15. Your Reaper Is Showing
your reaper is showing
Ahand settles on my shoulder.
I whip around, thorns sprouting from my wrists. Black ichor drips onto the ground as a snarl tears from my throat.
“Easy, young one,” the stranger says. “Your reaper is showing.”
I freeze.
He is an impossible figure, standing even taller than me. His skin is almost translucent. I can map out the faint, glowing veins beneath the surface. A floating halo of autumn leaves circles his head in a slow, hypnotic orbit.
“Who are you?” I rasp.
He steps forward, and where his bare feet touch the dirt, grass cycles rapidly—sprouting, yellowing, and withering in a single heartbeat.
“A pawn. As are you,” he murmurs. “I am here because you need my help.”
“What kind of help?”
“They are coming, and they won’t be as forgiving as I am.”
“Who’s they?” I demand, stepping between him and the greenhouse door. My wings flare wide, instinctively shielding the entrance.
Behind me, I can hear Eden’s fists pounding against the wood. “Sage! Are you okay?”
My chest tightens. She sounds so helpless.
His pale blue eyes flick to the sealed door, then back to me, the corner of his mouth lifting.
“You care for her,” he observes.
“Of course I care for her! She’s ním,” I tell him.
“I am not arguing the fact, quite the contrary, Sage.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know much more than that.”
“You said someone’s coming. Who’s coming?”
“The Horsemen,” he says simply, as if that should mean something to me.
“The Horsemen…?”
He sighs, the sound carrying the weight of ages. The leaves of his halo slow their spinning.
“Sit. We have much to talk about.”
“Explain,” I growl.
He reaches out, plucking a single crimson leaf from his halo. He holds it between us, and it slowly turns into a mirror. I see four shadows on the horizon.
“The Horsemen are the balance, Sage. They have never needed to interfere directly with bonds because they do not believe in them.”
“Okay?”
“However, when the Rhavari sealed his bond, it set off a chain reaction. For the first time in all existence, the Horsemen now know they have bonds of their own.”
“So they’re coming to… what? Congratulate us?”
His halo flashes a sudden brown.
“No. They are coming to ensure the path to their own mates is cleared.”
“How does that have anything to do with us?”
“For the first of them, War, to reach his mate, three specific bonds in this realm must be sealed. The winter beast was first. You are the second. The stitched giant is the third.”
He leans in closer. A soft mist of frost blows across my shoulder.
“I will have no one else decide when I seal my bond, but my mate,” I snarl.
“He is coming to make sure you do not fight who you were meant to be. He needs your bond sealed so the door to his will swing open.”
“And I will do whatever it takes to protect Eden and our bond. I will not rush this because he can’t be patient.”
He smirks… almost.
“It is ironic hearing you say that, little reaper.”
“Why?”
“All in due time.” He studies me. “For now, I will be here to look over you and help when I can.”
“Why would you want to help a stranger?”
“To make up for the past, Sage.”
The word past hits me like an avalanche. An ache blooms in the center of my chest.
“You haven’t told me who you are yet,” I rasp.
“I am Therael, the God of Seasons and Traditions,” he says, “and you are one of my charges.”
“Your charge? I don’t even know you.”
“Sage? Who are you talking to?”
“One moment, Saevúra!” I call back. “Stay inside. Please. It isn’t… safe out here yet.”
“Sage, if you’re in trouble—”
“I’m not in trouble, luváel.” I glance at the god, whose halo has begun to drift in a lazy, mocking circle. “I’ll be inside in a moment. I promise. Just… wait for me.”
Silence follows. I can almost feel her leaning her forehead against the other side of the door.
“Did you like my gift?” he asks.
“Your gift? You mean pulling me away from my mate?”
He chuckles under his breath. “The house. I made it for you and Eden.”
“Why? Why would you make us a house?”
“As I said,” he murmurs. “It is to make up for the past.”
“I don’t even remember my past,” I shout.
Something flickers across his face, but he smooths it over before I’m able to make out what it is.
“Hear me when I say this,” he says. “This house is living, and it will always shield Eden.”
“Shield her? From what?”
“From everything, Sage.”
He looks off in the distance, his jaw tightening as his hand twitches at his side.
“The world is a thief, little reaper. It steals what is yours the moment your back is turned, and it leaves you standing in the cold with nothing but a memory of a face that no longer knows yours.”
My wings pull tightly against my back.
“The house is a sanctuary. It will remember her when you cannot. It will hold her when the darkness in your blood tries to drive you away. Cherish the fact that she knows who you are today, Sage. Because some of us are not that lucky.”
“I will never leave her,” I spit. “There is nothing that could drive me away.”
A sad smile breaks across his face.
“I will return in the coming days,” he says. “Your power is a wild thing. It is the fertility of a thousand springs trying to burst through the ribcage of a corpse. If you do not learn to command it, it will command you.”
“Why do you keep calling me a reaper?”
He steps back, his translucent skin shimmering as the halo of leaves begins to spin faster.
“Because you are one.”
“I don’t trust you,” I murmur.
“Good.”
He turns to leave.
“One more thing, little reaper,” he murmurs over his shoulder. “War does not care for the slow crawl of romance. He is a storm that breaks what it cannot bend. When he arrives, he will look for the crack in your armor—the doubt you carry about who you were before the grave.”
My wings flare, a low hiss escaping my throat. “Who I was before I woke in the dirt is none of his business, and I will take true delight in relaying that message to him.”
“To War, your past is the only weapon he needs,” Therael warns. “He is coming to see if history will repeat itself. For your sake, little reaper… I hope it doesn’t.”
With a sudden gust of wind, he’s gone, and I am left with more questions than answers.