Reaper’s Curse: Curse of the Royal Reaper, Book Two
Chapter One
Raven
A lavish room, a locked door, and a window several stories too high.
Not what I expected in the way of hospitality, but I probably should have. I was, after all, a reaper in a palace full of overdue souls. Overdue royal souls.
Alone in the room, I was the queen’s guest. At least, that’s what I had been told―given that I (to my surprise) knew the prince and had saved his life. Yet, despite my “guest” status, I couldn’t help but feel like I was standing in a low-security prison cell. I suspected the guards standing in the hall, beyond the closed door, were there to keep tabs on me and prevent my early departure.
I sat in the window, breathing through the too-quick beats of my heart, and stared at the night-kissed city spread below a magic weave coloring the sky. The comfortable chilled air beyond the window smelled of jasmine and tinder. A combination I found curiously soothing.
Somewhere below, within or beneath the jumble of tightly pressed buildings and the glow of flickering street lanterns, were the members of my collection team―my elder and mentor, Mr. Aldine, and my classmate, rival, and coreaper, Chace Badden.
According to Winter, Aldine had been healed from his earlier affliction, and Chace was last seen in an unknown location, locked in a dark cell.
How will I get to them? Should I even try?
The queen had made her desires clear. She wanted to work with only me.
Why? I wasn’t confident in my response to that question, but I was ninety-three percent certain the reason had to do with my proven ability to extract another from an afflicted state.
In the process of healing Winter, I’d taken on a touch of his frosty gift, and the queen had managed to somehow siphon those traces from my system.
And yet… Several times I thought I spied the phantom blue lines of Winter’s ice magic racing from my fingers, through my palms, and up my arms.
I splayed my hands, then squeezed them into tight fists, time and time again, focusing on the process and the repeated press of my nails into the tender skin of my palms. The frozen azure of my fingertips had (at present) vanished, yet I couldn’t help but wonder…
Had the queen lied? Been mistaken? Failed to extract all the infecting magic? Or was I the one who was confused about my current condition?
I shivered with a chill that didn’t appear to exist in the chamber.
A muffled sniffle snapped my attention to the far side of the room, where a man of portly stature stood a step inside the door, rubbing at his nose with a white handkerchief. Perspiration dampened his brow, giving me the keen impression that he was nervous in my company.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, a passive-aggressive jeer to the fact that I’d been left trapped in a room with nothing to occupy my time.
With fluid grace, I straightened, stood taller, rolled my hand in the air before me, and mocked a bow. “By all means, interrupt.”
The advisor’s eyes and lips tightened, making him appear less than thrilled with my response. Nevertheless, he continued, pulling a scroll from his inside jacket pocket. “Our advisory team has looked over the contract and has found everything satisfactory.”
“But of course,” I interjected.
I had hoped—expected—the queen’s staff had seen to all the necessary details before they had requested my signature on “said” contract. Over an hour had passed since I had agreed to the queen’s accord that would, hopefully, allow me to collect the overdue souls, while protecting the rest of the citizens from the zombifying curse.
“We merely need one more thing from you in order to secure our arrangement.” He unrolled the scroll, revealing two sets.
Duplicates.
The scowl slid onto my face before I could control my reaction. “What more could you possibly require of me? I already gave you my signature when my word should have been more than sufficient.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Please excuse us if we are less than trusting when it comes to your kind.”
So…he knew what I was. My shoulders tightened ever so slightly.
His comment opened a world of ugly questions in my mind. What past experiences was I ignorant about? But before I could open my mouth to put words to a single one, the advisor opened the door to the outer hall, and Valen stepped into the room, his gaze immediately snapping to me.
I stared at the male my father had suggested might be able to help heal Aldine. Healing that was no longer needed. Now that I had found Valen, discovered his position as one of the queen’s lackeys, I wasn’t sure what to think of him.
In the short time I had spent in his presence, he had been decent, I supposed, but I found something about him uncomfortably chilly. Something I couldn’t quite place.
Of course, he’d been trapped in this cursed citadel for a century. That was bound to make anyone less than jovial. Not that I was a naturally cheery individual.
The advisor squared his shoulders and motioned to Valen with a stiff hand. “I believe you have already met our royal healer.”
Valen approached, his expression appearing a little too eager. He held firm to a metal device with which I was unfamiliar.
“Ms. Gunn and I have indeed had the pleasure. Now, if you don’t mind…” He raised the metal piece, presenting it to me. “All that is required is your mark, and our agreement is as good as set in stone.”
The warmth provided by the generous fire blazing in the hearth increased, setting my skin to burn. To sweat. My chest tightened, and my attention glued to the mysterious piece in his hand. Something about the design reminded me of the soul-extracting glove I had used to save Winter. An antique tool.
“My mark?” Uncertainty never failed to tie my gut into knots.
“Yes. Your mark. It’s simple enough.” He extended his hand, the metal instrument flat in his palm. Two flat sheets of metal with space between them, like an alloy and air sandwich. “Place your hand inside.”
I flexed my hand, feeling the phantom chill of Winter’s ice magic. His frost still lingered under the skin of my fingers, expanding and sweeping over the lava slushing through my veins.
Shifting the infected limb behind my back, I kept only my remaining warm-blooded hand visible. “Why is my signature not enough?”
Forgoing a verbal response, Valen pressed the device closer.
My heart beat with the wild rhythm of a crow’s wings in panicked flight.
The queen needs me, I reasoned. She wouldn’t do anything that would hurt me, prevent me from making good on our agreement.
Even as I attempted to infuse reason into the situation, I could hear Chace chastising me for considering the request. He was definitely more skeptical of just about everything, and I had to admit that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
But he wasn’t present, and I could see no better option to accomplish the task for which we were sent. We needed access to the secrets surrounding the curse itself, and this agreement might actually give us that.
With a deep breath that failed to settle my volatile emotions, I reluctantly slipped my non-magically infected hand between the two sheets of metal.
The device clicked, and pressure…no…stabbing pain…slammed through my fingers. A hot flash followed by a dull, wet throb. Biting down on a yelp, I pulled my hand free and ogled the blood pooling on each of my fingertips.
My mouth dropped open as if to force my question, possible objection, free. Yet no words sprang forth, and before I could blink, Valen grabbed my hand and slammed it, bloody fingers down, to the awaiting parchment.
My mark, my blood, next to my already provided signature.
Valen handed me a handkerchief, and I deftly cleaned the blood from my skin.
“Sealed with a blood oath,” he said. “Fail to uphold your end of the agreement, and your life is forfeit.”
Chapter Two
Raven
“Forfeit?” I jerked back, allowing an extra foot of distance between myself and Valen. “What will the queen do if I don’t deliver? Have me executed?”
I blinked hard and sucked the newly pooled blood from my fingers. An action meant to hold me from pressing my hand against the building pressure in my chest. Or from throttling Valen.
With a mere shrug and an expression of disinterest, he rolled the parchment into his solid grasp. “I suppose she could if she so desired. She is the queen, after all.”
The queen, with her own life to lose, I thought. Or so she professed.
“But…” Valen rolled the word off his tongue, long and slow. “From my experience, she would more likely shackle you to servitude. Possibly pair you with me to work at the citadel’s current predicament until it’s solved.”
“Is that what she has done to you? Shackled you to servitude?”
He didn’t respond. And he showed no sign of intending to do so.
Deciding not to push, I rubbed my fingers and then waved my hand in an attempt to return the blood flow…and the beat of my heart in my tips…to normal. “Servitude or not, I thought that was what I was doing; working to solve your problem.”
“Indeed.” He slipped the marked parchment into the interior of his jacket and strode toward the door. “So, you should probably get to it rather quickly.”
Trying to remember that my ire was directed at the queen and not her messenger, I considered asking him how he knew my father…if he too had once been a reaper, as I suspected. One who got trapped here by the curse.
But the royal advisor stepped forward and shoved the second rolled parchment in my face, pulling all of my attention.
“Your copy,” he said. “The terms of the agreement are documented here so that you may at any time review the expectations.”
“That reminds me.” With an upward pointed finger striking the air, Valen spun back to face me. “The queen would prefer to keep your arrangement a private matter.”
Hence, avoid the servants because servants and staff talk.
I dipped my head in a nod of understanding, temporarily hiding the burning glare I’d been shifting back and forth between the two men. The glare that went hand in hand with my building irritation.
Rash and stupid of me to concede to any deals with the queen without thorough thought of the consequence.
“Remember all the terms,” Valen demanded. “And recommended courses of action as requested by Her Royal Majesty the queen with regard to our crown prince.”
I frowned at the attempted triple press of importance; royal, majesty, queen. As if any status superseded death.
Not that I was death itself. No, I was no death deity, but I acted on their behalf.
Yet…that was not the important part of the message. The importance hung over my expected behavior regarding Winter.
Discourage his interest. Put distance between you. Basically, put an end to any fraternizing whatsoever.
After he had saved my life and I had saved his back.
I pressed my lips into a tight line. “You don’t need to remind me. The queen made her conditions perfectly clear.”
The queen was asking me to be a horrible person, and I despised the request, but I would honor it…somehow.
How to do so without hurting Winter, I didn’t have a clue.
Valen’s eyes flashed as an arrogant smirk tugged at his lips. “And your friends,” he added with a measured tone. “The others in your party. They are not to know about the arrangement you have with the queen.”
His intense stare dared me to refute. Instead, I decided to take a different approach.
“Of my friends, one is only newly returned to health, and I wouldn’t want to risk a relapse.” I bit the inside of my lip and contemplated Aldine’s possible condition.
Valen arched a brow. “Wise, I think.”
A soft huff rose in my throat. “The other member of my team… I’ve been told he is locked up in some underground cell somewhere. You wouldn’t happen to have any idea where I could find him, would you?”
“Locked up?” The royal healer jolted straight. “In a cell? Underground?”
“Well, that sounds concerning.” The portly advisor pressed a finger to his lower lip. “I know of no underground cells, and I hate to contemplate their existence. Although…” He tilted his head into his shoulder and scratched the back of his large, rounded ear. “Such things would seem possible in a city as old as this one.”
“Indeed,” Valen agreed with a thoughtful nod, then he looked down his slightly crooked nose at me. “But are you not referring to the one our queen demanded leave the citadel? Are you sure he didn’t simply do as was ordered?”
Our queen? My thoughts simmered. She is your queen. Not mine.
And as much of a jerk as Chace could be, I didn’t believe for one death god moment that he would wordlessly depart.
The door behind Valen swung open, and a young lady dressed in common royal servant attire stepped into the room. She startled at our gathering with a soft gasp and a hand to her lips.
She tipped her head. Began backing from the room. “So sorry.”
“It’s fine.” The advisor waved her forward. “We were just leaving. Weren’t we?”
Turning toward the exit, he shifted his gaze to Valen for validation.
“That we were.”
The two males turned and exited the room. Leaving the young servant the only thing standing between me and the open door.
The servant warily watched the two withdraw, then she met my gaze. A slight tremor raced over her features as if she could sense the truth of my nature.
Reaper. Death collector. Servant to the underworld.
A rather tired servant to the underworld. I rubbed a tiny circle to the space beside my eye. I’d been dragging for…pretty much…the entire day, and my body ached something awful.
“If you would,” the servant girl said with a slight bow.
The show of respect tore a snort from me.
She clenched her hands together. “I have come to show you to your room.”
I double blinked, my shoulders relaxing. “My room?”
“Y-yes. I…” she stammered. “You are to stay, as the queen’s guest, here in the palace. Are you not?”
My eyebrows arched. I supposed the queen could interpret part of the agreement as me moving into the palace…for the time being. So doing would make matters easier for her to keep abreast of my movements. The closeness would also simplify my access to the royal records, while at the same time make connecting with Aldine and Chace all the more difficult.
I clenched my teeth, silencing any thoughtless response.
The royal prince, Winter, breezed into the room, moving with ease past the servant and heading straight for me. His snow-favored skin made him a tall vision of sculptured alabaster, blessed with hair of spun pearl. His sky-blue eyes were sharp, and his strong shoulders and chest hinted at a royal who spent a fair amount of time engaged in physical activities.
He flashed me a gentle smile that instantly eased a fraction of my tension. Since I had arrived in the Citadel of Veritas, Winter had played the part of my white knight; bringing laughter into my otherwise bleak days, saving me from afflicting specters, tending to my trigger-happy-palace-guard inflicted wounds, and providing me this opportunity to find success in my tasked reap.
“You can go,” he said to the servant girl, barely sparing her a glance. “I’ve got this.”
“Of course, Your Highness.” The servant bowed low, far lower than she had for me, and without a glance in her direction, he gave a wave of dismissal, excusing her from his presence.
She scurried from the room, right past Valen, who lingered in the hall.
The royal healer extracted the scroll from his jacket and waved the agreement, reminding me of what the queen expected of me where the prince was concerned. I merely narrowed a glare in his direction rather than chance a spoken retort.
Winter, with his back to the doorway, was none the wiser as he took my palm in his own and placed a gentle kiss upon the back of my hand. The unadulterated joy in his expression could have set a thousand or more souls ablaze. His eyes shone like opals and gems of clear cobalt.
All his physical attributes were a yin to my yang. Totally opposite and totally enthralling.
I couldn’t recall the last time I’d set my gaze on anything more stunning. Had I ever?
An image of Chace flared at the back of my mind. A memory of him standing before me, bare-chested and damp from a bath. Or his lips wrapped around my finger. I shook the imagery away, even as I sucked back a large breath to center myself.
Coreaper, I reminded myself.
Winter, on the other hand, was a living work of art, and I wanted to grab hold of the emotional beauty his face beheld…everything it represented…and never let it go.
Instead, I set a crooked grin on my lips. “And why are you in such high spirits?”
His smile brightened in a way that defied nature. “I am told you’ll be staying with us. Here, in my very home.”
I fought the sigh threatening to seize my chest. Winter’s joy over my new accommodations could be enough to reverse the queen’s thoughts on the subject. The proximity would make the task of pushing, and keeping, the prince away far more difficult. A thought I filed away for later potential use.
“And…” Winter continued. “I don’t care to brag, but I have arranged for some princess-worthy accommodations.”
I took a slight step back, shaking my head and slipping my hands from his grip. “You didn’t need to do that.”
What I really wanted to say was that I shouldn’t be lodging so far from the rest of my team. But the queen’s thoughts about my coreapers were perfectly clear, and they would not be invited to stay under the palace roof.
Winter recaptured my fingers and raised our intertwined hands to his heart. “Grandmother says you are to stay at the castle. That you’ll be working with Valen. He is to be your palace liaison. And I have seen to it that your rooms are situated to handle all your anticipated needs.”
Rooms. Not room, but rooms.
My breath caught in my throat, and I darted my gaze over his shoulder to the view of the hall. Valen still stood there, observing, as if waiting for me to push Winter away like the queen desired.
To do so now was not the way to handle the situation. Not if the intention was to make the results stick.
I would need to mold my actions into a natural distancing of our newly found friendship. Find a way to make him see me as a mistake and pull away.
As if sensing my train of thought, Valen grinned, spun on his heels, and promptly disappeared down one of the many long hallways. No doubt marching straight to the queen with the signed…or marked…agreement.
“Come.” Winter linked his arm through mine. “Let me show you where you will be living while you’re here.”
* * *
We glided through corridors and grand gathering halls dripping with rich elegance and grandeur.
White marble floors, silky white walls, trimmed with gold. Sparkling chandeliers, each with more hanging crystals than stars in the sky. Oversized picturesque windows bordered by red velvet curtains. Chairs and settees wrapped in similar luxurious fabric. Mirrored and glassed tables set with obscenely huge floral arrangements.
In less than twenty-four hours, I had gone from cozy, common-man surroundings to gaudy, dripping-wealth accommodations. The experience carried a degree of culture shock with an accompanying punch of anxiety to my chest.
As lovely as everything looked, I did not belong in this lap of luxury. Too easily I could get comfortable, and that was something I couldn’t afford. I needed to keep my head straight and my sights focused on the task.
I tracked our steps, noting our movement took us away from the castle’s city view and toward the east wing. Each proceeding step became more and more of a physical challenge. When we passed into a semi-large sitting hall adorned in blue, rather than the red I had observed everywhere else, Winter paused.
The space wasn’t as large as some of the other gathering halls we’d traversed, but it was more than large enough. Of the four surrounding walls, one opened to the corridor from whence we had just come, and opposite, a floor-to-ceiling window at least two stories high. The other two opposing walls offered a collection of closed doors, set twelve or more feet apart.
I suspected the two guards flanking a door at the far end of the room marked my new accommodations. Despite the males’ expressions of indifference, possibly boredom, I knew they tracked my every action. As did the two guards hovering at Winter’s back.
No doubt a guard would always be glued to me when I moved through the palace. Double the guards when I was anywhere near the prince.
“This wing is reserved for my personal guests. Unfortunately, there have been few.” He scratched his temple and frowned. “Or honestly none in quite a long time.”
As in a hundred years?
I didn’t vocalize the question. Instead, I opted to lead the conversation in a different direction. “I take it that the change in decor is representative of your colors?”
He huffed a laugh. “Yes. The red is rather dominant throughout the house. The color represents my brother, the rightful heir.”
The missing heir, if I recalled correctly.
I nodded. Winter lived in a palace larger than many villages, and he referred to the place as a house. I shook my head and laughed softly.
Winter tilted his head closer, his breath warming the ridge of my ear. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” I wet my lips. “I’m merely thunderstruck that I’ll be staying here.”
He studied me closely, his eyes warm as a clear summer sky. “Then I hope you find your accommodations everything you could possibly desire and more.” He stepped aside, between the stationed guards, and pushed open the door. “I have already sent for your things. They should be waiting for you come morning.”
My back jerked ramrod straight. He sent someone to retrieve my possessions? I didn’t care so much about my clothing, but…my reaper’s handbook, the crow clicker, the soul extract—
The soul extractor! I’d left it at the pub, in a room that wasn’t mine, on the floor. I’d allowed it to slip from my hand and fall under the bed when the palace guards showed up to collect Winter.
Merciful reaping death god.
My muscles seized, my heart struggling to beat.
What had I done? What had become of the soul-extracting tool?
“No. No.” I shook my head, spun into him, and pressed my palms to his chest.
The surrounding guards snapped into action, slicing their swords into the space between me and the prince. One of the guards leveled his weapon at my neck, a mere inch from my skin.
With graceful fluidity, Winter casually shifted the weapons from our personal space.
“She will not hurt me,” he said, not shifting his gaze from scrutinizing my every flicker of emotion. “She could have left me to my fate had she wanted me dead.”
He was referring to the protective magical barrier, or coma, he’d found himself in because of my actions. My need to investigate the tunnels that led to his attack by the specters. In the past, they had run from him. I had witnessed that myself.
But something was different in the tunnels. Possibly my closeness to him, my overheated skin, somehow negated his effect. And because of that something different, the specters had attacked. He’d ended up in that magical coma state. Had I not used the soul extractor, he might have still been in that unresponsive condition.
I swept my gaze over the guards then back to Winter as I pulled my chilled hands from his chest and curled them into fists. “I need to be the one to gather my belongings. Only me and no other.”
He grimaced. “It’s too late. The men were dispatched close to an hour ago.”
An hour ago? Was my cover…the one the queen insisted I keep secret…already blown?
Chapter Three
Chace
“Raven is where?” My chest felt tight, my breathing painful.
I feared a rib might crack. Conceivably, one or more were broken during my underground prison-cell visit.
Ignoring the pain, I shoved the last of my personal belongings into my duffel bag. At some point during my capture or imprisonment or torture, I’d lost my room key. A key that would identify where I had been staying, if not where to currently find me.
I was fairly certain I hadn’t outright told my captor where I was lodging, or even why I was in the citadel, but I harbored plenty of fuzzy moments and holes in my memories of the darkened cell that I couldn’t dismiss the possibility.
For all I knew, the parties responsible for my extensive suffering were already on their way here. Whether they came today, or several days from now, I needed to be gone when they showed up.
I rubbed against the blooming colors pressing in on the edges of my vision. Damn, unwanted auras continued to hound me. Too many days had passed without my meds.
I now understood why my supposed mother constantly pushed me to take them regularly.
Aoes stood in the open doorway of my room. He folded the courier note, delivered only moments ago, slid the message into his breast pocket, then shoved his hands deep into his pants pockets.
“She’ll be fine,” he said. “I promise you. She’s no doubt lounging in the kind of luxury you can find nowhere else. And Winter will take good care of her.”
A twinkle in Aoes’s eye led me to believe Winter’s motives might be less than a hundred percent innocent. And that…
I curled my hands into tight fists as I suppressed a growl burning in my chest.
A memory of the male…the crown prince…standing in the hallway, blood soaking his britches, jacket, and shirt cuffs, slipped to the forefront of my mind. I still had no answer as to whose blood Winter wore, or the circumstances behind the state of his apparel.
Royalty were rumored to get away with some unsightly and atrocious acts.
But I couldn’t dismiss the distinctness in the aroma Winter wore that day, be it a uniqueness to the blood or something else. At the time, that smell had piqued my curiosity, and I hadn’t forgotten.
“I don’t particularly share your trust in the male.” I heaved a sigh.
After my recent dealings with the queen…and others…I was far less inclined to trust anyone outside of my team. Including Aoes and Earl, the partially zombified pub owner.
Especially since I suspected Aoes had been involved with whatever shady dealings my sperm donor had been investigating. Smuggling monsters out of the citadel for purposes unknown. I had no proof, of course, but my instincts were usually spot on.
Pressing two fingers to my temple, I turned in a slow circle, scouring the room one last time. Where had my pills disappeared to? I’d been trapped without them for days, and now they were nowhere to be found. The aura-ensuing headaches needed to be quelched.
Aoes sucked his teeth. “Come on, Ace. If what you said is true, then she is likely far more protected in the castle than staying here.”
I grunted with disapproval, at both the nickname and the statement. Based on the way things had gone down, the where and when of my abduction, I wouldn’t so readily agree that Raven was safer within the palace walls. There was a slight chance I was wrong, but I wasn’t willing to gamble her life on that likelihood.
I’d already lost Aldine. I refused to lose her, too.
Giving up on locating my medication, I zipped my bag closed, slung the duffel over my shoulder, and stalked into the hall directly to Aldine’s room.
“Open it,” I ordered Aoes.
I could have used the key Aldine had slipped me in the underground cell, the key that opened any door, but Aoes had his ring of master keys. Besides, I didn’t want anyone to know about the secret advantage I held in my thigh pocket.
“I really shouldn’t,” Aoes replied with a frown pressed to his mouth.
A snarl vibrated at the back of my throat as I spoke through gritted teeth. “I already told you, the guy is dead. Murdered, to be precise.”
The memory of Aldine’s prone body on the prison cell floor flashed across the backs of my eyes. Of something unseen pulling the elder into the hereafter. The Killian—the reapers’ reaper. I shoved the flashback from my mind.
How had Aldine not become something like Earl? Was the power of the Killian to thank for such a mercy?
“Who did you say killed him?” Aoes studied me with wary scrutiny, even as he produced the key and unlocked the door.
I stepped back, avoiding any physical contact. “I didn’t.” The second the lock disengaged, I slipped past him and pushed into the room. “I didn’t get a name to go with the face. He was an ugly, smug bastard, though.”
I pulled Aldine’s bag out from under the bed. It was empty. When the elder had been injured our first night in the citadel, neither I nor Raven had bothered with his belongings. The bag’s current state indicated the reaper not only possessed the strength to unpack after his healing, but that he had planned on staying longer than a handful of days.
Likely because I’d been missing at the time.
Guilt dug its thick claws into my core, but I had no time for the emotion. Not at present. I had no time for any emotion that didn’t aid my swift action.
Aoes leaned against the doorframe, watching. “You said the guy experimented on you but simply killed the old man?”
With a nod, I took to riffling through dresser drawers. Anything that wasn’t clothing I would take, which, after a quick search, turned out to be a partially filled journal, the citadel’s task file, his reaper’s scythe in compact form, and a handful of flash bombs.
I shoved all the items into my bag.
“Then Raven should be relatively safe.”
“How do you figure?” I tightened my gaze on the pub manager.
Aoes picked at his teeth with a pinkie nail and shifted out of the doorway, allowing me to step into the hallway. “Based on what you’ve told me, which isn’t much, by the way, it sounds like they were interested in what you are.”
“What we all are,” I interjected. “And what do you know of it?”
“I know the old man…was not the same as you. Neither is Raven.”
My stare intensified. “I’m sorry. What are you saying exactly?”
We shouldn’t have this conversation in the openness of the hallway, but the shock of Aoes’s words had my feet rooted in place.
Aoes sighed and leaned against the adjacent wall. “I don’t know how to explain it other than I see signatures.”
My face must have conveyed my confusion because Aoes jumped into an explanation.
“Before whatever curse befell our city, the people of Veritas were a community of magic wielders. Descendants of the fae, some say.”
I was aware of the stories. The lore.
“Everyone had their own gods-given talent.” Aoes tapped his chest. “Mine was the ability to see signatures. It’s like seeing the truth of a person’s roots. What I’m capable of now is a mere fraction of what I used to perceive. But I can look at you, or Raven, or the old man and see not only your individual energy signal, but I can identify your roots.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “By roots, you mean…?”
Aoes shrugged. “Bloodline, species, whatever you want to call it. The scary thing you all think you are.” He glanced over me. “You and your team definitely share a root, but none of you are the same in that manner. The old man…”
He lifted a chin to the room at my back. Aldine’s room.
“He was pure in his roots, but you…” He shook his head. “You’re not.”
“I’m not pure?” I arched my eyebrow.
At the moment, the only roots I felt were the roots of skepticism and irritation.
He nodded, his lower lip puckering. “The old man…Aldine…was like the one I told you I once worked with, Bogart…and his associate. They even brought a kid with them once.” Aoes’s brow creased. “Can you believe that? Bringing a kid to this place? Before the curse, sure, but after…”
He shook his head once more. “Anyway, that was some fifteen, twenty years ago, and they were all the same. Those three, plus your old codger, were all the same. But not you. You are partially the same, yet something else is mingled with that signature. Something that I think might want to dominate. In fact, I think it’s more dominant now than it was before you went missing.”
“Something else?” My tone sounded cynical while lacking its usual conviction.
Emotions rocked through me. Emotions I didn’t want to acknowledge. Emotions I too often considered weak and pointless.
Only what else could I be other than a reaper like my so-called parents? I was ninety-nine percent certain they were my blood-given parents. I’d familiarized myself with the family line, and nothing other than reapers filled the tree.
Yet that something else Aoes claimed existed in my signature energy was supposedly growing in dominance, and nothing about that possibility sat comfortably with me.
Aoes had to be spewing bullshit.
Still…
My forehead pressed with deep consideration. What had changed in the past few days that could explain such a transformation? I’d been tortured and practically starved. Kept in subpar conditions that, at times, bordered on freezing. And…
I’d missed my daily medication dose. The lack of medication; that was definitely outside the norm. Different. I’d missed a day or two before, but not five or more.
I rubbed the back of my neck. Was that the true nature of my pills? To suppress something “other” dwelling within my energy, my DNA?
And now, that medication was missing.
Without a word to Aoes, I turned back to my room and began tearing the space apart, searching all the corners and shadows for my misplaced bottle of meds. Aoes lingered in the open doorway, continuing to shadow my movements.
I checked under the bed and behind the dresser. “If you don’t believe I am the same as Aldine, then what do you think I am?”
He rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I’m not exactly sure. What I see in you is similar to something I’ve seen twice in my life. Once, a very long time ago, and again briefly during Bogart’s last visit, when the kid was in tow. But even then, either time, I wasn’t sure what it was. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before.”
The twittering bell system chimed, calling Aoes to the pub below.
In five long strides, I stepped to the window and glanced out to the street below. Two palace guards on horseback stood beside two riderless steeds. The missing men likely awaited Aoes downstairs.
“It’s them.” I stepped away from the window.
He released a sigh. “In that case, you might want to disappear…being that you’re so paranoid about pretty much everything. And just in case….”
He flashed a rather wicked, challenging grin, then he turned and stalked down the stairs.
I would wait to think further on any of Aoes’s words. If the guards were here to collect Raven’s belongings, as suggested in the courier message, I needed to secure anything that identified her reaper status before they gained access to her room. Would have done so sooner, except Aoes hadn’t given me a moment alone.
Packing my stuff or Aldine’s made sense because I needed to move, and Aldine was dead. On the other hand, taking any of her belongings while in Aoes’s presence would have likely raised questions I preferred not to deal with, much less answer. Broadcasting my intentions to the pub manager was not on my to-do lists. Quite the opposite, actually.
Slipping the Killian cloak around myself—the gift from Aldine that had aided me in my escape from the underground prison—I adjusted the cape to make sure every inch of my body was covered in the invisibility magic, then I pulled the Killian key from my thigh pocket and let myself into Raven’s room.
Unlike Aldine, she had not unpacked and appeared to be living out of her messy duffel bag. Her reaper’s handbook lay beneath her pillow—careless—along with the crow clicker I’d witnessed her use.
I collected both and quickly scanned the contents of her bag. A small notebook, a change of daily reaper wear, comfortable sleeping attire, and—my breath stalled—lacy underthings.
My touch lingered a fraction of a second too long on those underthings, sliding the fabric between my fingers.
I couldn’t stop myself from envisioning her in the soft items beneath my caress.
Does she really wear these things underneath her reaper gear?
With a jolt, I shoved the bag away and shut down all thought. I refused, absolutely refused, to allow my mind to continue wandering in the direction those skimpy apparel items attempted to push me.
Snatching the notebook to investigate later, I turned away from the bag and back toward the room. I suspected the space held nothing more worthy of discovery. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop me from checking every nook and cranny. Certainty over conjecture every day of the week.
At the sound of approaching footfalls on the steps and proceeding hall, I verified the Killian cloak’s magic completely covered me, and then I waited beside the door. When Aoes unlocked the entry and ushered the guards inside, I slipped free and silently made my way downstairs. Took refuge in the storage closet.
If the message had been truthful, and the palace men had only come to collect Raven’s things, then I should be safe from discovery in my present location. I could think of no reason anyone other than Aoes or Earl would step through the door I sat facing.
And if I were wrong, if the message turned out to be false, a secret, hidden door to the underground tunnels stood at my back.
In the room beyond, the pub was eerily quiet. Yet from the upper level, even at my current location, I could hear Aoes chattering on, louder than necessary, to the men as they moved through Raven’s room. I could only assume his volume was for my benefit, for which I was thankful. He was helping me track the palace men’s movement through the establishment.
Since Raven didn’t have much, they shouldn’t take long to collect her stuff and go. Unless they spared the time to search all the rooms, mine and Aldine’s included.
A noise from the other side of the wall had me instantly rigid. Aoes and the guards were still upstairs, so…maybe Earl? An oversized rat? Or someone whom I had been previously unaware of? I listened intently for any further sounds to help identify the source.
“They have no plans to visit this room. You should be safe.”
I jerked away from the voice, searching every shadow and finding nothing. Until…
A guy appeared out of nowhere. Moments ago, the space was open, empty, and now, the male stood in the center, demanding attention. He wore a cloak very similar to the one Aldine had given me. The one enchanted with powerful invisibility magic. When the stranger tossed back the hood of his cape, he revealed midnight black hair and bronze skin. Physical traits of most reapers.
The Killian, then.
Why did he smell like a witch, layered with the aroma of herbs?
I lifted my chin. “Have you come to claim my soul?”
“No.” The Killian pinned me with a lifeless stare. “I’ve been watching you since Finnian gave his life to save you.”
“Who?”
He had to be talking about Aldine. I had not known our elder’s first name until my captor used it, and Finnian was not the name spoken. Only, as far as I was aware, Aldine was the only one who had ever sacrificed anything for me. He had given the ultimate of sacrifices—his life. Now he would never sacrifice a single thing, ever again.
“Do you mean Liam?”
“Liam Finnian Aldine. But he was always Finnian to me.” The Killian’s scrutinizing gaze swept over me from head to toe. “You’re an interesting piece of work.”
I wasn’t surprised to find a sharp tongue hidden behind the reaper’s tight lips. And since I couldn’t tell if the words were spoken as a compliment or an insult, I chose not to respond. Instead, I remained still as stone, refusing to shift my gaze from the Killian for even a blink.
The thunder of footsteps reverberated through the open space, their impacts shuddering the floor beneath my feet, marking the movement of the palace guards through the pub. Aoes’s muffled words followed the exiting guards straight out the front door.
The Killian grabbed the sides of his cloak, preparing to shift the hood back into place over his head, and paused before pulling it into position. “Your instinct to remain hidden is a good one. Allow me to show you a place that may fit your needs rather well.”
“Why should I trust you?” I narrowed a scrutinizing gaze on the reaper of reapers.
The Killian lifted the hood into place, settling it slightly back from his face. “You can trust me because you haven’t many other options. At least, not on this matter. And you may find…at some point…you’ll even desire my help.” His gaze roved over me, momentarily pausing on the center of my chest, before lifting to my eyes. “Come with me, or don’t. The choice is yours.”
He stepped past me, disappearing through the closed, blocked door hiding the stairs to the underground tunnel.
Did the Killian cloak allow him to walk through walls? I glanced down at myself. Could the one I wore allow the same? I hummed, unwilling to presently try and fail.
I hesitated for a moment, maybe five, staring at the place where the Killian had vanished, then I pulled away the shelving, revealing the steps descending into the tunnels. The direction in which he had vanished.
Thanatos help him is this is some sort of trap…
Without a glance back, I stepped into the darkness.
