The Reaper's Blood Curse
1. Raven
Alavish 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.”