Page 140 of Reaper's Ruin
Her fingers tightened around mine. “And then?”
“And then we go as far and as fast as we can. We go to Selyse and hope she can help us before they find us again.”
We reached a junction of corridors, pausing at the corner to ensure our path was clear. The main courtyard lay ahead, and beyond it, the massive gates that represented our only chance at freedom. So close, yet impossibly far with the open ground we’d need to cross.
“Almost there,” I whispered. “The courtyard will be exposed, but with the distraction—”
“Going somewhere, Death?”
The voice froze me in place. Slowly, I turned to find Sevrin standing behind us, his silver eyes gleaming with vindication.
“I knew it,” he said, a cold smile spreading across his face. “I knew you were lying. All that nonsense about studying her, gaining her trust... you actually care for this abomination.”
I pushed Soraya behind me, my wings erupting from my back in a violent explosion of shadow.
“Walk away, Sevrin,” I warned, my voice dropping to a dangerous growl. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Doesn’t concern me?” he laughed, his own wings unfurling in response. “The great Death himself, betraying everything he stands for? Betraying the natural order itself? I’d say that concerns us all.”
His scythe materialized in his hand, the blade glowing with cold purple light. “The Veil Lords will reward me handsomely for bringing in your head once they’ve learned what you’ve done.”
There was no more time for words. Sevrin lunged forward, his scythe slashing through the air where my throat had been only a blink before. My wings, though they couldn’t slice to shadows here, pushed me out of the way, and I summoned my own weapon as I spun away from Soraya, drawing the fight from her.
Our scythes clashed with a sound like thunder, dark energy cascading around us in violent waves. Sevrin was powerful—theVeil Lords didn’t choose their Enforcers lightly—but I had centuries of experience he lacked. I parried his strike, twisted beneath his guard, and landed a blow that would have severed a lesser Reaper in two.
But Sevrin was no ordinary Reaper. He deflected the strike at the last instant, his wings carrying him backward with lightning speed before he launched a counterattack. We traded blows in a deadly dance, our weapons leaving trails of purple veil light in their wake, each strike powerful enough to shatter stone.
“Rhyker!” Soraya cried as Sevrin’s blade sliced across my arm. I hissed through clenched teeth, eyes flicking to the wound. Not blood—shadow leaked from me like ink, curling through the air in tendrils of smoke.
It wasn’t just pain. It was loss. Every drop of shadow was a thread of my essence leaving me. Reapers didn’t bleed, not like mortals. We bled what we were.
Lose too much before the wound knitted itself shut, and we’d fade into nothingness. And a killing blow in Reaper form was just that—final. Irreversible. Obliteration.
The sound of my name on her lips cut through the rising haze in my mind. As my wound started to close, sealing the shadows back inside me, I drove forward with renewed fury, my scythe becoming an extension of my rage. Sevrin faltered beneath the onslaught, his confident grin twisting into something harder. Meaner.
Pure determination ignited in those eyes that had stared at me with envy for decades. This was his chance to prove he was stronger than Death. That he’d finally climb out from beneath my shadow and stand in my place.
But my place wasn’t his to take.
My place was beside her.
And I would drain every last drop of his essence one slice at a time before I let him get near her.
But our battle had not gone unnoticed. Shouts echoed down the corridor as more Reapers approached, drawn by the sound of our combat.
“Kill them!” Sevrin commanded, and the Reapers started rushing toward us.
“Go!” I called to Soraya, gesturing toward the courtyard as I parried another of Sevrin’s strikes. “Run for the gates!”
“Death has betrayed us!” Sevrin called to them. “He protects the soul! Take them both!”
The newcomers advanced cautiously, spreading out to surround us. I backed toward Soraya, keeping my scythe between us and our attackers.
“Stay behind me,” I growled, calculating our odds. Ten against one, with more surely on the way. Not impossible, but not favorable either, especially with Soraya to protect.
Just as the first Reaper lunged forward, a wall of fire erupted between us, so intense it drove our attackers backward. Through the blaze strode a familiar figure, his hands flickering with dancing flames.
“Looks like we’re late to the party,” Taelon grinned, taking up position beside me. “Got a bit caught up entertaining the masses.”
