Page 39 of Reaper’s Ruin (Reaper’s Ruin Trilogy #1)

The clock was ticking.

Forty-eight hours. That’s all the time Taelon had given us before he’d return for Elira. Two days to help a ghost princess find peace, to discover how her death connected to mine, and to unravel the mystery of why I’d been murdered in the first place.

For the past two days, Elira had been our eyes and ears throughout the castle, slipping through walls and closed doors, listening in on conversations no living being was meant to hear.

Meanwhile, Rhyker and I smiled our way through endless royal functions, pretending to care about Storm Court politics while our minds raced with questions that remained stubbornly unanswered.

Most frustrating of all: Lord Cassius, my murderer, had vanished.

“It’s like he disappeared completely,” I said, pacing the length of my chamber as Rhyker stood by the window staring out at the endless storm in the distance. “Elira’s been searching for two days and nothing.”

“He can’t have just vanished,” Rhyker growled, his hands clenching at his sides. “He has to come back eventually.”

“Or maybe he’s gone for good. I’ll never get my answers for why I died, and you’ll have to reap me.”

He didn’t respond. His body freezing with my words. God how I wished I could climb inside that impenetrable wall he’d rebuilt around himself and find out what he was thinking... feeling .

“He will be back. And when I find him,” he continued, voice dropping to a dangerous rumble, “I’ll make him bleed for what he did to you before sending him to whatever underworld awaits his kind.”

The fury radiating from him was palpable. Since our kiss in the forest, Rhyker had been more distant, more guarded, but whenever Lord Cassius was mentioned, that careful control fractured, revealing the rage that simmered just beneath the surface.

“We need answers first,” I reminded him. “Not just revenge. We need to know why he crossed realms specifically to kill me.”

Rhyker opened his mouth to reply, but before he could speak, Elira materialized through the wall, her whole body trembling with emotion.

“He’s back,” she said breathlessly, tears streaming down her cheeks. “My uncle—Lord Cassius—he’s returned to the castle.”

Rhyker straightened immediately, alert as a predator scenting prey. “Where?”

“His chambers,” Elira replied. “But that’s not all. I saw him meet with my other uncle, Lord Marwyn. I followed them, and I—” Her voice broke. “I heard them talking.”

“What did they say?” I asked gently, wishing I could offer physical comfort to the clearly distressed ghost.

“It’s them,” she whispered, her body visibly shaking with the intensity of her emotions. “They’re the ones who killed me. My own uncles. The men who bounced me on their knees as a child, who taught me to ride, who promised they’d always protect me...” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

My heart ached for her. I understood betrayal, but not like this—not from family who should have loved her most.

“I’m so sorry, Elira,” I said softly.

She wiped at her tears, gathering herself with visible effort.

“They were talking about what they’d been doing these past two days.

Each reporting in with what they’d accomplished.

They each said they’d been successful in eliminating their targets, something about people on ‘the list’.

They made it back just in time for the celebration. ”

“The list?” Rhyker’s voice was sharp with interest. “What list?”

“They didn’t say exactly,” Elira replied. “But it includes fae royals, like me.” She paused, her gaze shifting to me. “And then, Lord Marwyn asked if there was ‘anyone else’ on the Mortal Realm part of the list.”

My pulse quickened. “And?”

“Lord Cassius—the one who killed you—he said the only one in the Mortal Realm was ‘the fae-human girl’ he killed.” Her eyes met mine. “I think he was talking about you, Soraya.”

Everything stopped—my breath, my thoughts, the world itself.

Frozen like time had folded in on itself, swallowing me with it, pulling me into some alternate reality where I was... half fae?

Everything about my strange afterlife had felt impossible. A magical fae land. A massive Reaper sent to exterminate me now kissing me beneath rain-drenched trees. Flying horse birds. Magical sorceresses.

Those things felt impossible, and yet they were my current existence.

But this?

Half fae?

Me?

Nothing felt more impossible than that.

“Fae-human?” I repeated, the words strange on my tongue. “That’s... that’s not possible. I’m human.”

But even as I said it, doubt crept in. I’d never known my father—he’d disappeared before I was born. My mother had never spoken of him, changing the subject whenever I asked. Could it be possible, in some strange bizarro impossible reality that my mother had met a fae somehow and... conceived me?

Or, was it my mother? Was she the fae-human they were hunting, and I wasn’t the target? Because the other truth, the one where I was half fae seemed too insane to process.

“Maybe they meant my mother?” I suggested weakly. “He killed her too. Could she have been the fae human?”

Elira lifted a shoulder. “They didn’t specify.”

I turned to Rhyker, expecting to find the same shock and confusion I felt reflected in his face. Instead, he stood utterly still, his expression unreadable, eyes fixed on me with an intensity that was almost unsettling.

“Rhyker?” His name came out as a question.

For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he seemed to collect himself, his features smoothing into that careful mask of detachment I’d grown familiar with.

“We need to know more,” he said finally, his voice controlled. “Elira, what else did they say?”

“That’s all I heard about Soraya specifically,” she replied. “But they mentioned some victims and I was one of them as well as a couple other people from my family.” Her voice cracked then she went on. “And they said there are ‘five left’ and they are going to meet tonight to figure out the plan.”

“Five more?” I whispered, horrified at the thought of more victims, targeted for reasons I couldn’t understand.

Rhyker’s eyes gleamed with dark purpose. “We need to see that list, Elira. You need to look at it. Find out who else is on it and see if there is any reason why.”

Her face fell. “I can’t manipulate the physical realm. Unless it’s just sitting out in the open where I can read it...”

Frustration flashed across Rhyker’s face. “Then how are we supposed to—”

“Wait,” Elira interrupted, brightening slightly. “They’re meeting tonight, remember? I can follow them. Read over their shoulders, listen to what they say.”

“Perfect,” I said, hope rekindling. “That might tell us more about why they’re doing this—and why I was targeted.”

Even though there was that small doubt in my mind that they’d come for my mother instead of me, making her the half-fae, somewhere deep within my instincts I knew I was their target. I just felt it in my bones even though I wanted to explain it away in any manner possible.

Half-fae. The possibility seemed absurd, yet it would explain so much—how I’d ended up in Faelora after death, how I’d been able to shift between realms, why a Storm Court royal would cross worlds to kill me specifically.

But if I was half-fae, who was my father?

These questions swirled in my mind, dizzying and impossible to answer. Not yet, at least.

Elira’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “I’ll follow them tonight,” Elira promised, a new determination in her voice. “I’ll find out everything I can about the list, about why they killed us.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For everything you’re doing to help us.”

She smiled, the expression transforming her features. “You’re the first people who’ve seen me since I died. Who’ve talked to me. Who’ve cared what happened to me.” Her voice caught. “I can’t tell you what that means.”

“We’ll help you find peace,” I promised. “Once we know why they killed you—why they killed us both—maybe you can find your door.”

“My door,” she echoed softly. “Do you really think it’s possible?”

Before I could answer, a strange sound filled the air like silk tearing underwater. The space just behind Elira shimmered and split.

A thin line of glowing light fractured the air, jagged and pulsing like a heartbeat.

Slowly, it widened, peeling apart the world as if reality itself had been nothing but a veil waiting to be drawn aside.

Streaks of soft silver and gold light spilled out through the crack, illuminating her face with a warm, weightless glow.

Everyone stilled. Even Rhyker.

The glowing fracture fluttered at the edges and began to shift. The light folded in on itself, lines sharpening and reshaping until an arched doorway emerged from the glow.

For a moment, I wondered if it was my door—if somehow, learning about the connection between Elira’s death and mine, of identifying our killer, had been enough to grant me peace.

But looking at the design of the door, with its ornate carvings and warm golden light, I knew instinctively it wasn’t meant for me.

Elira gasped, recognition flooding her face.

“The library,” she whispered. “My favorite place in the castle. The royal library where I spent every spare moment as a child.” Her voice trembled with emotion.

“I was always happiest there, lost in stories and histories. This was what the door to it looked like.”

Rhyker’s voice was softer than normal, barely above a whisper as he said. “Doors appear differently for everyone. Usually a door you recognize from a place that brought you happiness.”

Her hands trembled as she reached toward it. “So, is this... is this my door? To the afterlife?”

I nodded, eyes burning with unexpected tears. “It’s for you. You found your way.”

“I’ve been stuck. But... something changed. When you listened. When you promised to help. It gave me hope again. It changed something in me. I’m not afraid anymore. I have peace now.” Elira turned, searching my face. “Thank you. Both of you. For seeing me. For helping me be more than forgotten.”

Rhyker inclined his head. “You changed your fate. You earned your peace.”

She stepped toward the glowing doorway. Light curled around her form, lifting her hair like a gentle wind. For one final moment, she smiled at us—a smile full of gratitude.

She closed her eyes and stepped through, the door dissolving behind her like mist in the morning sun.

I stood in silence, staring at the empty space where the door had been. A mixture of emotions swept through me—joy for Elira, who had found her peace; hope that someday I would find my own door; and a strange, unexpected dread at the thought of walking away from this realm.

From Rhyker.

It was suddenly, startlingly real. I could get my door at any moment. All I needed was to find the answers that would grant me peace. Apparently Elira only needed to know who’d killed her. For me, it seemed I still needed to know why.

How was I connected to the Storm Court? Why was I targeted for murder? And who was my father? Perhaps Lord Cassius himself? A Realm Walker who’d been in my world twenty-four years earlier, meeting my mother and fathering me? Why would he return decades later to kill his own half-human child?

My stomach churned at the thought of the man who’d driven a dagger into my chest being the father I’d always wondered about.

Sometimes I’d make up stories that he was an astronaut exploring new worlds or a firefighter who’d died valiantly saving children from a burning building.

My mother had never told me about him, but my mind had always made him into a hero larger than life.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have conjured up the idea he could be an evil fae from a different realm who would murder his own offspring.

It caused a surprising ache in my chest wondering if a father, any father, could truly hate their child so much as to kill them as cruelly as he’d slaughtered me.

The questions swirled like the storm outside, dark and electric with possibility, with fear, with a desperate need to know the truth of who I was. I had more questions now than when we’d started.

But standing there, watching a door to the afterlife dissolve before my eyes, I was struck by the realization that part of me didn’t want those answers. Because finding them meant leaving.

It meant saying goodbye to the Reaper who had somehow become my anchor in this strange half-existence.

Because even though I was dead, I’d never felt more alive than I did now. My whole life had been spent on the sidelines, playing it safe, telling myself I’d start truly living soon. After my degree. After establishing my career. After paying off my student loans. Always after.

But I’d never done it. And now, ironically, in death, I was living.

Fully. Completely. Even in this borrowed body, I was feeling more—experiencing more—than I ever had in twenty-four years of actual life.

I was taking risks. Dancing at balls. Galloping through magical lands.

I was confronting assassins. I was kissing Death himself beneath a storm-swept sky.

I was feeling alive... with him.

“We need to get into those chambers ourselves,” Rhyker said quietly, breaking the silence. “See that list with our own eyes.”

I nodded, pushing away my conflicted feelings. For now, we had a mission. Questions to answer. A murderer to expose.

But as we began planning our next move, I couldn’t shake the image of that door—and the fear that when my own finally appeared, I might hesitate to step through.