Reaper of Souls

by Rena Barron

  It takes hours to cross the forest, and the effort to maintain the bridge leaves me exhausted. Every muscle in my body aches, and a sharp pain shoots up the back of my neck. Before, when I called magic from the sky, it was a way to limit the drain on my own reserves. With that option gone, our odds against the demons look less and less favorable.

  As we stumble into a valley beyond the forest, I argue that we should keep going, but Tyrek begs for a rest. Somewhere nearby a waterfall roars in the night. The sound is so familiar I convince myself that we’ll be okay, that we’ll find the tribal people, that we’ll all get to go home.

  “We could use some help if you’re listening, Koré,” I pray to the only god that might answer, but even she is silent.

  “Who makes a world with underground flesh-eating monsters?” Tyrek takes a swig from his wineskin and tucks it close against his chest. “The gods are cruel.”

  While Tyrek asks questions that no one answers, I let my awareness extend across the valley. I find a concentration of demons and the tribal people, a league across the hills. Demons flicker in and out of my vision, like Familiars in the East Market looking for death and mayhem. “They’re close.” I let out a shaky breath.

  Tyrek raises the wineskin to his lips and pauses. “We should wait until morning to attack.”

  “Do you ever think before you speak?” Sukar grimaces and shifts on his haunches. “Attacking in broad daylight is a bad idea.”

  “Attacking while tired is even worse,” Essnai says to Sukar, who grumbles.

  Essnai and Tyrek had both been sick on the crossroads, and I’m tired from building the bridge. I suspect Sukar is exhausted as well, but he’d never admit it. “We’ll scout the area tonight and gather any information that could help us lay a trap for the demons,” I say.

  Sukar dramatically bends to one knee and hunches over. “Shall I carry the three of you since you’re so tired?”

  Essnai slaps the back of his head, and he winces with a silly grin.

  Once rested, we start up the hill. The waterfall drumming against the rocks masks the sound of our footsteps. I lean close to Essnai, my voice pitched low. “Don’t forget your promise.”

  Although she shows no outward signs of fear, I know that she’s weighing her options. Instead of answering, she gives me a curt nod and turns back to her thoughts.

  I leave her and Tyrek behind and catch up with Sukar. He’s scouting ahead higher up the hill. He squats along the river, a few paces from the edge near the head of the waterfall. Moonlight bathes his dark skin. When I’m nearer, his tattoos begin to glow, and he relaxes his shoulders. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.” Sukar splashes water on his face. “I had these grand plans. . . . I played it out countless times in my head.”

  My heart pounds against my chest. With each breath I take, my magic grows in strength again. It rattles in my bones; it warms my blood; it tingles across my skin. The chieftains’ kas curl around my own, anxious and restless. “What are you talking about, Sukar? What plans?”

  When I say his name, he whirls around on me, his eyes brimming with tears. Longing and desire reshape his features into a fine point that pierces my heart. Gods. The way he’s looking at me, I don’t have to guess what he means.

  “I’m in love with you,” Sukar confesses, his voice quiet. He laughs nervously, shaking his head, almost like he can’t believe he actually said it. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a while.” He lets out a deep breath. “I have the worst timing . . . I know.”

  “I’m sorry, Sukar,” I say, and he stops cold, his arms falling to his sides. He glances away, his gaze landing on the water crashing against the rocks below. “I . . .” I stutter as he turns his back to me. I don’t know what to say. Gods. How could I not know?

  “Am I interrupting anything?” Tyrek asks from behind, an unmistakable hint of amusement in his voice.

  “No,” Sukar snaps, his back still to us.

  Tyrek gives me a questioning look, as if to ask what’s wrong, but I only glance to my feet, feeling horrible. How long have I felt the shift in our friendship and tried to pretend it away?

  “We can’t stay here,” Sukar says, finally turning around. “We’re too exposed.”

  He avoids looking at me now, and I do the same. We’ll talk later—I’ll make things right between us. I glance up in time to see a flash of silver. It happens so fast. Moonlight glints off the blade just before it hits Sukar.

  I stumble back, gasping for air that won’t come. Sukar yanks the blade from his chest, and blood soaks through his tunic; it covers his shaking hands. I can’t move—can’t breathe.

  Sukar looks up at me, his mouth agape, the blade slipping from his hands. Not him—no, no, no. Not Sukar. His tattoos flicker to life, glowing bright, but then they fade one by one until the magic burns out. My screams fall silent the moment my friend slips over the waterfall into a black abyss.

  Twenty-Six

  Arrah

  I thrust my consciousness into the dark, searching for Sukar in the belly of the waterfall. I hit walls of jagged rocks, sharp edges, bits and pieces of torn clothes. I wade through the foam cascading into the pool, taste blood on my tongue. The water’s so fast that it would only take a moment for him to wash downstream.

  He has to be okay. His tattoos will heal him. The knife missed his heart. He’s coming back. I repeat the chorus in my head as my consciousness pushes farther from my body and dives deeper into the river. I keep seeing him on the battlefield, frozen while Efiya raised her shotel over his head. My magic flinging him into the column, and his body sinking to the ground, twisted and broken. The fading glow from his tattoos. I almost killed him then, and now I’ve gotten him in this situation. How much more proof do I need to accept that I’m a danger to everyone around me?

  Tyrek clamps a hand on my shoulder. “He’s gone.”

  I shrug him off, drawing my consciousness back to my body. Green eyes glow in the dark as a horde of demons crests the hill. Some have Tamaran faces and, to my horror, some have taken the bodies of tribal people. One is tall with ebony skin and high cheekbones like the men from Tribe Aatiri—like my father. Another is a woman with wild curls who could be Mulani. Beyond them, wisps of gray smoke swoop onto the hill and take the shape of the demons from Dimma’s memories.

  I stumble, not quite believing the sight of them or their size. They are heads taller than the demons in stolen human bodies, with wings of white, black, or brown. Their skin is iridescent, in shades from the deepest purple to silver like Daho’s. The moonlight gleams off their sharp teeth. These are the demons that destroyed Tribe Zu.

  Essnai is running up the hill toward us when smoke curls around her throat and lifts her from the ground. She strikes, but her staff passes through the demon. More tendrils snake around her body. Her staff hits the ground, and she claws at her neck, gasping for air.

  “Argh!” I scream as I fumble down the hill. I don’t have time to think or come up with a plan as I draw the wind to me on instinct. It howls in my ears and whips through my braids in a wild rage. Honing it into a sharp knife, I hurl the wind at the demon choking Essnai. It slams into him, and she drops to her knees. The demon shatters into a thousand invisible parts. It’ll take time for him to coalesce again, but he’s not dead. I hurl more wind, hitting the demons of smoke.

  Half out of breath, Essnai snatches up her staff. “Where’s Sukar?”

  I shake my head, and her eyes fill with tears. I can’t say it—he’s not gone. I glance over my shoulder and dig my nails into my palms. Moonlight outlines Tyrek’s crumpled body, curled up on the ground. A demon wearing a Tamaran face stands over him. I take a step to go to him and stop. He’s so still that I know he’s already dead. “The gate . . . we have to go back.”

  Essnai frowns, but she doesn’t hesitate when I pull her arm. There’s no time to explain. We run away from the hill toward the forest, and I fling more wind. Each time I do, it drains my magic.

  More demons arrive in physical
forms and crouch, ready to pounce. They surround us, and there could be only one reason for that. They want to capture me alive. “Go around the forest and find your way back to the gate,” I tell Essnai, out of breath. I don’t know how much longer I can keep the demons at bay with my wind. “When the demons open it again, you’ll be able to get home.”

  “What will you do?” Essnai asks as we stop short of the forest.

  “End this,” I answer as my magic shifts the shadows around her so she’ll be harder to track in the moonlight. “Find Rudjek and the cravens. We need their help.”

  “Come with me,” Essnai begs, searching my face as if she has some inkling of the desperate plan unraveling in my mind.

  “Please, Essnai.” I wince. “There’s no time.”

  My friend looks at me, her eyes wild. She knows the promise she made, and we can’t win this fight without help, not with how quickly the demons killed Sukar and Tyrek. I won’t let them kill her, too. Yet she stands rooted in place, clutching her staff.

  I almost think that I’m going to have to repeat myself when she presses her hand to her heart. “I’m sorry,” she mouths before backing away from me. Soon she disappears in the night. None of the demons follow her. It’s me they want.

  I dart into the forest, my chest burning with fury. The soil squirms underneath my feet. I push air in my wake. It should be enough to discourage the demons from turning into smoke and risk getting blown away. If they want me, they’ll have to stay corporeal. Something else moves among the roots racing through the soil, coming up fast. Before, I thought that the bodies under the trees had arms and legs, but I was wrong. They’re more like tentacles.

  The roots burst from the soil behind me, and one of the demons screams. I push the wind down to disturb the soil, and roots burst up one by one, a dozen, too many to count. More screaming, cracked bones, demons’ bodies turning into smoke.

  A memory claws into my mind—one of her memories—and I stop running. I’m standing on a balcony beside Daho as we look upon thousands of demons and thousands more beyond. He wears a gold diadem. It’s his first appearance since he slew Yaneki. He is their king now, and the people weep with joy. He saved them.

  “Dimma,” he says, his eyes finding mine. He looks so small in his white robes, so completely unsure of himself. “I can’t do this alone.”

  “You’re not alone.” I frown. “I am with you.”

  Daho bites his lip, his teeth pressing against supple flesh that will never change. A blush rises in his cheeks. “I mean to say that I want you to rule by my side. The elders will tell us to wait until we’re older, but we’ll never be older, will we?”

  “We’ll be wiser,” I say, but wisdom is yet another thing I don’t quite understand.

  “Will you be my wife, Dimma?” Daho turns away from his people and takes my hands. “For now, and for when we’re wiser?”

  “No.” I snap out of the memory, even as Dimma’s answer drowns out my own. Yes. Forever and always.

  Sweat stings my eyes as I reach for my magic again. It’s sluggish underneath my skin, like when I’m with Rudjek and the cravens, but much worse. I can’t stop the demons—I can’t save the tribal people. I can’t even save myself. I turn to the chieftains’ memories, desperately looking for help. They have been quiet all night, like they, too, know that I’m out of options.

  I tremble as the roots snake up my feet and legs, tightening around my body. I don’t move, so they don’t thrash and shred my skin. This is the only way. If I let the roots devour me, then the demons can’t use me to bring Daho back.

  I can still feel him with me, but his presence is drowned out by my frantic thoughts. I hate that some small part of me longs to see the side of him that Dimma loved. Knowing this only strengthens my resolve to let the roots take me. Better them than him. They wrap around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides, and curve around my throat. I gasp for air, which only makes them squeeze a little harder. I’m already buried to my knees as more appendages wriggle up from the ground. Up close, their translucent skin stretches over a web of veins and pulsing lights.

  Accepting my fate, I close my eyes. It has to be this way. I sink deeper, the soil devouring me. I listen to the creaking and hissing of the roots until it all stops. The ground shifts around me and spits me back out. I open my eyes to a horrible scene. All the roots and appendages have frozen in place, and the demons in human bodies are climbing free from their snares.

  Someone wades through their ranks, their steps unbothered, and I climb to my feet. A terrible feeling of dread tears through me as I reach to the sky for more magic—as if trying a second time will work. Not even the smallest sparks light on my fingers.

  “It’s quite cruel, isn’t it?” Tyrek steps out of the shadows. “The way the gods have always been selfish and kept magic from mortals.”

  “Tyrek—” My voice trails off when I see the unnatural glow in his brown eyes. The way the demons move aside for him, the way they cringe, the way my heart lurches in my chest. He runs his hand along a frozen root, and it turns to ashes. “I saw you die,” I say, choking on the words.

  “Did you?” Tyrek laughs. He stands a little taller, his shoulders drawn back, his eyes eager.

  I saw him on the ground with a demon standing over him. I saw what he wanted me to see. When I turn my magic inward, searching for my link with Daho, I find emptiness. I stare at Tyrek and his skin glows iridescent in the moonlight. His mouth twists into a crooked smile. Gods. It can’t be him. But the truth of the moment cuts me deep. He’s been here all along, trekking through the tribal lands and on the crossroads, playing a twisted game. Koré said the Demon King was still imprisoned, but he found a way to trick her.

  “If you could see your face,” he muses, his expression of mock horror. “Don’t look so lost and broken.”

  “How did you get out of Koré’s box?” I ask, my voice breaking.

  He stares at me as if the answer should be obvious. It’d all been a game. He’d pretended to be innocent at the coliseum and spun a fake memory that I believed without question. He must have planted the Zu mask at the street fair, knowing that I would follow it in hopes of finding survivors. That night at the tavern, he’d been waiting to make his move. “Efiya freed me,” he finally answers after a long pause, his face contemplative. He says my sister’s name with such reverence and longing that both jealousy and revulsion tug at my belly.

  My gaze roams across the ground like it will fill in the missing parts that make no sense. “You’ve been free all this time . . . for months.”

  “You’re in shock,” he offers with a sympathetic smile. “That’s understandable.”

  The boy with the sharp tongue and the dry sense of humor is gone. Had the real Tyrek been like that, or was that only an impression the Demon King skimmed from eating his soul?

  There is only one reason he’d go through such an elaborate ruse to get me here. “I am not Dimma.” My words are weak. My legs tremble, and it takes everything inside me to keep standing.

  The Demon King steps closer to me, and my heart palpitates. His eyes never leave mine. I am frozen in place—unable to move. He runs his thumb across my lips, and I recoil. “It hardly matters now if you’re Dimma or not. I’ve found a more worthy god to take your place.”

  I hate that his words make me flinch like someone’s twisting a dagger between my ribs. How could I have these feelings of hurt and regret for him—a murderer, a monster, a madman?

  “Then why did you help me when the assassin stabbed me with the craven bone?” I snap. “Why not let me die on that mountain? Why this game?”

  “Now you’re asking the right questions,” the Demon King says, the corners of his mouth quivering. He has none of the kindness, warmth, and subtle humor that made Dimma fall in love with him. Instead, he vibrates with manic energy, honed from his millennia in his eternal prison. One of his demons yanks my arms behind my back, and my shoulders burn as they bind my wrists. I’d been too distracted by the
Demon King to feel the anti-magic, but now it overwhelms my senses. Several demons force a vest of craven bones across my head, and I wiggle and bite and curse. My magic falls silent. The demons made of smoke scatter as if running away from the anti-magic.

  The smile slips from the Demon King’s face, and his features sharpen. “I need your help to bring Efiya back.”

  He opens his cloak and flashes the dagger that holds my sister’s soul.

  Twenty-Seven

  Rudjek

  Two days after Captain Dakte’s ill-conceived attack on the demons, I have a mind to drop him into the icy Northern bay. We’ve lost 172 soldiers, over a third of our rank, all because he moved without my order. For now, I have the misfortune of needing his expertise. The Zeknorian poison nearly ate me alive from the inside, and I walk with a stick to support my weight. The soldier guarding Captain Dakte’s tent straightens up when he sees me and peels back the curtain. The rancid smell wafting from inside hits me immediately.

  “Thank you,” I say to the gendar, and he nods.

  “Still pandering to your subordinates, I see,” croaks Captain Dakte. He’s propped up on a mountain of pillows, a bandage around his throat soaked through with blood and pus. The demons had taken his right eye, and one of the physicians had made him a patch to cover the stitches. He hasn’t shaved in days, and gray stubble covers his cheeks. He looks to be at death’s door, but he enjoys annoying me too much to die.