Soul of the Crow: An Epic Dark Fantasy (Reapers of Veltuur Book 1), стр. 29

“Well, Nerul,” I say, sounding bored. “I hate to disappoint you… Oh wait, no, I don’t. The sooner I can complete this task, the sooner I can kill the princess, and the sooner I get to become a Shade and never have to deal with the likes of you again.”

He snorts. “Like they’d let you ascend.” Though the words are venomous, there’s fear behind his eyes. He knows just as much as I do that Leumas has had high hopes for me from the start.

I shrug, turning back to the road and leaving him to the alley. “I guess we’ll find out.”

People shudder and close shop as I pass, otherwise I’d ask if any of them had seen the missing heirs. Not missing, fleeing. And somehow managing to do it well. This prince was becoming a royal pain in my—

“No way it was the prince. ’E’s not scheduled to visit Ngal for…well, never that I know of.”

The conversation draws my attention, and I squeeze into an alleyway to avoid being seen, lest the couple stops gossiping.

A man answers, presumably the woman’s husband. “I’m telling you, I saw ’im with me own eyes. It was ’im all right. And ’e was with a girl. She looked just like ’im!”

The woman barks a laugh. “Well ’e ain’t have no children, now did ’e.”

“No, I don’t s’pose ’e did. But she was ’is some’ow. Maybe a cousin or somet’ing. They were in a state, I tell you. Barged right into the tavern and out the back door.”

With two powerful strides, I glide back into the road, blocking the couple from continuing further.

“No,” the woman sobs, drowning on her words as if they were tears themselves. “I’m not ready.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not here for you.” Stretching my arm out, I reach for her husband and let the black magic swirl in my palm. An empty threat, but an effective one since they don’t know that. “I need you to tell me where the tavern is.”

There is no hesitation. The man’s arm springs up from around the woman’s shoulders, casting a shadow back down the road from where they came.

“Y-you can’t miss it,” he stammers. “Got a sign out front with a fat ’ippo on it. S’called the ’Ippo-critic Tankard.”

This causes me to snort a laugh, causing the woman to whimper and the man to flee from my presence, dragging her with him. I sigh and make my way down the road he suggested, the one I’d sent Crow down.

The man was right—the establishment is easy to find. A carved image of a hippopotamus leaning onto a barrel with a stein in hand would be difficult to miss. By the time I arrive, Crow is flying around in disproportional circles overhead. It flies down to me when it spots me.

“You lost them, didn’t you?”

Crow doesn’t answer with an argumentative squawk. Instead it fluffs its feathers, as if to say that it’s not its fault.

“None of this would’ve happened if you would ever just faze us where we need to be instead of making me run around all over the place.

“Faze us again,” I growl. “And this time, take me directly to the girl.”

Crow squawks, flying in a circle over my head as it usually does before a faze. But to my confusion, this time we don’t move. Sure, Crow likes to play games and make me work for my kills, but it always fazes us, even if it’s not exact. After being in Veltuur for so long, I’m fairly certain that a Reaper’s crow can’t outright disobey them actually.

So when Crow and I don’t dissipate to smoke and mist, my brow furrows.

“I said take me to the girl.”

Caw-caw.

This is a first. Though I can’t understand Crow’s squawking exactly, there’s something about its tone that gives me the impression that its telling me it can’t faze us. Never, in the history of Reapers, has a Crow been unable to faze to its mark. It is what crows do: a contract is created, the contract is given to a Reaper to fulfill, binding the Crow and Reaper to their target, and then the Crow fazes its Reaper to where they need to be.

Only, I no longer have an active contract. The contract on the princess’ life was postponed, which means Crow is now longer bound to her, and therefore he can’t faze to her.

At least, that’s the only logical explanation I can come up with: since she’s no longer my primary mark, we can’t faze to her. Veltuur must’ve spat us somewhere close though, so that this wouldn’t be an impossible task. After all, finding information about a Guardian appears to be something of great importance to the Councilspirits, and so it must be important to Veltuur too.

Without being tethered to the princess’ soul though, we’re going to have to do this the hard way.

“Come on,” I bark, signaling to the tavern door. “A man down the road said they went in here. Maybe they’re still around.”

As I step through the doorway, Crow glides to my shoulder, its talons not sharp enough to pierce skin, but sharp enough to remind me of its disdain.

No one notices us at first, as if it were every day that a woman in a bloodred tunic and a bird on her shoulder walked through their doors. They carry on in their drunken conversations about family, work, and hard times while the barmaids refill the emptying mugs and put food on the tables.

It’s not until I almost run into one of them that the barmaid drops her pitcher and the room silences to ogle the commotion. It’s an innocent kind of interest, one that would quickly dwindle so that they could resume doing whatever it was that mattered more before the glass shattered on the floor if they didn’t happen to recognize a Reaper in the midst of it all. But when they see me, when they notice the presence of a Reaper among them, the room hushes further,