Page 17 of Reaper's Ruin
I wasn’t doing her a favor. I was simply following the older, truer law—the one that said souls deserved time to find their door. If I justified it that way, I wasn’t truly disobeying.
But I knew, in some deep part of me that I’d thought long dead, that wasn’t the only reason.
“How do I find my door?” she asked, suddenly eager. “Where do I look?”
I shook my head. “I don’t decide that. Each soul must find its own path to peace.”
“But I don’t know how,” she said, desperation edging into her voice. “I don’t understand any of this. These strange places I keep appearing in, these people who can’t see me, how I keep... jumping from place to place.”
“The realm-shifting is unusual,” I admitted. “I’ve never seen a soul do that before.”
“Realm-shifting?” she repeated, testing the words.
“Moving between realms. You’ve somehow shifted between Faelora and the Mortal Realm.”
“And Faelora,” she said softly. “That’s where I am now, right? Thefae realm?”
I nodded, suddenly aware of how lost she truly was. She knew nothing of Faelora, nothing of the Shadowveil, nothing of the rules that governed life and death in these realms.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a gesture so mundane, so human that it made my chest ache with forgotten memories.
“Will you help me?” she asked suddenly, her eyes meeting mine with surprising directness. “Help me understand what’s happening? Help me find my door?”
I should have refused. I had my duty. I had my orders.
But she was human. The first I’d seen in eight hundred years.
Once, it had been my duty to protect humans. To shield them from the very creatures who had hunted them to extinction. I had sworn oaths, made promises.
I had failed them. All of them.
The weight of that failure had crushed me for centuries, driving me to reap fae souls with cold satisfaction. But no amount of vengeance could wash away the blood of my people from my hands.
Yet here, standing before me, was one final chance.
One human I hadn’t yet failed.
Somewhere deep inside, I felt that powerful pull to protect my own kind. A duty that went beyond my role as a reaper, beyond the commands of the Veil Lords. A duty etched into my soul before death had claimed me.
And something about her—her vulnerability, her courage in the face of terror, the way she’d dried her tears and was now looking at me like I was salvation instead of destruction—stirred something I’d thought long dead.
“I’ll give you time,” I said carefully, already feeling the weight of my decision. “Time to find your peace. All souls deserve their chance to move on. But I can’t promise more than that.”
It was a half-measure, a compromise between duty and... whatever this unfamiliar feeling was. But as relief flooded her face, as gratitude shone in her eyes, I knew I was already stepping onto a dangerous path.
“Thank you,” she said again, and the simple sincerity in her voice cut deeper than any blade.
I nodded stiffly, already wondering what would happen when the Veil Lords discovered I hadn’t completed my mission. When they realized I’d let a soul—this curious anomaly—continue to disrupt the balance.
For a moment, I considered reporting back and explaining that this soul hadn’t been given her rightful time to find peace, requesting an extension. But I knew the Veil Lords too well. Eight centuries of service had taught me their ways. They’d sent three reapers already. They wanted this anomaly erased, not understood.
If I revealed she was human—the first in eight hundred years—what then? Would they see her as I did, as something precious to be protected? Or would they still command me to destroy her with a single swipe?
No. They would simply assign another reaper. Maybe even an Enforcer this time. One who wouldn’t hesitate. One who wouldn’t see those tearful blue eyes as anything more than a target.
The thought of another reaper’s scythe cutting through her essence made something violent stir in my chest—a protective rage I hadn’t felt since my living days.
I couldn’t let them know. Not yet. I just needed time—a little time—to let her find her peace and claim her door. It was a dangerous game, one that could see me face judgment before the very Lords I served. But as Soraya looked up at me, a tentative smile breaking through her fear and grief like the first ray of dawn after centuries of night, I found myself unable to regret my choice.
