I was ten years old when I learned I was a necromancer.

Ten. A child. One whose only worry should be paying attention during lessons. The world was so big, the trees so tall and the fields so vast and their mysteries so enticing. So beautiful. And it was mine.

Or it was, until that day. I had seen the men in the white coats. They came to the village once per season. Sometimes they took people away. I didn't know why. Until that day. The day when my ears became sensitive and my eyes found blue shadows in the corners. The day I knew sin and symphony.

I learned that I was different, and not the kind of different that was celebrated. The kind of different that was shunned. And killed. I learned the world was ugly and cruel. The world was not mine. It belonged to those with power, and I was under their heel. Not a child, not even a person, but something whose mere existence was perceived as evil.

But I was just a child. Papa reminded me when he wiped my tears. There was no evil in me. He refused to believe it. He refused to let them take me away. But papa couldn't protect me forever, so he taught me to protect myself.

For the next eight years my mornings were spent with mother, learning reading and maths. In the evenings, father would lead me out the village gate down to the little pond in the belly of the hill.

He taught me how to build a fire, how to sharpen the end of a stick and spear a fish. He taught me to keep my mind quick and my blades quicker. At dusk we'd return with our spoils and I'd listen attentively as mother taught me how to dress and prepare wild game.

I drank in every drop of wisdom they offered, in hopes that one day I could mirror their quiet strength. But I still mourned my childhood. I mourned the friends I would've made, the events I would've attended, the boys who would try to court me. I mourned summer days in the market, and winters playing in the snow.

My parents mourned too. They mourned the idyllic family we could've been if the world was not so heartless. The time spent with them became more precious to me than anything else. But in the back of my mind, I knew it wouldn't last forever. That one day I'd have to leave him and my family and my home behind.

That time came on my eighteenth birthday. My father burst into my room before dawn and pulled me out of bed. The Divine City had heard rumours of a necromancer hiding in their village, and he didn't want to take any chances. I packed quickly while my mother threw together some rations for the road.

Our farewells were quick and quiet. This wasn't how I expected our parting to be. I'd wanted the day I left them to be special. But fate rushed me out into the balmy morning air after a few quick hugs and well wishes.

As I stood beyond the gate of our small village with my father, I fought the tears stinging the backs of my eyes. I wanted to look tough, to look like I was ready for the road ahead of me. But beneath the guise, I shook, and my stomach churned. For the first time, I'd walk out of the village without my father beside me.

He adjusted the straps on my rucksack, asked me if it was too heavy, checked and double-checked my blades to make sure they were sharp. Then, for a moment, we just stood there, and the weight of it all came down on me.

We wouldn't traverse the woods hunting deer and rabbit anymore, or practice lighting fires with dry wood and tinder. I'd no longer have his nods of encouragement, his guidance. I'd never again see his eyes shine with pride when I...

Esther lifted her quill from the paper to swipe away her tears. Three years later and she still couldn't think of her family without crying, much less write about them. At least she'd made it farther this time. Months ago, when she'd tried journaling about her childhood, the memory of her father had rendered her a sobbing mess on the floor.

Which hadn't been a good look for a pregnant woman.

But it didn't stop her from journaling altogether, even about the most mundane going-ons of her life. How else would she live on in a world that hated her? While most people feared death, or being alone, her greatest fear was being forgotten, because that was a true death; not only were you lost to this world, but lost to history as well.

So she'd filled pages upon pages with stories of her travels. Losing herself in her thoughts also drowned out the sounds of the world, every bit of which her ears picked up on. Another reason she hated being a necromancer.

Perhaps if things had been different... Esther shook that thought from her head. She didn't want to think about where life would've taken her if she'd been born an ordinary human. That train of thought would only lead her to self-hate, and she deserved better. Her son deserved better.

She closed the journal and laid a hand on his head. He slept in a wicker basket twice his size, bundled up against the late autumn chill. A small smile pulled at her lips. He looked too much like his father. Would he have the same kind eyes and lopsided smile? The same relaxed demeanour and snarky manner? Her throat tightened. She may not be around to see it. To see him grow into a man, and she had no one to blame but herself.

Esther packed away her quills and ink and secured her sword to her hip. A chill settled in her bones, and she sucked in the misty air seeping through the entrance. It was time to go.

Tilay had been her home for almost two years now, but when Priests from the Divine City arrived in the town that morning, she knew it was home no more. She'd bundled her necessities up in a rucksack and disappeared like a whisper on the wind with Claude on her back.

Along the foothills south of the village were small abandoned dwellings carved into the landscape by settlers long dead. The overgrowth of moss and vines had rendered them nigh invisible to the passing eye, which made them the perfect place to hide. Night had long fallen, and its blessed shadows would hide her as she made her getaway.

Esther shouldered her rucksack and lifted the hood of her cloak. Claude didn't stir when she secured the basket's strap across her body. She'd nursed and lulled him to sleep before writing in her journal and prayed he would remain so for the hour it would take to get to Lehm.

The draft sucked the heat from her body when she pushed through the vines covering the entrance. From the belly of the hill, she saw the torches as the village footmen weaving through the trees. A swear passed through her lips. They were still out at this hour? She held Claude close to her chest and slipped into the woods. Her ears picked up the clopping of hooves and she swore again. Unless her hearing was failing her, they were less than a half a league away and closing in fast.

Esther veered off the beaten path, and the thick underbrush clawed at her clothes like greedy hands. The crackle of torches joined the rhythm of clopping hooves and her pounding heart. Much closer now. She dropped to her knees in the bushes and held onto her son. A branch jabbed at her ribs, but she dared not move.

"When was the last time anyone saw her?" someone asked.

She knew that voice. It had turned her blood to ice the first time she heard it, and it did so now. High Priest Marius. But what was that shill doing all the way out here? Last she knew, they stationed him at the Black Coast, far south of this mountainous region.

"This morning," another replied. A voice she didn't know.

Torchlight bled through the leaves at her left, and she slowed her breathing. The weight of her blades threatened to bury her. She wanted to leave without a fight, but if Marius found her, she'd have no choice.

"And you're sure she's a necromancer?" The rasp of Marius' voice grated against Esther's ears. Who had told him she was a necromancer? Only Claude knew, and he never divulged that, not even to their closest neighbours.

"I didn't say that. I heard she wrote music, that's all. This song called the stargazer's requiem."

Damn it. This was what she got for sharing her songs with their neighbours. How could she have been so stupid, so myopic?

"Yes, I heard it." The thump of boots hitting the path, and the torchlight shifted closer to Esther. "I can tell you no ordinary human wrote that." A pause. "Necromancers have this way with music. They don't write songs. They write masterpieces."

Coming from anyone else, those words would have flattered Esther, but from Marius, they made bile pool in her mouth. Perhaps part of his hostility towards necromancers stemmed from jealousy. She doubted a dithering troglodyte like him had any talent.

"I suppose she's long gone by now. I'll need someone to give a detailed physical description before I alert the neighbouring towns."

"Aye, sir."

Esther remained crouched in the bushes even as their presence faded. And she waited. Sweat dripped down her neck and soaked into her cloak. The feeling drained from her legs and her throat dried up like a fallow field. And she waited.

It was only when little Claude yawned and squirmed in the basket that her senses caught up with her. She rose and worked her way back to the path. Purpose laced with fear made her strides longer, faster. She'd encountered that bastard Marius once before, when she and Claude had made a trip down to the Black Coast. He had a reputation even amongst the other Priests for being ruthless. She'd heard stories of him soaking his victims in alcohol and setting them ablaze, or tying them to the cliffs along the coast and leaving them to drown when the tide came in. He was beyond cruel. He was evil.

And she'd caught his attention.

***

The town of Lehm lied between a cliff and one of the many runaway streams stemming from the Cryos River. A scattering of stone houses and a single road, nothing special. Many other villages like it were built around the river basin, taking advantage of the rich, dark soil and frequent rainfall that yielded bountiful harvests with minimal labour. Those who resided in such places were too fickle or poor to deal with the taxes imposed by larger towns and cities.

Esther skirted the north edge of the town, just beyond the light of the standing torches. Even with the marble beads in her ears the sounds of life reached her—the even breathing and thumping heartbeats of every sleeping villager, and that of those still up at this ungodly hour, the scampering of tiny insects and rats going about their late night raids in the homes.

If she pulled the beads out, the sensory overload would cripple her. In her second year after leaving home, her hearing became so acute she could pick up a hummingbird sipping the nectar from a flower half a league away.

She never understood how much noise even the tiniest creatures made until she heard all of it at once. The overwhelming nature of it all often left her a shivering mess on the floor. The beads had been Elyas' idea and creation, crafted to fit her ears perfectly. While they didn't filter everything out, they made this noisy world more bearable.

Esther stopped behind the last house before the cliff. A modest home, unassuming; it wouldn't get a second glance from most—which made it perfect. Behind it was a garden filled with lattices holding half-ripened tomatoes, patches of cabbages and pumpkins and trellises hung heavy with morning glory. No different from the ones flanking the other homes.

A couple slept inside the rearmost room while a field mouse scampered about their kitchen in search of crumbs. She knew of them through Claude. They'd been making regular visits to Tilay for years to shop for textiles and had no children of their own. But that was the extent of her knowledge.

To leave her son with complete strangers was no less agonising than leaving him in the forest for the wolves. But she ran out of options when Claude died and Marius made her a target. Anything else, even being dead, was better for little Claude than taking him with her.

Esther hugged the wall of the home, just shy of the light of the standing torches, and moved to the front yard. Years of hunting rabbits and deer with her father had taught her to keep her steps light. She slipped onto the porch, as silent and inconspicuous as a shadow, and laid the basket by the door. The wisest course of action would've been to bang on the door and run, but as she knelt there, gazing down at her son, she couldn't move. Her mind screamed at her to go, to leave him, reminded her of what would happen if Marius knew he was her son. But her heart told her they belonged together.

Her heart was an idiot. Marius had the priesthood at his disposal and she only had herself.

Little Claude still slept soundly, his mouth forming a small O and his brow wrinkled. Are you dreaming of me, little one? Hot tears stung her eyes, and she swallowed a sob. Esther brushed his unruly hair back from his forehead and pressed a kiss there, leaving her tears behind. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Now she understood how her father felt all those years ago, when they stood outside the village. She knew heartbreak, felt it when Claude died, but this was different. It bore down on her shoulders and curved her back into a hunch. It tore her heart up like an old rag and set fire to the frayed, tattered pieces.

This was her fault. Her father had warned her about staying in one place for too long. Love had made her stupid, and now her son would be punished for her mistakes. He deserved better than this, better than her as a mother.

A life of running and hiding and lying and pretending wasn't what she'd envisioned for him. He should be free to run and play. To climb trees and chase after small critters in summer and catch the first snowflake of winter on his tongue. To make mistakes and learn and grow into a man worthy of favour. To chase whatever dreams his mind conjured up, no matter how ridiculous.

Esther vowed then and there to make it so. To carve out a corner where they could be happy, free from the threat of the Divine City. Where they could live and thrive together as a family.

And then she'd come back for him.