Almost as one, the small crowd points to an exit. I can just barely see a smudge of red mixed with the trees—Sinisa’s tunic. My legs react before I can think and I start sprinting through the camp. I only make it a few steps before the swinging motion of my arms sends a new jolt of pain across my chest, and I fold over in a hunch, cradling it.
When I stand back up, the red smudge is gone. A hollow pit grows in my chest. My feet are desperate, scurrying over rocks and through the compacted dirt until I’m outside of the gate.
As I draw closer to the boundary, I become more aware that the forest is missing its normal sounds. Birds chirping, leaves rustling, there’s nothing. There’s an eerie quiet that has befallen the trees here and it has me all the more worried about Sinisa.
I don’t dare cross the boundary though.
“Sinisa?” I ask in a low whisper.
Just when I think it can’t get any quieter, the air stills.
“I’m afraid she’s gone,” calls a man from somewhere behind the trees.
His voice is so cold that hearing it sends a shiver through me. My neck cranes, searching beyond each tree before a shadowy figure finally steps out from behind a thick oak and leans his back against the bark.
If I thought his voice was cold, he himself radiates it. His skin is as white as ice, and I don’t need to see the forehead beneath his hood to know that I’ll find no runes there.
I blink, rubbing my eyes. “Are you a pigment of my imagination?”
“I believe the word you’re searching for is figment. And no, I am not. I assure you, I am entirely real.”
“Y-you’re a Reaper.”
The stranger shrugs. “Something like that.”
Tears sting my eyes. Not because I am about to die—because I’m not; no Reaper can cross the boundary. But I am heartbroken, nonetheless. There’s no doubt in my mind that this Reaper’s presence means my father really has taken a contract out in my name. He would rather be childless than have a daughter with a birth defect and a son who defied him.
Shoving himself off the tree, the Reaper slinks toward me like a snake.
I stagger back, farther behind the boundary, away from the approaching Reaper, and closer toward safety. I guess Gem and I might be joining the bandits—I mean, the Prophets and Guardians—together.
It’s then that I remember something I’d forgotten, and I become emboldened: Sinisa couldn’t see past the barrier, which means he can’t either. Though I don’t dare turn my back on him, I feel safer as I shuffle backward.
“Oh, I wouldn’t leave if I were you,” he says, nodding at the distance growing between us. “I’m not here to harm you.”
At the accuracy with which he addresses me, I stop dead in my tracks. Maybe he can just hear me—maybe Reapers have really good hearing or something… Or maybe he really can see me. And if he can see me, then maybe he can cross over.
“If you’re not here to harm me, then why are you here? Did my father send you?”
“Dear boy, there are those far more powerful than a meager king. You have upset the balance. A mortal requested a Reaper, Veltuur sent one, and you meddled in their affairs, and now there is one more abomination running around.”
“She’s not an abomination! She’s a Prophet—” My hands fly to my mouth. Although no one told me not to tell anyone, it’s only just now that I’m realizing that Aulow said this was a secret as old as time. Sinisa hadn’t even seemed to know about them, which probably means I’m not supposed to go around telling everyone about them either, especially not the Reapers who are already trying to break in.
A wicked grin creeps from his face.
I purse my lips together. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t get in here anyway. She’s protected, and you’ll never get her.”
As the man reaches the barrier, he tosses the hood away from his face, revealing bloodred eyes and hair like wheat. He raises an eyebrow. “For now, maybe.”
“For—forever! You can’t come in here. Reapers aren’t able to cross unless—”
“You mean like dear Sinisa couldn’t?”
My eyes narrow. “That was different. She was invited.”
“Ah. And she’s the only Reaper ever to get invited into Guardian territory?”
I find myself staggering backward again, but I can’t tell which piece of the statement is more staggering, the fact that this Reaper knows about the Guardians or the suggestion that other Reapers could get through.
“That’s…that’s not true. You’re lying.”
I tell myself that Gem is safe. Gem is safe. Gem is safe. She has to be. With Sinisa gone, this is our only hope.
“What you ought to be worrying yourself with is whether or not you believe that a Reaper, if determined enough, could infiltrate the encampment,” he says, taking one final step forward. He taps the invisible shield, a cruel curve of his lips. “And I’ll give you a hint—we can.”
If she’s not safe here, then she’s not safe anywhere. Not until the contract on her life has been ended. I refuse to let it end in her death, and if Sinisa won’t help us then…that only leaves one other option.
“You know the only real way to keep your sister safe,” the Reaper says.
And I do know. Thanks to Aulow and Rhet, I have all the answers I need to be the one to save her myself. And for once, I don’t have to think about it. I will do anything to save Gem.
“I have to kill my father.”
23
Betrayal
Sinisa
The darkness I am encased in holds longer than I expect. I have taken a hundred breaths while I float here, maybe a thousand, and still I linger in the black nothingness. Never before has a trip to Veltuur taken this long. Part of me wonders if the Council has decided
