Reborn with a Necromancer System
Chapter 137: A Royal Offer

Chapter 137: A Royal Offer

Kai left Naia to practice by herself in the yard while he entered the estate.

After returning to his room, Kai didn’t rest.

The door to the attic clicked shut behind him, and he stood silently in the shadows for a long minute. His muscles ached faintly from hours of training his student, but there was something else nagging at him. A thought he couldn’t ignore.

Two days ago, Graham mentioned she’d bent a silver goblet in half with an accidental gravity spike. It hadn’t been dramatic, just a flicker of force, but it was uncontrolled. Dangerous.

Graham assumed it was emotional turbulence. A reaction to stress. Her "becoming a woman", as he put it. But the timing of it, coupled with the palace’s increasingly dense magical atmosphere, made him suspicious.

Something was happening around them.

Kai descended the stairs to the lower halls of the Eldridge estate and sought out the girl’s room.

She wasn’t inside. But he found her in the garden, arms outstretched, trying to balance a cluster of pebbles in a lazy orbit around her head.

The rocks wobbled, then clattered to the ground as soon as she saw him.

"Kai!" she beamed. "I was practicing!"

’What’s with nobody remembering to use the names I give myself? Why even try to hide my identity?’

"It’s Alex, remember?"

"Oh, right! Sorry! But... My practicing?"

"I can see you’re making good progress," he said mildly, glancing at the faint dents left in the flagstone. "Since when can you manipulate six points at once?"

"I dunno," she shrugged. "Since yesterday?"

He knelt beside one of the stones and picked it up. It was warm. Faintly heated from spatial pressure.

"Try again," he said, stepping back.

She did. This time, with his eyes sharper, he saw it: her mana surged not like a wave, but like a ripple. External. Not her own.

He frowned.

"You didn’t cast that by yourself."

"What?" She blinked. "I did. I think. I tried really hard this time."

"No. Something’s amplifying you. Like a lens. And you’re drawing in more ambient mana than usual."

She tilted her head. "Is that bad?"

"No. Not yet, at least."

But it could be. A lens could be magical influence, possession, or even a magical artifact, conscious or not, within in her space.

She could be unknowingly tapping into leyline bleed-off from something nearby. Possibly something man-made.

"Let me run a test."

He circled her slowly, his strengthening magic focused on his eyes while he sensed for every fraction of mana around her.

After his time spent with Orlin, he concluded that there were no curses involved. Based on the structure of the mana, it wasn’t from sigils or enchantments, either. His necromancy wants picking up anything from the spirit realm.

Something echoed every ripple of mana that emanated from her body, though.

A resonance of gravity-aligned mana near her skin. Not inside. Not in her core.

She was absorbing from the environment.

"Where did you go yesterday?" he asked sharply.

Naia blinked, startled. "Nowhere. Just the eastern side of the palace. A girl that works the stables there is great for gossip. I was bored."

Kai stilled. When he did reconnaissance at the palace, he didn’t feel anything odd around the east, but he was paying more attention to the people around while mentally mapping the palace and paying attention to the servants.

He made a mental note.

Before he could press further, a footman cleared his throat behind him.

"Forgive the interruption, Master Trunsdale," the man said, bowing low, "but you have been summoned to the inner palace. Prince Arion requests your presence."

Naia’s eyes widened. "The prince?"

Kai stiffened. "Did he say why?"

"No, my lord. Only that it was urgent."

---

The walk to the inner palace was brisk and silent. The guards escorting him didn’t speak. And when he arrived, he was ushered not into a throne room or council chamber, but a private study on the east balcony level.

Sunlight poured in through arched windows. Incense curled lazily through the air.

Prince Arion sat at a polished desk, quill in hand, studying a war map dotted with small crystal markers.

He looked up as Kai entered. Only twelve years old, bht his gaze was the gaze of a seasoned politician. Tired, calculating.

’Just what has this kid gone through to be like this?’

"Kai Tensen," Arion said. "Necromancer, famed princess killer, and now, magical tutor to the Eldridge heir."

"You..."

"Don’t mind me. I just have the same gifts as my sister. I can see it all, you know? And she told me about you several times. There’s no way you killed her. Your secrets are safe with me. But... You’re not from here. This world."

Kai froze. Even Orlin couldn’t manage to figure that out on his own, and Aliza never mentioned it. It dawned on him how this twelve-year-old boy had the wisdom of someone much older. He’d seen everything. Possibly from birth.

bowed slightly, neutral. "Thanks to that skill, you seem well informed, Your Highness."

"I must be," Arion said, gesturing for him to sit. "In times like these, ignorance is a luxury I can’t afford."

Kai took the seat across from him. Luckily, he didn’t press him for his otherworldly origin. Infact, he said nothing for some time.

"I’ll be direct," the prince said, finally breaking the silence. "I’m assembling a cadre of magically gifted minds. People I trust. People with initiative."

"And you think I fulfil your requirements?"

"Of course. You’re interesting. Elusive. Dangerous. But more than that, you’re effective."

Kai felt the weight of the words settle like lead.

The prince leaned forward. "I want you as my personal arcane advisor and tutor. You’ll work with me directly. Help shape policy. Education. Defense strategy."

It was a dream job, at least for someone else. Power. Prestige. Proximity to the throne.

But for Kai?

A trap.

Carefully baited. Carefully timed.

"I’m honoured," Kai said evenly. "But I’m already employed. By the master of House Eldridge."

"I’ll pay triple."

"I didn’t take the job for coin."

Arion studied him. "Then for the girl?"

Kai didn’t reply.

The silence stretched between them like wire.

Eventually, the prince leaned back and sighed. "Very well. I’ll respect your current commitments. But the offer stands. Should your situation change, come to me. There are few people in this world who could use your talents as well as me."

Kai nodded. "Understood."

He stood, bowed once more, and was escorted from the study.

As the palace doors closed behind him, he breathed out slowly.

Too many eyes.

Too many shadows.

And now, the prince wanted him close.

He didn’t know if that meant he was doing something right, or about to walk into the depths of hell.

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