Page 2 of Reaper's Ruin
He quickened his pace, moving into the dimly lit alleyway.
I smiled.
Perfect.
Only the darkest shadows let me slip momentarily through the veil, and the moment he stepped into the inky blackness absent of light, I sliced through to the other side. One great wing burst opened the shadow, letting me slip into his world just long enough to reach out, grasp his incorporeal form, and rip him backward into mine.
His eyes went wide as the mist around him shifted and he tumbled through the shadow into the place between.
He staggered upright, breath catching as his gaze darted around. Confused. Terrified.
And then his eyes locked with mine, and I saw the fear bloom.
Now... he could see me.
Now he understood.
“Run if you want, little fae,” I growled. “I’ve always enjoyed a good hunt.”
He didn’t run. He just stared. Frozen.
He didn’t know what I was, but the fear was instant. My danger was unmistakable—tall. Broad. Dark. Ominous. I might’ve passed for human—albeit a violent one—until the shadows stirred. They rose from within, summoned by the Reaper I kept leashed beneath the surface. Like liquid night, they rippled under my skin, thickening just before I struck, as if the darkness inside me could sense the soul I was about to sever. My wings, made of pure shadow, stretched wider behind me like living smoke. His eyes bloomed in horror as I towered over him. He had no idea what I was. Just that I promised death.
“Please,” he breathed. “Who... who are you? Where am I? What’s—”
I didn’t let himfinish.
I never did.
Why give them final words when they’d given none to us?
My arm lifted. The tattoo on my forearm flared violet-black, morphing into my scythe. Tall. Carved from the same shadow flowing through me. An extension of my essence. Sharp enough to slice through existence.
It morphed into my hand, and I gripped it tight, relishing the feel of it against my skin.
One clean arc.
One soul, severed.
And just like that... gone.
The sound it made, his soul wiping from existence along with his scream—like thunder muffled in velvet—was music. A dark, perfect chorus I could play again and again.
I stood in the gloomy half-light of the Shadowveil staring at the place he’d been. I wondered if I’d ever reap enough fae souls to feel some sense of justice.
I still didn’t.
Maybe the next one.
And I looked forward to our meeting.
My duty now done, I sliced my veilwings through the shadows, returning to the Umbral Keep rather than walking the hours to get back to the central fortress of the Shadowveil. As I emerged, the Umbral Keep loomed above me, an impossibly tall structure of black stone that seemed to absorb what little light existed in the Shadowveil. Twisted spires reached upward like claws trying to tear at the perpetual twilight sky. No stars. No sun. Only varying shades of darkness.
Home. For eight hundred years.
My wings receded into my body now that I no longer needed them. Reapers scattered as I descended the steps into the depthswhere we lived. They always did. New ones stared too long, veterans quickly teaching them to avert their eyes.
Death walks among us. Don’t draw his attention.
