Chapter 56: Resurrection

Yari smeared her blood across the bottom of the contract.

A brilliant blue glow illuminated the room as the parchment curled up on it’s own and returned to Solomon.

The terms were relatively simple, and there were less of them than Yari had expected.

Yari could not tell anyone anything that she knew about Solomon or Raizel unless given permission otherwise.

She could not lie to them.

She was bound to aid in Raizel’s resurrection.

She would not manipulate him.

She would help Solomon whenever he asked as long as it was not something craven. In addition, she would not harm him, anyone close to him, and especially not Bansha. (The pup’s name was the only one explicitly written in the contract. Raizel felt some type of way about that, but did not say anything.)

The final condition was that Yari could not use anything she learned from studying Solomon for anything he dubbed as vile or villainous.

That was the only part of the list Yari seemed to take any real issue with.

But after reminding her of how she had ripped into his life’s memories, she acquiesced, if only out of a need to apologize.

Solomon signed the contract once directed, and the piece of magical parchment fell into his hand, unmoving.

“Satisfied?”

Solomon continued to stare at Yari distrustfully. A look that she couldn’t exactly say she didn’t understand.

“What do you know about resurrection?”

The air tenses again as Yari leans back in her chair.

“Aside from the fact that necromancy isn’t very popular in the eyes of any realm…?”

“You will find that I care very little about being liked.”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware.” Yari sighed.

She glanced across the room at Raizel, then naturally turned toward her arms.

“…You knew about my brands. I assume that it must have been something my niece told you about in your time together?”

Solomon and Raizel developed mirrored looks of incredulity.

“Your… what?”

“I take it she never mentioned me?” Yari’s smile became bitter. It was the first time Solomon could say he saw her display any real emotion. “I suppose that doesn’t bode very well for my own life expectancy then.”

Raizel struggled to wrap his mind around the revelation that had just been dropped in his lap. Solomon had never seen his brother so stiff.

“Our family were royalty once, did she tell you that? No, what am I saying… she was far too young to remember.” Yari laughed halfheartedly.

“The brands.” Solomon said. “How did you get them?”

Yari smiled.

“Trying to bring my sister back to life.”

Necromancy wasn’t just any small taboo. In Ilim, elves viewed it with a particularly high disgust.

For a species that emphasized a harmony with nature, there could be no greater affront.

In the aftermath of a brutal coup committed by their brother, Yari’s older sister was killed for her attempts to resist the new regime. But due to her young age at the time, Yari was spared.

A genius witch and scholar known throughout the realm, she devoted all of her studies to the art of necromancy as she pursued a way to return her sister to life.

When it was discovered what Yari was doing, she was promptly stripped of her title and standing, and branded before she was imprisoned.

It was Raidis Zenuxim Volkova who freed her. She knew not what his motivations were, but she knew he had killed many to get to her cell.

They fled on their own in the dead of night after Yari liberated Nila from her crib.

In the aftermath of this event, Ilim became even firmer on their position of ’no outsiders’.

A mystical barrier of unknown origin was erected to keep any would-be travelers out.

“As soon as we left, father brought me here and asked that I continue my research. Together, we’re working on not just holding on to one’s spirit, but how to completely revive a person back from the dead, with their soul un-degraded. We are close, but… not quite there.”

Reviving a person could be complicated.

In the case of Solomon and Raizel, because the former had grabbed hold of the latter’s soul before he ascended, Raizel was still present and retained all of his memories of himself and the world at large.

However, if he were attempting to pull his soul from the great beyond, it required dramatically more power. And that wasn’t even the biggest problem.

Removing a soul from the great beyond is a bit like trying to have a conversation with someone who’s just woken from a deep sleep.

Their memories are hazy. They don’t know where they are or how long they’ve been gone. They only know they aren’t where they are supposed to be.

They become irritable. Angry. Depressed.

Overcoming this hurdle is the life’s work of Yari and Dean Raidis. If anyone knew, they would no doubt be branded as heretics and tried for crimes against nature and humanity.

Raizel tilted his helmet. “How exactly are you ’close’?”

In response, Yari reached into her drawer and removed a satin satchel.

She removed a wooden item from it. The same one Solomon had swallowed on his first day of class.

Raizel had his worst reaction yet.

“..You… You nut..! How could you!?”

“It was not by my design that they came into my possession! Raidis had already stolen many a hundred years before I even met him!”

Solomon swiveled his head back and forth between the two. “What’s going on? What are those things?”

Raizel brought both hands to his head.

“They are seeds of the great tree, the foundation of Ilim society. Elves don’t sexually reproduce as the other races do. They don’t have to.

When a coupling goes to the great tree, they perform a ceremony called a Rite of Binding. These seeds fall from the tree when the ritual is completed and become children with their parents’ essence.”

A burning golden aura surrounded Raizel as he stared down at Yari. “You are a disgrace to your people.”

“It wasn’t my decision to take them, boy!” Yari slammed her hand on her desk. “But they are already here! And I will use what I have to in order to see my sister returned to life! For Nila to see her mother!”

“Excuses! Do you think Nila would be happy to know what was done so that she could see her mother again?! No wonder she never mentioned you! She probably couldn’t bear the shame! And your sister, divines rest her soul, would not be able to either!”

“Enough…” Solomon held up his head to stop the massive migraine that was threatening to open his brain.

“If these help you with resurrection… then why would you have your students eat them?”

Yari swallowed the fire in her belly as she sat back in her chair. “…Again, it was not my idea. Raidis had been doing his own testing with the seeds without my knowledge… He developed a method to give mages what he calls pseudo-elven hearts.

They double the quantity and quality of magical power that humans possess. Upon graduation, Raidis delivers these stand-out once-in-a-generation talents to the houses that choose them.

It further heightens the reputation of the academy. And it makes him appear as a miracle worker who is capable of consistently breeding not only elite knights, but mages as well.”

Solomon looked like he was going to be sick. Raizel bordered on outrage.

He stomped over to his brother and placed his hand on his shoulder firmly.

“Brother… I am touched by your care for me. Truly. But I cannot condone this act against nature. I will not have my existence tainted. Please, leave me as I am.” Raizel pleads with a desperation in his voice that is hard to ignore.

Solomon could not refuse his brother. No matter how badly he wanted to see him returned to life.

He glanced at Yari and found her avoiding his gaze.

It surprised him to know just how little his opinion of her had changed.

Because as someone who had also lost people he cared immensely for… he probably would have done the exact same thing were he in her shoes.

But telling that to Raizel would have only upset him. So instead, he turned on his heels to leave.

“Wait…”

Yari stood up from her desk and walked over to Solomon.

She takes his hand and presses a scrap of paper into his palm.

Their eyes meet. Her irises are like pools of honey brimming with desperation.

“I make no defense on the things that I have done… but I am not a monster, Solomon A’Kenai. I do hope you come to see that.”

“Please..” Raizel scoffs.

The knight stomps past her and leaves the two of them in the room alone.

Yari releases Solomon’s hand and goes back to her desk, returning to her normal appearance and size along the way.

He watched her walk away from him for a moment, with a complicated light in his eye.

Finally, he stuffs the scrap of paper in his pocket and exits her class, not even bothering to read it.

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