Raizia loved the smell of a graveyard.

Contrary to popular belief, it didn't smell like death, but of life. It was one of the few patches of green left in the city, and with it came the scents of wet grass and churned dirt and new flowers poking up from the ground. A graveyard brought her solitude and peace in a way that nowhere else in the city could.

Aris, on the other hand, looked incredibly uncomfortable as they trekked through the rows of gravestones in the dark.

Suddenly, he stopped. "Here," he announced.

Raizia paused and looked around. They had stopped in an area of the graveyard where there were no headstones, no mausoleums, no anything. Just a wide swath of grass. It didn't seem like the spot where someone would hide a body.

But then Aris reached into his pocket, large fingers fumbling over the crumpled piece of parchment he withdrew.

Raizia recognized the paper immediately; it was a glamour token.

Aris cleared his throat and read off the page. "As-fick, moro, ashten, leven."

Raizia winced at his awful pronunciation. He's definitely not a magick user, she thought to herself. But with the tokens, you didn't need to be. For a price, a sorcerer would cast a spell of your choosing; the parchment they gave you in exchange was simply a counterspell to undo its effects—although calling it a "counterspell" would be generous, as no real magick was involved.

Still, despite his awful pronunciation, the counterspell worked. The air shimmered—similarly to how it did on a particularly hot day—and a second later, there was now a body lying on the grassy ground.

Despite the number of times Raizia had seen corpses before, there was still a certain shock to it. For the newly deceased, you could almost convince yourself that they were sleeping if it were not for the fact that they were so incredibly still. It made her realize just how much living humans moved.

It was easy to tell that this woman was indeed Aris' mother. They bore an uncanny resemblance to each other, sharing the same tanned skin and curved nose. But her lips were tinged with the blue color of death, and she wore a long white dress—the customary burial gown worn by someone of the Faith.

Aris dropped to his knees, grasping his mother's hand. Raizia meanwhile reached to her belt and pulled a knife out of its sheath. "Are you ready?" she asked him.

Aris looked up at her. His face was pale in the moonlight, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear, guilt, and sadness. But finally, he nodded.

"Five minutes, okay?" Raizia reminded him, taking the glove off her right hand before dragging the edge of the blade across her palm. Her hand stung, although the pain wasn't too sharp; she had built up scars and callouses over the years.

As blood pooled in her palm, she extended her arm over the body. "Ella aer. Ki ten. Mass ah. Oh yoo." Then she tilted her hand, letting the blood fall, the droplets staining the corpse's white gown red.

She then repeated her chant. "Ella aer. Ki ten. Mass ah. Oh yoo. Ella aer. Ki ten. Mass ah. Oh yoo." As she did, she felt her magick swell up inside her chest—an intoxicating rush that felt both like a poison, and also like an old friend. The magick flowed through her veins, out through the cut on her hand, and finally into the body lying on the grass.

And then the corpse opened its eyes.

Aris' jaw widened in shock. "M-mom?" he stuttered. Then, eyes welling with tears, he draped his body over hers, murmuring, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," over and over again.

Raizia heard his words, but they were faint, as if they were separated by a large distance. The majority of her concentration was wrapped up in the spell she was casting—which was taking up quite a lot of energy. She was used to her necromancy being draining; she typically slept for a solid day straight after a resurrection. But today, the fatigue seemed to wear on her more quickly. I'm out of practice, she thought to herself harshly. I've gone too long without a resurrection and now I'm going to feel like shit tomorrow.

She kept murmuring her spell—"Ella aer. Ki ten. Mass ah. Oh yoo,"—and in the background, she could hear Aris, still repeating apologizes to his mother. But for some reason, the woman hadn't responded back yet.

Raizia estimated that about a minute had passed since the conjuring began. Some corpses were definitely chattier than others, but this one seemed to be taking her sweet time to speak. She better hurry up and respond, she thought to herself. She only has a few minutes to talk to her son—

But her thoughts were cut short when she suddenly felt a jolt of pain in her left hand.

Raizia bit down on her tongue, stifling her cry. The middle finger on her left hand felt like it was on fire. She yanked off her glove and stared at her flesh; before her eyes, the tip of her finger turned white, then blue, and then darkened to the horrific color of death.

No, no, no, Raizia thought frantically, rubbing the finger. This had happened twice before, but both times had been because she hadn't known the consequences of overstepping with her magicks. But I've been careful! she thought to herself. I stick to the rules! Five minutes. Only dead for three days, maximum...

Suddenly, her eyes widened and she turned around to look at Aris. The man was still cradling his mother, still mumbling apologies, but it was the corpse that caught Raizia's attention: her eyes were open, her chest was heaving with breaths, but there was a vacant look in her eye, and she was damningly silent...

Raizia stopped speaking the incantation. Normally when she stopped her chant, the magick that tethered the soul to the land of the living would fade away, and the corpse would fall still. But Aris' mother remained breathing.

"Aris!" Raizia shouted, cradling her aching finger. "How many days has she been dead?"

Aris looked up at Raizia, his face contorted in confusion. "Uh... two—"

Raizia grabbed him roughly, pulling him away from the corpse. "You're lying," she hissed. "Tell me the truth. Now."

"Well... it's been... seven."

"Seven?" Raizia shouted, feeling her heart pound wildly in her chest.

"I couldn't come sooner because they had to do an autopsy," Aris explained. "I knew your rule, that you wouldn't accept me if I told you she had died more than three days ago—"

"I don't say 'three days' because I'm fucking lazy," she snarled. "I say it because after three days the soul isn't attached to the body anymore! It's elsewhere, gone. And instead you're forcing me to open a portal to somewhere where something evil can escape!"

"You never said that!" Aris shouted.

"I usually don't have to—" Raizia shouted back, but she was cut off when the pain in her finger heightened and she let out a cry. At the same time, there was another sound: an angry, raspy howl, that was dark, unearthly, inhuman.

Raizia turned as saw that the corpse had managed to drag itself to its feet, and it was staring at them with wide, empty eyes.

Aris stood still as a stone. "M-mom?"

And then the corpse extended its arm and started after them.

Raizia grabbed Aris, pulling him out of harm's way as they started to run. "It's not your fucking mom anymore!" she said. Despite the pain in her finger, she was trying her best to think up a spell, something that would send the dark energy that was now possessing Aris' mother away.

She didn't have a lot of time though. The tip of her middle finger had already started to crumble, the flesh drying into ash and flaking off as she ran. And this finger was much more important to her. It was on her left hand, her casting hand.

"Stand back," Raizia shouted, turning to face the corpse head on. She waved her left hand, drawing a complicated array of symbols in the air as her middle left finger shortened. "Grav-eh, malten, kireh—"

"No, please," Aris said, suddenly grabbing onto her arm. "Please don't kill her yet. I need her to—she's in there, I know it! I just need to get to her—"

With a strength Raizia didn't know she possessed, she shoved Aris off her and finished her incantation. "Mari, hellten, oom!"

For a moment, she thought she was too late, that her magicks were too weak. But then the corpse—which had gotten too close for comfort—suddenly stumbled to its knees.

"No!" Aris wailed, staggering forward, but it was too late. Whatever energy that had possessed his mother was gone, and all that remained was a body lying crumpled on the grass.

As Aris fell to the ground to cradle the body of his mother, Raizia once again felt a sharp burn in her finger. She looked down and saw the worse. Despite her efforts, her left middle finger was still crumbling. Now the rot had spread so far down that there was hardly an inch before her knuckle.

This isn't fair! she thought. This time it wasn't my fault. I didn't do this—he did!

"You've ruined me!" she shouted at Aris.

The man looked up at her in shock. There were tears on his cheeks. "You killed my mother!"

"She was already dead," Raizia bit as she looked down at her finger. This was her casting finger. This was the finger that guided every one of her spells, every resurrection. Without it, she'd be powerless, and it seemed that she only had minutes before it crumbled away into nothingness.

She only had time for one more spell, and suddenly, she knew what she was going to cast.

She pointed her finger at Aris. "You didn't heed my warning," she shouted. "You ignored my rules for your own selfishness, and now you will pay."

Aris' eyes widened, and his mouth opened in what Raizia assumed would be an apology, but she didn't care. Already she could feel her magick welling up in her, carried by a wave of anger, and a spell was forming on her lips.

She drew the symbols in the air, spat out her spell into the darkness, anger driving every movement. Aris scrambled to his feet, tried to run away, but it was too late. After just a few steps, he collapsed to the ground.

"What's happening?" he cried, looking down at his wrists which were now wrapped in glowing golden chains.

Raizia didn't respond. She just continued her spell, working her magick until her finger finally crumbled away into dust. With it, the pain finally faded away, but not her anger.

Biting back tears, she whispered, "I've bound you into my service. Your insolence has cost me my magick, which means you will work for me, do my bidding, until I am able to cast again."

Aris seemed at a loss for words. He looked down at his wrists. Although the gold chains were no longer visible, Raizia knew that her spell had taken hold. And from the look on Aris' face, she knew that he could feel her magick wrapping around his bones like an icy hand. He was bound to her.

"You will not be able to run away from me," Raizia hissed. "You will not be able to tell others that I've bound you to my service. And you will do what I tell you to do. That is your punishment."

Aris ground his teeth together. "You're a monster."

Monster. Raizia bit her tongue. It was something she had heard many times before, but she refused to let it sink in too deep. Instead, she turned away from him.

"Go home," she muttered. "I expect to see you at my place in a day and a half."

And with that, she left him in the graveyard—him cradling his dead mother, and her cradling her dead finger.