Page 7 of Reaper's Ruin
Eyes that were unmistakably...
I froze, my breath trapped in my undead lungs.
Human.
But that was impossible.
The fae had purged humans from Faelora centuries ago, during the Great Cleansing.
During my final battle.
In my moment of shock, those blue eyes widened as they met mine, and then—she vanished.
One moment she was there, staring at me with those wide, frightened eyes, and the next, she was gone. No trace. No trail to follow.
For the first time in centuries, I felt something other than cold disinterest or burning hatred.
She was human.
Like me.
CHAPTER TWO
Soraya
I couldn’t move.
Out of nowhere, he’d appeared. Those eyes—storm-gray and ancient—stared directly at me from behind the misty veil surrounding him. He stood motionless in the shadow of a market stall, tall and imposing in black leather that hugged a body built for war. His face was partially hidden beneath a hood, but I could make out a sharp jawline, full lips pressed into a hard line, and those eyes—god, those eyes locked onto mine with predatory focus.
He took a step forward, reaching toward the wispy grey barrier between us.
Panic surged through me. I stumbled backward, desperate to escape, though I had nowhere to run. No one else could see me. No one could help.
My chest tightened, vision tunneling.
It was happening again.
And then—
The world vanished.
Colors smeared together, sound muffled to nothing, and my stomach lurched as if I’d been dropped from a great height. When the world snapped back into focus, everything had changed.
The marketplace was gone. The beautiful, terrifying man with the swirling grey eyes was gone.
Instead, I stood on a frozen mountain ledge, gusts of wind whipping my blood-crusted pajamas against my skin. All aroundme, jagged peaks of blue-white ice stretched toward a sky where snowflakes danced but never seemed to land. Far below, a city of icy spires glittered like diamonds in pale sunlight.
“What is happening to me?” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself.
I should have been freezing, but I felt nothing—not the cold, not the wind, not even the ground beneath my bare feet. It was as if my body existed but couldn’t connect with the world around it.
Movement caught my eye, and my breath caught thinking one of those shadowy figures would appear again. But instead, I saw people moving through gardens of ice sculptures on terraces nearby, laughing and talking, unaware of me standing there watching them. They appeared almost human at first glance, but something was... different. Their skin was flawless, luminous even in the pale light. Creamy and pure like they’d never once sat on a beach soaking up the rays while sipping a margarita. They moved with an unnatural grace, and though they looked like they could be human, there was an otherworldly quality to them—the way their eyes caught the light, the subtle elegance of their features. They wore elaborate silver and white clothing that rippled in the wind, styles unlike anything I’d seen before.
Not quite human. Similar, but different in ways I couldn’t fully articulate. Nothing about anything or anyone I’d seen with each strange jump had seemed normal. Like I’d been cast into some fantasy world like the books I devoured every night or the movies my mother and I loved watching so much.
“I’m dreaming,” I told myself for the hundredth time. “This is a dream. Just a really, really vivid dream.”
But the weight of reality pressed against that flimsy explanation. Dreams didn’t last this long. Dreams didn’t feel this... coherent, even in their strangeness.
