Page 11 of Starchaser
She looks at me as if I’d grown a second head.
“You know what he’s done,” she says, dropping her voice even lower than before. “I don’t care if he’s part of the Order. He’s still killed countless humans for the Crown. I’ve heard stories—”
“Not all stories are true—”
“Well, I believe them! They say he hunts humans for sport on the streets of Jade—that he kills men with his bare hands more efficiently than you could with a blade. They call him the king’s beast—the Reaper.” Her face blanches as a chill sweeps through the tiny cabin, as if the very name stole all warmth from the room.
“The Reaper?” I whisper.
She nods, her throat bobbing. “They say the blood sends him into a frenzy. It turns him into something… else. We’ve always known he was a monster.” Her eyes flit between mine. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind?”
“I—” My voice suddenly sounds unnatural. “It’s complicated. There’s so much I want to tell you, but…” I cut a glance at the door, shake my head. “Not here.”
She looks taken aback, but she must understand my hesitancy to talk about such matters when Titus could return at any moment and overhear our conversation, because she dips her head. “Whatever you say.” She blows out a tight breath. “So long as no one expects me to watch his back on a battlefield.”
“I don’t think anyone would,” I say, forcing a teasing grin to my lips even as my stomach churns. I knew Titus had a reputation for cruelty, but the Reaper… Margaret makes it sound as if he were another creature entirely. I can’t help but wonder if in seeking a cure for my curse—in fighting for my freedom—I have chained myself to a beast.
Margaret spends the afternoon scrubbing, brushing, curling, applying, and blotting—all with surgical precision. I’m beginning to think she enjoys the hours it takes to transform me, because she seems most at peace when she has a series of small, tedious tasks to complete. However, despite Margaret’s sense of pride in her work, now, as I step into the hall where Gabriel and Flynn wait to escort me to dinner, I feel like crawling into a deep, dark hole.
Flynn lost his eye only a few hours ago, but with the aid of bonewielder magic, the wound has healed beyond the point ofpain. And from what I heard, they managed to remove the eye before the poison from the attacker’s cursed dagger could spread and infect his bloodstream.
I can almost feel Flynn gawking at me from behind his helmet—can almost feel him smirking obnoxiously when he says, “How pretty.”
My fist clenches around an invisible dagger. “Do you wish to keep your other eye?”
Flynn chuckles. Gabriel clears his throat.
“This way, m’lady,” Flynn says in a singsong voice, making a grand gesture in the direction of the compartment door.
I wish our attacker had aimed for his vocal cords.
At the mere thought of the shadowy assassin, a shiver runs through me. His golden eyes, his cursed dagger…
Leave the Eerie or meet your death.
What I wanted to say was,Gladly. Either way, stay or go, I’m dying. But this isn’t about just me. If the League of Seven conscripts Lewis and Charlie, then I have to act fast. I can’t risk losing them in a war they were never meant to fight. No assassin, no king, no one is going to stop me from trying to make this world a safer place for my family.
“Miss Oberon?” Gabriel’s gentle voice stirs me out of my thoughts.
We’ve reached the door to the dining car.
I take a deep breath. On the other side of this door, a cacophony of laughter and vibrant conversation hints at a life of careless ease I have never known.
I give a slight nod, and Gabriel opens the door.
The silence that greets me is so heavy and thick I feel as if I can hardly lift my foot to take another step inside.
Ornate golden candelabras adorn every table. Grand scarletcurtains line the windows, and tables clad with black silk tablecloths and set with gilded plates line either wall. The dining car in which I met with Will when I first came to the Eerie was opulent, but I was not prepared for this height of luxury. Just one of these forks would have been considered a treasure fine enough to pay for a year’s worth of food for my family and me. The jewelry in this compartment alone is enough to humble a dragon’s hoard.
I don’t realize I’ve shuffled back until I bump into Flynn’s chest.
“He’s waiting for you in the next compartment,” he says in a low, steady voice. “Just keep walking.”
I can’t bring myself to look up, to look at these people on either side, all staring at me as if I were a wild animal. Like I don’t belong.
Idon’tbelong.
I’ve never belonged in this world. I don’t belong on land; I don’t belong with these people. I might be half Nightweaver, but I willneverbe one of them.
