Lyra gave him her complete attention.
She had set her ice cream down without realising it. Whatever he was about to say, she already understood instinctively that it wasn’t the kind of knowledge that found its way into textbooks or lecture halls. This was sothing else entirely. She straightened slightly, as though her body knew to make room for it.
Necrotize noticed. He began.
"Elents are so of the fundantal building blocks that Creation uses to make worlds." His voice was asured, unhurried, the tone of soone recounting sothing ancient from mory. "In the very beginning, before any of it existed, Creation faced a question. What would he use to build planets? A place where children of Life could take root and flourish. And whatever those building blocks were, they also needed to carry the essence of each Ancient Origin, to maintain balance across everything that would co after."
Lyra didn’t move. She wasn’t sure she was breathing.
"So we deliberated. All of us. And eventually, we reached a conclusion, each Ancient Origin would contribute one elent to Creation, to be woven into the foundation of every habitable world."
He let that settle for a mont before continuing.
"Creation himself gave Earth, which reflects his own nature, the act of making sothing from nothing. Life gave Fire, the most primal spark of existence. Death gave Wind, the unseen force that moves through all things the way he does. Ti gave Water, which takes the shape of whatever contains it. Space gave Gravity, the force that holds everything in its place." A brief pause. "And then there were the narcissists who each gave a reflection of themselves. Light and Darkness."
The corner of his mouth shifted, almost imperceptibly.
"And lastly, . I gave Lightning."
He said it plainly, without ceremony.
"Which exists for one purpose. To destroy."
Lyra sat in complete silence. The garden continued quietly around them, indifferent to the weight of what had just been spoken. She turned the words over slowly, trying to arrange them into sothing her mind could hold.
Lord Necrotize gave Lightning.
"But everyone was furious when I did."
She blinked. "Why, my lord?"
"Simple. Because it’s too destructive."
She frowned slightly, not quite following. He read her expression and continued.
"Imagine a world where lightning exists in the sa abundance as every other elent. Not as a rare force, but as a constant, like wind or water or fire." He looked at her steadily. "Nothing would survive it. Every planet they tried to build would be reduced to ruin before anything had a chance to live. That was the problem. The very thing Creation was trying to build would have been unmade by what I contributed."
He leaned back slightly.
"They told to change it. To give sothing else." A brief pause. "I refused."
There was a faint trace of sothing self-aware in his voice, not quite embarrassnt, but adjacent to it.
"I was sowhat stubborn back then. And considerably more arrogant."
Lyra opened her mouth, then closed it again. She genuinely wasn’t sure how to respond to that, whether to laugh, or simply accept it as the straightforward confession it appeared to be.
She did neither, and simply looked at him.
The embarrassnt in his voice was subtle, but it was there.
"And because of that stubbornness, things escalated. Creation and I had a disagreent. It wasn’t a catastrophic clash by any ans but it left him irritated with . In the end, a decision was reached. Lightning would not be removed, but it would be reduced present in the world only as a fraction of the other elents. The rest agreed. I didn’t oppose it either."
He paused.
"And so Creation began building worlds with those elents as their foundation. Which brings us to the part that actually matters."
He let the silence hold for just a mont.
"As a parting gesture call it a lingering grudge from our disagreent Creation made lightning extraordinarily difficult to wield using his mana."
Lyra’s expression shifted.
And then sothing clicked.
Wait. Lord Necrotize had said before that all mana in use belongs to Creation. And Creation specifically made lightning difficult to control through that mana. So if soone were to use a different source of mana entirely...
Necrotize didn’t show it outwardly, but sothing in him smiled. He had expected her to get there. She had a mind that moved quickly and quietly, assembling pieces without needing to be handed the picture. He had known that much already.
She was still thinking, her gaze turned inward, the garden around her completely forgotten.
Lord Necrotize gave Lightning. That makes him its originator. Its source. So to truly wield it one would need the mana of its creator. The mana of destruction.
She had arrived at the answer entirely on her own.
Necrotize was genuinely surprised. He had anticipated she might inch toward it. He had not expected her to walk directly up to the door and knock.
She looked up at him, unable to hold the question in.
"My lord... does that an to properly use lightning, one needs to use your essence?"
"Yes," he said. "Exactly right. To wield lightning as it was ant to be wielded, one needs my essence."
Then he turned and looked directly at her.
"And for you to master lightning... you need my essence."
Sothing ignited behind Lyra’s eyes.
For the first ti in longer than she could account for, a door had opened where there had only ever been a wall. Her entire life, her father’s voice had followed her like a shadow his disappointnt, his criticism, the particular way he looked at her elent as though it were a defect rather than a gift. She had carried that weight so long she had stopped noticing how heavy it was.
And now the answer had been sitting right beside her on a garden bench, eating ice cream.
Her decision ford before she had fully finished the thought. She would ask him. She would ask him to teach her, regardless of what it cost her comfort, her pride, or sothing far worse. She didn’t care about the consequences. Even if the audacity of the request angered him. Even if he looked at her like she had lost her mind entirely. She would have no regrets.
She steadied herself.
"My lord, I would like to ask you sothing."
"What," he replied simply but there was sothing in his expression. A trace of amusent, carefully contained.
"I..." She held her ground. "I would like you to teach how to use your essence."
Necrotize looked at her for a long mont, eyes narrowing just slightly. The amusent didn’t leave his face if anything, it deepened into sothing more deliberate.
"It’s not that I can’t." A brief pause. "But..."
"But?" The word ca out before she could stop it, laced with more desperation than she’d intended.
"But you’d have to do sothing for in return."
Lyra had already prepared herself for this. Nothing in this world moved without exchange she understood that much. Whatever the price was, she would et it.
"What would you have do, my lord?"
"What I want," he said, "is..."
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