Page 156 of Reaper's Ruin
“And you’re an empath, so that’s not nothing,” Taelon said.
“That’s interesting,” I said, unable to keep the suspicion from my voice. “But it doesn’t answer the question of what they’re up to.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know specifically, but I know it’s not good. There is something... wrong in the Shadowveil. The Veil Lords aren’t what they seem. The longer I served them, the more pieces I heard, the more certain I became that something is very wrong there, I just don’t know what. I don’t hear everything. Just pieces. But from the fragments I picked up over the years, I just have this deep instinct that things aren’t right. I do know, however, that there is a great power beneath the Umbral Keep—something they guard jealously. Something that stirs in the deepest shadows. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve felt it. Like a heartbeat beneath the stone.”
A chill ran through me at her words. In eight hundred years, I’d never heard of such a thing. But then, the Veil Lords kept their secrets well.
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Truly. I even tried to sneak down there once to look but it’s spelled shut. Whatever is down there is big. And I just have a feeling it’s not good.”
I studied her for any signs of deceit but found none. Was it possible she was telling the truth? She was truly on our side and there was something nefarious happening in the Shadowveil?
“There’s something else,” Jade added, her voice dropping lower. “Something I overheard just before everything happened. The Veil Lords were... afraid. Of you, Soraya.”
“Me?” Soraya’s voice rose in disbelief. “Why would they be afraid of me?”
“They called you ‘the one from the prophecy.’ The one who could bring their end.”
Silence fell across the cabin, heavy and oppressive.
“What prophecy?” I finally asked, my arm instinctively tightening around Soraya.
“I don’t know the details,” Jade admitted. “But they’re terrified of her. Of what she might become. It’s why they wanted her reaped immediately. I didn’t understand why they were so scared of this little human-fae girl, but then that light she unleashed in the courtyard—I’ve never seen anything like it. No one has. And now I’m wondering if they were right. Maybe she is some special part of some prophecy that destroys them. Her light burned straight through shadow.”
Soraya looked down at her hands, as if expecting to see evidence of this power there. “Selyse called it ‘Soulflame,’” she said softly. “She said it was rare. Special.”
“Well, whatever it is, if the Veil Lords were scared of you before, they’re going to be terrified of you now. And they won’t stop hunting you because of it. They can’t afford to.”
The implications of her words settled over us like a shroud. If what she said was true, then our brief sanctuary here was just that—brief. Temporary. The eye of a storm that would inevitably close around us.
“So we’re fucked, basically,” Taelon summarized, breaking the tense silence. “Not only are the most powerful beings in the afterlife hunting us, but they may be up to something even worse than just trying to obliterate us. And they won’t stop until they’ve erased us all from existence.”
“Not necessarily,” Jade countered. “If we can discover what they are, what they fear...” She trailed off, looking directly at me.
I shook my head slowly. “I’ve served them for eight centuries, and in all that time, I’ve never seen anything that could threaten them. They’re as close to gods as anything I’ve encountered. They are immortal.”
“And yet they fear her,” Jade persisted, nodding toward Soraya. “Which means they can be harmed. Can be ended.”
Soraya’s hand found mine, her fingers intertwining with my own. I looked down at her, at the woman who had changed everything for me, who had brought light back into my endless night. The thought of losing her—of watching the Veil Lords extinguish that brilliant flame—was unbearable.
In that moment, something shifted inside me. A decision crystallized, absolute and unshakable.
“You’re right,” I said, addressing Jade but looking at Soraya. “If they fear her, they can be harmed. And if they can be harmed...”
“They can be destroyed,” Skorn finished, pushing off from the wall. “You’re talking about war, Rhyker. War against the Veil Lords themselves.”
“I’m talking about protecting what’s mine,” I said, my voice low and dangerous. “I’ve lost one world already. Now she’s my world, and I won’t lose her too.”
Soraya squeezed my hand, her eyes bright with something that looked like fear and hope intermingled. “Rhyker, you can’t possibly think we can fight them. You saw what they’re capable of. The Sentinels alone—”
“We fought our way out once,” Lorien interjected. “With preparation, with a plan...”
“It would be suicide,” Soraya protested.
“Maybe,” Taelon acknowledged. “But is hiding any better? Waiting for them to find us? Because they will, eventually. And then what?”
She fell silent, the truth of his words impossible to deny.
