Necromancer's Curse

Chapter Eleven

I woke up, shaken with fear. My breathing was heavy and sweat stuck to the back of my neck as my mind slowly grasped back onto reality. I could barely understand that the nightmare had finally subsided but as I looked next to me and saw Lili tied up I was able to anchor myself back to reality. I stood up from where I was lying and walked up the stairs leading to the ground floor.

None of the steps were lit by any sort of light and the first room of the building didn't have much lighting either, as the sun was just starting to rise. For the first time since we've started living in this town, Aristide wasn't sitting in this particular room in the house. It was still early so I had no doubts that my master had gotten up and left after he realised I wouldn't be returning; so he could get some sleep himself. Just because he could tolerate sleep deprivation more than I could didn't mean that he didn't need to sleep at all.

I walked outside and sat on the grass in front of our home to watch the sunrise. While sitting alone, a feeling rang inside of me that made me uncomfortable. I felt anxiety creeping up on me and I knew that tomorrow the feeling would be even worse. My mind was now in a state where I couldn't be comfortable regardless of what I thought of.

After awhile of sitting and watching the sunrise, workers began going around town putting out the fires that were lit the night before. Some of the poor men looked as if they had caught some sort of terminal illness as their skin was turning shades of grey and they moved weaker than the others. My mind wandered on the bland job of being someone who lights and puts out lanterns every night and morning, but soon my mind was able to connect that to another upsetting subject. As the morning pressed forward I slowly curled into a small ball and hugged my knees, refusing to do anything.

"What are you doing up already?" Aristide asked me from behind. I didn't realise that I hadn't closed the door behind me when I left the house to watch the sunrise.

"Sitting alone," I said, melancholy. "You fell asleep?"

"I hadn't slept for a few weeks now, so yes," Aristide answered. "You're leaving your prisoner down in the basement?"

"It's not as if I can trust her to be anywhere else," I admitted with a sigh. "Humans are too creative for their own good. She trusts me rather than fears me, so if I were to let her go, it wouldn't take her too long without me to start thinking of ways to escape."

"You thought it through?" Aristide asked, mildly impressed.

"I've been out here for a few hours and I've constantly been drifting over several ideas concerning the end of my training and how being with Lili will work out," I vented. "So yes, I thought about how I should be treating the girl."

"I suppose that's good," Aristide said after a long pause. He wasn't sure how to treat me and I could tell that there was a hint of worry in his voice.

"You've been reading your grimoire lately?" I brought up the topic.

"What?" Aristide shot back quickly. He sounded offended that I would bring up such a topic, as well as worried that I may have noticed a flaw in him.

"I noticed you reading it a few days ago," I responded with a tone of fabricated innocence. "I never thought you'd have to refresh your memory on the spells you're teaching me. I would have assumed that by now we'd be learning things you use so commonly that you wouldn't have to worry about teaching it to me incorrectly."

"Sometimes I'm glad that you're an idiot," Aristide said, putting some of his worry to rest, though I could still hear doubt in his voice.

I wanted to say something to him after his comment but I decided it would be for the best if I stayed quiet. I never looked back to see if Aristide was back with me, but after a long enough period of silence I thought it was safe to assume that he went back inside. I still stayed in front of our home, watching as people began their day and slowly resumed their day to day lives.