Leah
Rayanna straightened.
Slowly. The way a snake uncoils from a strike position, not retreating but reassessing. She pulled herself to her feet next to the slab where Darien lay, smoothed the front of her ceremonial robe with hands that trembled at the edges, and turned to face me fully.
Blood ran from the gash on her forehead where the wall had kissed her skull. It tracked down the side of her face in a thin red line, pooling at her jaw before dripping onto the collar of her robe. She didn't wipe it away. Didn't acknowledge it. Her violet eyes locked onto me with the focused intensity of a predator recalculating a threat.
“Necromancy.” The word left her mouth like a diagnosis. Clinical. Dismissive. “That's what this is. Someone raised you from the dead. Some amateur practitioner wit
