Page 137 of Reaper’s Curse

The moon was full, strengthening the magic in the air and adding much-needed illumination to the grounds. The lanterns lining the footpaths, highlighting the walkways and flora, did little to assist the wanderer who deviated from the route. As I intended to do…and did do.

Night and shadow heavily cloaked the tower, appearing every bit the ominous structure I assumed it to be, with its morphing darkness around the high window and candlelight always flickering within the highest window.

No clear path existed to the entrance of the tower in question. Easy accessibility appeared to have been erased, possibly to deter curious onlookers rather than actually stop anyone from getting too close. Since no official path existed, the way was not lit.

But the door was visible―large, but nothing grand, wood and iron, and not heavily barred. One merely needed to hop over a few low-lying bushes, walk across the grass, and open the door.

Struggling only briefly with my feather-covered skirt, I crossed the distance and tugged on the handle. The door opened on silent hinges.

I paused. Could this be too easy?

“Raven?”

My gaze snapped to the call of my name. Valen approached.

Where had he come from? What was he doing here? And shouldn’t he be at the birthday ball? Or maybe in bed, given the hour? Also, how could he even have seen me in the heavy shadows while dressed in all black?

I glanced at the now-open tower door, the soft light slipping out over the grass, and frowned.

“It is you,” he whisper-yelled. “What are you doing? Don’t you remember what I told you?”

I remembered. Do you wish for death?

He had suggested death would come to those who dared venture beyond the door, but he was clearly trying to intimidate me.

I might not wish for death, but nor would I cower from it. Sure, he was now hot on my heels, but I could think of no better time when the royals and the palace guards would be otherwise engaged, and I needed to stop any further specter attacks. Myla, the child seer, said this was where that could be done, so I was going.

Valen would come to understand.

With a grimace on my lips, I slipped into the tower, then shut and locked the door.

The front room was meager in size and hosted nothing more than a single table set beside a winding staircase that wound up and up and up. Aside from the main entrance, two doors occupied wall space. One that likely led to the rest of the main floor, and another beneath the stairs. That was the one Myla had instructed me to use.

I glanced at the main entrance behind me. Valen should have made it to the tower by now, but he had yet to bang on the door. Was he afraid to get too close? Afraid of his own story regarding the tower?

I hummed. Maybe it wasn’t a story at all, but the reciting of a curse.

Unsure why, I tentatively reached for the stair railing. Something called me upward. Was it the sight of the morphing black around the uppermost window? Or the exchanges between me and Chace about said window?

Before my fingers touched the wood, a nightmare slithered over my soul, and fear clutched my heart. I yanked back my hand.

A story or a recited curse?

No time to give power to such thoughts.

I swung around, opened the door beneath the stairs, and started my descent into the awaiting darkness.

The steps coiled round and round, deeper beneath the castle. The shadows grew heavier with each claimed step. Visibility diminished, and I pressed my hands against the outer wall, guiding my progress.

Reaching out with my reaper senses, I identified where each advancing step waited, but I couldn’t detect the end. I spiraled down until I was certain I had reached the underworld. When I began to believe my path would continue forever into the earth, my feet stumbled, finding no more steps to tread upon.

“Finally,” said someone buried in the darkness.

The voice raked over me like nails down my spine and through my skull.

Sconces burst to life, illuminating the space, as I spun toward the owner of the voice―Watcher. The one the twins called the lady. And… I soaked in our surroundings and her cleaned up reaper-isk attire… I highly suspected Valen’s old coreaper Chiara, controller of the specters.

I stood opposite her at the edge of a large circular chamber, with the stairs behind me and an exiting tunnel, blanketed in black, at my right. The sconces lining the perimeter cast wicked shadows across the stone walls, softly illuminating a symbol drawn on the floor, anchored with stones and bones.