Ebony's mouth fell open.
For a moment nothing came out of it at all.
She'd faced down the drowning weight of his magic, stared into those swirling white eyes and not flinched, told the lord of the dead to his face that he was a garbage boss — and this was the thing that finally short-circuited her.
"(A — a bride. He said bride. The thousand-year-old corpse-king who rots fruit by walking near it just proposed. To me. Over dinner. With a dwarf watching.)"
"Y-you—" She pointed at him, found no words worth the gesture, and lowered the finger.
"It's been centuries," the necromancer said pleasantly, settling onto the table's edge amid the gray dust of his ruined feast as though it were a garden bench, "since I last met anyone with a temperament so agreeable.
I find I'd like to keep you near." He folded his pale hands. "And let's be honest with each other — you won't live very long.
