She held up a scroll. “Tell me, Aella, have you seen this before?”
Amidst the text in the old language, there was a large illustration of a woman. It was of an ancient Teller Witch, but in its lines, I saw my mother’s achingly beautiful face: the distinctive eyes, the full lips, the high forehead. I saw myself in it too, which infuriated me. I was there less prominently since I was only half human but there nonetheless.
I remembered my mother singing to the plants. The memory, like everything else from my childhood before I was given to the Demons, was fuzzy yet vivid. They would sway—no, dance—to her musical voice. Her little cottage was the most enchanting place I’d ever seen. It was made from a living tree that seemed to grow itself around her, like a thoughtful lover’s embrace, just tight enough to protect her but giving her all the space she could ever need. Even now, if I concentrated hard enough, I could smell the delicious odors of flowers, cooking, and potions. The memories made my blood boil and my heart grow a little colder at the same time.
And moving through it was my mother, Diah. In my memory, she was young, too young to be a mother it seemed, with the bloom and capriciousness of youth battling with her responsibilities. I imagined that she resented my presence in her life, a constant reminder that Ganesh, the leader of the Demons, had raped her on her wedding night while Eldrid and the others were lured away to battle other Demons. But in truth, all I remembered from her was kindness and love. Until the day she gave me to her rapist in exchange for a bottle of his magical blood.
“Aella? Aella!”
I came back to the moment. “Um…yes?”
“You’re not paying any attention.”
“Sure, I am. You were talking about lineages.”
“But you couldn’t begin to tell me what I said about them, could you?”
I said nothing.
She sighed. “I should just kill you now and be done with it. Adonis eventually would thank me.”
It took a second for that to register. “I’m sorry, you…did you just threaten me?”
“A Reaper—a half blood no less—raised by Demons to embrace her savage side, who also has the nascent powers of a Teller Witch? You’re the most dangerous being in the world, Aella. You’re vermin but vermin with the power of the sun and moon at your disposal. This—” she waved her hand to indicate the classroom, “—effort to civilize you, to make you presentable for when the king of the humans emerges from hiding, is pointless. You don’t train a mad dog, you put it down.”
I sat up straight now. I knew that whatever else she was, Eldrid had once been a fierce warrior; she could still probably muster the skills if needed, and I certainly didn’t want to have to put my own against her. I’d trained for years, but I’d never been in a real fight. “Uh, Eldrid, I don’t know why you—”
“Of course you don’t,” she said with something worse than anger or contempt: pity. “You truly are a child, Aella, which is why Adonis has his misplaced hope for you. He thinks there is still time to turn from your path. But…” She seemed suddenly every bit of her age. “Do you wonder why Teller Witches never came to be captives? With their power, it seems obvious that kings, Demon rulers, and even Reaper warlords should have taken them prisoner and turned the magic to their own ends. Why do you think that never happened?”
I shook my head.
“With an army of nature and beasts at her disposal, she would never starve, never thirst, never freeze to death or suffer the sun’s excessive heat, and never be surprised by an attack by man, Reaper, or Demon. Every animal, plant, and rock would rise up to defend her. That is the power you have inherited, Aella. And that, frankly, is terrifying.”
I didn’t have any power, I knew. I’d certainly never had the urge to make out with trees or woo rocks. But before I could say so, Eldrid continued.
“I’ve known other Reapers like you, you know. They were my cousins, my brothers and sisters, and even my own father. And they were my mortal enemies in the Thousand Year War. Raised by Demons, as much Demon as they were human, and thus unable to control that part of their nature. Those creatures were the most horrific Reapers the world has ever known, and in battle, they were legendary. I know firsthand the peril creatures like you cause, and for that reason, I helped ensure they were all put to death at the end of the war.”
I stared at her. “You…you executed other Reapers?”
She met my gaze steadily, defiantly, with the certainty of her own rightness. “I put down mad dogs. Just as, when Adonis sees the truth, I will gladly put down you.”
There it was. Eldrid believed it was her duty to destroy me. I tried to take in all these revelations, to make sense of what this ancient warrior woman was telling me. I’d never heard this bit of history before and frankly couldn’t believe it. The Reapers I knew, including myself, held all non-Demon life sacred. I should’ve been awed, appalled, curious, outraged, any one of a dozen emotions. But instead, I fell back on my trusty friend, anger. I was pissed off. “Well, as long as my father has me under his protection, you can’t do jack to me, old woman. So there.”
She smiled again. “That’s not true, Aella. I can take no action against you, but I can help you destroy yourself.”
“How? By lecturing me until I cut my own head off just to shut you up?”
“By telling you how I interpret the prophecy of the Red Reaper.”
I rolled my eyes. That damned prophecy, written down by my mother in one of her trances before I was born, states that I am to be the last Reaper, the sole guardian of mankind. That part might be right: Reapers are unable to breed with each other, and with the Demons gone, no new ones were being made. But the rest…there’s no way I could be responsible for all that. Just…no way at all. But the other Reapers, including my father, believe it.
But there’s another secret connected to that prophecy that no one else knows. Only me. And it’s simply this: I want it to be true. I want it more than anything. To have a noble purpose, something greater than myself, something that makes all this…suffering…worthwhile. To be the mother protector to all humankind. Like a king, except with even greater responsibility: the protector of kings. But I could never tell anyone, not even Keefe, about this.
“The prophecy says that the Red Reaper will be born into the line of Teller Witches, as you were. She will have the strength of ten Demons, with the heart and soul of a human. She will be the last birthed Reaper with a sacred duty to the world of men. She will herald peace and end the terror of the Demons forever. She will be…” She bent over a scroll to make sure she got the words exactly right. “The keeper of the prophecies, a wielder of magic and steel.”
“But I don’t use magic,” I said.
“That’s because you’re not the Red Reaper.” She let that sink in before continuing. “I’ve studied this prophecy. I know what the others say it means, but I think they’re wrong. You are crucial, but you are not the subject of this prophecy. You will be the mother of the Red Reaper.”
I know I stared. I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped open. I didn’t say anything though; I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Your purpose is to be nothing more than a vessel,” she continued. “You will, at some future point, be taken by a man—Reaper or human, the prophecies don’t say. But a seed will be planted in you and will grow to fruition. It will be properly miraculous since Reapers don’t often breed. That will be the Red Reaper. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was a male child.”
“B-but the prophecy says the Reaper will be female—”
“Have you ever seen an original prophecy, Aella, the way your mother wrote them down? Her handwriting while in trance was atrocious. Those who copied it wrote it down as ‘female,’ but the original manuscript is far from clear. But no matter; the important bit is that it doesn’t apply to you. You’re a mere brood mare in this process, Aella. Nothing more. Your job is to fall on your back at the appropriate time.”
Her smile was the most vicious thing I�
�d ever seen.
I know I must’ve stood up, turned, and run for the hall. I had to have opened the door, pushed it aside, and made my way past anyone else in the corridors. But none of that registered to me. I kept hearing her words over and over, echoing, mocking, and destroying what little hope and belief in myself I still had.
You will be the mother of the Red Reaper. Your job is to fall on your back at the appropriate time.
CHAPTER FIVE
I huddled in the corner of my room under a pile of my own dirty laundry. Vikki no doubt intended to return for it while I was out, but I’d locked every door between me and the castle proper. I wanted to be alone.
And I was, mostly. My mouse friend, Little Gray, watched me, but I couldn’t tell if he was concerned. Maybe he just knew my schedule by now and wondered why I was here instead of off doing whatever I did all day.
I couldn’t get Eldrid’s taunting words out of my head nor her smug attitude and absolute certainty of my ultimate failure. What if I wasn’t destined to be anything? What if all of this work, all of this training, all of this pain, was for nothing? I was only meant to be someone’s mother? What do I know of motherhood? I had only one example: pop out a kid, pretend to be dead, trade them in for what I really wanted a few years later…
Or worse, what if I did it—train and track and swear my soul for the humans just like it says in the prophecies—and no one cared?
I knew humans would hate me. They’d hate me no matter what I did. If I walked away, they’d hate me. If I gave myself to them, they’d hate me. Some would hate me for how I serve them. That’s been true of all the Reapers. We’ve always been feared and despised by the humans, even those of us who’ve never harmed a soul. So why go through all of this if they’re going to hate me no matter what I do? Why dedicate my life to them at all?
Because it’s the right thing to do, said a voice in my head.
I knew that of course. But I was no martyr. A masochist, maybe, but martyr? Not so much. If I was supposed to live forever, how can I do it alone, serving the ones who hate me?
“So, Little Gray, I need your advice,” I said to the rodent. He rose on his little hind legs and looked at me as seriously as if I were made of cheese. “If you were in my place, what would you do?”
He didn’t say anything. Typical. Maybe Eldrid was right. That mouse would have answered my mother in complete sentences.
I could run away, forsake this whole life, and disguise myself so no one would know I was a Reaper at all. I could pass for human if I cover up my demon skin. That was one of the first tricks I ever learned. But where would I go? What would I do? Become a tavern wench and serve drunk old men?
For that, I might as well just stay. I’d still be serving men who hate me, who see me as an object and a tool of their whims like my Demon father. If I’m to serve, I’d rather do it on my feet than on my back.
If I’d inherited my mother’s magical talent, I could learn the arts and charms, like she did. I could talk to the trees from my painted wagon. But the humans despised her too and drove her into exile. And yet she serves them still, living hidden away, alone, transcribing prophecies until her fingers bleed from exertion. And for what? So the humans can know what is to come before it comes? Where’s the fun in that?
Also, learning magic would be like starting over entirely. And I hate magic. Give me a sword and something to cut any day.
“Maybe you and me, Gray, we should just run off together. Find ourselves some real work. You’re smart, and I’m tough; we’d make quite a team, right?”
The mouse dropped to all fours and sniffed along the edge of the wall for bits of discarded food. He had his priorities in order.
Maybe my real destiny was to mother the real Red Reaper. I mean, the prophecy was written down by a witch whose handwriting looked like someone had attached a quill pen to the foot of a panicky squirrel. So what if I was destined to mother the Red Reaper, and it turned out to be a red-haired, fire-souled son? I suppose a male Red Reaper would be better liked, more accepted by the humans who seem to favor men in all things even though it was a woman who brought them to life. You know, maybe I’m not so sure I’m fond of these humans. They seem silly, violent, and self-absorbed. And very, very weak.
Hell, maybe I should stop fighting so hard and just join a brothel. Yes, that would be serving on my back. But I’d be safe. I’d be displayed as the freak that I am. I wouldn’t have to hide it. I’ve heard some men have a taste for the bizarre. That’s me, all right, with my Demon skin, flaming red hair, and thick limbs. Mistress of the Bizarre.
Would they despise themselves afterwards for coming to me? What would it be like to lay with a man? I’d never done so, not with a human, which of course is strictly forbidden, or a Reaper, who are all way too old for me anyway. Truth be told, I wasn’t even sure how. I suppose that’s the sort of thing a mother discusses with her daughter. But my mother was too busy pretending to be dead and talking to the birds and the bees to make time to chat with me about the birds and the bees.
I had a chilling yet curiously welcome thought. What if I am to die a virgin?
I suppose it should’ve been terrifying, but it was romantic to me. Many warriors choose celibacy as a way of securing and focusing their chi exactly where they want it. They don’t waste precious life force on mundane matters of the flesh.
They’re also incredibly lonely people. And there’s a difference between loneliness and being alone. The second didn’t scare me.
The first, though? It terrified me.
And it terrified me because of that kiss. That kind, gentle, practically chaste kiss from a brown-eyed boy who saw me for what I was and didn’t run away.
“You know what?” I said to the mouse. “I’ve had it with this place. It’s time for a change of scenery. You can take over my room now, mouse; I won’t need it anymore.”
I stood, straight and proud. I looked up at the clouds visible through the skylight above me. “By the marriage gods of Hassazag, I swear I will find you, Aaron. I will return your kiss. And then you—if you wish—may return my heart.” Or you may keep it and give me yours in return. Because if the Reapers didn’t want me, if the world of men needed me merely as a brood mare, they could all damn well go to hell.
“Be nice to Vikki; she could’ve poisoned your cheese months ago and hasn’t,” I told Gray.
I leaped for the skylight.
CHAPTER SIX
I ran through the woods, past the safety zone, easily avoiding all the patrols and guards. It’s not like they were expecting anything anyway: Except for bandits and the occasional disgruntled rabble, there were no incursions or battles to be had. And they certainly weren’t expecting anyone to sneak away from the castle.
Finally, I reached the Forever Forest proper. It didn’t get that name because it was small or easily traversed. No, it was gigantic. In fact, on the maps, it ended only at the sea, and even there, no one was quite sure of the shore’s outline. Great swaths of territory were simply blank because no one knew for certain who or what lived there.
Since the end of the war, some humans had gone back into it, cleared spots, and erected settlements. But there was no established trade route among them, and unless they came to the castle for the public festivals on the solstices and equinoxes, we didn’t know they existed. So Aaron could literally be anywhere.
But I knew he was in here somewhere because he’d been hunting. You didn’t hunt on the open plains, where the deer could see you, or across the cultivated fields unless you sought only rabbits or other small game. The forest was where the big things roamed, and Aaron’s hunting blind told me he was no rabbit-chaser.
I ran without conscious destination, letting fate and the terrain take me where it would, just as Keefe had suggested. It was exhilarating, and before long, I’d lost all track of direction or distance. I flowed with the terrain, avoiding every obstacle like a breeze or water running downhill.
At last, I stopped and leaned agai
nst a tree. I’d pushed myself, so I was out of breath, and blood pounded in my head. I’d gone farther than I’d ever gone before, but I wasn’t worried about being lost. Hell’s donkeys, it might even be better for everyone if I was lost. I’d become a myth, the Red Reaper who ran into the woods one day and vanished into the mists of time. Later generations could get their kids to behave by telling them I’d come out of the woods and eat them if they didn’t.
But I could track my own scent back to the castle whenever I wanted. My hair made certain of that. That was irony for you.
Then my surroundings got my attention. The clearing was about thirty feet across with a covering of leaves and a pair of rocks that—
By the flame-pissing gods of Mount Gehale. I’d found it.
Those two rocks were unmistakable. This was it—the clearing where I’d fallen, where Aaron had found me. My heart thudded so hard, I thought that even my supernaturally armored ribs would fail to keep it inside me. This was it.
Okay, Aella, don’t freak out. It was a long time ago. You can’t be sure.
But I was sure. Trees might change, plants alter with time, but unless someone came along with a crew of a hundred men, those two rocks would be the same. And they were. One taller, one shorter, both the size of dinner tables. Just as I remembered. Which meant—
He might be nearby.
“Oh, boy,” I said aloud and felt myself grow light-headed. Now, my difficulty in breathing had nothing to do with my exertion. He’d be…oh, around twenty now. Taller but no doubt recognizable. Those eyes wouldn’t change.
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