Page 28 of Reaper's Ruin
She withdrew a small knife from her belt, pricking her finger without hesitation. A bead of blood welled bright crimson against her skin. She pressed it to the tree bark, mingling with the golden symbols still glowing there.
“Blood of life,” she murmured, “essence of being. Bind these souls to form, to flesh, to breath.”
The chanting began again, stronger now, her voice carrying through the clearing. The symbols on the tree flared brighter as a pressure built around us, as if the air itself was condensing. Beside me, Soraya gasped, her form wavering slightly.
With a final word that seemed to echo longer than it should have, Selyse flung her arms wide. The symbols from the tree rushed toward us, sinking into our spectral forms like stones into water.
Pain lanced through me—sharp, searing, overwhelming. I heard Soraya cry out beside me, felt myself falling to my knees on the forest floor.
And then, suddenly, it was over.
I knelt on the ground, hands pressed against moss and soil that I could feel beneath my palms. My chest heaved with breath I suddenly needed. My heart—dormant for centuries—pounded against my ribs.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I was alive. Not truly, perhaps, but close enough.
I could feel everything—the cool earth beneath me, the gentle breeze against my skin, the weight of my own body. Sensations crashed over me in waves, overwhelming in their intensity after so long without.
The colors seemed even brighter now, the sounds clearer, the scents more potent. The world had transformed from a distant painting to a visceral reality I could touch, taste, breathe.
Beside me, Soraya remained on her knees, her hands pressed flat against the ground. “I can feel it,” she whispered, wonder breaking through the pain in her voice. “I can actually feel it.”
She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face, and something in my newly beating heart twisted. She was even more beautiful in this form—warm, vibrant, real in a way that her spirit had only hinted at.
I reached out without thinking, offering my hand—a simple gesture, but it seemed startlingly natural. She took it, the touch of her skin against mine sent a shock through my system. The warmth. The softness. Though I’d just held her in my arms not long ago to bring her here, this sensation of touch here in the living realm wasunlike anything I could have imagined. In awe of how her living skin felt against mine, I pulled her to her feet.
Selyse leaned heavily against the tree, her face pale with exertion. “It worked,” she said, a hint of surprise in her voice.
“We’re... alive?” Soraya asked, still holding my hand.
“Not exactly,” Selyse corrected. “You’re still souls, but now bound to temporary physical forms. You’ll need to eat, sleep, breathe like the living. But you’re not truly alive.”
“Can we get injured? Or die?” Soraya asked. “Like what happens if I get run over by a bus like this?”
Selyse furrowed her brow. “A bus?”
Soraya sighed. “Sorry, Mortal Realm. I just mean, what happens if something fatal happens to us, like some asshole with a dagger stabs me again.”
Selyse shook her head. “You aren’t technically alive, so youshouldn’tbe able to die again. You may get kicked out of your body and return to a soul however, but this is my first time doing this spell, so I can’t say for certain.”
I barely heard her. I was too consumed by sensation—the feel of Soraya’s hand in mine, the solidity of the ground beneath my feet, the smells of the forest filling my lungs.
Eight hundred years as a ghost, a shadow, a creature of the in-between. Eight hundred years of watching the living world from behind a veil, never touching, never truly experiencing it.
And now, suddenly, I could feel again.
“Rhyker?” Soraya’s voice, concerned. “Are you okay?”
I turned to find both women watching me—Soraya worried, Selyse with quiet understanding.
“Yes,” I said, though my voice sounded strange to my own ears. Rougher. More real. “It’s just... been a long time.”
“A very long time if I had to guess,” Selyse said softly. “Since you felt anything at all.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. The truth was written in every overwhelmed reaction of my newly physical body.
I had done it—broken Reaper law in a way so profound, so absolute, that punishment felt inevitable. I had left the Shadowveil, abandoned my post, defied the Veil Lords themselves.
