Page 1 of Reaper’s Curse

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Alavish room, a locked door, and a window several stories too high.

Not what I expected in the way of hospitality, but I probably should have. I was, after all, a reaper in a palace full of overdue souls. Overdue royal souls.

Alone in the room, I was the queen’s guest. At least, that’s what I had been told―given that I (to my surprise) knew the prince and had saved his life. Yet, despite my “guest” status, I couldn’t help but feel like I was standing in a low-security prison cell. I suspected the guards standing in the hall, beyond the closed door, were there to keep tabs on me and prevent my early departure.

I sat in the window, breathing through the too-quick beats of my heart, and stared at the night-kissed city spread below a magic weave coloring the sky. The comfortable chilled air beyond the window smelled of jasmine and tinder. A combination I found curiously soothing.

Somewhere below, within or beneath the jumble of tightly pressed buildings and the glow of flickering street lanterns, were the members of my collection team―my elder and mentor, Mr. Aldine, and my classmate, rival, and coreaper, Chace Badden.

According to Winter, Aldine had been healed from his earlier affliction, and Chace was last seen in an unknown location, locked in a dark cell.

How will I get to them? Should I even try?

The queen had made her desires clear. She wanted to work with only me.

Why? I wasn’t confident in my response to that question, but I was ninety-three percent certain the reason had to do with my proven ability to extract another from an afflicted state.

In the process of healing Winter, I’d taken on a touch of his frosty gift, and the queen had managed to somehow siphon those traces from my system.

And yet… Several times I thought I spied the phantom blue lines of Winter’s ice magic racing from my fingers, through my palms, and up my arms.

I splayed my hands, then squeezed them into tight fists, time and time again, focusing on the process and the repeated press of my nails into the tender skin of my palms. The frozen azure of my fingertips had (at present) vanished, yet I couldn’t help but wonder…

Had the queen lied? Been mistaken? Failed to extract all the infecting magic? Or was I the one who was confused about my current condition?

I shivered with a chill that didn’t appear to exist in the chamber.

A muffled sniffle snapped my attention to the far side of the room, where a man of portly stature stood a step inside the door, rubbing at his nose with a white handkerchief. Perspiration dampened his brow, giving me the keen impression that he was nervous in my company.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, a passive-aggressive jeer to the fact that I’d been left trapped in a room with nothing to occupy my time.

With fluid grace, I straightened, stood taller, rolled my hand in the air before me, and mocked a bow. “By all means, interrupt.”

The advisor’s eyes and lips tightened, making him appear less than thrilled with my response. Nevertheless, he continued, pulling a scroll from his inside jacket pocket. “Our advisory team has looked over the contract and has found everything satisfactory.”

“But of course,” I interjected.

I had hoped—expected—the queen’s staff had seen to all the necessary details before they had requested my signature on “said” contract. Over an hour had passed since I had agreed to the queen’s accord that would, hopefully, allow me to collect the overdue souls, while protecting the rest of the citizens from the zombifying curse.

“We merely need one more thing from you in order to secure our arrangement.” He unrolled the scroll, revealing two sets.

Duplicates.

The scowl slid onto my face before I could control my reaction. “What more could you possibly require of me? I already gave you my signature when my word should have been more than sufficient.”

He raised one eyebrow. “Please excuse us if we are less than trusting when it comes to your kind.”

So…he knew what I was. My shoulders tightened ever so slightly.

His comment opened a world of ugly questions in my mind. What past experiences was I ignorant about? But before I could open my mouth to put words to a single one, the advisor opened the door to the outer hall, and Valen stepped into the room, his gaze immediately snapping to me.

I stared at the male my father had suggested might be able to help heal Aldine. Healing that was no longer needed. Now that I had found Valen, discovered his position as one of the queen’s lackeys, I wasn’t sure what to think of him.

In the short time I had spent in his presence, he had been decent, I supposed, but I found something about him uncomfortably chilly. Something I couldn’t quite place.

Of course, he’d been trapped in this cursed citadel for a century. That was bound to make anyone less than jovial. Not that I was a naturally cheery individual.