Page 86 of Reaper's Ruin
“The list?” Rhyker’s voice was sharp with interest. “What list?”
“They didn’t say exactly,” Elira replied. “But it includes fae royals, like me.” She paused, her gaze shifting to me. “And then, Lord Marwyn asked if there was ‘anyone else’ on the Mortal Realm part of the list.”
My pulse quickened. “And?”
“Lord Cassius—the one who killed you—he said the only one in the Mortal Realm was ‘the fae-human girl’ he killed.” Her eyes met mine. “I think he was talking about you, Soraya.”
Everything stopped—my breath, my thoughts, the world itself.
Frozen like time had folded in on itself, swallowing me with it, pulling me into some alternate reality where I was... half fae?
Everything about my strange afterlife had felt impossible. A magical fae land. A massive Reaper sent to exterminate me now kissing me beneath rain-drenched trees. Flying horse birds. Magical sorceresses.
Those things felt impossible, and yet they were my current existence.
But this?
Half fae?
Me?
Nothing felt more impossible than that.
“Fae-human?” I repeated, the words strange on my tongue. “That’s... that’s not possible. I’m human.”
But even as I said it, doubt crept in. I’d never known my father—he’d disappeared before I was born. My mother had never spoken of him, changing the subject whenever I asked. Could it bepossible, in some strange bizarro impossible reality that my mother had met a fae somehow and... conceived me?
Or, was it my mother? Was she the fae-human they were hunting, and I wasn’t the target? Because the other truth, the one where I was half fae seemed too insane to process.
“Maybe they meant my mother?” I suggested weakly. “He killed her too. Could she have been the fae human?”
Elira lifted a shoulder. “They didn’t specify.”
I turned to Rhyker, expecting to find the same shock and confusion I felt reflected in his face. Instead, he stood utterly still, his expression unreadable, eyes fixed on me with an intensity that was almost unsettling.
“Rhyker?” His name came out as a question.
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he seemed to collect himself, his features smoothing into that careful mask of detachment I’d grown familiar with.
“We need to know more,” he said finally, his voice controlled. “Elira, what else did they say?”
“That’s all I heard about Soraya specifically,” she replied. “But they mentioned some victims and I was one of them as well as a couple other people from my family.” Her voice cracked then she went on. “And they said there are ‘five left’ and they are going to meet tonight to figure out the plan.”
“Five more?” I whispered, horrified at the thought of more victims, targeted for reasons I couldn’t understand.
Rhyker’s eyes gleamed with dark purpose. “We need to see that list, Elira. You need to look at it. Find out who else is on it and see if there is any reason why.”
Her face fell. “I can’t manipulate the physical realm. Unless it’s just sitting out in the open where I can read it...”
Frustration flashed across Rhyker’s face. “Then how are wesupposed to—”
“Wait,” Elira interrupted, brightening slightly. “They’re meeting tonight, remember? I can follow them. Read over their shoulders, listen to what they say.”
“Perfect,” I said, hope rekindling. “That might tell us more about why they’re doing this—and why I was targeted.”
Even though there was that small doubt in my mind that they’d come for my mother instead of me, making her the half-fae, somewhere deep within my instincts I knew I was their target. I just felt it in my bones even though I wanted to explain it away in any manner possible.
Half-fae. The possibility seemed absurd, yet it would explain so much—how I’d ended up in Faelora after death, how I’d been able to shift between realms, why a Storm Court royal would cross worlds to kill me specifically.
