Page 2 of Light Locked
Its eyes accused him as it clasped the dagger and staggered away.
Ryson stepped into the moonlight, closing the space between them as he watched the reaper wither. He spun another dagger in his left hand impatiently, wondering if he should have chopped off its head instead. He hated when they died slowly. They had a reputation for being rather dramatic.
The reaper cut the air with a shriek, convulsing as the blood touched by the weapon boiled and sizzled away. Its bony appendages reached toward Ryson as the skin slipped off its fingers, and its eyes dissolved into ashes.
“Curses!” it spat in forest speech. Reapers weren’t known for their expansive vocabulary, even in their native Kaletik tongue.
Ryson’s eyes wandered past the reaper to its prey. He wondered what she was doing so far out in the wilderness. Plenty of people tried to travel between the three human cities and failed, but failure had been so frequent in the last several years that he assumed people had stopped traveling at all.
“Curses! Youarecursed,” the reaper hissed.
Ryson rolled his eyes.
“Those eyes!” it howled before launching off on a string of poorly crafted insults.
He stopped spinning his dagger, turning on his heels and sweeping the reaper up by the empty eye sockets of its skull.
Silver eyes were a brand that carried many messages. Made brilliant by the contrast of the night and Ryson’s dark complexion, he knew his eyes in many ways defined him. There was a sting in that reminder tonight. The moon was full, and he was aware in its fullness of how he could no longer hear its call.
Ryson bared his fangs in a grimace and severed the reaper’s spine with one quick slash. The skull slipped from his hand as the reaper’s bones dissolved.
Ryson glared at the ash pile, angry that he’d let the beast’s words rile him. Was this what he’d stooped to? Rebuking reaping shades who seldom made it past three-word sentences?
Indulging his own petty whims, he ground his boot into the ashes as he approached the girl. He stood over her, his thumb sliding back and forth over the blade of his dagger. Cast in cursed silver, they were more than weapons or relics. Over the last few months, they’d become soothsayers in his restless hands. Death was taking its sweet time in claiming him, and the world now felt like a drab prison cell. He hoped to find some measure of relief from the puzzle fate had brought him.
Her height and frame suggested an upbringing of nutrition and privilege, but she seemed far from that now. A routine of physical effort lined her limbs with traces of muscle, but her body had been robbed of the softness and color of health. Her clothes clung loosely to what remained of her.
She had the well-kept hair of class. Despite lying in frazzled disarray, it had once been trimmed and braided. She was wearing plain travel clothes that covered almost every inch of her. They were beige and bland but thick and evenly stitched all the way up to her chin.
He mulled over the possibilities, not too quick to investigate further and ruin the pleasure of guessing. His eyes swept from her feet to her head as he circled her figure with wide, patient steps. Her skin was sickly, but still tanned and freckled from sun exposure. The closest city was Virday, and higher-class citizens there avoided the sun, exposure so often associated with labor and poverty. Though she had to be a resident of Virday, Ryson was confident she hadn’t grown up in its culture.
Her entire body extended out toward the flames in a poised, reaching frame. Her bloodied hand was a red candle that begged to be ignited. It was longing personified, and hepaused, noticing how the firelight danced over her in warm colors, fighting back the cool, silver rays of the moon. They were the lights of life and death, capturing the balance in which her body now lingered.
He was drawn in by the image. Something deep and long silent stirred inside him at its symbolism. The clothes hid her like a blanket, but he could imagine the firelight spilling across her shoulders, dripping down her breasts and over her ribs. He could imagine the moonlight cresting over the curve of her back, and in the stillness she’d glow like a sculpture.
He’d forgotten most things, but looking at her, he remembered that everything was perfect in its most natural form, that everything was eternal in complete stillness, and that above all things, he’d once been an artist. He’d been an artist of a brutal persuasion, but an artist nonetheless.
He knelt and used the tip of his weapon to move the long strands of caramel-colored hair that covered her face. Her youth was obvious, but sun and exhaustion matured her. Though her body had been worked by the elements and physical strain, there was gentleness in her face, the curve of her nose, and soft openness of her lips. Her light brows framed eyes he imagined had seen as much sun as the rest of her, perhaps retaining a version of its light.
He tried to remember what truly living eyes looked like, and guessed for his own amusement that hers were brown. Common in every city, he imagined hers would be uncommon in their vibrancy.They were brown, but not the burdened, dull brown of an encumbered existence. They’d tell the same story her body told, eyes with the unspoken potential of churned earth. Dark, slumbering, lush, so recently and violently sifted that it better exposed the rich potential of life beneath.
She’d bitten her lower lip. It gleamed with a wounded redness against the snow. Red wings blossomed from the claw marks on her shoulders.
A victim of the forest’s depravity, she was beautiful where she lay, picturesque in ways humans could not understand. They never saw the artistry in their suffering, not in the same way that the forest and its beasts did. Few, if any, suffered well, and this woman had been transformed by her struggle into something remarkable.
His bandaged hand reached for her chin and tilted her head toward him. The movement exposed a patch of glowing skin rubbed clean by the snow. He shot up at the realization of what she was.
“Veilin.” He snorted in disgust as he backed away from her. Every prior notion of her shattered into a wall of disdain. He retrieved his weapon from the reaper’s remains and returned both daggers to their rightful places. No wonder the reaper had been so furious at Ryson’s interruption. He should have let it kill her.
Kill her instead.A voice within him spoke as he watched the girl. He blinked and a perfect image of himself appeared crouched over her. It watched him with black irises that absorbed all light.Veilin are the enemy. Do it.
Ryson’s hand reached for the heavy scythe strapped to his back. He hesitated as he gripped the handle. Glowing eyes materialized in the darkness around him, more reapers and other beasts anticipating his decision, no doubt. Little was more aromatic to forest beasts than Veilin blood; Ryson only now realized how poor his sense of smell had gotten. No doubt the girl’s struggle had filled the forest with the scent, and it had drawn monsters in from all directions. He had a thirsty audience, compelling him to do what his dark replica demanded.
Kill her. The world will be better off without another lightwalking charlatan,the replica chided, a messenger in times of doubt, always tilting the scales in darkness’s favor.
Ryson gripped his weapon but was filled with a pervasive tiredness, as if the very thought of drawing it drained his enthusiasm. It felt heavy on his back. He found himself more disappointed by her Veilin blood than anything else. His hand slipped loosely from the hilt and dropped by his side. What reason was there to kill her, really?
What are you doing?the figure hissed.
