Page 8 of Reaper’s Ruin (Reaper’s Ruin Trilogy #1)

Reapers were never sent for souls so new to death. It was the fundamental law of Reaping—souls were given time to find their peace, to seek their door. Only those who lingered too long and refused to move on, at least a couple of weeks, were to be reaped.

It made no sense. Unless...

No. I pushed the thought aside. The Veil Lords’ commands were not to be questioned. My duty was clear.

“I’m sorry. It’s the way things have to be.”

She launched to her feet and bolted, racing through the market, slicing through the living as she fled into a dark alley. I followed her, slowly, finding her cowering in a corner, her eyes closed tightly as she whispered, “Jump. Please jump. Jump, jump, jump,” over and over again.

I realized then she was trying to jump away again, in whatever way she’d accomplished that before. My duty was clear, and at any moment, she could disappear again. Now that she was in the shadows, I could fulfill my mission and reap the unreapable soul before I lost her again.

I stood, towering over her, knees pressed to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them as if she could protect herself from me.

She couldn’t.

My scythe pulsed beneath my skin, it’s desire to slice through her palpable as it almost seemed to beg to fulfill its duty. The way I usually felt when I was this close to reaping. But this time, I felt no joy in what was to come next.

I felt... sadness.

Another strange emotion I’d long since forgotten.

One pull and she’d be in the Shadowveil with me .

One swipe and this would be over.

The weapon flowed from beneath my skin, its purple glow gleaming in the marketplace’s fading light.

She lifted her head from her knees, those terrified, pleading eyes meeting mine. She didn’t try to run again. She just sat there, staring at me, those eyes doing something strange to my insides.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Please don’t do this. I just need more time to find my door. I want my mom. I just... I want my mom. Please.”

Driven by eight centuries of duty, I reached out, my hand hovering at the edge of the Veil separating us, ready to grab this lingering soul and end this quickly.

But as I looked down at her—this human girl with her tear-streaked face and pleading eyes—something inside me fractured.

I saw her humanity. I saw her innocence. I saw the way she twisted her fingers together nervously as she waited for my judgment, the way she bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling, the way she kept her eyes leveled with mine despite her fear—small acts of dignity in the face of the end.

And beneath it all, I felt a pull toward her that I couldn’t explain—something beyond her beauty, beyond our shared humanity. Something deeper and more inexplicable, like a recognition that transcended our brief acquaintance.

My hand trembled, unmoving. My scythe glowed, its pull to end her calling to me, begging me to bring her to us so it could fulfill its mission.

My mission.

But slowly, I retracted my hand, lowering my scythe as I stared at her.

This wasn’t right. She hadn’t been given her chance—the chance all souls deserved.

My scythe dissolved back into shadow beneath my skin.

“You truly just realized you were dead?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

She nodded, her eyes wide with fragile hope. “I saw our bodies. Mine and my mom’s. Just like, an hour ago.”

I ran a hand through my hair, an old human gesture I’d thought long forgotten. “That’s not how this works. Souls are supposed to have time to find peace.”

“Then why were you sent after me? Those other shadows were Reapers too, right? They came for me right away. Why didn’t I get time to find a door?”

A question I couldn’t answer.

“It must have been a mistake,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “A glitch in the system. Perhaps because of how your soul transitioned from the Mortal Realm.”

She was watching me now, fear giving way to cautious curiosity. “What’s your name?”

The question caught me off guard. No one had asked for my name in centuries. I was Death to the other reapers. Nothing more.

“Rhyker,” I said, the sound of it strange on my tongue after so long.

“I’m Soraya,” she offered, a small, tentative smile appearing despite her tears. “Soraya Peterman.”

The simple exchange of names shouldn’t have affected me. But something about it—this basic human connection—struck me with unexpected force.

“You said you reap souls who refuse to move on,” she continued, her voice steadier now. “I’m not refusing. I want to find my door. I want to see my mom again.”

It was the perfect justification. The perfect excuse to avoid confronting the wrongness I felt in my gut about ending her existence .

“You haven’t had your chance,” I agreed. “It wouldn’t be...” I searched for a word I hadn’t used in centuries. “Fair.”

She exhaled shakily, relief softening her features. “So, you’re not going to... reap me?”

I should have. Every instinct honed over eight hundred years of service demanded it. But looking into those blue eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to extinguish the light within them.

“Not yet,” I said finally. “You deserve your chance to find peace.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, the gratitude in her voice almost painful to hear.

I wasn’t doing her a favor. I was simply following the older, truer law—the one that said souls deserved time to find their door. If I justified it that way, I wasn’t truly disobeying.

But I knew, in some deep part of me that I’d thought long dead, that wasn’t the only reason.

“How do I find my door?” she asked, suddenly eager. “Where do I look?”

I shook my head. “I don’t decide that. Each soul must find its own path to peace.”

“But I don’t know how,” she said, desperation edging into her voice. “I don’t understand any of this. These strange places I keep appearing in, these people who can’t see me, how I keep... jumping from place to place.”

“The realm-shifting is unusual,” I admitted. “I’ve never seen a soul do that before.”

“Realm-shifting?” she repeated, testing the words.

“Moving between realms. You’ve somehow shifted between Faelora and the Mortal Realm.”

“And Faelora,” she said softly. “That’s where I am now, right? The fae realm?”

I nodded, suddenly aware of how lost she truly was. She knew nothing of Faelora, nothing of the Shadowveil, nothing of the rules that governed life and death in these realms.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a gesture so mundane, so human that it made my chest ache with forgotten memories.

“Will you help me?” she asked suddenly, her eyes meeting mine with surprising directness. “Help me understand what’s happening? Help me find my door?”

I should have refused. I had my duty. I had my orders.

But she was human. The first I’d seen in eight hundred years.

Once, it had been my duty to protect humans. To shield them from the very creatures who had hunted them to extinction. I had sworn oaths, made promises.

I had failed them. All of them.

The weight of that failure had crushed me for centuries, driving me to reap fae souls with cold satisfaction. But no amount of vengeance could wash away the blood of my people from my hands.

Yet here, standing before me, was one final chance.

One human I hadn’t yet failed.

Somewhere deep inside, I felt that powerful pull to protect my own kind. A duty that went beyond my role as a reaper, beyond the commands of the Veil Lords. A duty etched into my soul before death had claimed me.

And something about her—her vulnerability, her courage in the face of terror, the way she’d dried her tears and was now looking at me like I was salvation instead of destruction—stirred something I’d thought long dead.

“I’ll give you time,” I said carefully, already feeling the weight of my decision. “Time to find your peace. All souls deserve their chance to move on. But I can’t promise more than that. ”

It was a half-measure, a compromise between duty and... whatever this unfamiliar feeling was. But as relief flooded her face, as gratitude shone in her eyes, I knew I was already stepping onto a dangerous path.

“Thank you,” she said again, and the simple sincerity in her voice cut deeper than any blade.

I nodded stiffly, already wondering what would happen when the Veil Lords discovered I hadn’t completed my mission. When they realized I’d let a soul—this curious anomaly—continue to disrupt the balance.

For a moment, I considered reporting back and explaining that this soul hadn’t been given her rightful time to find peace, requesting an extension.

But I knew the Veil Lords too well. Eight centuries of service had taught me their ways.

They’d sent three reapers already. They wanted this anomaly erased, not understood.

If I revealed she was human—the first in eight hundred years—what then? Would they see her as I did, as something precious to be protected? Or would they still command me to destroy her with a single swipe?

No. They would simply assign another reaper. Maybe even an Enforcer this time. One who wouldn’t hesitate. One who wouldn’t see those tearful blue eyes as anything more than a target.

The thought of another reaper’s scythe cutting through her essence made something violent stir in my chest—a protective rage I hadn’t felt since my living days.

I couldn’t let them know. Not yet. I just needed time—a little time—to let her find her peace and claim her door.

It was a dangerous game, one that could see me face judgment before the very Lords I served.

But as Soraya looked up at me, a tentative smile breaking through her fear and grief like the first ray of dawn after centuries of night, I found myself unable to regret my choice.

Even as I knew I would almost certainly come to regret it soon enough.