Page 6 of Reaper’s Ruin (Reaper’s Ruin Trilogy #1)

Was it possible? Was it truly possible?

I crouched before the girl, watching tears slide down her face, looking for confirmation of what my instincts had told me the moment my eyes had first locked onto her.

Fae and humans looked similar enough at first glance that most couldn’t tell them apart.

But there was always a tell—in the eyes of every fae, no matter which court they hailed from, lay a faint shimmer of magic, like starlight caught beneath glass.

Sometimes it manifested as subtle color shifts, or tiny flecks of gold or silver that appeared when they used their powers.

This girl’s eyes had none of that. They were pure, unmagical blue—beautiful in their simplicity.

Human. She’s truly human.

Eight hundred years since I’d seen another of my kind. Eight hundred years since the fae had butchered the last of us.

And yet here she was—delicate features, those unmistakable blue eyes, human eyes, wide with fear.

But how? How was she here? How could she see me? And how had her soul been transporting itself all over Faelora, and for a short time, even vanished completely?

I’d been tracking her for hours, following that strange beacon that pulsed in my body.

The frequency had behaved like nothing I’d encountered before, appearing and disappearing across Faelora, only to vanish completely at one point.

I’d waited, patient and still as stone in the Shadowveil, until suddenly her signal had flared back to life, drawing me to this marketplace.

She’d been alone, kneeling in the dirt, weeping as if her heart had shattered. I’d watched her from the shadows, a strange reluctance staying my hand when I should have pulled her into the Shadowveil instantly, severing her unnatural existence.

She wasn’t running now. The hunt was over. And yet...

I felt glad she wasn’t in the shadows. Wasn’t within my reach.

I just wanted to observe this anomaly...

this human. Even tear-stained and disheveled in bloodied nightclothes, she was lovely in a way that tugged at memories long buried.

Her soft auburn hair fell in waves around her face, framing high cheekbones and a small straight nose.

Her lips, full and pink, trembled with her cries.

Her ivory skin, perfect and smooth, was marred only by crimson spatters that made her seem like a broken porcelain doll.

There was a fragility to her that awakened something protective in me, something I thought had died centuries ago along with my humanity.

“Who are you? Why are you hunting me? What’s happening to me?” she whispered, her voice shaking as she looked up at me.

I didn’t answer immediately, still struggling to form words while I processed the sudden shock in my reality at hearing a human speak again. Even a dead one.

And then I did something I hadn’t done in eight hundred years. I didn’t just yank a soul into the Shadowveil with me, severing its leftover, unnatural existence with my scythe.

I talked to one.

A human soul at that.

“How are you here?” I questioned back, the power of my words harsher than I intended .

“I... don’t know,” she answered, looking straight at me with those soft, sad eyes. “I don’t know where I am or how any of this is happening to me.”

“There have been no humans in Faelora for eight centuries. Tell me. Where did you come from?”

“Faelora?” she said the word slowly like it was foreign to her tongue. “I don’t know what that is. I... I came from home.”

“Home? What court did you call home? Are there more of you?”

“Court?” she scrunched her face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just know I’m here, and I’m scared, and why are you chasing me?”

“Because you keep running,” I answered simply.

“Well, I’m running because you’re scary and you’re chasing me.”

The simple logic of her answer almost made me smile. Almost.

“How? How are you doing that? Souls aren’t supposed to be able to disappear like you do. And how are you seeing me? No soul nor living should be able to see into the Shadowveil.”

Her eyes welled with more unshed tears. “So, it’s true then?

If I’m a soul, then I’m... dead? I’m really dead?

This isn’t some weird acid trip? Like, maybe some asshole laced the kettle corn at the factory with something and I’m just sitting on my couch right now, tripping balls?

Or a psychotic break? I remember taking a psych course where they talked about dissociation and schizophrenia.

Could that explain this? No... I don’t think so. ”

I furrowed my brow. “What? I don’t even know what any of that means.”

“You know. Or maybe a carbon monoxide leak? That can cause vivid visual and auditory hallucinations, right?” She paused, then shook her head.

“No. No, wait—we learned about that in nursing school. Carbon monoxide doesn’t make you hallucinate like this.

It just kills you. Silently. Quickly.” Her big blue eyes found mine again, searching. “So... am I? Am I really dead?”

Of course she was dead. Why was this coming as a surprise to her?

I gave a sharp nod. “Yes. You’re dead. And your soul does not belong here,” I said, still struggling to grasp why she didn’t know this as fact. “You’re disrupting the natural order.”

“But... I’m breathing! How can I be dead if I’m still breathing?”

I looked at her chest, at the curves of her breasts rising and falling with each unnecessary breath.

“It’s instinct,” I said quietly. “Most souls still breathe—reapers too. But if you stop, nothing happens.”

She froze. The motion stilled. Her chest no longer moved. Her eyes locked on mine, wide with realization. Slowly, she raised a trembling hand to her heart.

And as she felt no rhythm beneath her palm—no beat, no pulse—I saw the truth settle in.

Acceptance.

And horror.

Both blooming like bruises across her beautiful, broken expression.

Tears broke loose again as her breathing resumed in sobs, burying her face in her hands. I watched her, shocked and confused as she cried. Souls always knew they were dead when I reached them. Why did this one seem so stunned by her situation?

“I seriously got murdered in my own house? I... I can’t believe I’m dead.” She looked up, surveying the bustling world moving around us, unaware of our existence. Her soul in Faelora, and me, the Reaper just behind the veil.

“Yes. You are definitely dead. That still doesn’t answer how you are here.

” Her mention of being murdered certainly fit with why her soul hadn’t moved on.

Anger over their death was one of the main reasons souls refused to let go.

But it still didn’t explain how she could see me, how her soul could jump around the way it did, or how a human, the first in centuries, was in Faelora.

“Wherever the hell ‘here’ is.” Then her eyes started to light with hope I hadn’t seen or felt in centuries.

“Wait! Is this Heaven? Is that what this place is? Are you like some dark angel to introduce me to it? Because it’s nothing like I expected.

Angels are supposed to be like, white and with wings or something.

And I thought there was like a glowing gate to welcome me.

But I didn’t see a gate, and you don’t look like an angel. Are you an angel? Is this Heaven?”

“No. You’re in Faelora,” I answered, confused by her question. “I don’t know this Heaven that you speak of.”

That hope flooded out of her eyes with fresh tears. “There’s no Heaven? What? No. There has to be. There has to be a Heaven!”

“I don’t know what that is,” I admitted. “When souls die, they’re given time to find peace. Once they do, a door appears—their passage to whatever lies beyond. I guess that could be this Heaven you speak of?”

Her eyes widened in horror. “Wait. So, I was supposed to get a door to Heaven? And I didn’t?

What? Why? Why not? Where’s my door?” Her voice rose with each question, panic replacing her earlier fear.

“But I was good! I did everything right! I didn’t do drugs, I never lied—well, except white lies.

You know, like about my cousin’s terrible haircut when I told her it looked good. But that was to spare her feelings!”

I stared at her, completely baffled by this sudden outburst.

“I went to church... I mean, not every week, but sometimes. Enough, I think, right? I volunteered at the animal shelter. I was in nursing school, for God’s sake!

My life was about helping people!” She was talking faster now, her hands gesturing wildly.

“I mean, there was that one time when I was twelve that I stole that lip gloss, but it was on a dare. That doesn’t count, right?

Is that why I’m not getting a door to Heaven? Because of the lip gloss?”

Despite everything—despite eight centuries of coldness, despite my duty, despite the gravity of our situation—I felt something unfamiliar tug at the corner of my mouth.

A... smile?

“I’m not saying you won’t go to whatever this ‘Heaven’ is,” I said, trying to calm her spiral.

“I’m only saying that in Faelora, it’s not called that.

Souls here pass through doors to what most call Solarium , the realm of light, or they get pulled below to Tenebris, the realm of darkness.

But there are many beliefs within the courts, and others have different names and visions for what comes next.

Some believe in rebirth. Others in a great cosmic garden, or becoming a star in an eternal starfield.

But most of them—no matter what they call it—describe the same two endings: one of peace and light, the other of darkness and suffering.

The names change, but the shape of the story stays the same.

I’m assuming your Heaven is what many here would call Solarium or Elaris. ”