Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion-Chapter 82: Lost Promise

The night before the Council trial, under a bloodless, frozen moon, Ian was summoned.

The summons bore no seal, no signature.

Only a small strip of black parchment, pressed into his hand by an unseen messenger as he patrolled the silent corridors of House Elarin’s estate.

"Come to the Crooked Spire before the third bell. Come alone."

Most men would have dismissed it as a trap.

Ian was not most men.

Without word or hesitation, he cloaked himself in shadow and slipped into the dark.

---

The Crooked Spire stood on the western cliffs of Esgard, a broken, forgotten tower leaning like a drunkard toward the river.

Once a lighthouse, now a ruin.

Its stones were blackened by storms, its halls hollowed by the howling winds.

Ian climbed the crumbling stairs, senses sharp, every nerve taut.

She was waiting at the highest landing.

Mistress Thalia Virex — the Ninth Chair of the Council of Esgard.

Spymistress.

Keeper of Secrets.

She stood with her back to him, her cloak like a shroud, her hair bound in a simple silver knot.

No guards.

No wards.

Only the deadly, coiled stillness of a woman who trusted no protection but her own.

"You came," she said without turning.

"I did," Ian replied, voice like gravel dragged across iron.

A faint smile flickered across her lips.

Thin. Unreadable.

For a moment, there was only the sound of the water crashing far below.

Then she spoke, softly, as if telling a story to ghosts.

"Velrosa saved my life once," Thalia said. "When all reason told her to run and save herself."

Ian remained silent.

He knew better than to interrupt a woman who dealt in truths too dangerous to speak aloud.

"It was years ago," Thalia continued, voice distant. "I was not what you see now. I was... a lesser woman, a pawn. Working under the former Ninth Chair — a cruel man who believed loyalty was bought in blood."

Her hands — scarred, strong — tightened behind her back.

"I uncovered something," she said. "A conspiracy that would have torn the Council apart. I was foolish enough to think I could expose it."

A hollow laugh.

"They sent hunters after me. Not thugs. Not assassins. True hunters. The kind that burn your name from memory and salt the earth where you stood."

The moonlight glinted off the cliff, painting her in shifting silver and shadow.

"I fled," Thalia said. "I fled to the lower city. To the gutters. I thought I would die there. Forgotten."

She turned then, her gaze falling upon Ian with the force of a blade drawn halfway from the sheath.

"But Velrosa found me."

Ian’s brow furrowed slightly.

Thalia’s lips pressed into a thin, trembling line.

"She should have walked away. She was already being watched. She was already seen as a liability to the imperial family and an enemy of many."

Her voice broke, just once.

"But she stayed. She fought through them — those who came to silence me. She dragged me out of death itself."

Ian said nothing.

No words would have honored the raw truth laid between them.

"I owe her everything," Thalia said. "My seat. My life. My soul."

Silence deepened.

The waves below roared louder, as if the sea itself raged against what was to come.

Thalia’s eyes — sharp and cold as winter — pinned Ian in place.

"You need to understand something," she said. "Tomorrow, Velrosa will face the Council alone."

Ian nodded once. He had known it before this night.

"She may be clever enough to sidestep the charges," Thalia said, voice like a scalpel. "Even the charges of illegal betting. She may survive the accusations of corruption. Assassination. Manipulation."

Her hands trembled, just slightly, before she stilled them.

"But she cannot survive the accusation of collusion with a demon."

Ian’s jaw tightened.

"She won’t deny you," Thalia said quietly. "She’s too proud. Too loyal. She will refuse to cast you aside to save herself. Even if it means her death."

The words hit him like hammer blows.

"She will stand there," Thalia said, "and when the Council demands her to renounce you — to call you monster, demon, exile — she will refuse."

The image struck Ian deeper than he could have anticipated.

Velrosa, battered by politics, betrayed by nobles, still standing — and falling — for him.

"And when she refuses," Thalia whispered, "they will strip her titles. They will break her house. They will destroy her."

The weight of it settled into Ian’s chest.

Thalia stepped closer, so near that he could see the old scars on her throat — faint pale lines where blades had once kissed her flesh.

"If you care about her survival," she said, "even the slightest... there is only one way to save her." fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

Ian’s voice, when it came, was little more than a growl.

"What way?"

Thalia smiled then — not with kindness, but with grim finality.

(...)

"It will damn you," she said. "It may even cost you your life."

She raised her chin.

"But it will save her."

The wind howled around the broken tower, a keening wail that carried the scent of salt and ash and broken promises.

Ian said nothing.

He stood there, motionless, every thought a blade turning inward.

Behind his closed lids, he could see her —

Velrosa, silver hair disheveled, blue eyes bright with fury and defiance, daring the world to break her and knowing it might.

And still standing.

Always standing.

Even when no one else would.

Thalia’s voice came again, softer now.

"You must choose, Ian Night."

The ruined stones shuddered under the weight of the gathering storm.

"You must choose," she said, "whether to forsake yourself and future..."

A pause, long and cold as the void between stars.

"...Or to let her die."

---

He left the Crooked Spire just before dawn.

No one saw him leave.

The tower remained — a leaning, broken relic — the silent witness to a promise heavier than chains.

And far behind him, high on the cliffs, Mistress Thalia Virex watched the Demonblade disappear into the mist.

And for the first time in many years, she whispered a prayer.

Not to the gods.

Not to the saints.

But to the demonblade.

Because she knew —

Tomorrow, the real trial would not be fought in the council hall.

It would be fought in the heart of a man who she believes had nothing left to lose —

except the only thing that she hoped mattered.