Celeste’s Point of View

There was a moment—thin as a breath, sharp as a razor’s edge—where time did not move.

The little necromancer stood beneath her like a flame in a goblet: contained, but barely. Her gaze was steady, green-blue like glacial fire, and Celeste, for all her years and power, could not remember the last time she had been looked at without pity or fear.

Only purpose.

"I am in need," the woman said, smoothing her gloves with a practiced flick of the wrist, "of a new assistant. Someone with your particular talents."

Celeste blinked.

Not a demand. Not a plea. Not a threat.

A… proposition?

She studied her captor-turned-employer. Short, slight, fierce in the way that hot coals are fierce—low-burning and patient. There was a single gold pin in her lapel, shaped like an anatomical heart. It gleamed faintly with old blood.

Celeste’s lips curved. It was not a smile—it was an indulgence. Her arms crossed with deliberate slowness, drawing attention to her form, such as it was—bones taut under skin, strength lingering in decay.

“You make it sound like a civil offer,” she purred. “Not a chain with more polite links.”

Imara raised a brow. “It is a civil offer. You may decline, of course. I’ll simply return to the auction floor and find someone less qualified.”

A bluff. Celeste could taste it.

“You’re not a woman who settles,” she said.

"No," Imara admitted, brushing a speck of rust from her shoulder. “But I am a woman with twelve corpses on ice and no one left to help me open them.”

Celeste tilted her head, interested despite herself. "You seek an assistant, then. To help you… dissect the dead?"

"Among other things."

Her voice was clipped. Efficient.

Celeste stepped closer, arms still crossed, expression unreadable. “And what, pray tell, does this employment entail?”

The doctor didn’t hesitate. “Bloodletting. Dissection. Examination of battlefield remains. Retrieval of still-warm bodies from plague pits, gallows, and crypts. Reanimation when necessary. Autopsies—for the Crown and for clients willing to pay for the truth. I require help cataloguing vital patterns, performing vivisections when the subject is… cooperative. I am also, at present, drafting a paper on the parasitic metaphysics of soul tethering and require multiple sources to validate my hypotheses.”

A pause.

Celeste’s smile widened just slightly. “You make it sound almost… academic.”

“It is,” Imara replied, deadpan. “Except that academia frowns on corpse grafting and soul-mapping the undead.”

Celeste laughed. Not loudly, but richly, throatily—like the rustle of old velvet. Her head tilted, her black hair spilling like oil over her shoulders. “And your previous… assistants?”

“Fainted. Or screamed. Or left when I began removing the spinal cord while the subject was still twitching.”

Another pause.

Celeste’s crimson eyes glittered. “Amateurs.”

Imara’s lips quirked at the corner. It wasn’t a smile. It was a mark of recognition.

“I require someone who can stand the sight of blood,” she said, “and ideally someone who already knows what it means to exist between life and death. I tire of explaining what a soul cyst is to someone who thinks ectoplasm is a perfume.”

Celeste said nothing for a moment. She let the silence curl around them, thick and intimate. Her eyes roamed the doctor’s face, unapologetically. So young, she thought—and then corrected herself. No. Not young. Just bright. Like a blade in torchlight. Dangerous if handled improperly.