"The golem alone ended up being worth twenty thousand points, and allowed me to bring out an additional twenty-five thousand gold in furnishings and top-tier laboratory and research materials. The minimized movement costs and low spell expenditures were worth at least twenty thousand gold on top of that," I concluded my explanation to my undead grand-uncle, the Marquis and nosferatu Boris Bludevich-Jubvanyl of House Bulgarov.

He looked suitably impressed. "You deduced one simple weakness of the test and exploited it in a grand manner. I trust this trick with the golem will be eliminated in future tests… but the fact you discovered it is still noteworthy." It also meant that I'd beaten the test before setting foot in it, and with clear thinking, not magical ability or power or some clever magical trick.

Cryptomancers were known to be able to take control of Constructs. I'd just really, really abused the whole concept.

If combined with real magical ability, that kind of thinking was extremely dangerous, and he had noticed it. Wizards could often be blinding brilliant and incredibly impulsive and foolish, and that included unworldly and rather charmingly naive elves. I was obviously not one of those...

"The object of my attentions was still overwhelmed and conquered. Real life doesn't often allow one to walk away after the fact and call for do-overs, Your Grace," I inclined my head slightly. "Life favors the prepared wizard."

"Ah, one of Thaum's fonder sayings." Boris's smile held no such fondness. "And I suppose by this tale I am meant to infer that you have prepared for a meeting with a representative from Bulgarov?"

"Why, Your Grace, that would be displaying remarkable foresight and understanding of the consequences of having achieved such a remarkable record in the School. Surely I would not have thought so far ahead, so overwhelmed by the egotistic accomplishment and basking in the admiration of my supplicants as I am."

My utterly unmoved face didn't do much to encourage such a delusion. "I see. And how much investigation into the family have you done?" he asked, teasing me and testing my reactions further.

"Ah, but that would be telling, Your Grace. As you doubtless know, I've had no contact with House Bulgarov, and that in particular means my father Boraz. I do note that he is impossible to locate with magic, but he is most definitely not dead. One wonders if having an unhappy dhampyr child running about creating trouble and having unwanted dalliances grew a bit much, and grandfather locked him up in a rather permanent manner as punishment."

Dear grand-uncle Boris was a master politician, and I could see I was both amusing him and making him wary. "I am sure Mordai would never do something so cruel to one of his immediate family," he replied smoothly, which was as bald-faced a lie as could be believed. Mordai had turned his own brother into a vampire and his effective slave, after all, Boris being a vampire nearly as long as his older brother, which meant hundreds of years. They'd been 'born' before the founding of Zanzyr itself, back in the Hellenic lands long before Warsherz was conquered by Siricil! "Doubtless he is merely concealing himself and sulking in some corner in another of his little escapades. I am sure he will pop up some time in due course," he assured me, and it even sounded convincing.

Likely as another undead slave to his sire.

"As you say, Your Grace."

"Well, then, with your preliminary denial so firm, I do believe I will be showing myself out. Do take care of yourself, my grand-niece, and I'm sure we shall see one another in the future."

"Doubtless, Your Grace." I politely rose as he did, he bowed to me with a flourish, I curtsied back with equal flourish, and he smiled and strolled out as if he owned the world. I watched him go with everyone else, and then my peers flooded back to me, looking for all the juicy gossip.

The whole country would know I turned down Bulgarov in favor of Erendyl soon enough, and naturally start speculating to see how much of a plant I was, getting a scion of Transyvia right into the heart of the elven Principality and all those vampire-hating elves. Truly a cunning scheme, the elves would never see it coming!

-------

Later that night, well towards morning...

There was a polite tapping at the door from a firmly held staff. It swung open on its own, admitting the Grandmaster standing there in his robes of office. The tall and lean Avatar of Thaum stepped inside without hesitation, definitely fearing nothing mortal and ready to execute his charge as he glanced about.

Tasteful if sparse furnishings, currently in a bit of disarray after the late-night party broke up and all the students headed back to their own dorms and private chambers.

The two shadows floating back-to-back in the center of an inverted magical Circle of Protection from Evil in the center of the room, their inky incorporeal forms stark against the silver light of the Circle and the black and red roses blooming with leering skulls glaring down at them from the edges of the magic, rather dominated his view.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Andre Tetrovich of Transyvia and Molochai Klannigh of Inclu, graduated thirty-seven and forty-two years ago, respectively," I informed the Grandmaster as I stepped around the corner, my eyes on the bound shadows. "Andre had the temerity to rescue his sister from the charms and fangs of Marquis Boris, who fancied her neck as a fine dining dish. Molochai messed up the harvesting of a mandragora plant needed for an experiment of Marquis Boris, and in a fit of anger, he was harvested and drained. Realizing he'd upset his brother if Molochai rose as a vampire, the Marquis instead brought him back as a lowly shadow to ensure that would not happen and covered his death up as an accident and vanishing in the Massifs."

The Grandmaster considered the two former students turned undead who were cowering from the magic surrounding them. "I see they did not take you by surprise, ma'amselle," he noted firmly, unsurprised and confident of his judgment.

"As the Grandmaster is no doubt aware, my Renewal is at midnight, not dawn. I had to shoo off some of the celebrants, but my spells were firmly in place when they somehow managed to traipse through the Wards as if they were living students and belonged here. I presume a frequent lecturer knows the exceptions to the Wards that allow undead through, and used them forthwith."

"Indeed. It seems some subtle altering of the defenses of the School is in order, teaching him that some things are still not allowed in Zanzyr." His voice was irritated but not angry. After all, I had already dealt with the problem.

"If I might prevail upon the Grandmaster." He glanced at me and nodded to go on. "I should like to rap the knuckles of my dear grand-uncle for his temerity, and let him know I am backed by more than words. In that vein, I feel that removing these two and their corpses from control of dear Boris would annoy him greatly. If the Grandmaster could Bind them, I could certainly use their links to their formal bodies to track them down and liberate them."

"And doubtless such locations will be places where Boris stores wealth, secrets, and other servants," the Grandmaster replied drolly, knowing how the game was played.

"It's not punishment if there's no cost, Elder," I replied guilelessly.

"You will have to move swiftly," he noted. "Boris is not a fool, despite his image. He is also ambitious, and very wary of his brother."

"So noted. I have been working on expanding the utility of the power to Teleport for some time, and now that I have graduated, well, it is time to abuse a Wizard's power to walk the world!" I answered with grim expectation.

The test was designed to bring a prospective Fourth Adept to Wizard, and naturally I had stepped into the rank. Today was the first day I could freely use V's in greater Zanzyr, and I certainly wasn't going to hide that from the Grandmaster.

He snapped his fingers, and two pigeon's egg-sized diamonds popped out of nowhere, clinking into his hands. "Please return these to me when you are done with them, in the case of future incursions."

"Of course, Grandmaster," I agreed smoothly. They were crystals he knew intimately and would be able to track with Immortal precision and clarity. I didn't want to hold onto them any longer than I had to!

No mortal wizard worth their salt would have two Trap the Souls memorized at one time, but Immortals weren't bound by mortal limitations. The diamonds glimmered one by one as the Grandmaster Bound each shadow by their true names (as opposed to True Names), and they were helplessly caught in and drawn into the glittering stones, endowing the gemstones with a darkly magical heart pulsing in the center of each.

I'd already severed Boris's control over lesser undead subordinates with the Circle, so Boris doubtless thought them abruptly destroyed, not retasked and redirected against him.

Clearly, he didn't think too much of my brains as yet. I would endeavor to continue that by leaving absolutely no traces behind of who struck at his holdings and when…

-------

Several days later…

"Awaken."

The word thrummed in their minds and souls with forces bright and profound, burning away at the nightmares and horrors that assailed them, instilling within them emotions and willpower they thought they'd lost, and brought them burning to bright blazing life once more.

Lungs drained and dry heaved, inflated, and sucked at life-giving air. Veins drained of blood pumped and thrummed as hearts beat anew.

With strangled gasps and some flailing about, the two young men on the beds sat up abruptly and clutched at their necks, the last living memory suddenly rising in their minds, as a familiar and handsome face sprouted two-inch sharp fangs and his mouth opened unnaturally wide as he lunged for their throats.

They were in a quiet room, gently lit by sunlight coming in off a large glass window to the side. It was morning, the sun still on the horizon, warm and rising, and there was no vampire of a nobleman looming over their paralyzed selves and turning them into his dinner…

And, if their nightmares were correct, his slaves…

There was one other person in the room. As their thoughts calmed and minds grappled with their sudden return to consciousness, nay, life itself, in a new location, their eyes naturally fixed on the explosion of scarlet and black in the otherwise white and warm earth tones of the room.

Her ruby irises in black sclera looked back at them without fear. They'd never seen an elf with such white skin, or hair so black ending in crimson, or black nails…

Of course, wizards affected unusual appearances as a matter of course, so it might not even be natural. Combined with her cold and otherworldly beauty, more alien and unreal than fey, it was definitely hard to keep their eyes off of her.

"It has been forty years since you died."

The two men gawked at her, and suddenly the deluge of timeless nightmares, of captured screams railing at chains of obedience, made more sense and became far more real.

"Your souls were bound in service to Marquis Boris of Transyvia as slaves to the whims of an elder vampire, serving him as shadows all these years. I have arranged for you to be restored to life for my own reasons." The two men stared at me, trembling as the horrible things they'd been made into and been forced to do began to rear up in them.

A silent hand rose and wove a subtle sign. Little black skulls trailing crimson rose petals rose from her long-fingered palm, fingers moving with distracting grace and precision guiding them so artfully around the two men's heads they were more distracted than wary of the magic.

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