18. Raven #3
“You’re the only thing that does make sense.” Aoes glanced to the couple and back. “When she showed up here looking for the visiting lady stranger—you—she told me that she remembers all the fuzzy thoughts that come with the MD state. But minutes after you touched her…her mind began to clear.”
Me being the source didn’t make sense. Not in my mind.
Apparently finished with his sneaky investigational attempt, Chace stepped up beside Aoes, holding two mugs of coffee. “And you believe the woman’s claims?”
Aoes nodded, momentarily shifting his gaze to my coreaper. “They told me the entire healing process took a few hours, but…look at her.” He jabbed his indicating arm forward. “What other explanation can there be other than Raven having healed her?”
How could the things being said be true? The explanation didn’t fit with my nature. What I’d always been. None of it made sense.
If I had truly healed the woman, then shouldn’t Chace have been able to reap her soul?
I wanted to drop my head closer to the table and sink deeper into the ground, but in the presence of others, I held my stance steady.
Chace claimed a seat across the table from me and slid one of the coffees in my direction like some sort of peace offering.
Not fully lifting my head, I peered at him through the fall of my hair. Unspoken questions and accusations filled his intense, searing gaze. I sensed him silently probing me in every possible way.
Sitting up and shifting forward, I whispered, “I saw what you did.”
“It didn’t work.” He cupped his hands around his mug but didn’t take a sip.
“Obviously.”
“So… what’s going on here?” His assessing gaze narrowed. “What are you doing?”
Fretting over our predicament. Stressing about Aldine.
Totally freaking out about how long the task would take and if we even had a chance of completing it successfully.
I definitely wasn’t going over my checklist on how to fix the afflicted.
And certainly not considering why I was the probable cause.
“Currently? Nothing.” I slouched against the back of my seat and dropped my open palms on either side of the table, indicating my neglected breakfast.
Aoes grew silent but stayed at the table. He couldn’t quite hide the tiny smile curling the edge of his lips. It was so utterly pleasing how he found me and Chace entertaining.
Is he able to follow the conversation? Has he begun to piece together who and what we are?
I shouldn’t have spoken in front of him, but I was too tired and too confused to care.
“You know what I mean. The raven, then crow. The message. This woman.” He dipped his head toward my wrapped hand marred with the previous day’s injury. Then tilted his temple toward the bruise running across my other palm. “What happened on your last task? The reap with magical means.”
I jerked straight. “What are you accusing me of?”
Chace squared his shoulders. “I made no accusation. I merely asked a question.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Don’t try to tell me you aren’t secretly blaming me for everything that has gone wrong since we arrived. I’m a Gunn, and you’re a Badden. I know how your family feels about mine.”
Rivals. Forever rivals.
He wet his lips and stared at me, no words coming to his defense…or to defuse my mood.
But his lip action… That momentarily muddled my thoughts.
My breath hitched.
What was I doing, staring at his lips? I didn’t want a thing from his lips…or him.
The thoughts and feelings that jumbled my mind the previous night… They were a mistake. They were nothing.
Bolting to a stand, I shook my head straight. “You said no secrets, but I suspect you have plenty.”
I glanced at Aoes. I should stay my tongue, but anger burst and exploded like a powder keg inside of me, and I could no longer contain myself. “From now on, I think we’d each work better on our own.”
Chace’s nostrils flared, yet he offered no retort.
Vexation was an easier emotion to embrace than whatever strangeness attempted to take root in my head…or heart. So, yeah, I would cling to the vexation.
Spinning on my heels, I headed for the door. Irritated with myself or Chace…I wasn’t sure which…I needed to put distance, lots of distance, between us. For…reasons. I needed a cathartic release…and wanted to reap something. A lot of somethings.
Maybe even hurt something.
But I’d start with the reaping.
At my back, Chace called to me, but I ignored him. I had become an igniting tinderbox of emotion, and I didn’t know why. I required a distraction, sought to throw myself into the task.
I slammed the pub door behind me and stormed deep into the citadel.
Today, I would master the maze and find my way across the river of mutated molten lava to the palace nestled upon the center hilltop. I would find the key to unlocking the curse and then reap myself a royal. Possibly several. Maybe all.
Fueled by anger and frustration, I traversed the maze of city streets with unexpected ease. My vigilance in learning the citadel landscape played a part. But trusting my gut without the interference of my head added a winning factor to my seamless navigation.
I would have given in to my blind fury days ago if I’d known it would lead me straight to the palace grounds.
The entrance, a long bridge behind a spiked iron gate and flanked by stone towers, now stood little more than a block away.
Beyond a flowing river of fire and many-tiered walls rose the palace, adorned with colored glass and carved stone―finials shaped like sprouting water, columns decorated as if covered with vines, antefixes depicting fire, and acroteria showcasing snow flurries riding a wind.
The pentagon-shaped building rose to a tall, pointed roofline and heaven-reaching steeples anchored each of the five corners.
Something inside of me hummed, calling me to one spire in particular.
Four of the towers appeared warm and somewhat inviting.
Glowing lights in the windows and green vines clinging to the sides.
The fifth held a lonely and forgotten vibe, even without the murder of crows covering the tower’s crown.
All openings set in that tower looked like pools of ink, aside from the flicker of light shining in the highest window.
The same window from which blackness spilled and surrounded the opening like flowing liquid defying gravity.
The reaper side of me recoiled at the wrongness. That window was where I wanted, maybe needed, to go, but whatever occupied that space on the other side wasn’t wholly right.
In that room, far above the city, was where we would start to fix the reaping issue plaguing the Citadel of Veritas. That unholy flicker of wrongness had to be connected to the key Mr. Aldine had mentioned. The key in the castle, and the key to fixing the unreapable situation.
Our quest led there.
My gut couldn’t be mistaken. Not about that.
With my head high and shoulders set, I marched straight to the main entrance and the row of guards armed with bayonet rifles.