Sword Sisters (5 page)

“Before we begin,” she added, “I must know: Are you using magic?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Are you certain?”

“Do you think I’d do it accidentally? That I might sneeze out a spell by accident?”

“So you’re not?”

“No!”

“Well, why not?” she roared again, making me jump. She was truly fearsome. “You’re not only the last Reaper, you’re the last of the line of Teller Witches. The prophecies end with you, and you seem to have no interest in continuing them.”

I knew Diah still sat in her hut, very much alive in her own way, staring into her crystal ball and scrawling what she saw onto page after page of parchment. I wondered what she was like now, after years of isolation, but I didn’t wonder bad enough to seek her out. I didn’t trust myself to see her, and no one else knew she still lived. “You’re right about that,” I said.

“What do you know of your mother’s lineage?” she said.

My adopted father forbade anyone to mention my mother after I returned from Demon captivity. When I told my father she’d given me to the Demons after her supposed demise, he simply refused to believe me. My ability to describe the woman who was supposed to have died birthing me was chalked up to “magic.” Reapers revere magic. That is, Reapers who don’t have a vendetta against the witch that tossed them away for a measly potion. “Don’t…mention…my mother,” I said through my teeth.

Eldrid smiled. She loved getting me angry. “Then we’ll talk in more general terms. The line of Teller Witches is as old as recorded history. Into every human generation, one girl discovers her ability to commune with nature: She sings to the plants, the trees, and the wind. She charms the animals and her own kind, especially men.” Her voice took on a tone I didn’t quite recognize. Was that respect? I wonder if she knew my mother well. “She can heal both humans and Reapers although not Demons. But her main gift is her direct line of communication with the Creator of All Things. Through this, she receives the prophecies, the things that guide us into the future. As the scrolls say, ‘She Tells, for She is the Teller.’”

She held up a scroll. “Tell me, Aella, have you seen this before?”

Amidst the text in the old language, there was a large illustration of a woman. It was of an ancient Teller Witch, but in its lines, I saw my mother’s achingly beautiful face: the distinctive eyes, the full lips, the high forehead. I saw myself in it too, which infuriated me. I was there less prominently since I was only half human but there nonetheless.

I remembered my mother singing to the plants. The memory, like everything else from my childhood before I was given to the Demons, was fuzzy yet vivid. They would sway—no, dance—to her musical voice. Her little cottage was the most enchanting place I’d ever seen. It was made from a living tree that seemed to grow itself around her, like a thoughtful lover’s embrace, just tight enough to protect her but giving her all the space she could ever need. Even now, if I concentrated hard enough, I could smell the delicious odors of flowers, cooking, and potions. The memories made my blood boil and my heart grow a little colder at the same time.

And moving through it was my mother, Diah. In my memory, she was young, too young to be a mother it seemed, with the bloom and capriciousness of youth battling with her responsibilities. I imagined that she resented my presence in her life, a constant reminder that Ganesh, the leader of the Demons, had raped her on her wedding night while Eldrid and the others were lured away to battle other Demons. But in truth, all I remembered from her was kindness and love. Until the day she gave me to her rapist in exchange for a bottle of his magical blood.

“Aella? Aella!” 

I came back to the moment. “Um…yes?”

“You’re not paying any attention.”

“Sure, I am. You were talking about lineages.”

“But you couldn’t begin to tell me what I said about them, could you?”

I said nothing.

She sighed. “I should just kill you now and be done with it. Adonis eventually would thank me.”

It took a second for that to register. “I’m sorry, you…did you just threaten me?”

“A Reaper—a half blood no less—raised by Demons to embrace her savage side, who also has the nascent powers of a Teller Witch? You’re the most dangerous being in the world, Aella. You’re vermin but vermin with the power of the sun and moon at your disposal. This—” she waved her hand to indicate the classroom, “—effort to civilize you, to make you presentable for when the king of the humans emerges from hiding, is pointless. You don’t train a mad dog, you put it down.”

I sat up straight now. I knew that whatever else she was, Eldrid had once been a fierce warrior; she could still probably muster the skills if needed, and I certainly didn’t want to have to put my own against her. I’d trained for years, but I’d never been in a real fight. “Uh, Eldrid, I don’t know why you—”

“Of course you don’t,” she said with something worse than anger or contempt: pity. “You truly are a child, Aella, which is why Adonis has his misplaced hope for you. He thinks there is still time to turn from your path. But…” She seemed suddenly every bit of her age. “Do you wonder why Teller Witches never came to be captives? With their power, it seems obvious that kings, Demon rulers, and even Reaper warlords should have taken them prisoner and turned the magic to their own ends. Why do you think that never happened?”

I shook my head.

“With an army of nature and beasts at her disposal, she would never starve, never thirst, never freeze to death or suffer the sun’s excessive heat, and never be surprised by an attack by man, Reaper, or Demon. Every animal, plant, and rock would rise up to defend her. That is the power you have inherited, Aella. And that, frankly, is terrifying.”

I didn’t have any power, I knew. I’d certainly never had the urge to make out with trees or woo rocks. But before I could say so, Eldrid continued.

“I’ve known other Reapers like you, you know. They were my cousins, my brothers and sisters, and even my own father. And they were my mortal enemies in the Thousand Year War. Raised by Demons, as much Demon as they were human, and thus unable to control that part of their nature. Those creatures were the most horrific Reapers the world has ever known, and in battle, they were legendary. I know firsthand the peril creatures like you cause, and for that reason, I helped ensure they were all put to death at the end of the war.”

I stared at her. “You…you executed other Reapers?”

She met my gaze steadily, defiantly, with the certainty of her own rightness. “I put down mad dogs. Just as, when Adonis sees the truth, I will gladly put down you.”

There it was. Eldrid believed it was her duty to destroy me. I tried to take in all these revelations, to make sense of what this ancient warrior woman was telling me. I’d never heard this bit of history before and frankly couldn’t believe it. The Reapers I knew, including myself, held all non-Demon life sacred. I should’ve been awed, appalled, curious, outraged, any one of a dozen emotions. But instead, I fell back on my trusty friend, anger. I was pissed off. “Well, as long as my father has me under his protection, you can’t do jack to me, old woman. So there.”

She smiled again. “That’s not true, Aella. I can take no action against you, but I can help you destroy yourself.”

“How? By lecturing me until I cut my own head off just to shut you up?”

“By telling you how I interpret the prophecy of the Red Reaper.”

I rolled my eyes. That damned prophecy, written down by my mother in one of her trances before I was born, states that I am to be the last Reaper, the sole guardian of mankind. That part might be right: Reapers are unable to breed with each other, and with the Demons gone, no new ones were being made. But the rest…there’s no way I could be responsible for all that. Just…no way at all. But the other Reapers, including my father, believe it.

But there’s another secret connected to that prophecy that no one else knows. Only me. And it’s simply this: I want it to be true. I want it more than anything. To have a noble purpose, something greater than myself, something that makes all this…suffering…worthwhile. To be the mother protector to all humankind. Like a king, except with even greater responsibility: the protector of kings. But I could never tell anyone, not even Keefe, about this.

“The prophecy says that the Red Reaper will be born into the line of Teller Witches, as you were. She will have the strength of ten Demons, with the heart and soul of a human. She will be the last birthed Reaper with a sacred duty to the world of men. She will herald peace and end the terror of the Demons forever. She will be…” She bent over a scroll to make sure she got the words exactly right. “The keeper of the prophecies, a wielder of magic and steel.”

“But I don’t use magic,” I said.

“That’s because you’re not the Red Reaper.” She let that sink in before continuing. “I’ve studied this prophecy. I know what the others say it means, but I think they’re wrong. You are crucial, but you are not the subject of this prophecy. You will be the mother of the Red Reaper.”

I know I stared. I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped open. I didn’t say anything though; I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Your purpose is to be nothing more than a vessel,” she continued. “You will, at some future point, be taken by a man—Reaper or human, the prophecies don’t say. But a seed will be planted in you and will grow to fruition. It will be properly miraculous since Reapers don’t often breed. That will be the Red Reaper. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was a male child.”

“B-but the prophecy says the Reaper will be female—”

“Have you ever seen an original prophecy, Aella, the way your mother wrote them down? Her handwriting while in trance was atrocious. Those who copied it wrote it down as ‘female,’ but the original manuscript is far from clear. But no matter; the important bit is that it doesn’t apply to you. You’re a mere brood mare in this process, Aella. Nothing more. Your job is to fall on your back at the appropriate time.”

Her smile was the most vicious thing I’d ever seen.

I know I must’ve stood up, turned, and run for the hall. I had to have opened the door, pushed it aside, and made my way past anyone else in the corridors. But none of that registered to me. I kept hearing her words over and over, echoing, mocking, and destroying what little hope and belief in myself I still had.

You will be the mother of the Red Reaper. Your job is to fall on your back at the appropriate time.

I huddled in the corner of my room under a pile of my own dirty laundry. Vikki no doubt intended to return for it while I was out, but I’d locked every door between me and the castle proper. I wanted to be alone.

And I was, mostly. My mouse friend, Little Gray, watched me, but I couldn’t tell if he was concerned. Maybe he just knew my schedule by now and wondered why I was here instead of off doing whatever I did all day.

I couldn’t get Eldrid’s taunting words out of my head nor her smug attitude and absolute certainty of my ultimate failure. What if I wasn’t destined to be anything? What if all of this work, all of this training, all of this pain, was for nothing? I was only meant to be someone’s mother? What do I know of motherhood? I had only one example: pop out a kid, pretend to be dead, trade them in for what I really wanted a few years later…

Or worse, what if I did it—train and track and swear my soul for the humans just like it says in the prophecies—and no one cared?

I knew humans would hate me. They’d hate me no matter what I did. If I walked away, they’d hate me. If I gave myself to them, they’d hate me. Some would hate me for how I serve them. That’s been true of all the Reapers. We’ve always been feared and despised by the humans, even those of us who’ve never harmed a soul. So why go through all of this if they’re going to hate me no matter what I do? Why dedicate my life to them at all?

Because it’s the right thing to do, said a voice in my head.

I knew that of course. But I was no martyr. A masochist, maybe, but martyr? Not so much. If I was supposed to live forever, how can I do it alone, serving the ones who hate me?

“So, Little Gray, I need your advice,” I said to the rodent. He rose on his little hind legs and looked at me as seriously as if I were made of cheese. “If you were in my place, what would you do?”

He didn’t say anything. Typical. Maybe Eldrid was right. That mouse would have answered my mother in complete sentences.

I could run away, forsake this whole life, and disguise myself so no one would know I was a Reaper at all. I could pass for human if I cover up my demon skin. That was one of the first tricks I ever learned. But where would I go? What would I do? Become a tavern wench and serve drunk old men?

For that, I might as well just stay. I’d still be serving men who hate me, who see me as an object and a tool of their whims like my Demon father. If I’m to serve, I’d rather do it on my feet than on my back.

If I’d inherited my mother’s magical talent, I could learn the arts and charms, like she did. I could talk to the trees from my painted wagon. But the humans despised her too and drove her into exile. And yet she serves them still, living hidden away, alone, transcribing prophecies until her fingers bleed from exertion. And for what? So the humans can know what is to come before it comes? Where’s the fun in that?