But none of those things happen. Instead, nothing happens. I reach my hand up to my forehead and find that my runes are still gone.
My stomach churns. Aulow was wrong. It didn’t work, and now all I can think about is how I have just apologized to the one person in the entire world who didn’t deserve it, the person who laughed at me every time he stole me away and has likely been laughing at me every day since.
“No,” I snarl, realizing only seconds too late that I have finally drawn the attention of the Councilspirits.
“Beg pardon?” Leumas asks, but I ignore him, my focus saved solely for the crow.
“No! I’m not sorry. You deserved to die.” My voice rises with my fury. “You were cruel and vile, and because of me, you were stopped. Because of me, you never hurt anyone else.”
Distantly, I hear the Councilspirits shift closer, inching to the edges of their pedestals to watch everything unfold. A wave of hushed, uncertain whispers carries through the chamber again, but it is Leumas that addresses me.
“You finally know.”
If I had not devoted so much of my wrathful attention to the crow, I might have noticed the pride returning in his tone. Instead, I get swept up in my fury.
“We were just children! We were your wards! You had no right to take any of us, and I would kill you again and again if ever given the chance! I am not sorry, and I will never be sorry!”
From above, I hear Nymane delight at our spectacle. It serves only as fuel to my billowing fire.
I snap my attention up to the Council. “And you knew! All of you knew and you just let it happen. You stole my memories and made me work alongside him. After everything he did to me!”
The tears run freely now, tears that I didn’t even know I was capable of shedding.
My chest heaves up and down, but there is too much going on in my mind for me to say it all. I trusted them! I looked up to them; I wanted to be just like them.
“Reaper Sinisa,” Leumas says.
“Shade,” Nymane corrects. “If she ends this drama and tells us how to infiltrate the Guardians’ camp.”
“I will not,” I say through gritted teeth, my fists clenched at my sides.
I almost shirk from the words as they spill out, but once they are alive, I realize how much I really mean them. The Council, Veltuur, they have never served me. I have been loyal, and I have been diligent, and yet they let my rapist live out his days at my side and never once bothered to tell me. They are malicious, vile creatures, and I have no interest in serving by their sides. Not anymore. Not when a mortal boy whose sister I had been sent to kill showed me more kindness and warmth than the people I thought were my mentors.
“Reaper Sinisa,” Leumas says slowly, taking me in with wide eyes. “Surely, you know what’s at stake if you do not cooperate. The minimum sentence for failing to complete a contract is thirty years with the Wraiths. There would likely be further sentencing for disobeying additional orders. You could be looking at a lifetime sentence of torture. Are you sure your priorities are ordered correctly?”
Although he says the words like they are a warning to be heeded, I get the sneaking suspicion that the question has two meanings: one meant to appease the Council, and the other…dare I say that the other seems to be prompting me to reflect deeper.
Like I always have when it comes to Leumas’ advice, I listen to his subtle encouragement. The simple answer I find is that I don’t have a simple answer. My priorities seem to be changing, but for what purpose? I am powerless in making any real change. I can’t disobey the order without consequence and therefore I have no chance at saving Acari or his sister. The best option I seem to have is cooperating in hopes of at least getting to befriend Acari again once he is initiated, but that still leaves me stuck working alongside the crow.
A new, heart-wrenching epiphany crosses my mind: if Acari completes his plan and murders his father, then he too would fall into the Council’s clutches and be forced to work with his father forever, never knowing the betrayal either of them committed.
Acari deserves better. I deserved better too, but I can hardly change that now.
And that’s when the anger slips away. With a flash of clarity, the realization sinks deeper: I can’t change my past. It was unfair and I didn’t deserve it, but it happened. Acari didn’t deserve to lose his mother and brother, and Gem didn’t deserve to be hunted, but we can’t change any of that. All that matters now, all that we can change now, is what awaits Acari in his future.
With an ever-growing sense of understanding, my eyes draw back down to the crow still standing on the pit floor. Aulow had said that I needed to make peace with my past, not apologize to it. I never have to forgive him for what he did to me, but I also don’t have to let it control me. I don’t have to let it define me. I am more than just a Reaper with a crow. I am Sinisa Strigidae. I had a life before my initiation, and I can have another one, if I want it.
I fix the crow in my gaze, an invisible weight lifting from my shoulders.
“It doesn’t matter what you did any longer. What’s done is done. You paid for your crimes, and I have paid for mine.” When I feel the faintest smile creeping up my cheeks, my hand floats to my face unsure that it is real. “You can’t hurt me anymore.”
Nymane pushes off from her throne. “What is she doing?”
Leumas can
