"…To raise an army of undead this size, there has to be a necromancer at the heart of it. Cut the head off the snake, and the body dies with it."
Eve's voice cut through the murmurs of the strategy circle, clinical, certain. White mages live in the gray space between life and death; she knew the rules better than any of us.
Wedd squinted toward the crimson city. "Fine. But how do we find the bastard?"
Fina, still kneeling in the grass, lifted her chin. "…I can. With Clairvoyance."
"That's—"
Zion's protest died as Fina's palm rose, steady, final.
"I, Rafine Odium Refined, will cast the detection spell Clairvoyance and locate the caster."
The silver ring slid from her finger and chimed against a stone. Light rippled over her like water disturbed by moonlight.
Her hair bleached from midnight to fresh snow, falling in soft waves. The poised traveler's face softened, edges rounded into something almost fragile, yet impossibly radiant, an angel stepped straight out of a cathedral fresco. Breath caught in every throat.
Silence pooled, thick and stunned. The adventurers stood frozen, mouths open, eyes wide, looking suddenly very young and very foolish.
I felt the jolt too. Same features, new name.
"Princess," Leena said, voice flat, dangerous.
Rafine inclined her head. "I never meant to reveal it. Circumstances changed."
Rafine Odium Refined, fourth princess of Uniwelsia, the one the common folk would follow into fire. That explained the effortless command of Clairvoyance, the crown jewel of detection arts, wrapped in porcelain beauty and a smile warm enough to melt winter. Idol wasn't a metaphor; five fan clubs, banners in every market square, songs sung in taverns. Too beloved for safety.
A princess must marry, noble blood or hero's blade. The fan clubs had howled. Six years ago, riots had torn the capital, grown men weeping, taverns burned. I'd been off training, but the stories reached even the backwoods: "They're crying over a child." Now I understood. Love is a strange beast. Love and peace.
King Pilar, Rafine's father, legendarily doting, had summoned the ringleaders and delivered one line:
"Then become worthy."
Merchants studied war, warriors studied ledgers. In five years Uniwelsia's trade routes tripled, its legions doubled. Idiots, everyone. But effective.
Married men would wake to knives in the dark. Not my circus.
Zion tried again, muffled. "You just painted a target on your back—"
"Quiet." Rafine's Word Spirit snapped like a whip; invisible threads sealed Zion's lips. "My sisters might know I'm here. But it's okay. No harm done."
Zion's eyes promised murder, but the seal held.
Rumors spoke of royal siblings who hired shadow blades to prune the family tree. Just rumors. No way they'd reach a forest outside Etar.
Rafine turned to the group. "Objections?"
Leena swallowed. "None."
"Then I begin." She knelt again, palms pressed together, voice ringing clear. "Spirits woven through the ether, by Rafine Odium Refined, Fourth Princess of Uniwelsia, lend me the eyes of God that pierce a thousand leagues, Clairvoyance."
Magic erupted, a silent cyclone of silver light, dense yet delicate, perfectly shaped. I exhaled in pure awe. S-rank power, maybe beyond. The chant trimmed to its bones, every syllable a scalpel.
Clairvoyance could follow a single thread of residual magic across continents, name the caster by the curve of their eyebrow, the callus on their sword hand. Lost rings, stray cats, demon lords, anything. Weak only against master-level interference or targets whose magic dwarfed the caster's by tenfold. Or in places like Rassvet, the far-north demon continent where the air itself was venom and S-class dragons nested like pigeons. I'd hunted there once. Once was enough.
I'd tried the spell years ago. Too many different things I had to do to succeed at it.
Then it clicked.
If I mirror her stance, her breathing, her intent…
I drew a slow breath, matched her posture, let the magic pool.
"Clairvoyance."
Power threaded outward, questing. A tug, sharp, cold, immediate.
"…Behind me?"
Normal detection showed nothing. I turned.
A translucent skeleton lounged on a velvet stool that had no business existing in a forest, one bony hand propping its skull, radiating amusement and power in equal measure. Advanced camouflage, obviously. That was the blind spot.
No one else reacted.
Rafine's spell missing it meant its reservoir out scaled hers by an order of magnitude, SS-rank, the stuff of bedtime terrors.
The skeleton rose, voice dry leaves on stone. "…Suppose I'll open the dance here."
It stepped past me, past Rafine still deep in her casting, inhaled theatrically, and let the disguise shatter. Magic roared out, a black sun unfurling.
"Kukuku… sleep now, insects. I am Death Eater Carfes, one of the Demon King's Four Heavenly Kings."
It spread its arms, triumphant, expecting gasps, screams, worship.
I stared.
This guy's a complete moron.