Soul of the Crow: An Epic Dark Fantasy (Reapers of Veltuur Book 1), стр. 69
Just as I reach a hand out to snag a piece, a cluster of servants enter in with more trays.
Startled, I snap my hand back and push myself against the wall as if I can just melt away.
“Who are you?” one of them barks, the oldest of the four of them. She sets her platter down on the table and the chalices clank into one another. “What are you doing in here?”
“I—”
“Sh-she’s with me.”
My gaze flits to the young woman behind her. Her eyes are puffy and red, though I see not a single tear. I search her for any signs that I should know who she is, but I find none.
The older woman scoffs, regathering her tray. “See to it that she leaves. We cannot afford to let anything go awry tonight.”
When she and the others leave, the young woman approaches me. Up so close, I realize her facial runes match the fabric of her garb. It reminds me of how I used to do the same, although I rarely had the right items of clothing to choose from. But every so often, I would get a new lavender ribbon for my hair, or the matron would purchase new chemises or—on rare occasions still—new dresses, and I would always try to select one that matched my runes, as did the other girls.
“What are you doing here?”
I blink at her in surprise. Though disdain is not unknown to me, I’m not used to it being so personal.
“Do I know you?” I ask.
She lowers her head, glowering at me from under her brow. “You’re the Reaper. The one sent to kill Gem.” She restores some of her gumption then, and I start to remember her a little more clearly, the other girl who was with Acari when I chased him out of the palace. “Well, I hate to inform you, but you won’t find her here.”
“I-I’m not a Reaper anymore—” seeing the look of mockery and disbelief arch her brow, I add hastily before she can argue—“And I’m not here for her. I’m here for the prince.”
A cry breaks from her lips, despite her hands trying to conceal it. When they fall though, revealing her quavering lip, she speaks. “I guess he’s really done it then. He actually killed his own father. Are you here to take him away?”
The same time the question leaves her lips, I see her eyes flit to the runes on my forehead. Her confusion is as plain as day.
“What? No! I told you, I’m not a Reaper. I have come to stop him.” I point to the runes that mark me as mortal once more. “I did what needed to be done to end my service to the underrealm and save his sister. But he does not yet know. I have to find him before…before he does something terrible. Do you know where he is?”
Her head jerks in quick, small motions, but when the servants return with new platters of figs and pistachios and wine to set the tables with, she addresses them. “Do any of you know what the king does before the banquet?”
The oldest woman frowns. “I suppose before he dresses, he’s likely to soak in a bath. Why?”
Neither of us answer her. The pressure of time weighs in on us, and it’s like no one else is in the room.
“Do you know where I can find the baths?” I ask.
The young woman nods. “Follow me.”
“Hayliel!” the old woman yells as the presumed Hayliel takes me by the hand and tears out of the room with me in tow.
The pristine, golden details of the inside of the palace blur past me as I race to keep up with Hayliel. She twists and turns down each corridor, none of them seeming familiar to me, even though I was just here a few days ago.
When I am hit in the face with a few wet droplets of water, I realize she is crying again. It dawns on me that she knew the king was in trouble before I even said anything. She even recognized me, even though I barely remember seeing her the day I came here for Gem.
“We’re almost there,” she calls over her shoulder, breathless. “It’s just up ahead.”
I peer past her and find a single door at the end of this hallway. Before she can barrel inside, I scramble my feet to a stop, tugging her back with me.
“What? Why did you stop? It’s just there—”
“I see it. Thank you. But you can’t come with.”
“I must! You don’t understand,” she says, lip quivering again.
“No,” I say softly, sensing the desperation inside her. I suppose if I were better at expressing myself, I might look a lot like her right now, trembling and frantic. I feel it inside me, even if on the outside I am poised. I guess years as a Reaper will do that to a person. “You are the one who does not know what lies beyond that door. If Acari has already done what he intended to do… You don’t want to be there when the Wraiths come. You don’t want to see the damage a person can cause another when they have no other choice but to kill.”
Hayliel breaks into a sob, but she nods before managing a request. “Call for me as soon as it is safe for me to enter. Please?”
“Of course,” I say, before barreling through the door and into the steam of the bathing room.
The force sends the door into the wall before it swings back and crashes shut, plunging me into darkness. But my eyes know the dark. They know how to find movement and light, and they know how to make sense of obscurity and blackness.
I recognize Acari’s figure at the far end of the bathhouse, and his