Chapter 17: Chapter 17: The Echo of Power

Abraham’s muscles ached like he’d been thrown off a cliff and trampled by a stampede of undead rhinos. The ruined temple ceiling loomed above him, cracked and webbed with creeping vines. A stale draft blew across the room, carrying the scent of earth and ancient blood.

He groaned.

A shadow moved beside him. “Finally,” Tess muttered, arms crossed and foot tapping furiously. “I was starting to think you’d died. Not my first time, actually. But it's terrifying, you know.”

Abraham blinked blearily. “How long…?”

“Two days. You passed out cold. Started mumbling in sleep, too. ‘Bone storm,’ ‘crown of marrow,’ ‘dancing ribcages.’ Pretty unsettling stuff.”

He sat up with a grunt, noting the tome still clutched in his arms. It no longer pulsed, no longer whispered. The cover was cold and heavy now—as if it had drained itself.

“I saw things,” he whispered.

Tess crouched beside him. “You screamed for hours, Abraham. Whatever’s in that book, it’s not safe.”

He looked down at his hand. The foreign sigil etched into his skin glowed faintly—less like a flame, more like an ember.

Chop clicked softly nearby. The ant’s carapace had darkened, patterns of necrotic glyphs threading across its thorax like war paint. Its mandibles flexed slowly, as if tasting the air, and its multifaceted eyes gleamed with a strange intelligence. It stared at Abraham as if seeing him for the first time.

“I need to know what this means,” Abraham muttered. “I think it’s part of the throne’s prophecy. Something I have to complete.”

“You also have to not die,” Tess snapped. “That’s part of the deal, remember?”

Abraham struggled to his feet. The undead beastlings, now nearly three dozen strong, stood in a loose formation near the chamber entrance. Some had developed odd mutations: an extra eye, a glowing claw, bones sprouting from shoulders like armor. They murmured among themselves in a language Abraham couldn’t understand.

“They’re changing,” Tess whispered.

“Perhaps,” Abraham corrected. “They’re evolving. Becoming more attuned to me.”

***

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Outside, the world had shifted. The sky had taken on a faint red hue—barely noticeable, but ever-present. The sun seemed slower in its path, as though time itself hesitated. Vultures no longer circled overhead; instead, larger silhouettes now flew—beasts with skeletal wings and glowing eyes.

The land was responding.

The undead beastlings horde marched in a loose column, not chaotic but not disciplined either. Abraham watched them as they moved, noticing how their steps synchronized subconsciously, their heads always turning toward him. Their loyalty ran deeper than necromantic bonds—there was something spiritual now, reverent.

As they crested a hill, a field of bone totems appeared below, spires of twisted ivory and sharpened femurs, arranged like gravestones. Each one radiated a faint pulse, a heartbeat of energy.

“Grave markers?” Tess asked, squinting at them.

Abraham frowned. “Plausibly anchors. Warding sigils. Someone built this to trap or protect something. Like the thing from last time.”

They descended cautiously. Chop took the lead, antennae twitching as it scouted the path. The undead beastlings sniffed the air, wary.

In the center of the field lay a pit. From it rose a humming, low and rhythmic like a distant drum. Abraham stepped forward, against Tess’ protests, and stared into it.

He saw the past.

Images flickered across his vision: a king commanding a legion of creatures with a gesture, a council of robed figures carving runes into their own bones, a child born with black and red veins, and a skull-shaped birthmark. All of it culminating in a throne—massive, made of bone and rooted deep in the earth.

His body trembled. Blood trickled from his nose. He stumbled back, gasping.

Tess caught him. “That’s the third time today you’ve bled out of somewhere important.”

“I saw... too much,” he wheezed. “This place holds shits I can't handle.”

Behind them, a distant cry echoed. It was not beast, nor man, but something in between. The undead beastlings froze.

Abraham turned, eyes glowing faintly. “Form up. Defensive ring. Chop, front.”

***

That night, after the attack, (strange hyena-like creatures with ribcages on the outside and teeth on their tails), they rested in a hollowed ruin just beyond the field. Abraham spent hours in silent meditation, sketching the vision into his tome.

Tess watched him from across the fire. “You’re obsessed.”

“I have to be,” he said. “This isn’t just survival anymore. It’s destiny.”

She kicked a pebble toward him. “Says every future villain ever.”

He smiled tiredly. “Then I guess I’ll be a charming one.”

Tess blushed faintly but didn’t look away.

Before sleep, Abraham stood over his undead. Chop knelt beside him, more like a knight than an insect. Abraham ran a hand along the ant’s carapace.

“You’ve changed too, haven’t you?” he whispered. “We all have.”

A group of beastlings (alive one) arrived the next morning, stepping out from the mist like a vision. Their leader introduced himself as Garruk. He was tall, his body covered in tattoos that pulsed in sync with Abraham’s sigil.

“We do not kneel,” Garruk said. “But we respect power. Show us yours.”

“What kind of show are we talking about?” Abraham asked cautiously.

Garruk grinned. “Trial by marrow. The rite of spiral flame. Come at sundown.”

And so, as the last light vanished behind the hills, Abraham stood in a circle of bone. The so-called Bonecallers (a beastlings group from earlier) surrounded him, chanting. Tess stood outside the ring, biting her lip. Chop growled softly.

The trial began.

Skeletons clawed from the ground—not mindless ones, but thinking, skilled. They moved like warriors. Abraham fought them with bone spears conjured from the ground and skeletal hands summoned like shields. Blood splashed, his own power pushing back against the backlash.

When one warrior disarmed him, he drew the marrow from a fallen beastling’s femur and shaped it into a blade with sheer will.

The crowd gasped.

When the last warrior knelt, Abraham collapsed.

Garruk approached, kneeling beside him. “You are not yet the Lord of Beast Undead... but the marrow hears you.”

Abraham passed out with a bloody grin.

Above him, the stars shimmered—not white, but pale bone gold.

***

In the woods just beyond the Bonecallers' camp, a cloaked figure stood among the trees. Watching. Listening. A grin tugged at their lips as they scribbled furiously in a scroll glowing with dim red ink.

“So… the boy awakens and keep moving forward,” the figure whispered. “He didn't know the cost of his struggle. Then I show him.”

Behind them, a twisted sigil began to pulse beneath the forest floor, casting shadows where none should exist.

The world was shifting, the rot began to spread along the Barren Death. And Abraham wasn’t the only one who didn't aware.

***