The catacombs beneath the Astral Spire were not made for the living. Lucien Embervale descended slowly, his steps echoing against the obsidian stairs slick with condensation and the weight of centuries. Runes etched into the walls flickered as he passed, casting pale light in hues of bone-white and shadow-purple. It was a place steeped in old, forbidden magic—magic not even the Council of Nine had dared to touch in their prime. But Lucien was no longer bound by their laws. The world was unraveling, and the answers he needed now lay buried with the dead.
He reached the final landing: a circular chamber lit by a ring of soul-flames, flickering orbs of ghostlight that hovered in midair. At its center rested a stone sarcophagus, its surface covered in layered glyphs that shifted subtly, as if resisting translation. The name engraved at the base was barely legible, but Lucien needed no reminder.
"Thalor Graveborn," he whispered.
Archmage Thalor. The Soulbinder. The last necromancer of the High Epoch. Executed during the Necromantic Purge and entombed in this cursed vault so that his soul would never find rest. And yet, Lucien intended to wake him.
He set down his satchel and drew from it a blade of star-iron, a vial of phoenix blood, and a scroll sealed in crimson wax. The Spire, always aware, hummed a low warning through the walls.
This path is dangerous. His soul is unruly.
"I know," Lucien replied, unsealing the scroll and placing it in a triangle around the sarcophagus. "But we can no longer afford restraint."
He began the invocation, chanting in the tongue of the First Magi, the language of law and unmaking. Glyphs burst alight, encircling the stone tomb. As he poured the phoenix blood over the sarcophagus, the glyphs ignited in angry violet. The blade he held cut into his palm, and his blood joined the spell—a personal sacrifice demanded by the ritual.
The chamber darkened. The flames hissed out. A cold wind howled through the sealed tomb, and then, the lid of the sarcophagus began to shift.
From within rose a withered form cloaked in shadowed robes, empty sockets glowing faintly with cerulean hate. Thalor Graveborn had returned.
Lucien stood firm. "I seek your knowledge."
Thalor's voice slithered through the darkness. "And I seek release. Will you trade, fire-child? My wisdom for your soul?"
"You will have neither. I bound you by Name, Graveborn. You will speak as commanded."
The air grew heavier. Thalor's laugh was dry and sharp like bone splintering. "So the Embervale scion has teeth."
What followed was no conversation, but a clash of will. Thalor's essence writhed and lashed out, attempting to seize Lucien's mind with cursed memories, showing him visions of despair and death—a city devoured by whispers, loved ones turning to ash, the cold pull of the grave. Lucien endured. He channeled the Word of Binding, invoking the true name he had extracted from the Spire's ancient lexicon.
Thalor screamed. The chamber trembled.
"Enough," Lucien commanded.
The specter recoiled, snarling. "You dare? Then take it. The Third Law. The truth your kind fears. Death is not silence. It is echo. Reflection. A gate."
Lucien's breath caught. "Explain."
"The soul lingers. All things leave an imprint—a resonance in the Astral Plane. The dead do not rest. They watch. They remember. And sometimes, they answer."
The knowledge poured into Lucien's mind like molten silver. Rituals, rites, echoes of lost voices. Most chilling of all was the Soul Mirror—a forbidden spell that allowed a mage to peer into the veil and commune with shadows of the dead.
Lucien staggered as the revelation took root.
"You risk much," the Spire whispered to him. "The Third Boon may unravel more than it grants."
He ignored the warning. He could feel the power rising within him, ancient and cold. With shaking hands, he completed the ritual. The specter of Thalor gave a final, mocking grin.
"The mirror sees both ways, Embervale. If you look into the dead, they will see you."
With a final word, Lucien banished the revenant. The sarcophagus sealed itself, the soul-flames reigniting slowly. The room was still once more, but not empty. The air now held the scent of grave-dust and a truth that chilled the marrow.
Lucien turned to leave, his robes heavier than before, his steps slower.
Back in his chamber, he traced the glyph for the Soul Mirror across the air, and the fabric of reality shimmered. Ghosts flickered across the veil: a weeping woman in royal robes, a child clutching a broken toy, a soldier who still stood watch centuries after his death.
And then—
A face he had not seen in decades. His brother. Dead in the Embervale purge. Reaching for him. Mouth moving in a silent warning.
Lucien gasped and ended the spell.
The Third Boon had been earned.
But the cost had only begun to reveal itself.