Lucien drifted in and out of unconsciousness, wrapped in warmth that wasn't natural. Not comforting, but... steady. Cold, but not cruel.
When his senses returned, the first thing he felt was stillness.
No rain. No pain. No pressure on his chest.
Only silence.
His eyes fluttered open.
Above him, the ceiling loomed high and cracked, lined with the spidery veins of age and neglect. Mold crept across the stone. Candles flickered in iron sconces, casting long, slithering shadows across the walls.
He wasn't lying on the ground.
He was being held.
A skeletal hand cradled his body — careful, deliberate. The grip of someone who hadn't held something living in a very long time.
Lucien tried to speak, but only a soft coo escaped his throat.
The figure holding him didn't flinch.
It was massive, cloaked in faded black robes threaded with arcane sigils. Bone-white hands, too large for a man. The hood shadowed its face, but within, faint blue embers pulsed in deep sockets.
A lich. Lucien knew it instinctively.
The creature sat on a crumbling stone throne, half-swallowed by the earth. Its posture was ancient — stiff with centuries — but its gaze was locked onto Lucien with sharp, calculating curiosity.
Like it was trying to decide what he was.
The lich didn't speak. It simply stared, one hand resting under Lucien's back, the other poised mid-air as if debating something unspoken.
Lucien couldn't move. Could barely blink.
But he could feel the magic in the air — thick, oppressive, necrotic. A tomb long untouched by light. But there was something else, too. Something subtle.
The lich leaned closer, tilting its head. The blue glow in its eyes flared brighter for a moment.
"...Why do you reek of power, little one?"
Its voice was dry stone and echo — the sound of forgotten catacombs and spells carved in bone.
"You are... unfinished. Yet not empty."
The skeletal hand rose and hovered just above Lucien's chest. He could feel the pull of magic — not draining, but tasting. Testing.
The lich pulled back slowly.
Then, after a long pause, it spoke again — almost to itself.
"I have buried empires... reduced kings to ash... yet I have never felt this from something so small."
It leaned back on its throne, still cradling Lucien in its arms.
"Very well," it whispered. "Let us see what you become."
Lucien closed his eyes again, the cold comfort of undeath pressing softly against him like a second blanket.
And for the first time since he'd died… He wasn't afraid.