Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion-Chapter 139: My Closest Enemy

Velrosa stood at the balcony, the pale moonlight dancing across her bronze skin like a lover’s touch.

Esgard sprawled beneath her in glittering shadows—its spires, its whispers, its blood-soaked stones all gleaming under the gaze of a sleepless night.

"You know," she said softly, her voice edged with something like fondness, something like grief, "I hate how much I love this city. The blood. The power play. The politics."

"I don’t fancy it much," came Ian’s voice from just above her, where he sat crouched on the sloped edge of the roof, legs dangling.

He looked like something the night itself had birthed—dark, quiet, coiled.

"You smell of blood," Velrosa said, her lips curling in amusement.

"When have I not?" he answered.

They stayed that way for a while.

No words.

Just silence.

Just the wind drifting through Esgard’s bones, just the echoes of a thousand screams buried beneath a thousand stones.

In her hand, Velrosa twisted a small silver lighter—an old one, tarnished with age.

Eli’s lighter. Ian’s originally.

And then he spoke, voice like the wind just before a storm.

"Do you know the truth?"

"Which of them?" she asked, not looking at him.

"The worst one... the prophecy."

"Yes," she said simply. "I am aware of my destiny."

"Then you also know who—what I am?" Ian asked, and there was no flinch in his voice, only weight.

"Yes," she answered again, like the question was never in doubt.

"Then you know a day will come whe—"

"What do you want, Ian?" she interrupted, gaze fixed on the city below. "I don’t mean what the prophecy dictates, or what you’ve been told is your destiny... I mean you. What do you want?"

He was quiet for a long time.

And when he spoke again, his voice was darker than the night around them.

"Revenge. I want revenge."

"Ah," Velrosa breathed, "a powerful driving force. And for that revenge, I’m certain, is why you sought strength so desperately. You’ve killed so many to become more formidable... so you could satisfy your vengeance. So then..."

She turned her head slightly, only slightly, a sliver of silver hair caught by the wind.

"...why haven’t you?"

"What?" Ian asked—but he knew what she meant.

He knew.

"I know your strength," she said. "There are few who can stand against you now. So why does your enemy still breathe?"

He exhaled, stood, and leapt down from the roof in one fluid motion, landing silently behind her.

His hand moved through empty space, pulling a familiar box from nothing.

He stepped beside her, cigarette to his lips. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

She clicked the lighter. Held the flame to his smoke.

Ian took a long drag. The glow pulsed in the dark.

"I went to the Imperial City," he said. "My enemies—they reside there. Among them... the one I hate most. He’s become an important figure. Not just powerful—untouchable. Guarded by Empire forces, hidden behind faith and warlocks and golden lies."

Another drag. Another exhale of smoke.

"I slipped in unseen. No one knew I was there... except the Seer. She granted me an audience by reward of the tournament. One question, she said—any question. And do you know what I asked?"

Velrosa’s voice was soft: "What?"

"If I fought him... would I win?"

A bitter chuckle escaped him.

"And she told me—if I fought him a thousand times, I’d end up dead a thousand and one."

Velrosa’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Just who the hell is this enemy?"

"The gods’ chosen," Ian said, and his voice was no longer human—it was like a thing buried deep in the grave.

Velrosa stiffened.

"How does one become enemies with a man like that?"

"He became my enemy long before he was a man like that," Ian said, ashing the cigarette over the ledge.

Velrosa studied him for a long moment. "To take him down... you will need far more strength. But even that won’t be enough."

"I know," Ian nodded. "I’d have to go against the Empire itself. The city that shields him. The power that worships him."

Then he turned, facing her now.

"And you? What do you want?"

She didn’t answer immediately.

But when she did, her words were blades dipped in fire.

"To burn the Imperial Family. My stepbrothers. My step mother. And to slit the throat of my father... then rule over the ashes of what was once his. Even if just for a moment."

Ian’s eyes didn’t waver.

"To do that... you’ll need an army."

"So will you," she answered.

"You’ll have to wage war."

"So will you," Velrosa echoed, turning fully to him now, the last vestiges of restraint falling away.

The distance between them shrank as she stepped closer, the subtle, intoxicating scent of night-blooming jasmine and something uniquely her – a hint of danger, a trace of profound sorrow – overwhelming his senses, cutting through the lingering aroma of smoke and blood.

She reached out, her cool fingers tracing the unyielding line of his jaw, her thumb brushing his cheek with a feather-light touch that sent an unexpected jolt through him.

Her hand moved, curving behind his upper neck, fingers tangling in the dark hair at his nape, sending an unexpected shiver down his spine.

A touch both intimate and possessive.

"We grow our strength, Ian," she murmured, her voice a seductive promise, a dangerous, irresistible invitation whispered against his skin.

"We learn their games, play them better, and while they bicker over scraps of power and imagined slights, we raise an army from the shadows, from the loyal, the dispossessed, the forgotten, and the damned."

Her face was now inches from his, her breath mingling with his own.

He could see the intricate flecks of silver and ice in her blue eyes, the unyielding resolve etched into her beautiful, formidable features.

As he exhaled the last of the smoke he’d drawn, she inhaled it, a shared breath, a symbolic binding of their cursed souls.

"And when there’s nothing left of our enemies but blood and ash," she continued, her lips almost touching his, her voice a silken caress that promised annihilation, "when their cities are nothing but funeral pyres and their vaunted names are curses on the wind... then, and only then, we fulfill the prophecy."

Her eyes held his, unwavering, a reflection of his own grim determination. "Perhaps by your hand, a knife to my heart. Or by mine, one to yours. A fitting end to our intertwined fates."

Then, with a slowness that amplified the unbearable tension, the crushing weight of their shared destiny...she pressed her lips to his.

It wasn’t a kiss of passion, not close—not yet, but one of profound, chilling purpose, a sealing of a pact written in shared pain, desperate ambition, and the promise of mutual destruction.

Under the indifferent gaze of the pale moon, amidst the silent, watchful spires of Esgard, the princess kissed her shadow.

Her greatest ally.

And her most inexorable, fated enemy.