Chapter 157

In the time that followed, Denethia felt the sting of disobedience frequently for a time. Her soul screamed in betrayal from the murders, and worse, that Celdin ordered her to commit. Her stomach knotted and roiled when she considered the perverse sexual acts Celdin's commands forced her to engage in, only to experience the ultimate, overwhelming ecstasy each time. She awoke weeping in the night frequently as the memories intruded upon her dreams.
In time, her soul was stifled, shoved deep into a locked corner of her mind. She learned, killed, and stole with ruthless efficiency during her waking hours, but the horrors returned to her in the night, still.
As the months passed, she realized that her power was greater than that commanded by any of the other apprentices. In truth, she could summon up power that even the Master could not call forth. Only the blood bond prevented her from fleeing from the living nightmare she endured, day after day, forced to participate as Celdin's greatest tool in his harvest of blood.
She winced each time Celdin ordered her out into the world, narrowing her eyes against the burning stare of the sun outside her prison. Celdin sent her to kill those who sought to prevent him from raising an army of the dead. Denethia obeyed his commands and murdered innocent wizards and clerics, deemed a threat because of their proximity to places where his dead army awaited commands. Other wielders of the dark magic fell to her power — their bodies, souls, and Art given to Celdin to increase his already vast knowledge and power.
Through the bloodstone, she sucked the life from innocents to preserve her youth, never aging through decades of service to her fell Master. Never would he allow her body, which he so desired, to fall victim to the ravages of time.
Now she sought a great prize, the books of a legendary necromancer. The black wizard had discovered the secret of eternal life through becoming a lich — those frightful undead creatures of supreme magical power — and the forces of light had sought him out to destroy him. They had succeeded, at the cost of their own lives, the location of the dead archmage's lair lost to the ages.
Someone had discovered that lost treasure trove of dark Art, and it was Denethia's task to retrieve it.
The minor bone wizard who had discovered the lair fell to an almost absent blast of Denethia's magic, leaving behind little more than a bloody smear to mark his confrontation with her. She approached the bookshelves she could see in the next room of the ancient necromancer's cavern lair, her stride quick and a desire to finish this task driving her.
Reaching the library, an enormous tome resting upon a stand in the center of the room immediately drew her eyes. Magical lights, undimmed by the centuries, lit the stand and book in a glow not unlike that of the full moon, a pale bluish-gray.
Denethia approached the book, and immediately recognized it for what it was. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared, the means of escape from slavery written upon the pages before her. A bitter smile crossed her face as she considered the hurried command Celdin had given her before dispatching her. Kill the fool who has stumbled into Necron's lair, gather up the dark wisdom of the ages, and return with it to me.
His command lacked the usual care Celdin exercised when issuing orders to his most powerful slave. Celdin sensed that she outmatched him, and thus carefully managed her every action through detailed commands. In anticipation of attaining Necron's knowledge, he had made a mistake.

Denethia sat down before the vast tome, the bitter smile on her face growing wider by the moment.
Denethia closed the door to her room, her hand clasped protectively over a small bottle within a pocket of her robes. It was not part of Necron's horde, and thus there was no compulsion for her to turn it over to Celdin as she had all the other items from the ancient necromancer's lair. The potion was of her own making, though the undead wizard's tome had provided her with the knowledge to brew it.
Falling into her spell casting, Denethia warded the room against intrusion. She knew Celdin would be unable to break her wards, and in moments, he would be unable to command her to allow him entrance.
Three days until the harvest festival, the day my foolishness brought me here. How appropriate, she thought bitterly.
Lying down on the bed, she pulled the vial from her pocket and removed the stopper of waxed cork. Draining the potion within, Denethia sat the bottle on her bedside table even as the black magic spread through her body. She shuddered and writhed, the magic tearing through her like a pack of ravening wolves.
Denethia stiffened as the magic culminated, her body twisted and contorted on the bed.
Celdin paced outside Denethia's door, as he had numerous times these last three days. He could not break the wards, and he could not sense Denethia through the wards. His first command upon her emergence would be to forbid her from doing this again.
He was just about to stomp away for the fifth time this day when he sensed the wards falling away. Turning immediately to the door, he threw it open and walked inside.
Denethia stood nude beside her bed, smiling in his direction, "Hello, Master," she said to him in mocking tones.
"You will never place wards around this room, or any other, preventing me from reaching you again," Celdin snarled.
Denethia laughed and gestured, slamming the door shut behind Celdin, "Of course, Master," she responded, the final word full of sarcasm.
"It seems you need a reminder of your place, Denethia," Celdin growled, angered by her mocking tone.
Denethia walked toward him, her hips swaying sensually, and her fingers teasing her nipples, "I know my place." A scowl darkened her face as she reached him, and her tone turned menacing, "Do you know yours?"
Celdin started to growl another retort, appropriate punishments flitting through his mind, but then something pierced the fog of anger in his mind.
He could not feel Denethia through the blood bond.
Her hand shot up and grabbed his throat. Her grip was impossibly strong, cutting off his breath and holding him in place as she let the illusion wrapped around her slowly fade.
Celdin's eyes opened wide as Denethia's soft skin turned leathery, pulling tight against her bones. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, giving her features the terrible grimace of the walking dead. The lustrous glow of her blonde hair faded, the tresses now hanging faded and limp from her skull. Her withered hand released its grip on Celdin's neck, but a grip far stronger than her hand paralyzed him now — the aura of fear and power that surrounded her, and washed over him like a tidal wave.
Reaching up with one clawed finger, she pressed it deep into the leathery flesh of her shriveled left breast. A gray-green glob of ichor oozed from the wound, running through the crevices in the wrinkled flesh.
Grabbing the back of Celdin's head, she pulled him to her breast, forcing his mouth over the foul wound. He clawed and struggled, but could not break her grip. He held his teeth tightly clenched, but the caustic liquid oozing against his lips caused him to open his mouth involuntarily in a scream of pain. A squeeze of her other hand spewed forth the fetid fluid, filling his mouth. He coughed and gagged — his mouth and throat burning.
Denethia held him against her until he went limp in her arms, and then dropped him to the floor.
"As long as we both shall live," Denethia rattled from her dead throat.
Breaking the wards over the entrance of the cavern with a thought, she sensed all who still lived fleeing from her terrible presence. No other could see her, but her aura spread through the cavernous complex like a fog, demanding flight of any rational being. When they all had left the cavern, running as fast as their legs could carry them, Denethia restored the wards.
The dead came to attend to her, gathering about her as she walked the halls to Celdin's study, to claim it as her own. Once there, she sat at his desk to await his resurrection as a vassal lich under her command, three days hence, with the patience that only the unliving could possess.
From near and far, the undead product of Celdin's magic moved toward the cavernous complex, her grave beneath the earth. Her revenge was complete — Celdin's harvest of blood was no more. She would destroy his vast army of the undead, and he would serve as her slave forevermore.
The tiny vestige of humanity lingering within Denethia was content. But she did not know that the Queen that Celdin wanted to rise, the Black Demon Queen has finally risen and now it was no longer in her power to stop her. But what she had said so long back to her master would come true.