Soul of the Crow: An Epic Dark Fantasy (Reapers of Veltuur Book 1)

Soul of the Crow.
Copyright 2020 Jessaca Willis.
ISBN: 978-1-7339925-6-5
ASIN: B089DLJ6WB
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Request,” at the address below.
Any reference to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Front cover by Claire Holt of Luminescence Covers. Editing by Sandra Ogle from Reedsy.
Book published by Jessaca Willis 2020.
Jessaca Willis
PO Box 66574
Portland, OR 97266
https://www.jessacawillis.com
Created with Vellum


To Kieran.
This book was only possible because of you.


Books in Series
REAPERS OF VELTUUR
Assassin Reaper, Prequel
Soul of the Crow, Book 1
Heart of the Sungem, Book 2
Fate of the Vulture, Book 3


Contents
1. Taken by Shadows
2. Contract to Kill
3. The Next Heir
4. A Story Before You Go
5. A Soul Beckons
6. The Fate of the Princess
7. Run
8. Farewell
9. Judgment Passes
10. Running from Shadows
11. Converging Paths
12. By Order of the King
13. Among Mortals
14. Better Left Forgotten
15. Sinister Memories
16. Cuddly as a Firefur
17. Trick of the Bandits
18. The Princess and the Reaper
19. Caught in a Lie
20. The Mark of Prophecy
21. The First Soul
22. A Life in the Balance
23. Betrayal
24. Home No More
25. The Weapon
26. Aacsi, Shadow, Death
27. A Reaper Born
Acknowledgments
About the Author


Taken by Shadows


Sinisa
When the shadows reach for me through the floorboards, blood is still warm on my fingers. I flick my wrists, desperate to shake away the proof of my crime. After all, that is why the shadows have come.
But not even a thorough bath could save me now. The blood stains my soul, a marking that I cannot escape.
The darkness shifts, growing into talons large enough to wrap around an entire boar. They latch around my ankles instead, squeezing tightly enough to puncture my skin. The yelp that escapes me is as much from pain as fear. I know what is to come. I know what happens when someone commits murder, and I know it is inevitable.
I just thought I’d have more time.
I can hear the other orphan children screaming and pattering down the stairs, afraid of the shadows. Afraid of me.
Some instinctual swell of desperation has me struggling against the black fortress-like grip, but the claws only dig deeper into their prey. I am about to cry out when I see the lifeless body again out of the corner of my eye. Blood pools beneath him, around him. It covers him so thoroughly that I can’t even see where I stabbed him.
I didn’t mean to—yes, you did.
I wish I hadn’t—don’t lie to yourself.
Each excuse I make is muted by some inner darkness I never knew existed. But the truth doesn’t ease the rampant heaving of my chest. I thought I was supposed to feel safer now, maybe even victorious.
Caw.
I twist to the wall behind me, my feet anchored to the ground and preventing me from getting a better look, but I can hear the rustling of feathers filling the dormitory. I see the flutter of darkness surrounding me.
The gulp of air I swallow feels more like rocks.
I’m not ready. I’m not ready. I’m not ready.
My breathing hastens to a point so close to hyperventilation that for a second I convince myself that the darkness closing in is just me losing consciousness. Maybe this is all just a hallucination, a dream, a nightmare.
But I know that’s not the truth.
A beak appears from one of the walls. More follow, beaks and feathers and wings, until hundreds of crows are swirling in the room with me, iridescent in the light of the moon. They close in around me until all I can see is black. All I can feel is the greasiness of their feathers flapping against my skin. All I can smell is death.
In one motion, I become weightless. I can feel myself flying—floating—but I don’t see where. I know where, though, and that knowledge alone makes my heart thrash.
There’s only one place they would take a murderer like me: Veltuur, the underrealm.
I am to become a Reaper.
Tears sting my eyes. I’m not ready to say goodbye to my life. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to my friends. I don’t want to become a Reaper. I don’t want to have to kill anyone else.
Seconds as long as eons pass. I am suspended in darkness, like I am dangling over a bottomless chasm.
Finally the frantic fluttering dwindles as, one by one, the murder of crows leaves me utterly alone. I’m left with nothing but the chill of the air. I didn’t even notice my eyes were closed until the birds were gone, but now I’m too frightened to open them. I don’t want to see where they’ve taken me. Part of me thinks that if I just keep my eyes closed, this nightmare might end. But I’ve had this thought before, hundreds of times, and it has never once been true. The nightmare never ends.
The air is dense and still. The longer my eyes remain shut, the longer I feel like death is pressing in on me. That thought is all it takes for me to finally open them wide.
I am not dangling above a chasm.
Instead, I find myself standing before a vast forest. It’s obscured by such a heavy and ominous fog that, at first, I mistake the dark branches for silhouettes of monsters, mangled and twisted. Each tree is crooked, like the black trail of smoke that rises from a pyre. My chest continues to rise and fall in a jerky rhythm, the shallow breaths through my nose the only audible sound in the eerily silent forest.
Above