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The chains dug deep into my arms, links branding my flesh. Hands hung limply having long since gone numb, making me wonder just how much blood was left in them. If I tried real hard I could twitch a finger, but that was if I really tried, and right now there were other things distracting my attention. Not that I had much to pay attention to. Blindfolded and gagged, and they might as well as have taken my nose as everything smelt burnt. I suppose that's what I get for jumping through a hell portal, but at the time the smell was the least of my concerns.

The collar about my neck gave a particularly harsh tug, making me stumble. Feet cut on rugged ground, and I knew that they should have been bleeding, but Hell didn't know the meaning of mortality. Blood did not exist here, nor did death, though pain came by the skin full. I had long since lost any idea about what direction I was walking in, not that Hell followed a standard set of compass points. I'd long since lost any idea of where I was, but then I'd never been to Hell before so it was not as if I had a point of reference to begin with. Despite all this, it wasn't Hell that I wanted to escape, it was my captors.

In life, reality, the real world, whatever you wanted to call it, I had always been a prisoner in one form or another, always controlled. There was one thing though, my captors had always been mortal. These weren't. Death's harbingers, drivers of the death coach, the headless horsemen. Call them what you want, but they were Dullahans. Cold, cruel creatures that were impervious to harm, and I had fallen into their grasp. They made sure that the dead were delivered, and then there was me. Technically I hadn't died, at least I didn't think I had; but what was a certainty was that mortals were not supposed to pass through a Hell portal, actually nothing was meant to, they weren't meant to exist. Then I came along, ripping that hole in reality, me and my estranged magic.

My magic had never been normal. There weren't that many laws to magic, but I still managed to defy them. The main one was that the dead couldn't be returned to life. I'd managed to break that, admittedly at such a great price. To say I had brought someone back to life, but when you look at how it was done, you could only really say that it was one person who didn't die. How? My friend, the only person I had really ever called friend with such confidence, died on the battlefield in front of me. It wasn't even a decision, it just came as a reaction. I did what no necromancer before me could do, I reached into the void of death and pulled his soul back. Some people believe it should work on the principal of equivalent exchange, if it does then it certainly didn't that time. Even I don't know how many people my magic ripped apart as I pulled him back, people that were supposedly on my side. Even if they didn't know, I knew what my role on their side was, and it was not to be a warmonger. I didn't care for the scorn they gave me for what I did because that friend was the one aspect about my life I could control, I didn't care that I had killed so many of them for something that wasn't even human. Why should I care? In the end they were going to sacrifice my life to their gods.

I collided with the back of one of the Dullahans, making me stumble backwards. Heat was also something that didn't exist here, but getting too close to them left me feeling... for want of a better word, cold. A hand grabbed at my chin, pulling me up and away, almost toppling me before the chain was yanked back, landing me on my feet. That hand, I wanted to rip myself free from its grip, but it held strong, threatening to rip into my jaw. It didn't feel right. Sharp as talons, thin as bones and as hard as diamonds. Then how it felt... It made me shudder. I tried not to imagine what it looked like, I didn't really want to know. When they had captured me, I'd only really acknowledged the lack of head, I didn't get a good look otherwise, I didn't really want to. So many myths surrounded the Dullahans. You died if you looked at one, you died if they called your name, or they could just come for you. I didn't really want to find out what the truth behind the myths were. Right now I prayed that what felt leathery against my skin was actually a glove, though I could feel no seams. Riders were supposed to wear gloves, weren't they?

The hand tilted my head, as if pondering a question. Finally I was released, my head still resting upon the hand, though it no longer gripped so tightly.
"You have the book." If it was a question or a statement I had no idea, there was no tone to his voice. The words grated on my ears, chilling me to the bone. Speech should not have been natural to these creatures, their mouths had no connection to their vocal chords, at least if they were human it would have been that way; then again I'm no expert at Dullahan anatomy 101, I only ever got as far as knowing the head wasn't connected to the body.

It wasn't worth the time trying to consider how it was talking, I just didn't know and I didn't really care to ponder the idea for too long. What mattered was what he had said. All he had said was 'book' and yet I knew exactly what he meant. It wasn't as if he meant a book that anyone could get access to, like a dictionary or a bible, the book he meant really was one of a kind.
"The Last Arcanum." Despite my eyes being blindfolded, I shied them away. Shakily I nodded my head just once, I couldn't deny the fact that I had heard of the book. It was obvious that I had come across it at some point. One did not just pull a soul back from the realm of the dead without any knowledge, and that's just what the Last Arcanum provided, forbidden knowledge, forbidden magic.
"If you give it to us, we shall let you go." Not on my life. I knew that book was worth more than anything in the whole world. Gods only knew what would happen if a book like that fell into the wrong hands.

Though I suppose I got it from wrong hands in the first place, so to speak. As much as I detested my father, I could not rebuke him on the font of knowledge he possessed. I knew it was not all for him, and I suspected a lot of it had been put together on behalf of one of his minions, an avid book collector. I referred to her as the Bibliophile, since she had smacked me over the head when I had called her a bookworm. At 8 I hadn't recognised or appreciated the difference. She didn't read everything that she collected, merely owning and possessing the books, just as one might collect statues or paintings or wine. At least to me the books seemed a normal thing to collect, far unlike one man I knew who seemed to collect parts of people he had killed; I still failed to see the fascination of an eye or some internal organ in a pickle jar.

I'd never really had much of a childhood. As soon as it was possible my father had had me trained in ways of magic, quickly finding what I was best at and improving upon it. I spent the majority of my time learning about magic, it was as if I ate, lived and breathed it. Then one day, one of my lessons didn't happen, I was left to my own devices. So I did what any child would have done at a taste of freedom, I wandered. In that afternoon I learnt more than I had ever before, and it wasn't all magic based. Primarily I had been taught about necromancy, but in that one afternoon I soon learnt about various other styles, trying to pick up tricks I could use myself. Then finally I had found the library.

To say I was taken in hook line and sinker wasn't even the half of it, that room truly had me enraptured. I had been told that there were many places I was not supposed to go, and I suspected that this was one of them. So carefully I snuck in, not wanting to be noticed. As I soon found out there was only one person I had to avoid, and that was the Bibliophile, she was the only one who ever seemed to come in with an great regularity. Any time that I had free time I would find myself wandering there, fingers pulling books off of the shelves as my eyes drank in the words. Plenty of the books were on magic, but there were also histories, which were the ones that truly captured my attention. Day after day I learnt of magic, to me history was a different subject entirely, even if a lot of it was a history of magic. One day the Bibliophile had caught me, about a month after my infatuation had started. As it turned out, she had known I had been there all along and wasn't in the tiniest bit angry with my thirst for knowledge, only warning me to be careful with the books.

As I started to have less lessons, far surpassing the expectations of my teachers, I began to spend more and more time in the library, hours spent pouring over ancient texts as I learnt of magics that had long since not been taught. It was easy enough to hide myself away at a carrel, light poised in the corner as my fingers hovered over the pages, tracing the lines I was reading. Hidden away deep within the library I doubted anyone would find me quickly if they came looking. I ended up spending nights in there, reading tomes in languages that had long been dead. Then one night I had been chilled by descriptions of magic that allowed one to control another's blood. As painful as it sounded I kept on reading, eyes drinking in the words of the theory as I myself considered how one would go about it. Necromancy was about controlling the magic of death, but why should one stop at death? The smile crept across my lips as I considered just how possible it may be. It was too late that I realised I was not alone.

The hand clamped down on my shoulder, throwing me and the chair backwards. I made to get up, but stopped part way, falling back onto my arms. My father stood above me, eyes glaring down at me. My eyes glanced down one of the aisles, but I knew there was no hope, he would only use my name to force me to come back. Names held such a power over a person, and given that he was my father, he had given me my given name. Until I found how to break it, I would always be under my father's power. Perhaps that was why magic of the blood had fascinated me, the idea of being able to have such power over someone without having to use a name. As soon as he knew I was not running he turned his attention to the desk, looking at the documents I had spread across it. Slowly I sat up, having no intention of returning to my feet just yet.

Within the minute he stood up straight, holding onto the scroll I had been reading. I called out as he brought fire to his fingers, but the cry caught in my throat as I remembered this was my father I was trying to rebuke. He only glared at me, as if to say 'you dare to question me'. The flames were merely to supply a light source, not to burn the scroll. It took him some time to read through a few lines, a low muttering on his breath as he read it out aloud. I'd read quite a few of them scrolls, and the language seemed almost like a first language to me, as if I had been brought up on it, which in part I had. As he turned back to me he let the flame go, the room turning into near darkness, the gloom only just being kept away by the small flickering light I had brought with me. He grabbed me by my shirt front, hauling me up so my feet didn't even scrape the floor.
"So this is where you have been instead of attending your lessons." Somehow it didn't seem right to inform him that I wasn't the one who had stopped my lessons.
"How long have you been coming here?"
"Three months," I managed to murmur.

He dropped me to the floor, turning away. Again I stayed on the floor, this time I remained laying there.
"And you have been reading this sort of thing since then?"
"Yes father." In the poor light I could barely see his face, but I could see the smile forming on his face, a word I would later describe as sadistic.
"Keep it up," he turned away, dropping the scroll to the desk, "And make sure you're awake in the morning, I want to talk to you first thing."

I didn't sleep that night, just lying there on the floor. After about an hour I finally sat up, pulling myself up onto the chair. I didn't read any more, just sat in the chair. My thoughts were elsewhere, wondering what my father wanted. I never knew what he was thinking, what he was planning. As morning came I returned the books, slowly putting them back. As I put the last scroll back I was grabbed, hauled backwards.
"You're up early little bookworm." I pulled the hand down, looking up at Bibliophile. Something in the back of my mind nagged at me, but I wasn't entirely concerned.
"I've been up all night," I answered.
"You should get some sleep, there's a bed in here somewhere."
"I can't, I have to see my father." She smiled down at me, and I could only slightly frown back. I didn't understand why, it was what nagged at me. In later years I found out that there was a magic about her, one that I wasn't effected by, but I was aware of which was why I had been uncomfortable.
"Well you better run along then."

My father was sat at his desk when I entered, and I stood there until he decided to acknowledge me.
"How much do you understand about what you were reading last night?"
"Enough to understand the principle methods," I answered, not quite ready to look him in the face.
"You are aware that this goes beyond the necromancy that you are being taught?"
"I am father."
"This goes beyond what I told you. Why are you disobeying me?" I shivered, silently praying that he would not order me to do something, but in the meantime I still had to think up of a reply.
"I..." why did I have to feel so repressed, why was I not even allowed to make a choice over the magic I wanted to learn, "Because it's too simple."

His eyes turned sharp so fast, but for the first time I didn't want to run, I wanted to stand up against him and let him know that I didn't just want to be an everyday necromancer, that I wanted more than that, that I wanted to take it further. Why should my power have to stop at the dead, why should my magic be confined?
"It's the quickest way to power."
"Says you. It might be the quickest way to power, but it isn't the strongest."
"This is war, for a necromancer there is no power like it."
"Why do I have to rely on a magic that someone has to die for?"
"Because I am your father and you will listen to me." As my collar was grabbed I didn't even bat an eyelid, I stared him down.
"Magic from the dead, using that, why do I have to be confined to that? You send me relics from the front, it's not even power I have taken. I know the books, I've practised the techniques, I surpassed my teachers months ago. What's wrong with me wanting me to be stronger? At the rate you make me train I'll have the surge soon, and I want my magic, not one you want for me."

As I paused in the library, what happened went back over and over again in my head. Fear had finally struck, he had smirked and I had broken.
"I better find you some new teachers." I'd left, before I became paralysed by my fear, retreating to the library. Wandering through the library, down abandoned aisles, and finally I stopped, not knowing what made me stop. This part of the library, I didn't recognise it. My fingers trailed through the dust on the books, tracing the names. How old were these books? This place... it didn't seem real. Bibliophile would have kept them clean, she wouldn't have allowed them to become like this. One book drew my attention, a black bound volume. Silver lined, a material that felt crisp under my fingers.
"The Last Arcanum."

Within seconds everything seemed to be back to normal. An aisle I remembered, books void of dust. Just where had I been, what had just happened? Certainly it had been real, the book was there in my arms, that book that now seemed so heavy. 'The Last Arcanum', just what did it mean? I didn't even bother trying to find a desk, I just collapsed to the floor, the book wide open across my knees. My eyes scanned those texts, completely entranced, yet completely scared. These texts, it was like nothing I had seen before, a language I had never read, a language I had never been taught, and yet I read it more naturally than I did my own mother's tongue. Eyes reeled through all the ink strokes, fingers turning page after page. I never noticed as I shredded my fingertips on the pages, I never noticed as the pages were stained by red, but turned to creamy parchment quicker than one could blink. Page after page, spell after spell. Secrets that one should never know, secrets that works since could never hope to imagine, and yet I believed every single word of it, not doubting any of it for a second. Spells of forbidden knowledge, spells that should never see the light of day. Such powerful spells, but spells that came at such a high price. This book, it was like throwing a life preserver to a man, drowning in the middle of the ocean, it was a book for the damned; and yet there was my greatest hope.

My mind finally realised that I had stopped going through the pages, leaving myself some quarter of the way through the book. Had I really only gone through a quarter of the book? I looked up, eyes catching sight of a clock. The time, surely it could not be right, if so that meant it had been close to eight hours since I had spoken with my father. That couldn't be right. Just how long was this book? I made to turn the page, but my fingers reeled back, making me suck at the tips. How had they become ripped; not just one, but all of them. My hands shook before I allowed them to drop, trying to comprehend what had happened. Some strange magic was the only possibility, perhaps some sort of symbol. Sliding my hand in, I closed the book on it and flipped it, eyes quickly scanning the back. Nothing obvious was there, nothing glowing to suggest a symbol was in action.

Going back, I tentatively turned the page, making sure I held onto the one I wanted, then to the next, and back one again. I nearly dropped the page, hands shaking as I settled it. This book, was book even the right term? None of the pages remained the same. How many times had I gone through the book, not realising that I had gone back to the start? Just how vast a font of knowledge was this book in itself? What could not be discerned from it? Yet still, out of everything this book could tell me, out of all its knowledge, I had been able to find the one thing that could give me hope, the one thing that could save me.

Power would always lie in a name, a name was the most powerful thing you could possess. Knowing your true name could give you powers beyond belief, and if I discovered mine, I would be able to escape my father's grasp, I would be able to do what I will without having to fear him, wouldn't I? Or not. With a taken name he should have lost such control over me, so he must have worded it somehow to take advantage of that, and if I were in his shoes, I would have made the same apply to when I discovered my true name. Yet this book gave me hope; not in a way of finding out how to take that power away from him, but in the knowledge that there was a further name, a name that none should be able to speak, a name that bound you to the realm of the living. Know that name, and you could make yourself immortal, if I knew that name, I would never fear my father again.

"The Last Arcanum." I shook my head. The magic of that book was not natural, and I could not trust it to anyone, knowing how easily corruptible it was. I had survived hell, I had brought a dead friend back to life, I had stopped a man from dying, I had cursed my father and done so many other things from that book. Only cursing my father could I justify, the rest had been done on my own whim or another's. Who knew what the Dullahans would do if they took possession of the book. Already they had the power of the name that bound you to life and death, the only creatures that could see it, and used it to take people from the living world.

I gasped as the gag was ripped from my mouth, wondering if some of my teeth had been dragged out with it. Instantly my breath caught at the dry air, struggling to take it in by the lungful. Again the harsh grasp of the Dullanhan's hand came, this time tearing into me, carving my flesh to the bone.
"Do you have any idea about what that book could do?" I did, and that was why I had bound the book to me with my very own blood.
"I won't give it up," the words rasped from my mouth, both dry and slurred at the same time.
"The book, or your enemies." If only the Dullahan knew what my smile meant. I had but one friend, everyone else might as well as been an enemy.
"The Arcanum is mine."

Pulled through dimensions, I recognised the feeling, after all it wasn't my first time; but this time I was returning to the realm of the living, and that was when the blood began to flow. Pain atop of more pain as the blood ran freely from the many wounds. I wished the gag could have been back, for then the Dullahans would not have listened to my pitiful cries so easily. That warm liquid, gushing over my skin, that deep red elixir that many didn't even understand the power that was behind it, my blood that was being so easily shed.

"One last time, give us the book." His voice so menacing in my ear, yet still I shook my head, not caring for what he threatened me with, not caring for the pain I was in. The blindfold dropped from my eyes, revealing their unique purple colour.
"I believe you called her Dragonite, at least that was the name she took."

I stalled, what little blood I had left was rushing from my face, making me deathly pale. These men in front of me, I knew nearly all of them for I had betrayed them. I had destroyed their leader, ripped his magic from him, though I had never seen the aftermath of my action. I didn't know if they knew what I had done, or if they even believed I had done so. Even if they didn't, I was still a well-placed figure, I was still my father's daughter. These were my father's men. I had destroyed my father, and I was being handed over to the men who would kill me for doing so.

I'd been wrong, I had not yet seen hell.

Description
The chains dug deep into my arms, links branding my flesh. Hands hung limply having long since gone numb, making me wonder just how much blood was left in them. If I tried real hard I could twitch a finger, but that was if I really tried, and right now there were other things distracting my attention. Not that I had much to pay attention to. Blindfolded and gagged, and they might as well as have taken my nose as everything smelt burnt. I suppose that's what I get for jumping through a hell portal, but at the time the smell was the least of my concerns.

The collar about my neck gave a particularly harsh tug, making me stumble. Feet cut on rugged ground, and I knew that they should have been bleeding, but Hell didn't know the meaning of mortality. Blood did not exist here, nor did death, though pain came by the skin full. I had long since lost any idea about what direction I was walking in, not that Hell followed a standard set of compass points. I'd long since lost any idea of where I was, but then I'd never been to Hell before so it was not as if I had a point of reference to begin with. Despite all this, it wasn't Hell that I wanted to escape, it was my captors.

In life, reality, the real world, whatever you wanted to call it, I had always been a prisoner in one form or another, always controlled. There was one thing though, my captors had always been mortal. These weren't. Death's harbingers, drivers of the death coach, the headless horsemen. Call them what you want, but they were Dullahans. Cold, cruel creatures that were impervious to harm, and I had fallen into their grasp. They made sure that the dead were delivered, and then there was me. Technically I hadn't died, at least I didn't think I had; but what was a certainty was that mortals were not supposed to pass through a Hell portal, actually nothing was meant to, they weren't meant to exist. Then I came along, ripping that hole in reality, me and my estranged magic.

My magic had never been normal. There weren't that many laws to magic, but I still managed to defy them. The main one was that the dead couldn't be returned to life. I'd managed to break that, admittedly at such a great price. To say I had brought someone back to life, but when you look at how it was done, you could only really say that it was one person who didn't die. How? My friend, the only person I had really ever called friend with such confidence, died on the battlefield in front of me. It wasn't even a decision, it just came as a reaction. I did what no necromancer before me could do, I reached into the void of death and pulled his soul back. Some people believe it should work on the principal of equivalent exchange, if it does then it certainly didn't that time. Even I don't know how many people my magic ripped apart as I pulled him back, people that were supposedly on my side. Even if they didn't know, I knew what my role on their side was, and it was not to be a warmonger. I didn't care for the scorn they gave me for what I did because that friend was the one aspect about my life I could control, I didn't care that I had killed so many of them for something that wasn't even human. Why should I care? In the end they were going to sacrifice my life to their gods.

I collided with the back of one of the Dullahans, making me stumble backwards. Heat was also something that didn't exist here, but getting too close to them left me feeling... for want of a better word, cold. A hand grabbed at my chin, pulling me up and away, almost toppling me before the chain was yanked back, landing me on my feet. That hand, I wanted to rip myself free from its grip, but it held strong, threatening to rip into my jaw. It didn't feel right. Sharp as talons, thin as bones and as hard as diamonds. Then how it felt... It made me shudder. I tried not to imagine what it looked like, I didn't really want to know. When they had captured me, I'd only really acknowledged the lack of head, I didn't get a good look otherwise, I didn't really want to. So many myths surrounded the Dullahans. You died if you looked at one, you died if they called your name, or they could just come for you. I didn't really want to find out what the truth behind the myths were. Right now I prayed that what felt leathery against my skin was actually a glove, though I could feel no seams. Riders were supposed to wear gloves, weren't they?

The hand tilted my head, as if pondering a question. Finally I was released, my head still resting upon the hand, though it no longer gripped so tightly.
"You have the book." If it was a question or a statement I had no idea, there was no tone to his voice. The words grated on my ears, chilling me to the bone. Speech should not have been natural to these creatures, their mouths had no connection to their vocal chords, at least if they were human it would have been that way; then again I'm no expert at Dullahan anatomy 101, I only ever got as far as knowing the head wasn't connected to the body.

It wasn't worth the time trying to consider how it was talking, I just didn't know and I didn't really care to ponder the idea for too long. What mattered was what he had said. All he had said was 'book' and yet I knew exactly what he meant. It wasn't as if he meant a book that anyone could get access to, like a dictionary or a bible, the book he meant really was one of a kind.
"The Last Arcanum." Despite my eyes being blindfolded, I shied them away. Shakily I nodded my head just once, I couldn't deny the fact that I had heard of the book. It was obvious that I had come across it at some point. One did not just pull a soul back from the realm of the dead without any knowledge, and that's just what the Last Arcanum provided, forbidden knowledge, forbidden magic.
"If you give it to us, we shall let you go." Not on my life. I knew that book was worth more than anything in the whole world. Gods only knew what would happen if a book like that fell into the wrong hands.

Though I suppose I got it from wrong hands in the first place, so to speak. As much as I detested my father, I could not rebuke him on the font of knowledge he possessed. I knew it was not all for him, and I suspected a lot of it had been put together on behalf of one of his minions, an avid book collector. I referred to her as the Bibliophile, since she had smacked me over the head when I had called her a bookworm. At 8 I hadn't recognised or appreciated the difference. She didn't read everything that she collected, merely owning and possessing the books, just as one might collect statues or paintings or wine. At least to me the books seemed a normal thing to collect, far unlike one man I knew who seemed to collect parts of people he had killed; I still failed to see the fascination of an eye or some internal organ in a pickle jar.

I'd never really had much of a childhood. As soon as it was possible my father had had me trained in ways of magic, quickly finding what I was best at and improving upon it. I spent the majority of my time learning about magic, it was as if I ate, lived and breathed it. Then one day, one of my lessons didn't happen, I was left to my own devices. So I did what any child would have done at a taste of freedom, I wandered. In that afternoon I learnt more than I had ever before, and it wasn't all magic based. Primarily I had been taught about necromancy, but in that one afternoon I soon learnt about various other styles, trying to pick up tricks I could use myself. Then finally I had found the library.

To say I was taken in hook line and sinker wasn't even the half of it, that room truly had me enraptured. I had been told that there were many places I was not supposed to go, and I suspected that this was one of them. So carefully I snuck in, not wanting to be noticed. As I soon found out there was only one person I had to avoid, and that was the Bibliophile, she was the only one who ever seemed to come in with an great regularity. Any time that I had free time I would find myself wandering there, fingers pulling books off of the shelves as my eyes drank in the words. Plenty of the books were on magic, but there were also histories, which were the ones that truly captured my attention. Day after day I learnt of magic, to me history was a different subject entirely, even if a lot of it was a history of magic. One day the Bibliophile had caught me, about a month after my infatuation had started. As it turned out, she had known I had been there all along and wasn't in the tiniest bit angry with my thirst for knowledge, only warning me to be careful with the books.

As I started to have less lessons, far surpassing the expectations of my teachers, I began to spend more and more time in the library, hours spent pouring over ancient texts as I learnt of magics that had long since not been taught. It was easy enough to hide myself away at a carrel, light poised in the corner as my fingers hovered over the pages, tracing the lines I was reading. Hidden away deep within the library I doubted anyone would find me quickly if they came looking. I ended up spending nights in there, reading tomes in languages that had long been dead. Then one night I had been chilled by descriptions of magic that allowed one to control another's blood. As painful as it sounded I kept on reading, eyes drinking in the words of the theory as I myself considered how one would go about it. Necromancy was about controlling the magic of death, but why should one stop at death? The smile crept across my lips as I considered just how possible it may be. It was too late that I realised I was not alone.

The hand clamped down on my shoulder, throwing me and the chair backwards. I made to get up, but stopped part way, falling back onto my arms. My father stood above me, eyes glaring down at me. My eyes glanced down one of the aisles, but I knew there was no hope, he would only use my name to force me to come back. Names held such a power over a person, and given that he was my father, he had given me my given name. Until I found how to break it, I would always be under my father's power. Perhaps that was why magic of the blood had fascinated me, the idea of being able to have such power over someone without having to use a name. As soon as he knew I was not running he turned his attention to the desk, looking at the documents I had spread across it. Slowly I sat up, having no intention of returning to my feet just yet.

Within the minute he stood up straight, holding onto the scroll I had been reading. I called out as he brought fire to his fingers, but the cry caught in my throat as I remembered this was my father I was trying to rebuke. He only glared at me, as if to say 'you dare to question me'. The flames were merely to supply a light source, not to burn the scroll. It took him some time to read through a few lines, a low muttering on his breath as he read it out aloud. I'd read quite a few of them scrolls, and the language seemed almost like a first language to me, as if I had been brought up on it, which in part I had. As he turned back to me he let the flame go, the room turning into near darkness, the gloom only just being kept away by the small flickering light I had brought with me. He grabbed me by my shirt front, hauling me up so my feet didn't even scrape the floor.
"So this is where you have been instead of attending your lessons." Somehow it didn't seem right to inform him that I wasn't the one who had stopped my lessons.
"How long have you been coming here?"
"Three months," I managed to murmur.

He dropped me to the floor, turning away. Again I stayed on the floor, this time I remained laying there.
"And you have been reading this sort of thing since then?"
"Yes father." In the poor light I could barely see his face, but I could see the smile forming on his face, a word I would later describe as sadistic.
"Keep it up," he turned away, dropping the scroll to the desk, "And make sure you're awake in the morning, I want to talk to you first thing."

I didn't sleep that night, just lying there on the floor. After about an hour I finally sat up, pulling myself up onto the chair. I didn't read any more, just sat in the chair. My thoughts were elsewhere, wondering what my father wanted. I never knew what he was thinking, what he was planning. As morning came I returned the books, slowly putting them back. As I put the last scroll back I was grabbed, hauled backwards.
"You're up early little bookworm." I pulled the hand down, looking up at Bibliophile. Something in the back of my mind nagged at me, but I wasn't entirely concerned.
"I've been up all night," I answered.
"You should get some sleep, there's a bed in here somewhere."
"I can't, I have to see my father." She smiled down at me, and I could only slightly frown back. I didn't understand why, it was what nagged at me. In later years I found out that there was a magic about her, one that I wasn't effected by, but I was aware of which was why I had been uncomfortable.
"Well you better run along then."

My father was sat at his desk when I entered, and I stood there until he decided to acknowledge me.
"How much do you understand about what you were reading last night?"
"Enough to understand the principle methods," I answered, not quite ready to look him in the face.
"You are aware that this goes beyond the necromancy that you are being taught?"
"I am father."
"This goes beyond what I told you. Why are you disobeying me?" I shivered, silently praying that he would not order me to do something, but in the meantime I still had to think up of a reply.
"I..." why did I have to feel so repressed, why was I not even allowed to make a choice over the magic I wanted to learn, "Because it's too simple."

His eyes turned sharp so fast, but for the first time I didn't want to run, I wanted to stand up against him and let him know that I didn't just want to be an everyday necromancer, that I wanted more than that, that I wanted to take it further. Why should my power have to stop at the dead, why should my magic be confined?
"It's the quickest way to power."
"Says you. It might be the quickest way to power, but it isn't the strongest."
"This is war, for a necromancer there is no power like it."
"Why do I have to rely on a magic that someone has to die for?"
"Because I am your father and you will listen to me." As my collar was grabbed I didn't even bat an eyelid, I stared him down.
"Magic from the dead, using that, why do I have to be confined to that? You send me relics from the front, it's not even power I have taken. I know the books, I've practised the techniques, I surpassed my teachers months ago. What's wrong with me wanting me to be stronger? At the rate you make me train I'll have the surge soon, and I want my magic, not one you want for me."

As I paused in the library, what happened went back over and over again in my head. Fear had finally struck, he had smirked and I had broken.
"I better find you some new teachers." I'd left, before I became paralysed by my fear, retreating to the library. Wandering through the library, down abandoned aisles, and finally I stopped, not knowing what made me stop. This part of the library, I didn't recognise it. My fingers trailed through the dust on the books, tracing the names. How old were these books? This place... it didn't seem real. Bibliophile would have kept them clean, she wouldn't have allowed them to become like this. One book drew my attention, a black bound volume. Silver lined, a material that felt crisp under my fingers.
"The Last Arcanum."

Within seconds everything seemed to be back to normal. An aisle I remembered, books void of dust. Just where had I been, what had just happened? Certainly it had been real, the book was there in my arms, that book that now seemed so heavy. 'The Last Arcanum', just what did it mean? I didn't even bother trying to find a desk, I just collapsed to the floor, the book wide open across my knees. My eyes scanned those texts, completely entranced, yet completely scared. These texts, it was like nothing I had seen before, a language I had never read, a language I had never been taught, and yet I read it more naturally than I did my own mother's tongue. Eyes reeled through all the ink strokes, fingers turning page after page. I never noticed as I shredded my fingertips on the pages, I never noticed as the pages were stained by red, but turned to creamy parchment quicker than one could blink. Page after page, spell after spell. Secrets that one should never know, secrets that works since could never hope to imagine, and yet I believed every single word of it, not doubting any of it for a second. Spells of forbidden knowledge, spells that should never see the light of day. Such powerful spells, but spells that came at such a high price. This book, it was like throwing a life preserver to a man, drowning in the middle of the ocean, it was a book for the damned; and yet there was my greatest hope.

My mind finally realised that I had stopped going through the pages, leaving myself some quarter of the way through the book. Had I really only gone through a quarter of the book? I looked up, eyes catching sight of a clock. The time, surely it could not be right, if so that meant it had been close to eight hours since I had spoken with my father. That couldn't be right. Just how long was this book? I made to turn the page, but my fingers reeled back, making me suck at the tips. How had they become ripped; not just one, but all of them. My hands shook before I allowed them to drop, trying to comprehend what had happened. Some strange magic was the only possibility, perhaps some sort of symbol. Sliding my hand in, I closed the book on it and flipped it, eyes quickly scanning the back. Nothing obvious was there, nothing glowing to suggest a symbol was in action.

Going back, I tentatively turned the page, making sure I held onto the one I wanted, then to the next, and back one again. I nearly dropped the page, hands shaking as I settled it. This book, was book even the right term? None of the pages remained the same. How many times had I gone through the book, not realising that I had gone back to the start? Just how vast a font of knowledge was this book in itself? What could not be discerned from it? Yet still, out of everything this book could tell me, out of all its knowledge, I had been able to find the one thing that could give me hope, the one thing that could save me.

Power would always lie in a name, a name was the most powerful thing you could possess. Knowing your true name could give you powers beyond belief, and if I discovered mine, I would be able to escape my father's grasp, I would be able to do what I will without having to fear him, wouldn't I? Or not. With a taken name he should have lost such control over me, so he must have worded it somehow to take advantage of that, and if I were in his shoes, I would have made the same apply to when I discovered my true name. Yet this book gave me hope; not in a way of finding out how to take that power away from him, but in the knowledge that there was a further name, a name that none should be able to speak, a name that bound you to the realm of the living. Know that name, and you could make yourself immortal, if I knew that name, I would never fear my father again.

"The Last Arcanum." I shook my head. The magic of that book was not natural, and I could not trust it to anyone, knowing how easily corruptible it was. I had survived hell, I had brought a dead friend back to life, I had stopped a man from dying, I had cursed my father and done so many other things from that book. Only cursing my father could I justify, the rest had been done on my own whim or another's. Who knew what the Dullahans would do if they took possession of the book. Already they had the power of the name that bound you to life and death, the only creatures that could see it, and used it to take people from the living world.

I gasped as the gag was ripped from my mouth, wondering if some of my teeth had been dragged out with it. Instantly my breath caught at the dry air, struggling to take it in by the lungful. Again the harsh grasp of the Dullanhan's hand came, this time tearing into me, carving my flesh to the bone.
"Do you have any idea about what that book could do?" I did, and that was why I had bound the book to me with my very own blood.
"I won't give it up," the words rasped from my mouth, both dry and slurred at the same time.
"The book, or your enemies." If only the Dullahan knew what my smile meant. I had but one friend, everyone else might as well as been an enemy.
"The Arcanum is mine."

Pulled through dimensions, I recognised the feeling, after all it wasn't my first time; but this time I was returning to the realm of the living, and that was when the blood began to flow. Pain atop of more pain as the blood ran freely from the many wounds. I wished the gag could have been back, for then the Dullahans would not have listened to my pitiful cries so easily. That warm liquid, gushing over my skin, that deep red elixir that many didn't even understand the power that was behind it, my blood that was being so easily shed.

"One last time, give us the book." His voice so menacing in my ear, yet still I shook my head, not caring for what he threatened me with, not caring for the pain I was in. The blindfold dropped from my eyes, revealing their unique purple colour.
"I believe you called her Dragonite, at least that was the name she took."

I stalled, what little blood I had left was rushing from my face, making me deathly pale. These men in front of me, I knew nearly all of them for I had betrayed them. I had destroyed their leader, ripped his magic from him, though I had never seen the aftermath of my action. I didn't know if they knew what I had done, or if they even believed I had done so. Even if they didn't, I was still a well-placed figure, I was still my father's daughter. These were my father's men. I had destroyed my father, and I was being handed over to the men who would kill me for doing so.

I'd been wrong, I had not yet seen hell.