was the weakness of someone who had slept too long and not the hollow exhaustion of a curse eating through the shape of her days.

She blinked slowly at the ceiling.

The room was not hers.

That was the first thing she noticed.

The scent was different. Clean, but too clean. Priestly oils lingered in the curtains, mixed with smoke, ash, and some sharp bitter trace beneath the perfume of fresh flowers. The bed was familiar in shape, but the chamber had been changed. The curtains were new. The rug was gone. Several pieces of furniture had been removed. The walls had faint discolorations near the corners, as if something had been scrubbed too hard and still refused to be fully forgotten.

Celest pushed herself up carefully.

A maid seated nearby startled so hard she almost dropped the cup in her hands.

"Your Highness!"

Celest winced at the volume. "Please. Not so loud."

The maid covered her mouth, tears gathering instantly. "Forgive me. I shall call His Majesty."

"No," Celest said, then paused because that single word had come out stronger than expected. She looked down at her hands. They were still thin, but not trembling with that old, endless sickness. "No. Help me stand first."

The maid looked horrified. "Your Highness, you should not move."

"I have spent years not moving."

That settled it.

The maid helped her.

Celest’s legs nearly failed at first. She gripped the bedpost, breathed through the sudden rush of weakness, and waited until the room stopped tilting. Her body was not healed fully, but it was hers again. That difference mattered enough to make her smile despite the strain.

A robe was brought. Her hair was arranged as quickly as the maid could manage, though Celest grew impatient halfway through and waved her away. She did not want to look perfect. She wanted to walk. She wanted to see a hallway without being carried. She wanted proof that the world had not become a painting she was only allowed to watch through fevered dreams.

By the time the palace staff realized she was awake, Celest was already moving.

Slowly.

Carefully.

But moving.

She followed the nearest voices after asking where her father was. The answer led her toward one of the Emperor’s private studies, a room she knew from childhood more than recent years. The door was not fully closed, and the voices inside carried through the gap.

Her father’s voice came first, low and controlled.

Then another voice, young, dry, and insolent in a way very few people would dare use near the Emperor.

Ludwig.

She remembered him.

He owed her a story after all. A smile crept up on her face as she was glad that he made it out of that Tower.

The man who had appeared at court surrounded by rumors of death, dark magic, impossible battles, and an even more impossible talent for irritating powerful people while somehow being useful enough not to be immediately executed.

Another voice followed, colder and older despite sounding young.

Kaiser.

Celest paused outside the door.

Then Van Dijk spoke, and his tone sounded completely dissatisfied with existence.

"That is not regulation, that is cowardice written in legal ink."

Celest pushed the door open.

Inside, the Emperor stood behind his study desk, one hand resting on a stack of reports. Ludwig sat in a chair that looked too expensive for how carelessly he occupied it. Kaiser stood near a side table examining an ornamental quill with the expression of someone deciding whether it deserved to remain in the possession of the emperor. Van Dijk stood by the window, all black attire and irritation, looking like a shadow that had been forced to attend a meeting it considered beneath him.

All four turned toward her.

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Then the Emperor stood so quickly his chair scraped back against the floor.

"Celest..."

He crossed the room in a few strides.

Celest smiled faintly, suddenly embarrassed by the attention. "I did not know you had guests. I’ll come back later."

"No," the Emperor said.

The word was gentle, but absolute.

He stopped in front of her, and for a moment, the ruler of Lufondal was nowhere to be found. There was only her father, looking at her as if she had returned from a distance he had not known how to measure.

"You need to be here," he said.

Celest looked past him toward the others. Ludwig gave a small wave. Van Dijk inclined his head. Kaiser looked at her, then at the Emperor, then away, which was somehow more worrying than if he had smiled.

"What happened?" she asked.

The Emperor guided her to a chair himself.

She noticed that.

He never did things others could do for him unless feeling outweighed rank. That made her sit quietly.

"You were cursed," he said. "A Black Dragon’s Curse. It was the cause of your hypersomnia and the decline of your body."

Celest absorbed the words slowly.

"It has been lifted," the Emperor continued. "But not through holy magic. Not through medicine. Not through alchemy."

Celest’s eyes moved toward Kaiser.

The Emperor followed her gaze, then said, "Dark magic was used."

She did not answer immediately.

Her father continued before silence could grow teeth. He explained carefully. Too carefully. He told her that the curse had required a method the Empire normally outlawed. He told her that Ludwig had brought the means to identify the proper method. He told her Kaiser had performed the ritual and that the procedure had cost some of her lifespan, though that loss would be alleviated through elven water gifted for her recovery.

He omitted everything else.

Celest was not foolish. She heard the empty spaces in the explanation. She saw the way Ludwig looked aside once. The way Van Dijk’s face remained stern but not ignorant. Whatever had happened, her father had decided she did not need the shape of it in her mind.

That alone was enough to frighten her.

Still, one fact remained sharper than all others.

"The Empire banned dark magic," Celest said.

"Yes."

"And yet it was allowed when it was needed to treat me."

The Emperor did not look away. "Yes."

"That is hypocritical."

"It is," he said.

The answer made her fingers tighten on the armrest.

The Emperor stood before her, shoulders straight, face grave. "I know it is hypocritical. But I had to do it."

There was no excuse hidden inside the words.

Only a father admitting the truth plainly because his daughter deserved at least that much.

Van Dijk spoke next, voice quiet but edged. "And this is the only reason I defend certain uses of dark magic. Not all of it. Some of it."

Celest turned toward him.

Van Dijk’s dissatisfaction deepened, though it did not seem directed at her. "Dark magic is not innocent. Anyone pretending otherwise is either a fool or a recruiter for disaster. But banning the entire discipline because parts of it are grotesque is how nations remain ignorant until ignorance kills them."

Kaiser lifted the ornamental quill. "This is ugly."

"Kaiser," Ludwig said.

"What? We are discussing ugly things. The quill counts."

Van Dijk’s eye twitched.

Ludwig leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "We can limit it. Supervise it. Study minor dark magic under strict oversight. The reports from Solania already prove how important it was in neutralizing enemies normal methods couldn’t handle. Against Sloth, against the army from the north, against problems that holy magic and common spells couldn’t touch, dark magic was the difference between delay and collapse."

The Emperor returned slowly to his desk, though he did not sit. "You would have the Empire sanction dark magic study."

"Minor study," Ludwig said. "Controlled study. No child sacrifices. No longevity liver nonsense. No soul mutilation for curiosity. Practical countermeasures. Containment. Curse theory. Corpse examination. How to detect it, resist it, and, when needed, use it without becoming a monster."

Kaiser looked at him. "That was almost a mature proposal. But dark magic has an incredible drawback..."

The emperor waited for Kaiser to speak.

Kaiser looked at Van Dijk and then at the emperor and said, "Unless you have a monster like willpower, that magic will lead you down a grotesque path to seek power. Easy to obtain power is incredibly irresistible."

Van Dijk crossed his arms. "The Black Tower Academy can oversee the research."

The Emperor looked toward him.

Van Dijk continued, "We already possess the framework, the containment chambers, and the personnel least likely to faint at the sight of an unpleasant sigil. It would require imperial permission, priestly observation if you insist on making everyone miserable, and clear limits. But it can be done."

The Emperor was silent for a while.

Then he said, "I need the approval of the noble court."

Van Dijk’s expression darkened with open contempt. "They are mostly pompous snobs who will definitely go against it without being able to present a solution to the matter at hand."

The Emperor’s eyes shifted to him. "I can handle the nobles. It is easy to execute anyone who dares oppose the use of minor dark magic without providing a valid alternative to the problem."

Celest stared at him.

Ludwig blinked once. "That is one way to handle debate."

"It is an efficient way," Kaiser said.

The Emperor continued as if uninterrupted. "The issue is evidence. They can easily avoid the heat by claiming they simply do not have samples to test on, or that the dangers remain theoretical without proper subjects."

"That is not an issue," Van Dijk said.

Everyone looked at him.

His smile was small.

"My Black Swamp can store corpses. I can provide as many as they like to test on."

The room became very quiet.

Van Dijk’s smile did not grow, but somehow became worse. "And if they fail to produce results then..."

He did not finish.

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