Pirotess: Storm of Silver by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Pirotess-Storm-of-Silver-1315133324?file=1

Whispers in the Marrow

Silver bells chimed a discordant harmony every time a lie was spoken within the subterranean marrow-halls of the Forest of Mirrors. Pirotess counted three distinct, shivering chimes before she even drew her rapier from its velvet-lined scabbard. She stood at the precipice of an inverted tower, a spiraling architectural nightmare carved entirely from the fossilized remains of some forgotten, subterranean leviathan. The air did not smell of rot, as one might expect in the lair of a necromancer. Instead, it was heavy with the suffocating fragrance of crushed lilies, dried myrrh, and the metallic tang of impending lightning.

She descended the spiral, her boots making no sound against the polished bone. Pirotess was a creature of shadow and grace, a dark elf whose beauty was legendary even among the harsh, unforgiving peaks of Marmo. Her skin, the color of twilight over a bruised ocean, starkly contrasted with the blinding, ivory whiteness of the descent. She had been sent by her Lord Ashram, tasked with the silent excision of a threat that had begun siphoning Marmo’s fallen warriors from their shallow graves.

The mystery of the necromancer, known only as Vesperin, lay not in his power, but in his terrifying curation. He did not raise shambling mounds of rotting flesh. He was an artist, and the dead were his clay.

As Pirotess rounded the third curve of the descent, the true horror of her mission unfurled in the gloom. The corridor widened into a vast, vaulted gallery illuminated by the cold, blue light of captured foxfire. Suspended along the walls, posed upon pedestals of black glass, were her people. Dark elves.

She paused, her breath catching in her throat, a rare tremor of emotion threatening her stoic facade. These were not mere corpses. They were flawlessly preserved, their wounds mended with seams of spun silver. They stood in poses of courtly elegance—some holding violins made of shadow, others positioned in the midst of a silent waltz.

“Sharis,” Pirotess whispered, her voice barely a breath.

Before her stood a female dark elf holding a silver bow, the string drawn taut. Sharis had been Pirotess’s mentor, a warrior of unparalleled lethality who had fallen to a knight’s lance two winters past. Now, Sharis’s eyes were wide open. They were not vacant. Beneath the glassy surface of the death-spell, a silent, screaming consciousness thrashed against its invisible cage. The necromancer had not just bound their bodies; he had trapped their souls in a state of agonizing, eternal paralysis.

A fourth silver bell chimed deep within the darkness below.

“They are quite breathtaking, are they not?” a voice resonated, smooth as poured honey over broken glass. It seemed to emanate from the very marrow of the walls. “I spent a fortnight on Sharis alone. The silver thread through her heart was incredibly delicate work.”

Pirotess did not flinch. She kept her rapier angled downward, her senses expanding to track the subtle displacements of air in the vast chamber. “It is a coward’s gallery. You play with broken dolls because you cannot command the living.”

“A cliché assumption, my beautiful intruder,” the voice murmured, now closer, wrapping around her like a physical caress.

From the shadows behind a cluster of petrified dark elven spearmen, Vesperin stepped into the blue light. He was not the withered, decrepit corpse-herder of common tavern tales. He was young, or at least he wore the illusion of youth flawlessly. His features were pale, aristocratic, framed by hair the color of spilling ink. He wore garments of spun spider-silk and velvet, tailored to an era that had passed into myth. His eyes, however, betrayed him—they were voids of absolute, consuming black, reflecting no light, harboring no warmth.

“I do not fear the living, Pirotess,” Vesperin said, his dark eyes locking onto hers, betraying a sudden, unsettling recognition. “I simply find them chaotic. They bleed, they weep, they age, they betray. The dead are perfectly loyal. The dead are permanent.”

“How do you know my name?” she demanded, the point of her rapier rising slightly, tracing a line toward his throat.

Vesperin smiled, a slow, predatory curving of pale lips. “Ryne told me. He was most talkative during the preservation process. His soul clung so desperately to the memory of your face that it made weaving the stasis-runes quite difficult.”

Pirotess felt a cold spike of dread pierce her stomach. She turned her gaze slightly, drawn by an invisible compulsion to a pedes
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