⚔️This is an incomplete, unedited version of the story. I am in the process of finishing and editing this book that will be available on Amazon when it is complete. ✨
⚠️Read at your own risk.
Legends tell of fearsome beasts, dashing rouges, and hord...
But I can't as long as I'm a Reaper, and an unwitting royal. Not to mention the cost not only for me, but for them if I was discovered. Prison most likely and for the ones with magic, bondage most definitely. As for me, it would be a permanent residence in the palace. A fate that I will not allow to come to fruition.
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At last I reach the end of the silent passage. This time a simple ladder is what leads me to the surface. I climb the metal rungs with quiet but fast precision, going up to the top of an old well. Long strands of moss hang from its sides, the strands scraping across my cloak. Thin tree branches cover the top, an intricate web of twisting dead limbs.
I brush away the limbs with my hand, sending them to the ground in a blur of dead wood and moss. I pull myself up onto the lip of the well, and jump down onto the leaf littered ground. This time I have entered a less vibrant courtyard, one left to rot even though the mansion attached to it is still in decent shape. A mansion owned by Talber, and set in the middle of the Gold Quarter.
Granite walls surround the barren garden of weeds and vines of ivy. Ivy that covers the leaf litter and the many stone statues that line the courtyard's walls. Statues that remain intact despite the obvious neglect of their surroundings. Seven life sized statues that cast shadows under the rising moon's light. Yet another homage to the Raven King, but this time he is joined by his fellow gods.
To my left stands The Flower Maid, draped in a veil of spring blooms with her head bent and hands resting on her heart. Beside her is her sister, The Winter Crone, holding a staff while seated on her throne of ice. Opposite them are their brothers, The Autumn Lord gripping his sheathed sword with a cloak of leaves upon his shoulders, and The Summer Lad clad in a tunic of summer grass with his lyre in hand.
In front of me stands their mother Lady Green. A crown of leaves encircles her head, strands of flowers twine through her tresses, and icicles decorate the hem of her dress as she stands in a field of summer wheat. Beside her is the Raven King still hooded and accompanied by his winged servant, and The Sea Matron perched on a coral throne while swathed in her gown of fish scales and shells.
Gods that used to be revered in temples that dotted the seven kingdoms. Temples now forgotten and left to the elements, as the kingdoms became divided through war and the fight over the control of mages. The ones who can control the elements of nature, the mind, and the body. Powers believed to be bestowed by these powerful immortals, gifts that soon became viewed as a danger to the rest of the world. Their fear turning to hate, hate that made them turn their backs on the old ways of reverence to the gods. Now only the ones not tethered by loyalty to a nation or crown, know their names and the traditions.
A faith that was my mother's, and one of the few things I have left of her. A faith banned by my father in his grief, but it still exists. We Reapers practice it, many finding peace in doing so, for extinguishing a life can weigh heavy on one's conscience. These statues, the fountain, the mural, and the altar are well kept secrets thanks to Talber. Hot tempered he maybe, he has respect for these forgotten gods, and a kind heart beneath his formidable exterior for us Reapers.
