vaults that looked like petals fanning out. The muddy snow had been replaced with a clean marble floor, and the draugr had become towering, peaked windows with moonlight streaming in.
Marroc crouched before a marble fireplace and traced a fire rune in the air. Flames ignited, casting a warm glow over the place. Rising, he gestured to the hearth. Didn’t have to ask me twice.
As I warmed my hands, I wanted to ask where we were, but I knew he couldn’t answer. Whatever the case, I’d never before been in a place of such opulence. Instead of death, I could smell wood smoke, feel the warmth of fire. Wood chairs with worn embroidery stood before it, but I ignored them, sitting on the hearth to warm my hands and toes.
I stole a glance at Marroc, who stared back at me with an unnerving intensity. Smoky shadows swirled about him like a murmuration of starlings, but I could see his face clearly in here. Shockingly beautiful, he had a sensual mouth, cheekbones sharp enough to cut steel, and eyes the color of pale sapphires. His dark hair draped over his shoulders. Well over six feet tall, he looked like a Greek statue.
He dropped himself into an embroidered armchair before the hearth, looking like he owned the place. And he maybe did. This looked like it could have once been the home of a wealthy human. When he looked at me, the firelight danced in his eyes, and he seemed to soak me in with his gaze.
I still had no idea what he was, or why he was interested in me.
“I’d ask you what the Helheim was going on, but you can’t tell me,” I said.
His lips quirked for a moment, then he lowered himself to the floor by my side. I frowned at a deep gash on his forearm where a draugr had clawed it, and he touched it with his finger.
“You’re hurt.” I felt like an idiot for stating the obvious, except as I looked closer, I saw that it wasn’t blood. Instead of a normal red, it was a dark blue, and it smoked slightly.
He’d found an old, yellowed piece of paper and a pen. I’m fine, he wrote in beautiful, curling script.
“You don’t look fine. You look… What are you?”
I can’t die. Again.
A chill crawled up my spine. “What do you mean?”
I’m a dark sorcerer. A lich.
My heart skipped a beat, and I leapt to my feet.
“Skalei.” The blade was in my hand in an instant, though I clearly couldn’t make him more dead than he already was.
Now I knew why the High Elves were so scared of him, and why they’d imprisoned him.
Truth be told, I’d thought liches were mere legends. I hadn’t known they were possible. But apparently, they were. And this was bad, bad news, because liches were more dangerous than draugr. They started out alive, but transformed themselves into undead beasts using dark magic. They became immortal.
Like in the human stories of vampires, a lich fed from the living. Constantly hungry, they bit into your skin, drinking your soul through your blood. And also like vampires, they were seductive and cunning, with astounding strength and speed.
Except it wasn’t just blood the liches were after. It was souls. Through blood, liches were drawn to life they no longer possessed. To be drained by a lich was to be turned into an empty, walking husk.
“You’re a lich?” I repeated, hoping I’d misheard him somehow.
He nodded, blue eyes still fixed on me. Was it just me, or did he have a faint smile on his face, like he found my horror fucking funny?
I pointed the knife at him. “So, you feed on the souls of the living. You want to bite into my neck or some weird shit and drink my soul. Right?”
Marroc merely shrugged, like my words were immaterial. But then his gaze drifted down from my face to my severed finger, and something like anger flashed in his eyes.
“I’m not done with my questions,” I said. “I thought liches were driven by an insatiable lust to kill and consume.”
He picked up his pen. That was not a question.
“Are you going to eat my soul?” I snapped. “Obviously, that’s my concern. That’s my fucking question.”
I’m not hungry. I feel nothing. Then, after a considered pause, he wrote, Usually.
“Great. Okay.” I lowered my knife. “That’s not a ringing endorsement of yourself.”
He almost looked perplexed as he wrote, I won’t hurt you.
So far, he didn’t seem as though he