Hey everybody,

Sorry it took so long, but I just finished school and started a new job.

So here is the next chapter. Please R&R.

Chapter 3: Enter the Necromancer

"Come on, Lily. It's time." Her cousin poked her head in the door and gasped. Actually it was her step cousin. Everybody she considered family was step something, but sometimes she had the feeling that she was closer to them then she could ever have been with her real family. A common history made a lot of difference. Ever since she could remember, she had been growing up with these people around, guiding her. She didn't really have many memories of her mother or stepfather, who had died in a car crash when she was seven years old. Actually, that wasn't really correct, she had pushed aside the memories, locked them away somewhere deep in her subconscious, so she didn't have to deal with it. In a sense she thought it better to not remember, the pain was still unbearable, because she suspected that at least her mother's death had been her fault.

And now she stood here in this huge mansion her mother had grown up in. Even her room felt like a strangers, only the faint scent of roses stirred some memory. Lily hated roses, probably because they had been her mother's favorite. She preferred Lilies, white Lilies. Being the death flowers of choice for her family it fit perfectly with what she was and of course her name, even though it was derive from something else.

"Lily?"

Finally her attention went back to the living, her cousin still starring at her with an open mouth.

"Do you mind?" her hand hit her wide open chin and clapped it shut. Aki looked confused for a moment then blushed.

"Sorry. They're waiting for you downstairs."

Lily nodded and followed her cousin downstairs, where the rest of 'local' family awaited her.

"Are you ready?" her uncle looked like he had seen a ghost, but he didn't say anything and Lilly knew better then to ask. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her otherwise it was simply not important.

Lily nodded and opened the display case in which her mother's priced possession had been waiting for her. She opened the book and scanned it for the map that would tell her the place of her last ceremony. The fact that it was so early in the book was a little scary, making her wonder what else she would find in its pages, once she had become a full Necromancer. 

"It looks like an old cathedral in a small village nearby." She stepped aside so her uncle could see it.

"That's it then." He looked back at her, obviously concerned.

"Are you afraid?"

Lily listened deep inside her. Afraid? She wasn't really sure what she felt, but afraid didn't seem to fit. She shook her head.

"You should be! This is the last test, you are on your own. Nobody is allowed to help in any way, you understand."

Nothing she didn't know already, of course she understood and nodded.

"Fine. I'll see you tomorrow." With those words her uncle left, her cousin in tow. Nobody was left in the house other then herself. Outside the guards would remain on their posts and a limo was waiting to take her where she needed to go.

She still had some time, so she flipped through the book. Right now she didn't look for anything specific, it just seemed a good idea until the flow of the pages was disrupted by something like a bookmark. She picked it up. A small red envelope that had been sealed a long time ago. With shaking hands she opened it and poured the contents into her cupped hand. It was a necklace with three different pendants on a thin leather strap. For a moment she stared at it. No one had ever mentioned it, nor had she seen it in any of the pictures. She didn't get any further in her thoughts, because the driver had just come in looking for her.

"We should go, Miss Lilly."

"Of course." She slipped the necklace into her pocket and followed him outside to the car.