Soul of the Crow: An Epic Dark Fantasy (Reapers of Veltuur Book 1), стр. 16
“There are no souls inside for you to take,” he says with a bark of a laugh. “The garden is forbidden to all. No one is inside.”
The black power inside me roils. The longer I stand here arguing with this man, this mortal, the longer it’ll be before I can return to Veltuur and finally make my ascension. I will not let an insignificant nuisance stand between me and my fate.
But, as I grit my teeth, I remind myself that Veltuur would not be pleased if I claimed a life that wasn’t mine to take, and since I don’t have a contract for this man, all I can do is try to reason with him.
“Someone must be inside because I can…” My words slow. The tug that was drawing me to this place…is gone. “That’s…that’s not possible.”
“I promise you, it is. No one is inside,” he says, mistaking my meaning.
Springing to the tips of my toes, I sneak a look through the glass. I search for any signs of life I can find—movement in the bushes, the hurried footprints in the gravel of someone who tried to hide in a hurry, a face, a whole person—but I find none.
If no one is in there, and no one has been, then what called me here?
It doesn’t matter. All that matters is I have one contract left to complete and I intend on seeing it through.
“The king sent me here to bring the princess’ soul to Veltuur. Where can I find her?”
The guard’s thick brows furrow. “You’ll find no princess here. Are you sure you have the right—”
“Yes.”
“Because, you thought there was someone in the garden, but there wasn’t—”
“I assure you,” I say with a growl. “The request I received was from the king, and I have been sent here for his daughter, so where can I find her?”
Still frowning, the guard looks down on me with equal parts concern and confusion. The concern, I understand—well, not really, but I’ve seen it enough before to expect it. When mortals find out that someone they know is about to die, they are unanimously concerned. But it’s his confusion that throws me. He could just be trying to mask his concern with it, to play up his story that there is no princess, but there’s something about it that seems genuine.
“Come. I’ll take you to the king,” he says to me. “He should be able to clear everything up.”
Before we leave, he shouts down the hall to another stationed guard. He asks the woman to cover his post in his absence. As the guard crosses the hallway to meet us, every step more cautious than the last, the first guard leaves before I can answer him.
I stand there for a moment longer, staring into the garden through the gold-trimmed doors, waiting to feel the call again, but nothing comes. Nothing. I can’t feel the soul I’m meant to collect at all, not even the faint tug I felt when I first arrived.
Before the guard can disappear, I spin around and hustle after him.
Fortunately, we don’t have far to go. The guard leads us back through the Hall of Altúyur, down the corridor I came through before taking a sharp right and entering into the throne room.
“My King,” says the guard, bowing so deeply that his jade-green cape folds over the back of his calf before spilling onto the floor. “This Reaper says she has come for the princess.”
The king, sitting atop a modest throne of the softest white fabric, detailed in jade leaves and gilded in gold, beckons us forward. “Yes, yes. Thank you, Captain Borgravid. I have been expecting her. Come. Come in.”
The guard beside me snaps his head up, and I see his confusion turn to horror as he gapes at the king. He must be a loyal servant though, because as quickly as the expression crosses him, it falls away and he bows again before leaving us.
“Where is my usual Reaper?” the king asks, trying to sound important. I imagine that’s just part of his job: to make sure everyone around him knows they are inferior.
It has no impact on me though. “I don’t know anything about your Reaper, but the Reapers of Veltuur receive their orders and then they carry them out. I was told to come here, so here I am.”
He nods, once, running thick fingers through his beard. “Your name?”
“Sinisa.”
“Welcome, Reaper Sinisa, to Halaud Palace. You—” he stammers. Though I’ve never met him before, I can tell this kind of behavior is unusual for him. This is the kind of man who’s used to being the most powerful person in any room he enters. My presence is a reminder that he’s not. “You are younger than I expected.”
Instead of meeting his challenging stare, I let my eyes rove over him as well, assessing the man beneath the title. He is large, I’ll give him that, the bundle of embellished fabric around his shoulders making him appear even wider than he truly is. But I see through it all. I see the man who must assert his dominance to feel like he’s in control. I see the man who has given me the palm to prevent me from getting too close, out of fear for what I might do to him. I see the man who is waiting on me to carry out the deeds he wants handled, instead of doing them himself.
After a long moment, I finally speak, my voice flat and gravelly. “Age is irrelevant in matters of life and death. Isn’t that why you have no qualms killing a child?”
The king balks. “I am doing nothing of the sort. My part in this is to uphold the law.”
I shrug, letting my eyes roll briefly to the draperies hanging from the ceiling. “I suppose. So, where can I find the deformed child?”
Surprisingly,