Sword Sisters (4 page)

Goran was serving the food tonight. At a rotund five hundred pounds and a towering six-foot-five, you’d think he was a Reaper himself. But his size belied his human gentleness and his supreme love of the culinary experience. He grinned when he saw me, and by the time I got to him, he had a plate ready.

“Good evening, Aella,” he said and touched his spatula to his forehead in salute. “How goes the Red Reaper tonight?”

“Fine.”

“Hold still,” he said and picked something from my hair. “Your hair is a twig magnet; did you know that?”

By the stomping gods of Pailess, I was tired of hearing about my hair. “Someone has to do it, right?”

He gave me his sly, scolding look then handed me my plate.

“Sorry, Goran. It’s been a worse day than most.” The beautifully prepared food looked a little like a tropical flower. “What’s the fare tonight?”

“This is new,” he said excitedly. “I won’t name it unless you like it. See, I hollowed out a goat’s egg and removed the yolk. Then I added curdled chicken milk and fish, all ground together with orange, cracked pepper and rose hips.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that goats don’t lay eggs and chickens don’t give milk. He probably just got them reversed, a frequent idiosyncrasy since he took a blow to the head several years ago saving two other servants from drowning. It’s cute, and no one ever corrects him. After all, we might starve without him. Well, if Reapers could starve.

I searched for a solitary corner to eat in peace. Most of the Reapers didn’t like me or trust me. After all, the prophecy of the Red Reaper said I was to be the last of our kind. Well, that is, if I was the Red Reaper the prophecies talked about. That was a point still under review.

I kept my eyes down and headed to a secluded spot. I knew Adonis was here, and I tried to avoid him wherever possible. We don’t just fight. We war. And I usually lose.

I was close, so close, to getting away clean when a soft, commanding voice said, “Aella, sit with us.”

I turned. Even at his mature age, Adonis was an imposing Reaper. His long, white hair cascaded around his shoulders. His piercing, blue eyes always observed, always found fault. His weathered face was like a map of every day of the Thousand Year War. He wore his title like a cape, and even in rags, no one would mistake him for anything other than a leader.

At his table sat the Reaper elders, each one older than the next, all impossibly grumpy, and every one of them ready to turn on me should I display the slightest hint of giving in to my Demon nature and turning evil. Our contempt and distrust was mutual.

I put down my plate between the oldest and grumpiest of the lot, Hildebrande and Eldrid. They gave me far more elbow room than a little girl like me needed. I shot Hildebrande a flirtatious smile and winked at Eldrid. She jumped, knocked over her tankard, and let out a shriek as the liquid threatened to spill on her formal clothes.

Adonis glared, an expression that probably reached back through time and burned my grandmother in her grave.

I feigned nonchalance. “Good evening, father.”

#

The sound of water crashing against rocks always soothes me. Tonight was no different. Even without the moon, which always seemed so bright in this particular part of the forest, I could still see every bush, every shrub, and all the way past the branches below me to the leaf-covered ground. I tuned out the wolves howling far in the distance and concentrated on that elusive memory. It was only six years ago, but it felt like lifetimes. Time moves more slowly for Reapers or at least Reaper teenagers. Certainly Reaper teenagers in the throes of unrequited love.

I felt his lips on my cheek. The pressure, the softness, the muscles as they moved to plant the first mark of affection I’d ever felt from a human. The memory was so vivid, I swear I also felt the slight exhale as he drew away.

Crunch.

A twig snapped. Even without looking away from the falling water, I knew Keefe approached. In moments, he had taken his usual place to my right. The branch sagged a little under our combined weight.

“You tracked me?” I asked him. “Or did you just assume I’d be here?”

“No, I tracked you, but it was much more difficult this time. Andre has been teaching you well.”

“How do you even do that?” I asked him. I honestly didn’t know. I’d only been trained not to BE tracked, I didn’t know a thing about how a Reaper does his tracking.

“It’s simple, really. I close my eyes and seek your chi.” Keefe told me, like that explained it. Off of my blank look, he continued. “Your chi is energy; it has space and a temperature—like the wind. It has a color too and a scent. Some Reapers are sensitive to the subtleties of those things.”

“What color is my chi?” I asked him with complete childlike wonder. There were so many nuances to my own culture I didn’t even know.

“Salt,” he told me with a face so serious I should have known he was joking.

“Salt! Wait, salt? My chi is the color of salt?”

That did it. He’d cracked himself up. This was the best part of Keefe’s jokes. They weren’t actually funny, but they made him laugh, which made everyone else laugh.

“There are no colors in the physical world that match the colors of chi, Aella. But seriously, the color yours is closest to…is red.”

We sat in silence, which was something only I could do with Keefe. Around everyone else, he was a joker, even a clown. Only with me could he be otherwise. It helped that we were far outside the castle’s lands, deep in the forest that still hid many secrets. We’d both get in serious trouble if anyone found out, but Keefe had never ratted on me, and I certainly wouldn’t tell on him.

“I’ve been thinking, Aella,” he said at last, tossing his shaggy hair out of his hazel eyes. “This is the region where you met him, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Try to tell me his name again.”

I thought for a moment. Why is his name so hard to recall? His beautiful brown eyes, his voice like music, his head just an inch above mine…but his name escapes me. He’d said it just as I passed out. “Aaron…maybe?”

Keefe eyed me suspiciously. “Last time, it was Harris, and last month, it was Eron.”

“I don’t know!” I said. My voice was shrill, and Keefe winced a little. “It’s Aaron…I think.”

“Then tell me the story again of how you met Aaron.”

I sighed a little as I’m sure I always do when I talk about Aaron. Keefe’s been helping me jog my memory of that night for years. “It was about four years ago—”

“Four human years, or four Reaper years?”

“What? I know that! Four human years, obviously!”

“So you were twelve?”

“Yes, I was twelve.”

“In human years?”

“Yes! In human years!”

“Because last time, you were thirteen.”

“Keefe, I was definitely twelve!” I stared him down, daring him to challenge my twelve-ness.

“Fine!” he laughed. “You were definitely twelve!”

So I told him the story. I told him about the arrows, about the two rocks. I told him about the boy with kind eyes and no name. About halfway through, I worried that perhaps instead of relating the actual events, I was just repeating other tellings, embellished by my imagination and wishful thinking. But no, damn it, it had happened. The kiss had happened. It must have because I could still feel it.

When I finished, we sat silently in the tree. Then Keefe jumped up. “I have an idea,” he announced. “Instead of looking for the boy, look for the rocks. They won’t have changed. They’ll still be right where they were.”

“The rocks?”

“Yes, the two rocks that you fell between. You describe them every time you tell the story. Go find them.”

“But—”

He covered my mouth with his hand. “No! Don’t think, just go. Go where it feels right.”

I just looked at him.

“Now!” he commanded and gave me a shove right out of the tree.

I don’t have a lot going for me, but I do have balance and sure footing. I hit the ground silently and used my momentum to roll, spring to my feet, and run with my eyes still closed. I knew these woods like my fingers knew my hand. My feet knew this ground. They remember. My body remembers. But would it remember that path from so long ago?

And then it happened. The sudden searing pain in my left shoulder. That I recognized at once: a Reaper arrow. The sharp agony spun me around, and I felt it again, this time in my back, a hair from my spine, between my shoulder blades—another arrow, lodged between my back ribs. Eyes still closed, I hit the ground, and everything went black.

It was morning by the time I woke up. Apparently, Keefe had brought me to my room. I was still wearing last night’s clothes; Keefe and I weren’t on ‘undressing’ terms.

A note was pinned to my tunic. Sorry. Thought the arrows might help jog your memory. Not my best idea. Keefe.

On the floor beside my bed were the three arrows he’d fired into my back in an attempt to recreate that day. No, Keefe, not your best idea. But your heart’s in the right place.

The position of the sun told me it was still early morning. I stretched until the newly-healed tissue lost its tension, washed up, and put on fresh training clothes. Then I trudged back to the great hall.

During the war, when Demons were creating us willy-nilly by raping every human woman they encountered. The hall teemed with wide-eyed little Reapers, all ready for new ideas and old stories. At least, that’s how I imagined it. In this current era of barren Reapers and the century-old code that forbids Reaper/human mating, it’s just me.

No one made eye contact with me as I strode through the castle. Even the servants, long used to Reapers, gave me a wide berth when I was alone. At dinner, they felt secure with the other more “normal” Reapers there to protect them. But alone, they dreaded drawing my attention, especially the boys. As if.

I passed the kitchen, the conference hall, and the door to the inner courtyard. As I went deeper into the castle, the corridors became windowless and lit only by lamps. At last, I reached the doors to the lecture hall, pushed them open, and entered. Today’s teacher looked up from the lectern.

Oh, shit. Eldrid.

The look of disdain on her face somehow made her appear older. Eldrid actually is older than the first bad breath, so the thought of her looking more aged made me laugh.

She looked up at me from the lectern. “Yes,” she said as if reading my thoughts, “your father thought it best if we bury the proverbial hatchet between us rather than in each other’s backs. I’m not sure I agree, but then, I’m a mere scholar. Sit down.”

I looked at the rows of empty benches. “Do we have to do this here? I mean, it’s just the two of us.”

“This is the classroom. It always has been. As long as there is even one Reaper child to be taught, this is where teaching occurs. And you are that one Reaper child.”

“I’m not a child.”

“You’re far from mature.” Even her voice sounded dusty.

“Yeah, well, whatever, this is ridiculous. Let’s just go to the dining hall and sit across a table. We can have some tea—”

“This is the classroom. Please take your seat.”

“But that’s silly.”

“Sit down!” she roared. I did as I was told more quickly than I like to admit. I could imagine that voice ordering attacks on the battlefield.

When I was situated, Eldrid pretended to search through the papers on the lectern before settling on the one that was already atop the pile. Reapers could be theatrical at the drop of a dagger. “I assure you, Aella, I find this no more pleasant than you do, but it must be done. Your stature and future role require that you at least be exposed to this sort of knowledge even though I doubt much of it will penetrate that dense skull of yours.”

“Insulting me doesn’t make me respect you,” I said.

“If I craved your respect, then that would upset me,” she shot back.

I crossed my arms and slid down in my seat, sulking. I had to be here; I did not have to like it.

Eldrid sighed dramatically. “I cannot believe that you are to be the last of us. We are a noble race, sacrificing ourselves for the good of the world, for the good of humankind, and here sits our penultimate representative without even the courtesy to sit up straight.”

“I can learn just as well sitting this way,” I said.

“No doubt that’s abundantly true,” she said. The woman was never at a loss, I’ll give her that.

“Can we just get on with this? I don’t want to be late for sword fighting practice.”

“Very well. Today, we will talk about witchcraft.”

That made me sit up straight. My mother, Diah, was the last Teller Witch, and as far as anyone knew, she’d died giving birth to me as all human women did birthing Reapers. Certainly Adonis thought so; he forbade anyone to mention her name. As her daughter, I had the natural inclination to magic, but I’d never been trained and certainly never attempted it myself. The craving for more powerful magic had been the reason my mother turned me over to the Demons; I wanted nothing to do with it.